Since October 2023, the startup company metabiz joined in the 1st Batch of LITEON+ Accelerator Program at the X SITE. Adam Lien (the founder) and their team members have worked at the X SITE one after another from four workplaces and held the monthly meetings. The following highlights the content of this interview.
As CEO of metabiz (2022-2024), Adam drove AI and centralized platforms for client growth. His Shop123 tenure as IT Director (2015-2022) laid the groundwork for tech integration and customer experience enhancement. Previously, at Cloud Parkview Co., Ltd. (2012-2014), he focused on IT strategies and R&D. Concurrently, at New5TV Co., Ltd. (2012-2013), he blended IT and marketing for business strategies. His career began at SAMPO Co., Ltd. (2007-2012), shaping his IT skills. He believes in AI and central platforms for exceeding client expectations, and driving sustainable growth and profitability. This philosophy drives his career, converging technology and business strategy for lasting value.
Co-founder of metabiz since 2022, Blake has dedicated himself to creating value with a focus on benefiting Taiwan. Before this venture, he held the position of Vice President of Sales at TutorABC from 2015, where he successfully led a dynamic team of over a hundred sales professionals. His entrepreneurial spirit thrived between 2013 and 2014 when he established Zcard, an electronic business card service, and Keeptouchme, a social networking platform. Earlier, from 2010 to 2013, he launched The Fifth Avenue, a community networking platform designed to foster social connections. His career is underpinned by a commitment to genuinely contribute to Taiwan's betterment.
Adam: I am the founder of metabiz. In the past, I majored in Systems Engineering at the Ocean University. Both my undergraduate and graduate studies were in Systems Engineering, also known as Naval Architecture. However, I have never been fond of studying and have always been more interested in employment. I used to work as a salesman at C-net. After graduating from graduate school, I served in the military for about six years, during which I was involved in RD (Research Development) related to structural design.
metabiz is the third company I founded with Blake. Before this, our first entrepreneurial venture was in organizing social events, and the second one was in cross-border e-commerce. During our second venture, we felt we encountered bottlenecks and lacked relevant knowledge. At that time, after reading a manga called Sanctuary (“サンクチュアリ”), we were inspired not to enter politics but to believe that if we wanted to become successful entrepreneurs, we needed to solidly strengthen our deficient skills.
For our third entrepreneurial journey, we believed it was crucial to have one person with a technical background and another focusing on business development. So, I joined SHOP123, starting from the basic RD, and he joined Tutor ABC, starting from the grassroots level of business. Later, he was promoted to Business Director, and I became the Technical Director at SHOP123. When we felt it was time, we decided to start our third entrepreneurial venture.
Blake: I am a co-founder of metabiz. Influenced by my family, I started helping with street vending since junior high school, gaining an understanding of what business entails. I've had an interest in entrepreneurship from a young age and even started a studio at the age of 18. I studied marketing at Ling Tung University and worked in sales for 2-3 years. Through a chance encounter, I met Adam, and we formed a team organizing social events. As Adam mentioned, we faced challenges during our entrepreneurial journey. We knew how to form a small team but lacked knowledge on expanding or planning the next steps. So, Adam and I decided to return to 'Social University' for further education.
During my time at Tutor ABC, spanning 6-7 years, I witnessed the rapid expansion of a brand. I quickly rose through the ranks from Business Coordinator to Deputy General Manager. I was in charge of leading over ten team supervisors, making it a valuable learning experience for me.
In 2021, feeling that I had learned enough, Adam asked if I wanted to lend a hand, and I decided to leave a job with an annual salary of three million to help him. Our strong emotional connection and synergy in entrepreneurship were gradually cultivated through continuous collaboration. One crucial key to our success is 'altruism.' If he needs me to do something, I will go, regardless of my current salary. When entering the e-commerce industry and starting from scratch, I began my journey from the front lines as a 'technical customer service' representative.
