2019 Kickoff Meeting in Kuala Lumpur
As a company grows, it gets harder and harder to put a face to a name. When the teams that we work in on a daily basis are no longer limited to a single office, it is too easy to become disconnected from your international members. For a startup, that’s a quick way for things to go awry.That’s why Micepad decided to fly in all our teams from Singapore, Taiwan and Philippines to the KL office in order to kickoff the new year! On the 2nd of January 2019, teams from all over Southeast Asia flew to Malaysia (home to most of our techies!) in order to meet each other and share our experiences over the previous year.
As you can see, our KL Kickoff was extremely ‘productive’. Haha!But seriously – most of the time was spent discussing exactly how we could improve both our product and services in order to provide a better experience for our users. It was inspiring listening to everyone’s suggestions on how we could improve and reach out to a greater audience. We also introduced new members to the team, swelling our numbers from 20 to 30!This year’s kickoff took place over 3.5 days (with 1 free day for SHOPPING). We covered a host of topics including new iOS coding language, new approaches to our various international markets, app features which had been in high demand the previous year, and much, much more!
Day 1 – Tech Sharing
With only 3.5 days to review and plan out the new year, time was of the essence. For the Singapore team, we touched down in KL at roughly 10:30AM, with the other teams following not much later. Without even stopping by our hotel to freshen up or drop off our luggage, all of us immediately converged in the KL office (that has a superb view of the KL skyline) at Q Sentral to meet the new faces and start the tech sharing discussion. The discussions ranged from big data to machine learning to shifting our app coding language (to Swift). Some highlights of what we covered:1. The potential use of machine learning in marketing.2. How we can go deeper into UX design through cognitive psychology.3. Types of QA testing and our current QA schedule/processesBut enough geeking out on new tech! We also greeted new faces this year – with 2 fresh new hires having their first days at the kickoff meeting itself!
Day 2 – Case Studies & Panel Discussion
Day 2 of the KL Kickoff meeting was equally packed with activities. However, we felt that it was important to get out of the usual office environment and allow not just the visiting teams but the KL team to feel more at relaxed and get those creative juices flowing!With fast wifi, soft, squashy sofas and free flow coffee and tea, our various countries’ sales members settled down to share their successes, case studies and how their experiences could help us improve in the new year.
Day 3 – Planning & Playtime!
The final day of the KL Kickoff was spent deciding on the focuses and challenges for the year. Each department discussed amongst themselves what parts of Micepad they felt needed to be worked on and what obstacles they would meet along the way. What about? Well, our blog will now be updating regularly, so keep your eyes open!And finally, we had a crazy afternoon of team bonding activities at MyBestBox, Malaysia’s largest variety show game hub!Psst, did you know that this event was entirely supported from start to end by our mobile app? Look out for our videos! Don’t worry, we’ll upload all the #unglam photos too!