PRETTY colours, short blurbs and visual representations of data continue to catch more eyes than long chunks of text in today’s visually driven world — and homegrown Piktochart has created a solution for the increasing demand for eye-catching content.

The Penang-based start-up allows users to create visually appealing infographics, posters and powerpoint slides on its web-based application. While one can access the Piktochart editor and over 4,000 icons and images for free, paid users are entitled to more templates, higher quality exports and larger space for their image uploads, according to the company website.

However, Piktochart is playing in a ferocious competition pool. Apart from the services offered by Microsoft through its Powerpoint and design software, online applications, such as animated presentation maker Prezzi, also enable users to produce graphical content without having to use professional graphic designers.

In addition, many of these companies receive billions of US dollars in funding from parent companies for marketing and branding purposes, according to Goh Ai Ching, co-founder and CEO of Piktochart.

It is, therefore, no small feat that Piktochart has remained profitable without external funding since it was founded in 2011 and recorded five million registered users as at August this year.

Goh attributes much of this not just to growth hacking — that is leveraging social media and other platforms to build brand awareness — but also to Piktochart’s strengths: its existing, easy-to-use platform that allows users to develop infographics, posters and banners based on a variety of templates and designs.

“There is a lot of temptation to say, ‘Hey, let’s build a similar or better product’,” Goh says, when it comes to competition. “We continue to do a lot of research with our users [on what they want and how to improve our product],” she tells The Edge over the phone.

Geographically, 60% of Piktochart’s users are from the US and Canada while its second largest customer pool is a combination of South American and European users, according to Goh.

Surprisingly, Asian markets make up only 10% of the company’s customer base.

Goh is a nominee for the woman entrepreneur category of the award.

When asked if continued expansion into this part of the world is part of Piktochart’s plans, Goh says that based on its market studies, Asian markets want something very different from what the company is offering.

“We started two new companies to look into the South Korean and Japanese markets two years ago,” Goh shares.

However, she is of the opinion that it distracted Piktochart from its core business and “I still think we can’t afford that distraction”.

Meanwhile, whereas most companies are interested in scaling larger and growing their employee base, Goh hopes to keep the team small. It was expanded this year to 56 people at the last count, an increase in manpower of 23 people, or 70%, from 33 at the start of last year. It is also a significant leap from when Piktochart was founded back in February 2011 with merely four employees, according to the company website.

Goh remains concerned about whether the company has already hired one person too many, as she believes that it is not necessary to grow in numbers if existing employees are focused on achieving results.

In terms of developing the product, however, she envisions developing a creative suite of some sort while she continues to play an active role in steering the company in the years to come. In the meantime, husband and co-founder Andrea Zaggia is set to focus on engineering and development within Piktochart.

Piktochart stands apart from other companies in more ways than one. Whereas most firms are created with a core business in mind — namely to sell a particular product or service — Goh simply wanted to build an environment in which she was happy to wake up for work every day. It was while she held a corporate position at Procter & Gamble that the experimental psychology graduate decided she wanted more from her job.

“My main purpose was to create a company (if we couldn’t find one) that thinks a lot about how its people can become fulfilled and come to work with joy,” Goh says, adding that far from not finding her corporate job unfulfilling, she had simply wanted a different working environment.

It was only after she had left her previous position and founded Yet Another Studio, a design agency, with Zaggia that Goh picked up on the hunger for visualisation on the internet, thus leading to the idea of creating infographics.

Her focus on workplace culture has resulted in what Goh refers to as a “very consensus-driven and democratic company” although she says she had a lot to learn from employees who felt they weren’t being given enough direction.

Asked who has inspired her, Goh says that different people have been an inspiration at different stages of her life.

“But the one who has continued to be there and whom I can say is my strongest pillar of support would be my husband,” Goh says.

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