As the saying goes, every successful company begins by solving a problem. For igloo’s co-founder and CEO, Anthony Chow, the company’s inception was driven by his desire to address a personal pain point.
During Airbnb’s heydays, Chow and his partners leased a bungalow in Singapore and made good money renting it out for the short term. However, in 2016, when the clampdown on the bed and breakfast company came into play, the men were forced to pivot to a new business idea.
They thought: “Since we can no longer do Airbnb listing management, why don’t we commercialise the tools we have put together and sell them to Airbnb homes around the world?” The group had by then invented a “key box” for property owners to place a door key inside a box that guests could access with a pin code independently and remotely.
The box saved Airbnb hosts time and effort as they did not physically have to be present to unlock the property every time a new guest arrived. It was also a secure solution for both hosts and guests. Chow and his partners pitched the idea to Airbnb, who then agreed on a partnership to kick off the business.
The group first called themselves igloohome and began iterating on the key box lock, their first product. They eventually invented an offline access technology called algoPin, which allows pin codes to be deployed and used on an igloo smart lock without the need for wifi.
“Our proprietary technology, algoPin, is similar to what we use in banking token systems today, that changes with every single reservation,” explains Chow, who is the winner for this year’s EY Entrepreneur Of The Year award under the Technology Solutions category.
See also: Dian Xiao Er tastes success with automation and Cambodia plans
The partnership with Airbnb led to their key locks being used in even the most remote locations, including the top of a mountain in Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia, and boat rental companies in Scandinavia.
“And that was the genesis of creating igloohome at the time, right now know as igloo. As the company grew, we became bolder and wanted to create a bigger vision, so we set ourselves an ambition to create a world without keys,” says Chow.
A range of locks
igloo began to realise that owners of rental properties listed on Airbnb were willing to install smart locks instead of replacing the lock entirely. So Chow and his team designed a range of locks focused on different markets.
See also: Tecity Group aims to craft a legacy beyond tradition
One particular product is Retrofit, a smart lock that can be physically installed over a thumbturn lock of a regular door lock, took off. What made these locks unique, particularly as digital locks have been an invention that has existed in the last 20 years, is that they brought the digital world into the smart world.
This smart lock allows asset owners to set new pin numbers or codes anytime and anywhere. This feature is unique as the Airbnb market or rental economy usually exists in places with no wifi connection, according to Chow.
While other companies purchase locks from a standard original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and put their logos on top of the product, igloo has an entire R&D centre in China where they design everything from scratch and stress test their products.
Last year, the company showcased its technology by placing its Smart Padlock 2 into a balloon and sending it up into the atmosphere, some 3,000 km above the Earth’s surface, where it would be tested to see if it could survive negative 65°C in space.
“We managed to show how to unlock it from above, with no connection, working in minus 65°C conditions,” says Chow. Upon successful testing, the padlock was sent back to Earth, still in working condition.
Unsurprisingly, igloo’s locks have since won several accolades, from innovation to design. These include CES Innovation Awards, DFA Design for Asia Award, Design Concept Award and Red Dot Design Award.
“Reliability and robustness is the name of the game. We need to make sure that it’s reliable from a hardware perspective and a firmware/software perspective,” says Chow. The firm is also the only smart access company to receive accreditation from a validation for companies to be trustworthy, high-quality tech provider with solutions suitable for government and enterprise adoption.
“By also not depending on wifi, we’re selling peace of mind. Because wifi can be easily hacked, having a lock that is compromised is not something that can be taken lightly,” says Chow.
Covid and sharing economy
When Covid-19 arrived, companies worldwide were forced to evolve or die. Likewise, for Chow and his partners, the 24 months of the pandemic were some of the most defining moments for the business.
As a company that relied on travel and tourism, the uncertainty threatened its business model. With little clue about how and when the sector might recover, the founders had to bite the bullet and adapt their products to the new world.
Chow recalls how the founding team took the first flight out of Singapore to the US once vaccinated travel lanes opened up, as the US market had been more ripe for their products to take off.
Then, a new paradigm sprung up from the pandemic: the rise of the sharing economy, in which individuals and businesses no longer wanted to own their assets, and asset-renting began to take off.
The rental economy became a huge boom for igloo as it realised that these rental companies found it difficult to hire workers to manage their assets. A more convenient solution would be to allow people to rent their assets independently, which they could manage using a smart lock.
Today, Kayakomat, the world’s first unmanned kayak rental company with a fleet of 10,000 kayaks around Europe, is a customer of igloo. Skipperi, a spare boat rental company in Sweden, is also one of the company’s customers.
Outside of Europe, some of the biggest hospitality names in the US are customers of igloo. These include Oyo, Zillow and Open Door. Tennis Australia, a tennis court rental company, is also a customer.
“This year had [our] best year ever in France because of the Olympics. Many companies deployed short-term rental for the Olympics; they were deploying their locks there,” says Chow.
Taking it a step further, igloo also has software technology that allows over 2,000 of its customers to integrate their businesses into the ecosystem. A purchaser of a smart lock will also have access to their software platform, which allows users to automate the entire check-in and turn-over process remotely.
“We created software as an end-to-end solution for these companies to pick up, and then we realised that this was a big shift for us to enter the wider access control industry,” says Chow.
Many players in the access control industry are established incumbents who are thinking of digitalising their businesses, which Chow believes he and his team can capitalise on.
The mindset of a founder
For many other founders, being hit with a global pandemic and a regulatory hurdle may have been enough reason to quit. Yet Chow and his partners have barely thought about giving up.
Their motivation comes from hearing from their customers, who are often also entrepreneurs, about how their lock solutions have been the key to their businesses thriving during the pandemic. With a remote and independent solution, igloo has enabled these companies to continue to operate and scale faster than they would have ever thought possible.
“I think this is meaningful, as we showed that what we created has relevance and impact. It continues to drive forward the sharing economy, which also has a sustainability impact behind it,’ says Chow.
Today, igloo operates out of eight different office locations around the world. It is dual-headquartered in Singapore and Austin, Texas, and has a centre of engineering excellence operating out of Shenzhen, China.
Certainly, Chow’s vision is to create a world without keys. Today’s global smart lock penetration rate is a single-digit percentage, meaning that igloo has a long runway.
With Covid-19 as a turning point, the company now generates over 75,000 access credentials a day and more than 25 million a year, over 100 cities all around the world, way more than they could’ve ever imagined.
“For aspiring entrepreneurs and business leaders, I would say that you should be an unreasonable optimist, but at the same time, surround yourself with good people that cover for many of your flaws,” Chow says. “We are still a work in progress; there are still challenges for us, but we have a good team that complements each other’s strengths. Approach it with humility and a good heart, and I think you can make it work.”
Visit https://store-sg.igloohome.co/ for more information on the company
