What is Kopi Commerce?
Kopi Commerce is a website that constitutes of a series of blog entries about Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs) in Singapore and around the world. It involves features of, interviews with and insights by SME founders, owners and/or chief executives. The blog entries aim to encompass the experiences of these individuals in the broader scope of their respective industries. To add variety to the content, special features will also be done in the case of well-known individuals, who may not necessarily be part of the SME scene but can add a different perspective to the site. The eventual goal of this website is to share knowledge, opinions and experiences with readers, inculcating a sense of entrepreneurship in them. SMEs are the backbone of every economy and they don’t always get the attention they deserve- we want to fix that.
What is its Unique Selling Point?
Blogs today are badly designed, incompetently edited and lack originality in content. Kopi Commerce aims to fill that gap in the market. With a rising number of entrepreneurs in Singapore, Kopi Commerce wants to capitalise on what entrepreneurs are hungry for- resources, experiences and networks. By aiming to design a beautiful webpage with grammatically competent articles that can be viewed on mobile, tablets and computers, KopiCommerce wishes to earn the loyalty of readers, and invite them to engage on the website with their views and opinions. More importantly, its unique selling point is that the interviews bring a fresh insight to readers, inspiring them to take on new experiences and hopefully share it on the website.
What is the concept behind it?
The main idea is to interview individuals who run dynamic enterprises and ask them about their journey so far, over a cup of kopi. Hence most articles will have a casual and candid tone. We think the concept will work because a lot of news articles today concentrate on the success of entities but not the people behind the entities, which many are curious to know of. The website will also have other content on it such as features, editorials, opinions, and a comments section.
FRESHLY PRESSED
Inside Kopi Commerce
At Kopi Commerce, we are passionate about learning the entrepreneurship journey and are consistently on the look out for a variety of up and coming SMEs that inspire us. We hope to draw lessons through interviews that may be applicable to those who are interested in taking the entrepreneurial route.The eventual goal of this website is to share knowledge, opinions and experiences with readers, inculcating a sense of entrepreneurship in them.
We contact these firms with our proposal to interview them for the purpose of spreading entrepreneurial wisdom and are usually met with great enthusiasm! After they provide us with basic information on their company, we then proceed to conduct a thorough research on the company and the domestic market that it operates in. Although the pre-interview research is a tedious task, it is essential. By doing so, we tailor our questions according to the founder, his or her company, and the market itself, adding a sense of uniqueness to each interview. This adds personality to the interviews, setting each one apart.
One problem we face is scheduling the interviews. This happens upon getting approval from the SME owners for a meet up. Coming to a consensus on a good timing is tricky due to the fact that these SME owners tend to have busy schedules. We try our best to accommodate and find the best possible time for the interviews as it is important to us that we learn from these SME owners without being an inconvenience to them. It is always fulfilling to finally find a suitable time. Once a date is set, the process of preparing for the interview begins such that we are as prepared as possible to put our best effort into the interview.
Why SMEs are the backbone of every economy.
By Devang
Small Medium Enterprises, or SMEs for short, was a term coined by the European Union, the World Bank, the United Nations, and the World Trade Organisation. The term was used to categorise the majority of enterprises in a country's economy based on a few factors, the most important ones being the number of employees enployed by a firm, the turnover generated by the firm over a financial period, and the assets owned by the firm. Typically, SMEs make up the majority of firms in an economy around the world, keeping a large percentage of the population employed. Therefore, the well-being of SMEs is crucial to every government as they form the 'backbone' of their economies. For instance, in Singapore, SMEs make up an important part of the economy because they make up over 90% of the companies registered, employ 70% of the workforce, and contribute 50% of the GDP. With a strong and healthy SME environment, economies grow, technology progresses, and the innovation capacity is increased. Hence, it is in the best interests of every country to inculcate a sense of entrepreneurism so that economies can continue to enjoy the benefits of a strong and healthy SME environment in the future.
Have kopi with us!
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