Recommend: The End-to-End Platform for Building and Maintaining Your Property

Buying a house, either as a home or for rental income, should be one of the best experiences of your life.

Yet it’s not.

Because you know that soon, you will have to deal with the interior design, renovations and maintenance of the home, and the process will be a real pain. However, it doesn’t have to be.

Recommend Group is South East Asia’s #1 Home and Property Services platform. We operate as Recommend.my in Malaysia and Sejasa.com in Indonesia. It is an end-to-end technology platform providing on-demand home maintenance services, a marketplace of home improvement services as well as an interior design company that can furnish a home in as quickly as 6 weeks. We operate a technology-driven, asset-light model which partners with thousands of individuals and SME companies who operate under our brand, use our CRM tools, scheduling and payments platform. Within the on-demand pillar, they also wear our uniform, honor our SOPs and prices.

We were established in 2014 as a listings business, and pivoted into a transactional platform in 2019. Since then, we have grown 5X to what it is today, and today transact about 20,000 jobs a month. We grew before the pandemic, grew through all the lockdowns and grew even more when the economy opened up. Our major competitors did not make it through the pandemic, but thanks to the support from our customers and service professionals, we have grown from strength to strength.

Indonesia is a key part of our business - it contributes 80% of our volume, 70% of our revenue and we are absolutely the #1 player in Indonesia!

Today, we have a huge opportunity to expand towards our vision of being the end-to-end technology platform for home and property management.  We want to improve our technology, push forward in our B2C business, but also add B2B customers as an additional channel of obtaining jobs for our service professionals. We have already signed up some exciting partners (read more below)!

This is why we are raising RM 5 million in this ECF campaign. We have a vision, our future is within sight, and we would like to invite you to join us on this journey. If you would like to invest into Indonesia, an exciting economy with a population of 300 million, sign up today! 

Designing, renovating and maintaining a home is a pain for customers:

•  Need so many different types of services, and it’s hard to get recommendations for everyone. Even if a service professional used to be good 2 years ago, there is no guarantee he or his team is still active and good
• There is no clarity on scope, quality and prices. You never know what you’re going to get, until it’s done. 
• After you’ve paid for the service, and a problem occurs, there is no guarantee that the service professional will come back

Providing a service is also challenging for service professionals:

• Time is money, it is difficult to get jobs around the same area to reduce traveling time
• Advertising is expensive and time-consuming, there are many “PM, PM, PM” but only few convert to real customers
• You need to do a site visit and quote to the customer, and then haggle on prices, which will take a long time
• After you’ve done the service, customer may find excuses to delay payment

Recommend Group solves this problem by providing a technology platform for customers can book easily through the web or app, seeing prices (or price estimates), submitting their contact details, and all these jobs gets distributed to service professionals’ App Dashboard using an algorithm that prioritizes ratings / reviews, scope match, location (and many other factors).

The system leverages AI technology to ensure that the process is as smart and seamless as possible - the prices are all set or estimated upfront, the average job gets fulfilled in as quickly as 11 seconds, and the service professional can be at your doorstep in as little time as 45 minutes.

Although the business is seasonal in nature, we have exhibited growth year after year - in terms of successful jobs transacted over the platform, we have growth 5X since 2019. Our revenue in Q4 2022 is the highest it has ever been.

Indonesia is a key part of our business - it contributes 80% to our volume and 70% to our revenue, and our development team is housed in Bandung (where Institut Teknologi Bandung, the #1 technical school is located).

Recommend Group has 3 lines of business - Home Maintenance On-Demand, Home Improvement Marketplace and Interior Design.

We earn our revenue by deducting credits to the service professional, depending on the category and value of the service. Service professionals pay for credits or subscription in advance of accepting a job, so we’re cash-first on both sides of the marketplace.

Customers don’t have to pay for using our services, and we do not allow service professionals to mark-up or charge more than the prices stated on the platform.

We have more than 100+ services on our platform, with a range of value and volume jobs.

We used to have large competitors (Kaodim in Malaysia and Go-Life, a subsidiary of Go-Jek in Indonesia), but they have unfortunately decided to stop their business due to the challenging pandemic situation. Kaodim shut-down because they were in Malaysia and Philippines, two countries that implemented the harshest lockdown rules. Go-Life shut-down because at the beginning of the pandemic, Go-Jek decided to focus on their core business of Ride, Food and Fintech.

Our main competition now is from smaller vendors (many of which also serve on our platform). However, we are completely different from them:

1. We are a technology platform that automates matching between customers and service professionals

• We offer more than 100 categories of services on our platform. Currently we only monetise about 20 categories within Home Maintenance, Home Improvement and Cleaning, and we intend to grow into the other categories soon
• Our platform allows us to set-up the marketing, operating, payments, scheduling and quality control of any category within 1 week. This allowed us to be flexible in managing our category growth like a “portfolio”, adjusting the focus when the market changes
• Service professional on-boarding and document collection is automatic, and we only manually filter and activate them when we need them.