Adam: Actually, the current team members were recruited through the Virtual Book Club that started in January 2021. At that time, we gathered about twenty to thirty individuals every Sunday evening for online discussions on entrepreneurial books. Through the book club format, we gradually filtered out those who couldn't commit time or didn't align with our philosophy. When we officially founded the company in July 2021, there were originally five founding shareholders. As of now, with the inclusion of our partner company, there are approximately twelve colleagues in our company. Each team member has a slightly different background, and typically, for a specific project or product, we might have around five different roles, with the leader varying.
The establishment of the core technology, the middleware system, was actually the result of solving a problem for a client. For example, Happy Hair has around 70 stores across Taiwan and owns ten brands. Initially, they spent three to four years and millions of dollars creating an app, but it couldn't be launched on time. In the third year, when they told me they were finally ready to launch, they had a falling out with the app development company. They asked me to help them resolve some issues, and during this process, we realized there was a market demand for the middleware system. In a hurry, within a little over a month, we helped them create a prototype for Line and enabled them to achieve their goals. We used the middleware to manage their over 400,000 members, including the operations of their seventy offline stores. This allowed them direct access to core data such as product information and member orders.
Blake: Since August of last year, we have seen an increase in the number of small and medium-sized clients using our product for marketing websites. We are excited about the opportunity to be at LITEON+, as we have always lacked resources from accelerators. We hope to gain assistance through classes or understanding what other companies are doing. One of the best things about joining the X SITE at LITEON+ is the ability to attend classes and engage in further communication with internal LITEON staff. This has allowed us to understand what enterprises are looking for. We currently have some ideas, such as using our existing technology to assist all social innovation enterprises.
Our inspiration comes from LITEON Collection. Interestingly, many of its products are collaborations with social innovation enterprises. Many of these enterprises lack resources for promotion and sales, not because their products are inferior, but due to a lack of exposure opportunities. In the first phase of this project, we aim to help all social innovation brands establish their independent stores, at least allowing their products to be exposed online. The second phase involves helping them list all their products and, through middleware technology, integrate all products with customers to create a large-scale social innovation and sustainable marketplace, allowing all their products to be showcased online. With our current technology, we should be able to achieve the second phase. The third phase involves expanding this marketplace to both online and offline, such as collaborating with Shopee's locations to serve as dedicated pickup points for social enterprises or opening showcase and physical stores for social innovation products. Smart warehouse design could even lead to unmanned stores.
Within government organizations, there are 850 registered as social organizations. They work on projects and products that are beneficial to society, but very few people are aware of this because they lack the capability or time. Just surviving is challenging enough for them. Hence, they need a powerful system to integrate them all and exert influence in the market.
Our collaboration partners at LITEON find this initiative excellent, and we discuss how to drive it every Friday afternoon at X SITE.
Since October 2023, the startup company metabiz joined in the 1st Batch of LITEON+ Accelerator Program at the X SITE. Adam Lien (the founder) and their team members have worked at the X SITE one after another from four workplaces and held the monthly meetings. The following highlights the content of this interview.
Adam: I am the founder of metabiz. In the past, I majored in Systems Engineering at the Ocean University. Both my undergraduate and graduate studies were in Systems Engineering, also known as Naval Architecture. However, I have never been fond of studying and have always been more interested in employment. I used to work as a salesman at C-net. After graduating from graduate school, I served in the military for about six years, during which I was involved in RD (Research Development) related to structural design.
metabiz is the third company I founded with Blake. Before this, our first entrepreneurial venture was in organizing social events, and the second one was in cross-border e-commerce. During our second venture, we felt we encountered bottlenecks and lacked relevant knowledge. At that time, after reading a manga called Sanctuary (“サンクチュアリ”), we were inspired not to enter politics but to believe that if we wanted to become successful entrepreneurs, we needed to solidly strengthen our deficient skills.
For our third entrepreneurial journey, we believed it was crucial to have one person with a technical background and another focusing on business development. So, I joined SHOP123, starting from the basic RD, and he joined Tutor ABC, starting from the grassroots level of business. Later, he was promoted to Business Director, and I became the Technical Director at SHOP123. When we felt it was time, we decided to start our third entrepreneurial venture.
