Enter the smart home of HAP
In 2010, Yuan Yi, who was studying in Nanyang Technological University at that time, also practiced in Beijing. One day the elevator of the building broke down. Then he took the initiative to carry the equipment, climbed 60 floors at one go, and completed the test task. This action deeply touched the project leader, Dr. Weng Liangrong.
Two years later, at the invitation of Business China, Dr. Weng came to Nanyang Technological University to give the speech, and Yuan Yi greeted him actively. They also talked about Yuan Yi’s future intentions. Dr. Weng invited Yuan Yi to Beijing as a project engineer with him, and Yuan Yi gladly accepted.
In 2016, for family reasons, Yuan Yi returned to Singapore again to find the direction of his career. He and his brother Yuan’ an planned to start a smart-home business. At the beginning, they mainly sold DIY low-priced smart home products from China to their customers. By this mode, their product sales are pretty good. However, the after-sale cost is often several times higher than the profit due to the problem of product quality. "At the beginning we were confident that we had a lot of ideas to use and believed our business will go on smoothly, but later it went from bad to worse." Yuan’ an said. Fortunately, Dr. Weng lend his hand to them.
The birth of HAP
With years of observation, Dr. Weng has great trust in the personality of Yuan Yi and Yuan’ an. "At first, the two brothers wanted to begin with hardware and software development. I took them to Shenzhen and found that many technology companies can make the hardware and even software they want." After considering the cost and manpower required to develop hardware and software, as well as the support of current resources, they decided to change the way and try to catch the advantages of the two brothers. "They are very familiar with the smart home technology in China and the United States, so we decided to start from the integration, containing the top smart home systems, products and auxiliary equipment in the United States and China." Therefore, the HAP came into being.
Yuan Yi said: "At the beginning we didn't even know who our customers were, and we were also exploring what products we should sell. Dr. Weng taught us how to screen and target the right customer base, so that our business can keep sustainable."
Cooperation with Control 4
Control 4 is a public company focusing on the development of smart home systems in the United States, but the systems they provide cannot be purchased separately and could only be sold through professionally trained agents.
HAP chose to cooperate with Control 4 to bring the technology of intelligent platform back to Singapore, and focused on providing customers with one-stop smart home services, from planning, designment, implementation to maintenance. The service includes the network, security, lighting, air conditioning, curtain and audio-visual system control in residential and commercial places. All functional keys are integrated into one app, control panel and universal remote control, so that customers' homes can adapt to new technologies in the next 10 to 15 years.
The advantages of HAP
01 Customized design:
Different from the installation of DIY smart home products in common retail, HAP customized design for their customers before decoration, planned all system settings, interconnected all required equipment with the system, provided complete solutions, and provide continuous maintenance and systematic management after decoration. HAP can not only refine the design of partition function according to customers' needs and preferences, but also offer the function of restoring backup. If system goes wrong or accidentally deletes the scenes settled for different purposes, they can be restored directly without resetting.
02 After-sales service and maintenance
As the customer's technology design consultant, HAP will recommend customers to buy third-party equipment, like switch, TV, audio, access control and security, which are compatible with Control 4 intelligent platform. "Customers can choose to buy cheaper products online, but they believe in us and are willing to buy these directly from us. They are convinced that the after-sales service and support we provide are irreplaceable."
Yuan' an said: "Most customers are very busy during decoration. Some programs need to be changed, but they have no time to do. After customers settle down in their new home, as long as they want to change any program, they can tell us by WhatsApp or WeChat, and we will help them modify it remotely. This strategy saves their time waiting for us to come, and brings customers a better and more convenient after-sales experience. Besides, we are 24/7 online. As long as the problem can be solved remotely, no fee will be charged." HAP also plays the role of technology housekeeper for customers. They regularly come to help customers check, maintain and upgrade the system.
For network security risks of remote login and modification, Yuan Yi said that customers have the initiative to decide whether HAP has the right to log in to their home system remotely or not." In addition, compared with other smart home systems, Control 4 will charge additional fees to maintain the firewall, which can prevent hackers from invading the customer's home system."
Future prospects
In just a few years, HAP has become the agent sales champion of Control 4 in Southeast Asia; HAP completed more than 200 projects in Singapore. The HAP team also flew overseas, such as Philippines and Malaysia, to complete local projects. In the future, apart from continuing to expand its business territory, HAP also want to develop a service center, which can always arrange some customer managers knowing the customer's home system environment, to provide more centralized and customized services when customers have needs. At the same time, HAP also actively expands its product library and improves services to meet the demands of more customers.
"We are lucky to be able to participate in the SMC platform, which allow small companies like us to know more contacts. We met a Chinese company in SMC. They designed security, network and audio-visual systems for China WeWork shared office. Out of trust, they offer their first project in Singapore for us to do. Such a big customer was beyond our reach, but with the SMC platform, we have the opportunity to get our first business project from the large multinational enterprise." Yuan Yi and Yuan’ an also wish to meeting like-minded mentors and friends in SMC to expand their business network and career together.
"The resources and experience of SMC instructors are quite valuable. In the case of HAP, I help them not from the academic side, but from my past practical experience in China and the resources I have abroad." Dr. Weng stressed that these helped start-ups not only have ideals and help from the key people, but also need to keep learning and improve themselves through their own efforts, so as to strive for more opportunities. "The credit and quality of company founder are the most important, which is also what entrepreneurs value most. For these start-ups that deserve trust and support, we use and integrate our resources, experience and funds to help them succeed."