2. We are asset-light

• We do not hire any of our service professionals (aside from our interior design and project management team for large projects), and their motivation and incentives are automatically managed through platform features
• From the moment the customer puts in a booking, to the moment the job is completed and the payment is done, our technology platform handles everything without need for manual intervention. This means a small team like ours can handle 20,000+ leads a month, without needing to grow the team size.

3. We collect data that is key to improving conversion and retention on the platform, and opens up opportunity for new revenue channels

• We collect hundreds of data points around home-owners, service professionals behavior credit-worthiness, and service characteristics and materials
• This helps open up opportunities for us to go into sales of home electrical appliances, home furniture and materials, insurance and SME lending in the near future

4. We are integrated with apps like Grab, Boost, eCommunity, Mah Sing (and soon to be Shopee!), so no matter what super-app you hold in your hand, customers will be able to access the top quality service professionals in Indonesia and Malaysia!  

We also offer a value-proposition that is unique to customers that book through our platform (and also re-book the same service professional they like):

• Warranty of up to 30 days
• Insurance protection against theft, damages and public liability
• Vouchers and cashback for your next order (either the same service professional, or a new one)
• Membership tiers which will give them the maximum discounts on any service (to be launched)

Service professionals prefer to use our platform rather than market and attract their own customers because:

• All our jobs are concentrated around where they operate, reducing travel time
• Prices are communicated upfront, customers have already accepted them
• Easy and secure payment, which prevents customers withholding payment for no good reason
• All customers are recorded in the CRM system, which enables them to more efficiently run their business without a lot of admin staff

Our vision is to build an end-to-end platform for building and maintaining our home and property. Customers from our own, partner integration, property agent referrals and B2B sources flow into our service management platform, while the jobs are being picked up by small SMEs and individual service professionals. 

All these transactions generate a lot of data for us to analyze and use, opening up opportunities for more revenue streams.

Our next steps will be to:

• Strengthen our B2C user journey and retention on the tech platform
  • Enhance the algorithm for allocating jobs to service professionals who are right for customer, using AI technology to accurately predict the price of repairs and renovation jobs,
  • Improve the app user experience and retention features, such as the voucher wallet to handle packages and memberships
• Establish B2B as an additional revenue model
  • Being the outsource party for installation and maintenance work for restaurants, convenience store chains and home electrical appliance sellers
  • Already, we have closed key contracts with Courts, AEON, Blibli, Modena and other players to install home appliances for their customers nationwide
• Establish ourselves as a repairer network for home electrical appliances
  • Since we are now the largest repairer network in both countries, we will start providing extended Warranty, which we will also service and repair when the need arises

We intend to breakeven in the next 12 months, and grow profitably from then on!

Co-founder and CEO: Jes Min Lua

Jes Min is the co-founder and CEO of Recommend Group. Her role includes over-seeing strategy and business model, growth as well as strategic partnerships. Her previous experience was consulting with Accenture and Bain & Company, leading and driving some of the largest growth and expansion, M&A and large technical system rollouts across Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong. She has consulted for companies and organizations like Maybank, AIA, Mondelez, Acumen Fund,  Employees Provident Fund (EPF), Pos Malaysia, PTT Chemicals, and MedcoEnergi.

Jes Min graduated with a First Class Honors in Masters in Mechanical Engineering in University of Bath, UK. She also obtained an MBA from INSEAD, where she was selected as part of the Top 10% Deans List. In her spare time (which she does not have much of, having 2 young children) she travels to strange new places where she is forced to re-frame her perspective on the meaning of life and work.

Co-founder and CPO: Alex Tan Sir Ji

Alex oversees the product roadmap and an Agile product and software engineering team of 24. Alex was also formerly the Director of Content Services at a B2B communications agency for technology-focused Fortune 500 clients including Microsoft, EMC, IBM, Symantec, Cisco Systems and Oracle. He was also a Microsoft-certified software developer and team lead at Avanade Asia (part of Microsoft and Accenture), developing enterprise systems for Inland Revenue, the Ministry of Manpower, Jurong Town Corporation, and other ministries and agencies in Singapore.

Alex has a BEng in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London, and an MSc in Information Systems from The London School of Economics (LSE). In his spare time, he explores leading-edge no-code technologies to see how to help small businesses grow with as little start-up costs as possible.

Co-founder and CMO: Anthony Eka Wijaya

Anthony set-up and grew the Indonesia business from scratch, and now oversees all aspects of growth and marketing. He was formerly the Head of Online Marketing for Lazada, Lamido and Bobobobo, some of Rocket Internet’s fastest growing portfolio in Indonesia. His specialty is strategy and driving growth through organic SEO building and performance marketing through various channels.

Anthony obtained a Bachelor of Computer Science Information System from Binus University, one of the top universities in Indonesia. He subsequently obtained a Masters of Commerce and Finance from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. In his spare time, he explores his passion in upgrading and modifying continental cars with leading-edge technology.  

