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What’s cool about my job is I get to meet interesting start-ups. I recently hung out with Brad and Tom, the CMO and CEO respectively, from Bubble Motion in their offices at the iconic Red Dot Building in Singapore. We chatted about the company and the exciting things going on, but also about their personal journeys and how they found themselves in Singapore from Silicon Valley. Below is a video interview with both of them, along with a more detailed transcript with Brad.
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Andrew: Tell us about Bubble Motion. What problems does your product rectify?
Brad: Bubble Motion is pioneering social networking through voice communications using phones. Our flagship service, known as BubbleBlog, is actually pretty simple idea – a lot like Twitter but through voice. The way voice-blogging works is that you use your phone to record and update your status in your own voice, and then your friends, followers and fans get notified by SMS and can dial in to hear what you’re up to.
The technology is built on a voice platform for telecoms that’s been in development since about 2004, and this is a new service built on our existing technology that is really catching fire.
Andrew: I hear you have some big name Indian celebrities endorsing your product? Tell us more about that campaign.
Brad: The Bollywood community has really gravitated to BubbleBlog and the way it gives them a super easy and fun way to connect with their fans. The best part is, unlike say Twitter, they can do this in the authenticity of their own voice. They love that their fans and followers can listen in and hear the ins and outs of their daily lives.
For example, India mega-star Amitabh Bachchan is an active voice-blogger, and has more than half a million followers to his BubbleBlog. During the week, he updates his voice-blog sharing his ideas and thoughts on whatever’s on his mind. Then, his followers get SMS notifications that he’s posted an update, and they dial in to listen. Many stars are now active including Bollywood stars (Lara Dutta, John Abraham, Neetu Chandra and many more), musicians (Sonu Nigam, Hans Raj Hans, Sophie Choudary) and now sports stars, including cricketer Harbhajan Singh.
Andrew: How would you describe the company culture at Bubble Motion?
Brad: Bubble Motion is quite literally a Silicon Valley start-up that has been uprooted from Mountain View, California and dropped into the heart of Singapore, with our headquarters now in the Red Dot Traffic Museum building at Tanjong Pagar. The physical space is open and creative – an environment conducive to interactivity and collaboration. Our colorful and informal environment is somewhat unusual in Singapore, and it attracts those who are drawn to it, and surely does the opposite for those who crave more structure and hierarchy.
Our company culture is formed by being an organization with very little hierarchy. Each member of our executive team has an organization to manage, but we’re all very hands on, and ensure that people from all parts of the organization have access to and open communication with anyone at any time. Some of the best ideas and initiatives have come from members of the team who might in other organizations not have the voice that they do at Bubble Motion.
Bubble Motion takes a “no risk, no reward” approach to the way we work. We are ambitious, and want to change the world, while motivated by building a wildly valuable company for our investors and employees (we all are shareholders, and ultimately each of us participates in the value we create). We are looking for people whose mantra is “can” and our philosophy is “aim for the stars, land on the moon.”
Andrew: What’s the best thing that young graduates can learn from the start-up experience?
Brad: Certainly one of the most unique attributes of working for Bubble Motion is learning how to think on your feet, and truly learn how to become a resourceful and creative problem solver. We are living on the bleeding edge of the technology that we’re developing, and learning new things from our team and our customers all the time. People who work with us soon realize that “go figure it out” isn’t just lip-service, but truly a call-to-action to come up with solutions and practice using good judgment. We recognize that things go wrong, and mistakes are made, but what we don’t put up with is when people stop trying to find new solutions to solve the problems they face.
Multitasking is a another skill that is mastered at Bubble Motion. With the landscape shifting as we create it, priorities naturally evolve in close-to real time. This means that people are simultaneously dealing with time-sensitive matters, while all along advancing projects forward that have longer cycles and time to develop. This is a skill that takes practice and is invaluable in all parts of life.
Another really great attribute of working at Bubble Motion is being able to see how your work is meaningfully impacting the lives of millions of people. We are developing a way for humans to communicate and connect, and improving lives as a result. That’s pretty cool, when you stop and think about it.
Andrew: What exciting things do you have in store for the company in the next year?
Brad: The coming year is a very exciting one for Bubble Motion. We’ve built a platform and a business model that really works well, and now are taking that to the next level through improved product and user-experience, while deploying it in new countries to new customer bases. Our roadmap includes growing within India while launching in some of the world’s largest mobile markets including Indonesia, Philippines, Japan and beyond. We have entered a phase of hyper-growth.
We’ve met some key milestones, and are now going after an even larger prize, and are adding A-players to our team who are ready to contribute and learn.
Andrew: On a personal note, how have you found the move from Silicon Valley to Singapore? Have you had to make any drastic adjustments?
Brad: Having spent the last 20 years in Silicon Valley working at various early-stage and growth-oriented companies, I was ready to broaden my horizons and experience working and living in a new place. I’m loving being in Singapore, as it’s familiar in so many ways to the San Francisco Bay Area, with respect to global diversity, and yet so different in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. And being at Bubble Motion is wonderful, as it’s such a familiar environment for me. Personally, I’m thriving on learning how to be effective in communicating with team-members and customers, and having to adjust my own style accordingly. I have a lot to learn, as I’m discovering the layers of nuance underlying even basic communication. And, I’m dazzled by the magnitude of the size of the opportunity here, with massive populations of people who have an insatiable hunger for consuming technology.
Please contact andrew@gradkin if you have exciting job opportunities for young job-seekers, and would like your company featured on Gradkin’s Blog.
Disclaimer: Gradkin accepts no fees for this feature and is not otherwise affiliated with the above-mentioned company. Information sourced is accurate to the best of our knowledge and we take no responsibility for any unintentional misrepresentation.
