Within the startup sector, in addition to success in one’s own business, the prospect of partnering or working with a major company is considered a dream opportunity for many startups. AIS The StartUp provides this opportunity by allowing startups to come in and pitch their ideas, as well as to develop, practice, and gain experience. As an organization, supports are offered to startup businesses and allow them the chance to become successful and create a business of the highest quality possible.

Mr. Wisut Ua-anant , ex-Head of Online Channel Management at AIS, who initiated MyAIS Keyboard in collaboration with Pastel Keyboard, He explained that AIS is currently supporting a number of startups in a variety of areas. Additionally, startups that have passed the pitching stage will receive training and consultancy directly from AIS The StartUp. Once these startups have been well-trained, they then have the opportunity to work together with AIS, which is an interesting and excellent chance for business expansion. Also, while the startup business grows and progresses, AIS the StartUp develops and moves forward as well.

“When you work with AIS The StartUp, you have the opportunity to work with a new generation who are talented, creative, and able to think outside the box, and who are filled with love and passion for what they do. AIS The Startup is there to support these enthusiastic, driven startups without obstructing their ideas but rather as the perfect complement to them.”Wisut said.

AIS The StartUp recognizes the importance of all of the above and wants to provide the opportunity for as many startups as possible to participate in this venture. AIS is considered a major corporation in the business world of today and, as such, there are yet endless possibilities for a wide variety of projects, allowing many more startups to partner and connect with us.

The development of the myAIS Keyboard was not quite as simple as one might think. AIS first studied the behavior of myAIS application users and found that “Users are not logging into the application every day, so how do we make myAIS a part of mobile users’ lives?” AIS discovered that while people are using a wide variety of social media applications on their mobile devices every day, at the same time, the one commonality between them is the smartphone keyboard, which remains the same in every app they use. This was the beginning of the collaboration bringing myAIS and AIS The StartUp portfolio called Pastel Keyboard together, allowing users to access the application every day, thus becoming an ‘everyday-used’ app. The next questions posed were:

Our analysis of user behaviors led to the beginning of cross platform usage of the same keyboard and was a new dimension for smart mobile keyboards, allowing users to access myAIS services more conveniently from their mobile keyboard, without wasting time switching between screens. As a result, AIS is the first service provider to introduce the mobile keyboard as a means to create a more convenient way to access applications.

Mr. Ekkachai Charoenpatanamongkol, CEO and Cofounder of Pastel Keyboard, expressed his feelings about working together with AIS. “We were excited to know we were working on something we had never done before. We were very glad for the opportunity to work with AIS because we, at Pastel Keyboard, had so many ideas and thoughts in our minds about what this whole other world—the corporate world—would look like, what form it would take, and what it would be like to work together in a scenario like this. It was something new that we hadn’t yet tried. We at Pastel Keyboard really prepared and we had a variety of tools at our disposal, but when the day came that we made that move to truly cooperate with a corporate giant, it was like we were stepping over the threshold and walking through the door of a brand new house, and we were seeing in real life a world that we had once only imagined. We wanted to know how far we could go with what we had prepared up until this point and, most importantly, what we could do to make this new world a better place.

Dr. Srihathai Prammanee, Head of AIS The StartUp, explained that the selection process for startup teams to work together with AIS and to become a part of the company’s portfolio is as follows:

1. Founder : Pastel Keyboard is very strong is this regard, both in terms of new technology and the passion to drive the business forward to success combined with a ‘can do’ and ‘take action’ approach.

2. Product : Pastel Keyboard has a scalable product and a business model that could be expanded upon with AIS. At the same time, it could be scaled to other businesses as well.

3. Market Opportunity : The development of functions in order to increase revenue generation is another important consideration. This means innovating and trying new things that have not really been tried before or are not yet an accepted part of society. Pastel Keyboard has been able to do this very successfully.

4. Business Feasibility : Pastel Keyboard is a strong business in an era of disruption; a business that has used technology to expand its capabilities and create new value, using digital technologies to create new revenue models for both their own business and that of their business partners.

With regard to business, the first and most important thing is, undeniably, the opportunity to partner with AIS and to expand one’s customer base to that of AIS, just as Pastel Keyboard did in joining forces with the online team to create the myAIS Keyboard. This means that in addition to business cooperation, startups with our team have the opportunity to expand their customer base to the over 40 million people throughout Thailand who are within the AIS customer base. Furthermore, AIS also partners with the Singtel Group, which has a huge footprint of over 700 million people worldwide. This is a massive business opportunity for startups.

AIS is fully prepared to support and help startups in becoming well and widely known, building awareness, reputation, and credibility for their products, both nationally and abroad. This means bringing your business to the next level as one of the leading startups in Thailand. Of major importance is the opportunity to consult with the AIS team, providing you with more than just knowledge regarding such aspects as human resource management, team management, principles of business scaling, and a deep understanding of business direction from highly experienced experts. AIS could be compared to a big brother; there to share and speak from experience, helping you to better understand your business path and give you the information you need so that when you have grown from a startup into a full-grown business, you are truly ready for what is in front of you. The chance to learn from this level of experience is a priceless opportunity and, additionally, can greatly reduce the transition time from startup to established company.

In the past, we may have felt that we had a great sense of self. At the same time, all of us in business have had to take on a wide variety of different roles and characters; disguises, if you will. For example, we have all, at one time or another, needed to take on the role of customer in order to truly know and understand our customers’ needs. Now is the time that we need to take on the corporate role in order to learn from the corporate perspective and learn how to respond better to corporate needs. The most challenging aspect is to provide our customer group with the same or more benefits than they had before, for example, ensuring that the corporate customers have the same level of satisfaction with Pastel Keyboard’s services as when we at Pastel Keyboard were producing only for our own customers.

The difference between these two is that fashion is just about looking at what others are doing and what might be cool or trendy to do, while passion is about acting out of a belief—a belief that what you are doing will lead to success. And while you may not yet be successful today, if you really believe in what you are doing, you’ll do everything you can to achieve that goal or adjust and make course corrections as you go along so that you can continue to be and create the best that you can.