Joseph – ACMO and Fetchie
Entrepreneurial journey told by six students
Story written by Qingyu Zhu
I’m Joseph, the founder of Fetchie who has a profound IT background. I completed my education in computer science and engineering and gained practical experience as a developer and consultant. These experiences became the bedrock for my future venture. After working for several years, I decided to start his own business. I started my first business specializing in product process automation with a focus on the B2B model. About a year and a half ago, I generated an idea to create something consumers could use, which resulted in Fetchie. I consider myself is a persistent entrepreneur who has faith in his product, and that is a reason why I became successful.
During the initial developmental phase of Fetchie, I utilized his available resources and actively sought out any lacking resources. I emphasized the importance of creating a team with diverse skillsets and complementary abilities. I realized that combining talents with different skills can benefit the company by integrating resources, sharing risks, expanding the scope of the pool and skills, and compensating for weaknesses.
After completing product innovation, I launched the first version of the product into the market and made continuous efforts to improve. And I’m think about we shouldn’t launch a product with all the features we have in mind in the first go. Instead, we need to hit the market and improve the product through continuous relaunches. Also, it’s important to keep in mind that the ultimate goal of any product is to meet customer demands and enhance their experience. Joseph applied a customer-oriented differentiation strategy. It taught me that by identifying unfulfilled needs and market gaps, we can create products that are differentiated from what’s available in the current market and gain a competitive advantage. However, the journey towards success is not always smooth sailing. The pandemic was a difficult factor to contend with, and his business faced cash flow issues. In that situation, I adopted a strategic response, such as reducing operating costs or increasing customer revenue, to ensure the company’s operation.
After experience all the entrepreneurships process, I realized that business is not a simple course, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to it. What we need to do is to keep accumulating knowledge, learning from experience, and observing the market.
Story written by Tianhao Zhao
“When it comes to starting a business, my experience is not as described in the book with careful planning and a lot of preparation from the beginning. I always think that companies can get the services they need through consultants. So I founded ACMO in 2018. However, do consumers or most ordinary people also need consulting services? Consulting is a very “expensive” service business. Most consumers do not want to pay to inquire about product discounts. Fetchie was born when I was thinking about what consumers could do. Fetchie is born in 2023. As I envisioned, I used my software development background and project consulting experience to make my product satisfy most clients. Then, I worked out some marketing strategies, including handing out flyers at train stations and shopping malls, and maintaining engagement with customers on social media pages.
However, in the process of starting a business, I encountered some problems. One of the most difficult for me is the impact of Covid-19. The reduction in cash flow is quite challenging. I think most entrepreneurs think about reducing costs by cutting staff. But I did not do that. It is very difficult to form a harmonious and excellent team and let the team members work in the same direction, especially during the pandemic. As a result, I decided to move everyone online and rescinded the office lease. Because I think the team is the most important factor for any business.
After the pandemic eased, I let everyone go back to the office. Moreover, Fetchie is not a perfect product. Like any other software, it loses competitiveness with each iteration. Therefore, I need to make sure that Fetchie can always meet the needs of customers. This requires our unremitting efforts and perseverance. I think perseverance is the core quality of an entrepreneur. Because there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel. Facts have proved that through unremitting efforts, we have achieved some achievements. For example, We have been finalists in local business competitions for 3 years and won once. At the same time, in the 5 years since ACMO was founded, we have entered the finals of the Australian competition for three consecutive years. This motivates me and my team and boosts confidence.
Finally, we will definitely encounter some risks in the process of starting a business. These risks come from technology, customers, and resources. We start by making sure we only accept one business to deliver something for the client. Secondly, we consider the business of data and information to ensure security. In the future, we will continue to expand the market to serve more users. These are all valuable experiences on my entrepreneurial path.”
Story written by Scarlett Zhang
The TV at home has been broken for several months. One day when I was lying on the bed and browsing the shopping website, I saw that my desired television was on sale. I was delighted because it was yet within my budget after the reduction, so I purchased it for $499 without hesitation. When I thought about watching a great movie on a big screen television the next day, I was excited and looking forward to it. The other day, an advertisement for the same product showed on my phone, and I discovered that it was being discounted on multiple platforms at the same time, and the price was even lower than when I purchased it. At the moment, my emotions are mixed. I am very upset and disappointed not only because I spent more money, but also because there is no such program that offers availability for price matching.
I think that many people have had similar experiences to mine. The uneasy price comparison caused me to spend more money I should not have. I’ve been a member of ACMO’s technical team for over ten years, but an idea popped up to me this time. I would like to create a price comparison service software for myself and everyone else. This idea has a great deal of potential in my opinion. My team and I have developed the idea and are attempting to customize the price comparison service. We will provide the best user experience so that letting customers just stay with us. Right now, we are seeking for ‘similars’, people who are going through the same experiences I am. I hope that one day most people around the globe will be able to save money by using my software, and I believe we are capable of doing.