Blake: I am a co-founder of metabiz. Influenced by my family, I started helping with street vending since junior high school, gaining an understanding of what business entails. I've had an interest in entrepreneurship from a young age and even started a studio at the age of 18. I studied marketing at Ling Tung University and worked in sales for 2-3 years. Through a chance encounter, I met Adam, and we formed a team organizing social events. As Adam mentioned, we faced challenges during our entrepreneurial journey. We knew how to form a small team but lacked knowledge on expanding or planning the next steps. So, Adam and I decided to return to 'Social University' for further education.
During my time at Tutor ABC, spanning 6-7 years, I witnessed the rapid expansion of a brand. I quickly rose through the ranks from Business Coordinator to Deputy General Manager. I was in charge of leading over ten team supervisors, making it a valuable learning experience for me.
In 2021, feeling that I had learned enough, Adam asked if I wanted to lend a hand, and I decided to leave a job with an annual salary of three million to help him. Our strong emotional connection and synergy in entrepreneurship were gradually cultivated through continuous collaboration. One crucial key to our success is 'altruism.' If he needs me to do something, I will go, regardless of my current salary. When entering the e-commerce industry and starting from scratch, I began my journey from the front lines as a 'technical customer service' representative.
Adam: Actually, the current team members were recruited through the Virtual Book Club that started in January 2021. At that time, we gathered about twenty to thirty individuals every Sunday evening for online discussions on entrepreneurial books. Through the book club format, we gradually filtered out those who couldn't commit time or didn't align with our philosophy. When we officially founded the company in July 2021, there were originally five founding shareholders. As of now, with the inclusion of our partner company, there are approximately twelve colleagues in our company. Each team member has a slightly different background, and typically, for a specific project or product, we might have around five different roles, with the leader varying.
The establishment of the core technology, the middleware system, was actually the result of solving a problem for a client. For example, Happy Hair has around 70 stores across Taiwan and owns ten brands. Initially, they spent three to four years and millions of dollars creating an app, but it couldn't be launched on time. In the third year, when they told me they were finally ready to launch, they had a falling out with the app development company. They asked me to help them resolve some issues, and during this process, we realized there was a market demand for the middleware system. In a hurry, within a little over a month, we helped them create a prototype for Line and enabled them to achieve their goals. We used the middleware to manage their over 400,000 members, including the operations of their seventy offline stores. This allowed them direct access to core data such as product information and member orders.
Blake: Since August of last year, we have seen an increase in the number of small and medium-sized clients using our product for marketing websites. We are excited about the opportunity to be at LITEON+, as we have always lacked resources from accelerators. We hope to gain assistance through classes or understanding what other companies are doing. One of the best things about joining the X SITE at LITEON+ is the ability to attend classes and engage in further communication with internal LITEON staff. This has allowed us to understand what enterprises are looking for. We currently have some ideas, such as using our existing technology to assist all social innovation enterprises.
Our inspiration comes from LITEON Collection. Interestingly, many of its products are collaborations with social innovation enterprises. Many of these enterprises lack resources for promotion and sales, not because their products are inferior, but due to a lack of exposure opportunities. In the first phase of this project, we aim to help all social innovation brands establish their independent stores, at least allowing their products to be exposed online. The second phase involves helping them list all their products and, through middleware technology, integrate all products with customers to create a large-scale social innovation and sustainable marketplace, allowing all their products to be showcased online. With our current technology, we should be able to achieve the second phase. The third phase involves expanding this marketplace to both online and offline, such as collaborating with Shopee's locations to serve as dedicated pickup points for social enterprises or opening showcase and physical stores for social innovation products. Smart warehouse design could even lead to unmanned stores.
Within government organizations, there are 850 registered as social organizations. They work on projects and products that are beneficial to society, but very few people are aware of this because they lack the capability or time. Just surviving is challenging enough for them. Hence, they need a powerful system to integrate them all and exert influence in the market.
Our collaboration partners at LITEON find this initiative excellent, and we discuss how to drive it every Friday afternoon at X SITE.
