StockRadars developer eyes global domination

SiamSquared Technologies, inventor of the StockRadars mobile app, is among the rising stars of tech start-ups in Thailand, with a goal of scaling up its service to reach the global market. 

The new journey began this year after it got pre-Series A investment from Japanese venture-capital firms CyberAgent Ventures and East Ventures. 

In October, it plans to expand its StockRadars to Indonesia. It will also launch a new sub-product this year called StockRadars Forecast, which provides end-of-day information on global stock exchanges. 

Currently, StockRadars is in beta in Singapore. It is also expected to be launched in Japan some time next year.

It aims to dominate the Thai market by end of this year with 300,000 downloads. 

StockRadars provides real-time stock-trading information from the Stock Exchange of Thailand. Its end-of-day information allows traders to see stock signals, current and past prices, conduct analysis with stock-trading formulas and set alerts. 

SiamSquared Technologies, established in 2009, began as a software company developing mobile apps for the companies. 

Founder and chief executive officer Teerachart “Max” Kortrakul started SiamSquared at the age of 28 after spending two years at a chemical plant and six years running a technology company with relatives.

“The iPhone debut gave me the idea of having my own business offering app development, and then I founded SiamSquared Technologies,” Teerachart said.

He said that in its early days SiamSquared was a small business, not a tech start-up, mainly concerned with developing mobile applications to order from customers. But under the start-up model, it now is able scale up its products and services. 

“In the first year, we had no customers. Thus we developed our own app, GinArai, to be a showcase for customers. Then we got more and more customers, and developed up to 50 apps. At that time, apps were new and we were enjoying develop apps for others,” Teerachart said.

One day, it developed an app for the stock trading system, and that was the turning point, he said. Rather than developing miscellaneous apps, he realised that his company should focus on niche apps. That niche was financial applications. 

With experience from developing trading apps for three brokers, together with his own enjoyment of stock trading, Teerachart got the idea to make his own product rather than customising apps for customers. 

He decided to turn SiamSquared Technologies into a start-up, and started making his own product rather than producing to order. 

He began the start-up journey in 2011 with StockGrid, the prototype of StockRadars. The company received support from the Board of Investment in 2012, and it changed the name from StockGrid to StockRadars in 2013. 

StockRadars came on the market in August 2013, and now has had almost 200,000 downloads, with nearly 100,000 active users. That many downloads accounts for two-thirds of the 300,000 active stock traders in Thailand among 1 million stock-trader accounts. Thailand is a very small market, where only 1 per cent of the population are traders. 

“StockRadars appeals to consumers who think stock trading is a difficult thing. StockRadars is designed as a tool for investors to simplify their trading. 

“We want to make stock trading simple for everyone, not for only 1 per cent of the population. There are 99 per cent of opportunities for us in the local market,” he said.

StockRadars was the finalist of the “AIS The StartUp 2014” programme and the winner in the finance category of “Thailand ICT Awards 2014” and of “Asia Pacific ICT Awards 2014”.

“Our business model is the freemium model. The StockRadars app is free with an option of in-app purchase for more advanced features. We charge users about Bt5,000 per year,” Teerachart said.

StockRadars plans to add more features for investors in five markets, namely Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. It also plans to make the app available in five languages within two years.

Teerachart said there was a long journey ahead. His company plans to add a lot of features to the app and has many things to do in order to help expand stock trading to more people. To do that, this year it aims to increase the number of downloads to 300,000 and to strengthen the StockRadars brand through marketing campaigns and activities. 

“We will make trading a simple thing for people with the use of gamification, which will help us make further innovative models to offer consumers,” he said. 

Gamification primarily refers to a process of making systems, services and activities more enjoyable and motivating. It is the concept of applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging.