Issue07 : 07 July 2014

Natavudh Pungcharoenpong

In only three years, Ookbee has climbed from nothing to becoming the number one e-book application in Southeast Asia. Horizon Thailand talks with its CEO.

What's your background in the IT business?
Back in 2000 right after my masters in Industrial Engineering, I started my first company – IT WORKS. My initial thought was that it could be a good business doing programming work for Japanese companies in Bangkok. In reality, it was not as smooth as I thought and there were many lessons I learned along the way. We were doing mobile programming outsourcing for foreign customers in Japan and the US. It was this which introduced us to the business that turned out to be Ookbee today.

How did you start Ookbee?
Four years ago, when the first tablet (iPad) had just come out, I thought it would be nice if we could read all these local books and magazines on tablets so we wouldn’t have to carry them around. We also wanted them to be more than just plain text and pictures. We did some market research and in the end we built OOKBEE to make the wish come true.

What were your initial problems?
One of the things we considered was whether Thais were willing to spend money on digital content especially e-magazines and e-books considering there are so many pirated Thai movies and music content. We decided that the only way to find out was to try the market. After several months, we discovered there is a market to sell these digital publications in Thailand. Since then our user-base has grown constantly.

So Ookbee has been a success?
It’s been great. So far we have more than seven million downloads and more than five million users. We are adding almost 10,000 new users every day.

To what do you attribute this?
I think doing the right thing at the right time and place, and pushing hard for it. These are probably the key factors. Hire great people. You need a core team who you can depend on for creating something significant. The team should be able to adapt to changing market conditions. And it’s always a good idea to hire great people even if you still don’t know what role they will fill in your team.

What are the main obstacles to making Ookbee more successful?
Hiring….It’s difficult to hire fast enough for our regional expansion. 

What are your future plans?
I want Ookbee to become one of the regional leaders for digital content with operations in all countries across ASEAN. We are currently expanding to Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines as part of our regional expansion.

What is the future for ASEAN start-ups?
I think it is bright. The internet and mobile penetration in ASEAN is growing at an unbelievable pace, creating lots of opportunity for entrepreneurs who can find the right product market fit.

What tips do you have for anyone planning to start up their own company?
Know what makes you happy and commit to doing it. Building your own start-up, doing something you love and building products you are passionate about, I believe, is one of life’s greatest rewards.

For more information on Ookbee, please visit http://www.ookbee.com/en/ookbee.html.