Interview: Mohan Belani, CEO of Singapore-based startup media company e27 on their new offering – ‘Perks’

e27, Singapore-based startup and tech media company and online resource platform for Southeast Asian tech startups, has launched Perks, one of the three key features of its new membership program e27 Pro.

The new e27 Pro membership programme serves as a catalyst for businesses by empowering business leaders with the tools and resources to scale their business rapidly. e27 Pro helps entrepreneurs in this current climate by giving busy entrepreneurs access to specially curated bite sized ecosystem updates (ecosystem roundup), deals on highly curated best in-class products (Perks), access to the e27 database of startups and investors, and opportunities to connect with each other (Connect). e27 launched ‘Perks’ in mid August and over 500 users have viewed and made claims on the site.

In conversation with AsiaTechDaily, Mohan Belani, CEO, e27 answers a few questions on e27 Perks.

ATD: What was the motivation behind the launch of e27 Perks?

Mohan Belani: In the course of getting to know what keeps founders up at night, we understood a few things. Firstly, Founders want better ways to build relationships with investors and connect with them. That is why Connect is a big part of our e27 Pro service. Secondly, Founders worry about the rising costs of various tools and services that their businesses depend on. This became even more important when COVID19 hit, as all companies were remote, making their reliance on technology tools an absolute necessity. We wanted a way to help founders lower the costs of using technology solutions, while continuing to be innovative and productive during these challenging times.

ATD: What are the features of e27 Perks?

Mohan Belani: We speak to founders regularly to really understand what they need. Founders shared the bulk of their costs come from cloud services and productivity, something we focused on for the launch of Perks. We wanted a super simple system to help them get access to their Perks. The most requested Perks were for tools such as AWS, Airtable, Notion, Hubspot etc. Hence we decided to focus on a few but very relevant tools first as a starting point. We hope to introduce more in the upcoming months.

ATD: Do you see this model as a way forward for tech/startup media companies?

Mohan Belani: Media companies have interesting opportunities with users being more receptive to memberships and subscriptions. I think there are going to be many unique models and our e27 Pro model is among the many new models being tested. We believe in providing a more holistic suite of tools to our users, not just content, hence the membership approach.