Story written by Zhuoyang Yu
I am a technology fanatic, and I was fascinated by how they worked and what they could do. I studied computer science at Cochin University of Science and Technology in India. It was hard work, but I enjoyed it. I got a job as a software engineer at Iron Mountain in India. That’s where I learned about Kofax, a platform for automation.
Kofax changed everything. It showed me how to use technology to solve problems and create value. Later I moved to Oakland, New Zealand, where I worked as an analyst at Ricoh. It was there my Kofax skills got further refined. But I wanted to create something of my own rather than just a job. So, I applied to Stanford University, where I got accepted into a program on how to establish tech startups. At there I met a lot of interesting people, and I’ve learned everything I need to know about starting a business.
I returned to Sydney in 2016 with a vision: Using Kofax and artificial intelligence to automate processes and improve efficiency for businesses and consumers.
I founded ACMO in 2018, a company that provides process-based solutions using Kofax. ACMO has grown rapidly since its inception and has served over 120 clients across various industries, and also won several awards
In 2023, I launched Fetchie, a price matching site that utilizes artificial intelligence to obtain low prices for online shoppers. Fetchie aims to make online shopping easier, faster, and cheaper for consumers. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved so far, but I have more ideas and plans for the future. I want to keep learning and creating. That’s what push me forward.
Story written by Evian Wen
“I have worked for others over 15 years, and I think I gained enough experiences and knowledge to start my own business. With my technical and consulting background, I chose to enter the industry that I am familiar with – automation. About 5 years ago, I started ACMO which is an automation company that provides business automation such as paper automation, and accountings. After three and half years, After three and a half years, I wondered why I couldn’t implement today’s technology into a consumer-centered application. This is where Fetchie from. Fetchie is a price-matching app that was just released on app store two days ago! I know there are multiple price match platforms such as Honey, but I believe the competitive advantage of our app is that Fetchie does not require any information to sign up. Our team recently realized that consumers care about information leakage recently, so if consumer wants to sign up Fetchie, they can even use a fake email address. Another reason I came up about Fetchie was I like shopping but I also want to save my money, but manually doing price match waste my time. Since I began my own business, I’ve learned that entrepreneurship is not about chasing ideas but finding existing problems and solving them. When you identify the problems and come up with the ideas, and you often need to build a team to achieve it. Managing a team can be very tricky. I feel like keep harmony is the most important element, because different people with different background and different ideas, there are conflictions and disagreement during the work. So I’m very glad that I have technical background, although I have every expertise team, I don’t need to do developer’s job; I still meet with technical team. My technical background helps me to understand more what they are talking about. I also use the same way to meet with my marketing teams. With Fetchie released, we will receive some feedback that we can use to iterate our app. I have faith that in one day Fetchie can be global used.
Story written by Zhanyuan Gao
Starting a business is not a hit-and-miss decision. I have always considered starting a business for myself. I spent 5 years exploring what people really need. Benefiting from the consulting experience, I had the chance to interact with many companies, and I thus discovered their general needs, namely process efficiencies. After ascertaining the reality of the need, I embarked on this journey. We entered the field of automation and create the ACMO. We have developed business automation, robotic automation, and more, providing services to companies to help them improve process efficiencies.
I have learned a lot from establishing ACMO. First, ACMO’s success has reinforced my belief that the discovery of an opportunity stems from an idea, an idea that solves the troubles of customers. This is different from the idea of creating a problem and then coming up with a solution to it, which results in imposing our imagined problem on the consumer. The establishment of ACMO has, in a sense, greatly alleviated the barriers to customers’ needs. ACMO’s automation services have helped many companies save a great deal of time and money.
Second, we learn from users’ feedback so that we can improve our products, make updates, and make generations until our products and services are satisfied by our customers. However, starting a business is not an overnight event. It is a long run. We need to start somewhere and gradually make our brand famous and make more customers aware of our brand’s existence. Let customers start to try our products and services, and when they are willing to try our products and services, we will be able to get more feedback and thus provide a better user experience. So, we need to have a bright future to look forward to.
In addition, after ACMO was on track and because it always served businesses, I kept thinking why not free up my expertise and experience and use the existing resources to provide services to consumers? The idea was always in the back of my mind until a real problem came into my mind and the idea of setting up Fetchie emerged. On one occasion when I missed a half-price event at David Jones, I suddenly realized that unless I stay on top of such promotions every day, I could easily lose it. But everyone has a limited amount of time. A product that could always help people automatically keep an eye on when products they are interested in are on sale and send timely notifications would solve this problem. And ACMO’s automation technology can be applied to achieve it.
Entrepreneurship is exciting and the process is full of passion. It is also rewarding because the result of a successful venture also means solving a problem that exists in our life.