A Case For Entrepreneurship In The Digital Era

Wesley Ng, the entrepreneur and co-founder of tech accessories brand Casetify, believes that having a clear brand mission is the key to growing a successful business.

- Terence Poh

In 2011, the social networking application Instagram was an iPhone-only service, with close to five million users and a growth rate of one million users a month. A novel service then, Instagram enabled users to upload photographs with unparalleled instancy on mobile, contributing to a stream of captioned pictures. It focused on cell phone imaging, which was then often blurry or poorly composed, allowing artistic filters to enhance and frameless than stellar photographs, making them resemble postcard prints. This led to the proliferation of companies offering kinds of applications that could turn those images into physical and collectible forms — such as photo books, framed prints resembling Polaroid captures, and postcards.

One start-up managed to capitalise on the trend in 2011, and offered a way to print images onto cell phone casings — allowing people to carry memorable snapshots with them everywhere they went.

“Instead of focussing on the technology behind a new product, I start by looking at the problem. This establishes a market need and centres our focus,” says Wesley Ng, the co-founder of the company Casetify, which first made those customisable cases easily accessible to Instagram users. Instead of offering services like converting an Instagram feed into an album or postcards (which can easily be accomplished at home), Casetify provided the service of superimposing photographs directly onto phone cases, which could not be achieved without specialised equipment. Its ensuing popularity helped Ng’s company develop into one of the world’s largest tech accessories brands in the world today.