Profiled - FindLegs.com - A multi-purpose multi-lingual online environment that mirrors society
An interview with Daniel Fung, director, co-founder Findlegs.com, a multi-lingual online environment that mirrors society
The Social Media Portal (SMP) talks to Daniel Fung sharing ideas in multi-lingual environments and social media
Social Media Portal (SMP): What is your full job title and role (what do you do there) at FindLegs.com?Daniel Fung (DF): My full job title is director, co-founder. At first, I oversaw the overall development of the website, which was prepared by a contractor development team. Currently, I oversee the community development, membership development, the branding of the website and the operations of the website.
SMP: Briefly, tell us about FindLegs.com, what is it and what does it do?DF: FindLegs.com is a multi-purpose multi-lingual online environment that mirrors the society. It is driven by its ability to promote participation for activities and the sharing of information and ideas. The objective is to connect individuals to form social circles based on interests and to promote activities from these interest groups. Conventional means of meeting others rely upon four social networks: family, work, school, and location. We hope to provide the 5TH Connection, which are by interests.
In general, the strength of this website comes from the synergy of the scheduling system, forums/blogs, member profile, and Q&A section into one easy to access design layout. Most social networking websites focus on certain elements of social networking. For example, some websites are activity-based focused while others, such as forums, emphasize information exchange.
Although activity-based systems can foster information exchange just like forums while forums can foster activities between members through different postings, these elements often work in the background of what the main emphasis of the social network identity are and is not as easily accessible by users. We aim to provide a website, if not a channel, that is equally strong in each of the elements in order to cross-market each of the website elements/objectives so that there is a larger arena of interaction between users and thus increasing the success rate of actions spawned from information exchange.
This interaction would allow users to think, cycle information/talk to other users and exchange information, then eventually take action. This could be an activity that a user wants to do or even a business idea that a user wishes to pursue - the sky is the limit.
SMP: What made you start FindLegs.com?
DF: FindLegs.com started out essentially as an answer to a problem. Working in Hong Kong usually constituted long hours each day. Often, it is not foreseeable when one could leave work. It was often difficult to find others to do activities with such erratic schedules.
Alternatively my co-founder had clients overseas and often worked during the evening. However, most of his free time was during the mornings and afternoons. It was also difficult for him to find others to pursue his interests/activities with.
As the idea grew, we hoped to use the system to engage different users, who likely do not know each other in the beginning, to come together via interest. In fact, my co-founder and myself both met on a similar system and then decided to pursue this as a project.
SMP: What was the most challenging part of building the service?DF: We are still very much in the infant stages of development. At this stage, we are hoping that more people would come to the system to register and try out the services. We need lots of feedback to make the system better and more appealing to those that find this useful.
SMP: Who are your target audience and why?DF: Our target audience are mainly those that have started work and hope to find more people with similar interests - be it looking for someone to play tennis with in 2 hours, starting a dragonboat team, or starting a business.
SMP: How did you initially attract users to your site /service, and how do you do it now?DF: We are actually still in our initial stages to attract users. We have been using a number of social networking sites to promote what we are doing. This has consequently brought in different users to view and use the website.
We have been working closely with a group of entrepreneurs in Hong Kong where we provide support to one another. In fact, there will be a large start-up event in Hong Kong in August 2010 where we will demonstrate the capability of the website and hopefully attract more users. As such, we mainly spread our word through these events as well as using other social media tools.
SMP: What are the low moments of what you have been doing so far?DF: There are many low moments especially when so much work was put into building the system - it is a downer when things do not work the way it should or it does not attract the number of visitors/users as anticipated. However, you just have to pick yourself up and find out the reason why.
SMP: What are the high moments of what you have been doing so far?DF: I especially like hearing about the website from others. We are starting to get news of our websites from third parties that we do not know and eventually, we get the ?oh so you are the guys behind that website?. It feels good that our constant spamming has worked out (j/k).
We have also been doing some promotions for local start-ups through a number of interviews. It feels really good to know, from the number of visitors that visit these interviews, that people are genuinely interested in the local start-up scene and that they are generally very supportive.
SMP: Now that you are established, what do you see as your biggest challenges and opportunities?DF: I do not think we could ever call ourselves established, there are just so many different things that we need to work on.
We have had feedback that the user interface is something that needs work on as some users find it confusing. This will be our primary focus in the next few weeks.
It has also been challenging to rally public organizations to join the system. This could essentially be their activity scheduling and information distribution website. We see much opportunity in the future to work together.
SMP: What are the next moves for FindLegs.com?DF: We hope to create a large enough active member-base to do more activities. We will be introducing more circles (groups) within the system to try and cater to different user needs.
SMP: What?s the next big step for social media and networks?DF: We think that the next big step in social media is to bring the at-home aspect to the out-of-home experience. In that, social media and networks will be much more mobile and that they may relate to more events in real life.
SMP: What?s going to be the most interesting aspect regarding social media / technology throughout 2010?DF: It seems that a lot of social media/technology is revolving around the different mobile applications markets. We are eager to see how this plays out in the rest of 2010.
SMP: Now it is reported that we may be moving out of the global recession what do what impact do you think social media may have upon a business such as yours?DF: We think that once we are out of the global recessions, individual spending practices will definitely be different than during a recession. As such, we might see a difference in approach for social media that is more based on the service or retail industry.
SMP: How does this fit into plans at FindLegs.com?DF: To be honest, that is a question that we need to think about.
SMP: Best way to contact you?DF: Daniel Fung ? dfung @ 5thconnection.com
Now some questions for fun
SMP: What did you have for breakfast / lunch?DF: Oatmeal.
SMP: What?s the last good thing that you did for someone?DF: Bought my good buddy a beer yesterday.
SMP: How many hours to you work a week?DF: Way too many, need to allocate more to sleep.
SMP: If you weren?t running FindLegs.com what would you be doing?DF: Probably another business.
SMP: When and where did you go on your last holiday?DF: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning?DF: Turn on my computer if it is not already on.
SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?DF: To see the future. There is just so many things that I can do once I have this ability.
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