How Tech In Asia focused on subscriptions to drive profitability in the pandemic
“With crisis comes opportunity. We launched subscriptions after layoffs and were low on cash. There is nothing like survival to motivate us,” says TIA’s Terence Lee.
Takeaways
After a decade of reporting on Asia’s tech ecosystem, Singapore-based Tech In Asia finally turned profitable in 2019, a decade after its launch.
Through the years, Tech In Asia raised funds from VCs, pivoted to blockchain, events… and eventually found a heady mix of revenue through subscriptions, conferences and sponsored content.
With the pandemic limiting physical conferences, Tech In Asia is focusing on digital conferences and has launched three tiers of subscriptions.
Context
After a ten-year tumultuous journey covering Asia’s tech ecosystem through its highs-and-lows, Singapore-based media outlet Tech In Asia finally turned profitable in 2019 after finding a heady mix of subscription model, conference revenue and sponsored content to generate revenues.
According to TIA’s editor-in-chief Terence Lee, the platform had launched a subscription model back in 2014 but suspended it due to painful payment processes and instead tried other monetization methods, with marginal success.
In 2018, after years of contraction and experimentation, TIA slashed 50 jobs as funding ran dry, putting a deep scar in the confidence of the team. Now, with a staff of 70+ employees, TIA is focused on keeping a lean team, strong tech ecosystem reporting and building subscriptions.
Quick facts
TIA raised a total of $12.9 million in funding between 2013 to 2017 from venture capitalists. Lee says VCs wanted moonshot ideas by providing risk capital to allow you to take risks, grow fast, hire more and gain a larger share of market share.
To drive subscriptions, TIA focused on creating paywalls for a few quality articles and improving the quality of reportages.
It is easier for business publications to make money due to a lucrative audience. TIA made money mostly due to its conferences. The biggest one was in Jakarta and the first conference was in Singapore.
TIA experimented with branded content, a startup database, a recruitment business and a jobs marketplace for generating revenue.
In 2018, TIA took a second stab at a subscription model as their blockchain project TRIBE was shelved and the team was left with a financial runway down to less than a year.
TIA is inspired by how The Ken and The Information have managed the subscription model successfully.
TIA put data scientists and journalists together in a newsroom to shuffle through data and create visually striking data-oriented stories about Asia’s startup ecosystem.
TIA openly shares its financial numbers with staff and wants to keep the business transparent to its employees, even in a downturn. Layoffs are the last resort, Lee says.
Wisdom
Think carefully before going the venture capitalist route. It impacts your goals, stability and identity (although he says TIA has no regrets there).
With layoffs, a deep cut is better than death by a thousand cuts. Survival is the mission.
Keep the team lean even in good times. Let the reporters find their niche and arm them with audience metrics.
Nobody knows your opportunity better than you do. Cash in on it.
TIA and subscribers
Audience KPIs: Net subscriber gain, subscriptions acquired for each article and customer lifetime value.
Newsletters are extremely important. TIA has daily newsletters and also niche newsletters for specific target audiences.
Strike a balance between quality and quantity in reporting to hold the audience’s attention.
Find out more about Tech In Asia on Splice
Tech In Asia is finally on a path to profitability after a decade of testing business models.