Ep 179 | John Fan Pic Collage CoFounder: Creating Jobs for Taiwan's Most Talented Diaspora Since 2011

Apr 19, 2022

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A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:

So much has happened since I interviewed John Fan, one of the co-founders of PicCollage back in December. PicCollage is an app that allows you to create fun things with your photos and videos. It is one of the most popular apps in the photo and video app category in the app store.

We actually spoke the day after Talking Taiwan won a Golden Crane Podcast Award. It was a fascinating conversation not only about PicCollage, but about what it was like for John being in Taiwan when it was one of the few places in the world relatively unaffected by COVID at the beginning of the pandemic, and how it attracted COVID refugees that included some of Taiwan’s most talented influential diaspora. John also talked about how the startup scene in Taiwan has changed in the ten years that he’s lived there.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

How PicCollage is an app that allows you to create fun things with your photos and videos
How PicCollage as a company that creates a variety of apps related to greetings, video editing, and wellness
The WOWSHI app inspired by Japanese washi tapes designed to mimic the tactile experience of applying washi tape, which can be a form of relaxation
The idea for the WOWSHI app came out of the realization that during the pandemic people were looking for ways to de-stress
How PicCollage was started 10 years ago and was initially designed primarily for the iPad
10 years ago apps like Uber, Instagram and Snapchat were still relatively new
How PicCollage was started in Silicon Valley but has much of its operations in Taiwan
John’s experience as a Taiwanese American having moved to Taiwan and lived there for 10 years
The challenges of running a business in multiple time zones
The advantages of running a business in Taiwan
The freedom and creativity in Taiwan
The popularity of bubble tea and cat cafes of Taiwan
How Taiwan is connected to and influenced by China, Japan and the U.S.
Taiwan’s kawaii i.e. cute aesthetic which has been influenced by Japan
Kawaii culture in the in the campaign for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian
How Bitmoji was created in 2007
PicCollage’s Silicon Valley values and Taiwanese employees
How PicCollage has offered its team members U.S. $3,500 to spend on learning about or getting training on something of their own choice
How PicCollage’s values are a mix from Silicon Valley and Taiwan: Always Be Learning. Be Proactive and Overcommunicate. Win As A Team.
How PicCollage has changed and evolved over time
John’s work experience prior to PicCollage
What it has been like starting and running PicCollage
How PicCollage values user feedback and has invited users to come in for user interviews on Fridays
What they have learned from user feedback e.g. the ability to save/back up the collages on their phone in the cloud
Artist collaborations with PicCollage have included collaborations with individual artists, Sanrio, and tokidoki
What it’s been like being in Taiwan when it was relatively unaffected by COVID at the beginning of the pandemic, and attracted COVID refugees
How Taiwan was one of the first countries to be aware of the threat of COVID early on in the pandemic and was prepared due to its prior experience with SARS
How Taiwan was able to maintain zero COVID cases up until April/May 2021 and attracted COVID refugees, like the founders of Rotten Tomatoes, Twitch and YouTube
The use of Gather and Kumospace as Taiwan has gone into partial lockdown and adopted working remotely
How has the startup culture in Taiwan changed in the 10 years that John has been in Taiwan
How software startups exist in the shadows of Taiwan’s two major industries: the semiconductor industry and ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) industry or contract manufacturing industries
How Taiwan can play a role in the software industry
How people in Taiwan vs Japan and Korea, are more willing to take a risk and work for smaller companies instead of large companies and conglomerates
How the startup Gogoro has been able to get a lot of funding
How Appier went public in Japan
There’s been greater investor interest in Taiwan startups than in the past
500 Startups has set up a branch in Taiwan
How there are more VCs (venture capital) in Taiwan now
How there are more VCs investing in software
How Taiwan can excel in creativity and design
Pinkoi. “the Etsy of Asia” that was started in Taiwan
GagaOOLala, an LGBTQ+, “Netflix for Asia” that was started in Taiwan
How Taiwan needs people with senior level experience with product marketing, and engineering management, and this void could be filled by Taiwan’s diaspora or those interested in working with Taiwanese companies
How PicCollage is hiring