One can say that Dragonpay’s success was built through partnerships. One can say it is because of their services. Or one can even say that it is because of the founder’s educational background. Though these remain true, Robertson Chiang, the founder of Dragonpay, says that his business’ success and legitimacy was established through honesty and integrity. It may sound cliché but in reality these traits, when tainted, are hard to form once more. Trust between or among parties can last forever, but can also disappear in a snap.
You can say that Robertson Chiang was the prodigy student of his batch in Ateneo de Manila University. Graduating top of his class with a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science, he pursued a career in Citibank as a Systems Analyst. This career path was scissored short when he flew to the US in pursuit of an MBA degree, which he deservingly received in Babson Graduate School of Business. Going back to Manila, he opened up his own Internet Service Provider (ISP), which was later acquired by the biggest private commercial ISP of that time. He joined forces with the bigger company as head of technology but he eventually left to become his own boss. The combination of his undergraduate degree, MBA degree, and work experience only made him better in all angles of his intellect – giving birth to Dragonpay.
Dragonpay started as a side business of Mr. Chiang while he was still under his previous employment. Starting up, his vision was set to processing online payments through credit card and paypal, then to online banking payments. But with the limited results from these channels, he realized that the credit and banking market would not cut his desired target. The truth is only an estimate of 5% in the Philippine population have access to credit cards and only 20% have access to Internet Banking. Knowing that the market is composed in this manner, Mr. Chiang thought of the majority, who the e-Commerce merchants have not tapped. This gave way for Dragonpay to expand their services to over-the-counter payments, which unsurprisingly rocketed the venture from a sideline to a frontline, single entity business. With this big shift in attention, he opted out from being an employee and became a full time parent to Dragonpay.
Ever since Dragonpay acknowledged this truth about the Philippine market, business has been consistently performing – although as with any business venture, barriers must be overcome. The main barrier to this venture is gaining the trust of merchants and of course, the consumers. There is no exact science to this, leaving Dragonpay to resort to the classic act of persuasion. Being a startup company themselves, there is no other way but to make other merchants understand the idea of the business. Fortunately enough, at the right place and time, merchants understood that with the statistics laid out, there is a need to acquire Dragonpay in their e-Commerce business. Along the way, Mr. Chiang was able to partner up with bigger companies who trusted their word from the very beginning. Showing that their service is full of potential and beneficial to all parties, these bigger names in different industries pursued the relationship and aided Dragonpay’s legitimacy as a full-grown business.
Today, Dragonpay champions in three services – namely, online payment solution, mass payout, and recurring payments. These well thought-of services are steadily growing to what Mr. Chiang envisioned from the very beginning. It truly was a trial and error process for Dragonpay, but they made it to where they wanted to be one way or another. Mr. Chiang exclaimed, “Find out what went wrong, fix it; do it all over again.” This advice of his seems obvious. One could say, “I knew that.” But not everyone can say, “I made it.”
In late 2014, GMO Payment Gateway, the biggest payment gateway in Japan, made a minority investment in Dragonpay. The partnership is expected to take the company to its next level of growth. More than anything else, the investment is also a testament to the soundness of the company’s business model and its prospect for further growth.
To know more about Dragonpay and their services, visit them at www.dragonpay.ph. This may be the missing payment solution to your business.