Country General Manager (Indonesia): Hendry Tjawinoto

Hendry started his career as a Digital Marketing analyst with Sejasa. He was identified as having high potential, and was quickly promoted to Marketing Manager and subsequently Head of Marketing. Expressing a desire to expand his experience and portfolio, he took up the Head of Growth role. He then left Sejasa to help build Otomall.id, and returned to Sejasa in Jan 2022 to lead the business as the Country General Manager. Hendry is passionate about technology startups and has helped consult for and mentored various local and international companies.

Hendry obtained a Bachelor’s Degree  in Industrial Engineering from The Ohio State University and a Masters of International Marketing graduate specializing in Innovation Strategies from Hult International Business School. In his spare time, he mentors and invests in small F&B businesses offering unique value propositions to the Jakarta community.

Head of Finance and B2B Business (Indonesia): Dhany Johanes

Dhany started his career building a solid foundation in Accounting and Finance in various companies in Indonesia. Over the years, he rose to the position of Financial Controller in various multinational companies. He then left to co-found his own Finance, HR and Business Process consultancy, establishing his expertise in reporting, governance and regulatory compliance. Wanting even more experience, Dhany joined Sejasa and has since transformed our reporting, cash handling and compliance processes and policies, bringing them to high standards. He took on the extra role of B2B Head when he realized that Sejasa could bring a lot of value to the Property Maintenance space in Indonesia, and has been instrumental in closing key contracts with organizations like Modena and Alfamart. Dhany is passionate about helping small businesses grow to the level that it elevates societal income levels.

Dhany obtained a Bachelor in Accounting in Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta. In his spare time, he networks fairly actively to generate ideas, get inspiration, and build business opportunities.
 
Head of Technology: Bayu Oktavianto

Bayu has been coding since he was in school. Upon graduation, he built the foundation of his programming knowledge at 41Studio, one of the premier app development agencies in Indonesia. Leading mid to large teams of developers, he built some of Indonesia’s most popular apps and platforms. He then joined Sejasa in 2018, where he architected the solution that customers and service professionals use today, and moved the development hub from Jakarta to Bandung where it flourishes today with a culture of innovation and learning.

Bayu graduated from Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia with a Bachelor Degree in Mathematics. He is a deep introvert, but in his spare time he invests in developmental tools for his young children, teaching them to develop critical thinking and the firm conviction that all problems can be solved with logic.

Head of Marketplace (MY): Chloe Tan

Chloe started her career in customer service and operations in the financial services industry. Trained in process and procedural control, she got interested in seeing how solid operations can complement technology in the startup space. She joined Recommend.my in 2015, and has subsequently overseen the customer service, operations, business development, sales, user testing as well as alignment with product strategy. A true multi-skilled professional, she now leads the whole Marketplace team, guiding her team to manage the customer experience from booking all the way to payments. Chloe is passionate about user experience and service professional experience - under her leadership, the Net Promoter Score rose from -20% to 50% (world-class standard) it is today.

Chloe graduated from HELP University with a Bachelor Degree in Marketing. She spends her free time up-skilling herself on topics like leadership and digital marketing. She is also extraordinarily lucky - she previously won a car in a contest!

Head of Growth (MY): Tan Jun Bin

Jun Bin (JB) started his career in the legal industry, but soon realized that his passion is more in numbers than in words. He first joined Recommend.my in 2015, where he helped the Operations and Business Development team build up its foundational processes. He subsequently moved to the Product and Growth roles, where he consistently drives conversion improvement and new category expansion for Recommend.my. He now leads the Growth and Data Analytics team, constantly improving our efforts to embed AI-driven features to improve the efficiency of the platform. His team also focuses on using data to empower team members and improve efficiency in all parts of the businesses, allowing us to handle thousands of transactions on a monthly basis.

JB graduated with a Bachelor of Law from Aberystwyth University. In his spare time, he reads widely and experiments with home improvement projects. He is known for his sharp wit, insightful ideas and jokes that can curdle milk.

We are offering the opportunity for retail investors to join us on our rocketship journey. 

We are planning to raise RM 1 - 5 million to grow our vision in the 3 areas stated above - strengthen B2C, grow footprint in the B2B space and establish ourselves as Malaysia’s largest all-brand repair network. The shares will be issued by our Malaysian subsidiary Recomn Technologies Sdn. Bhd. (RTSB) but we will execute a share swap where the shares will be exchanged with our Holding Company Recomn Technologies Pte. Ltd. (RTPL) instead. This means that investors will be holding shares at the Holding Company level.
 

We especially welcome our existing customers and service professionals to join, support and help us make this a Malaysian success story! If you are our existing customer or service professional, we are offering additional incentives for you! Once the Live period is over, we will be contacting you to see whether you fall in either category to load the credits for you.

1. pitchIN and its officers and staff may also be investing in this campaign
2. Under ECF Guidelines, valuation is determined and set by the Issuer. Investors are advised to carefully peruse all investment offers and documents before making investment decisions.