Passber – Communities Matter
Ivan (left) and Andy
Andy Leung 梁懿豐 (MSc(ECom&IComp) 2013)
Ivan Law 羅凱弘 (MSc(ECom&IComp) 2014)
Passber (Passport for Membership) is a startup founded by Andy and Ivan, who met at HKU while they were studying with the MSc in E-Commerce and Internet Computing programme. Passber is a specialised platform that focuses on communities’ growth by connecting people and enhancing online-to-offline (O2O) collaboration. Their original idea was to create a system that streamlined the membership management of HKU’s alumni associations and enhanced community engagement. Passber enables higher accessibility to club information and services, and better collaboration with external partners. “A lot of clubs are managed on a voluntary basis. Our software can provide them with greater efficiencies and effectiveness,” said Ivan.
Andy and Ivan faced many challenges during the early stages of starting the business. One that affected them deeply was an unsuccessful partnership, which caused the project to be delayed.
“We faced the problem of cash flow. Our ex-partner wanted us to shift our priority and focus on developing products for others, rather than our target of HKU alumni. We said no. We believed in our idea and the only thing to do was to go ahead and make our plan work,” said Andy.
“We learnt a hard lesson. We really need to pay close attention to who we work with and avoid losing credit for the work we’ve done,” expressed Ivan.
“However, we received a lot of support from the alumni and professors of our “MEICOM” community during our most difficult times. We understand the true value of a community is people,” said Andy. “A company is a community that needs people who have the same goals, values and vision in order to grow together. No matter how technologies evolve, people still need to live in a community and the community needs people to build it. That is why we believe in Passber.”