Myanmar start-ups run into hurdles

Lwin Htoo Ko, chief technical officer of ezStay, a digital platform that provides temporary accommodation to local travellers, considers laws and regulations, culture, and e-payment and e-banking systems as the major obstacles start-ups face. He aims to work with the government and major service providers to overcome these and to grow dramatically.
The start-up hopes to provide a platform that functions like Airbnb but initially focuses only on local travellers. 
Under Myanmar’s existing laws, foreigners are not allowed to stay at local people’s properties. 
“We provide accommodation in places where there is no hotel or guest house available or when all the rooms in hotels and guest houses are fully booked, and affordable accommodation where hotels and guest houses are expensive,” he said.
“We integrate with local payment systems and provide local-language applications. Those will be our unique strengths.”

Technical challenge
Honey Mya Win, chief executive and co-founder of Chate Sat, a simple platform to engage local freelancers with businesses in Myanmar, said the major challenges would be mainly technical and dealing with online payment systems.
“The best way to overcome this is to introduce our product while educating the crowd to be familiar with the digital ecosystem as well,” she said.
“We gather skilled individuals and constant sources of projects in one place while ensuring we avoid unpaid invoices and poor-quality work for respective parties. We mainly focus on simplicity so that the experience of hiring and accepting projects on Chate Sat is super-quick and easy.”
She urged local start-ups to think about expanding outside of the country.
Nyunt Win Aung, co-founder of GoP Travels, a one-stop platform for booking tour packages, said the hurdles were trust and people’s unfamiliarity with booking online and using Facebook for solutions to problems. 
He also considers funding an issue, but believes that teamwork and idea validation will ensure seed funding from donors.
GoP targets local people who want to travel within and outside Myanmar for vacations. By using its platform, people can search, compare and book tour packages easily and quickly. As well, they can avoid untrustworthy and low-rated travel agencies. It also provides a user reward programme.
“There are many travel agencies in the market. We found out there is a huge segment of people travelling with tour packages. Saving costs and avoiding time-consuming planning processes are the main reasons,” he said.
Aung Ye Kyaw, managing director of White Merak, a comic-reader app that provides the first marketplace for Myanmar comic artists, sees user friendliness as the most important challenge. 
“Educating Myanmar people about payment systems such as Red Dot, Mobile Money, Wave Money and so on is necessary. We are organising some events to raise awareness about them, and some knowledge-sharing sessions twice a month,” he said.
With the White Merak comic-reader app, readers no longer need to zoom in for the small texts in a comic page, as it has a reading mode that displays a comic page panel by panel. Users can read comics in either Burmese or English with a single touch of a button.
“Our strength is that all the comic artists can upload and sell their own comic books through our app. We sell a 25-to-30-page episode of a comic series at 500 kyat,” he said, or about Bt13.
Aung Ye Kyaw also underscored the importance of access to funding but noted that start-ups must have a unique value proposition, and need enough sustainable traction to ensure receiving funds. 
Lwin Htoo Ko of ezStay shared a similar view. “It is a simple approach. To ensure that we win funding, we have to prove such things as market size, execution, a business plan, product and team,” he said.

Early stage
Paing Hein Htet, chief operating officer of MyanZen, which aims to provide a fast, convenient e-commerce platform in Myanmar, said the ecosystem of Myanmar start-ups was still at a very early stage when compared with other countries.
“Unlike start-ups in our neighbour Thailand, we can rarely find companies that would invest in a new business. And we are trying to expand our network to address the challenges. For example, we can have a chance to speak to international media by attending an event like ‘Digital Winners Asia’. 
“Additionally, Myanmar start-ups can contribute to each other by sharing contacts. As the ecosystem becomes bigger, it is convenient for both user and investor,” he said.