INSIDE THE IND​US​TRY: EPISODE 24 

Tech and live streaming with Kumu 

 
 
Pawi 
Hi I’m Pawi and you’re listening to Rappler Podcasts. You’re listening to Hustle’s Inside the 
Industry, where we talk to professionals and find out how they got here, why they’re doing what 
they do and what it takes to do it. This is Pawi from the Rappler’s Hustle team and joining us 
today is Roland Ross, founder and CEO of Filipino streaming app, Kumu! Welcome Roland! 
 
Roland 
Hey! What’s going on? 
 
Pawi 
For everyone out there keeping score, we’ve spent the past episodes predicting the possible 
futures of industries ranging from food and fashion to fitness and filmmaking but as businesses 
open up and ease into social distancing, we want to bring the spotlight back to the individual 
and their personal stories on innovation and enterprise. On that note, Roland, please tell us what 
Kumu is and how you got it started.  
 
Roland 
I’m actually Filipino-American, born and raised in Los Angeles. My parents were born and raised 
in the Philippines and I’ve always been super curious so when I had an opportunity to study 
abroad, I went to University of the Philippines Los Banos. It was beautiful. With all the things 
happening back home, I felt more at home in the Philippines. After I graduated, I knew I would 
come back. I helped a start-up in Silicon Valley when I had the resources to go back.  
 
I engaged a lot in humanitarian work and that’s where I met my co-founder. He was doing 
internship works with high performing Filipino students from Harvard, Brown, Georgetown, 
University of London, UofT, etc. When I helped him with his non-profit work, the Philippine 
ambassador suggested that I should start a technology company in the Philippines. His 
argument was that the technology jobs and the overall business I could create could have a 
more positive impact.  
 
When I talked to my cofounder about it, we knew we couldn’t do it on our own. What we did is 
we did our version of Avengers (laughs). We looked for our Hulks, Thors and Black Widows; we 
went to New York, Silicon Valley and San Diego and when we had our five Avengers, we all 
moved to the Philippines for a better life.   
 
When we got here, we started getting a lot of advice. We realized that we could build a 
significant business prioritizing the voices of a country. We looked at what WeChat did in China, 
KaKao in Korea and Line in Japan but those are social messaging apps back in 2010. But if you 
look at what Nadiem did with Gojek, it was more of an approach that kind of combined Grab, 
FoodPanda and Gcash into one app. We tried to launch an app in 2018 but the problem was no 
one cared (laughs). ​Who gives a crap about a Filipino Viber? T ​ he younger people are already 
using Telegram, etc. When you looked at what Burbn did, they noticed that not that many people 
were using the messaging function but rather focused on the photo sharing option. They 
pivoted and became Instagram.  
 
Similarly, Slack started as a video gaming platform and pivoted to become a messaging 
platform for teens. The same thing happened to us; we noticed that not many people were using 
the messaging function but a lot were using the live-streaming function and that’s when we 
pivoted in August 2018. Since we rebranded, we got to 4 million users and we became the 
number 1 highest grossing app in the Philippines. But since we captured the market of teens 
and millennials, we also became the number 10 highest grossing social app in Canada, number 
10 in Kuwait and top 25 in Australia, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia.  
 
The key takeaway is becoming this concept of an authentic community, where Gen-Zs and 
millennials are tired of pretending that their lives are perfect, having the anxiety of comparing 
yourself to an ideal perfection that happens in Instagram or hiding behind a keyboard that 
displays toxic behaviour like in Twitter and Facebook. Because Kumu is 100% live, you have an 
opportunity to be real with no edits. On the other side, your content isn’t recognized with views 
and likes. People are recognizing your content by giving you gifts that convert to peso in real 
time. We accidentally built the largest busking community in the world.  
 
Our first believer was Lisa Gokongwei, the founder of Summit Media. Shortly after that with help 
of her siblings, ABS-CBN and the Ayala family with Globe invested became investors. In 
Singapore, Openspace Ventures, who is known as an investor for Gojek, joined as well. They 
hoped that we could be the champion of the Philippines similar to Gojek in Indonesia.  
 
Pawi 
It seems like the only way to thrive in the tech industry is this quality of fluidity. It’s not much 
about the platform or the specific innovation as it is listening to your market and seeing what 
functions they value.  
 
Roland 
Absolutely. You can have an initial idea but you leave enough room for the community to define 
the product. Once it's defined, you start reiterating based on their feedback. Why would I launch 
an app in a country with bad internet? I looked at the data and it looked like from a timing 
perspective, it made a lot of sense.  
 
 
 
Pawi 
We’re starting to see more Filipinos embrace the livestreaming community at large. Let’s zero in 
a bit more on Kumu’s platform specifically. Let’s give our listeners an audio tour on how Kumu 
works.  
 
Roland 
When you download the app, you’ll see an entire wall of livestreamers. The “aha” moment is 
when you find content that is engaging and relevant enough; you get the option to give them a 
“gift”. We give everyone a sample of this gift, like a currency. The halo-halo is 50 centavos, the 
2-piece chicken is one peso and the Malacanang is around PHP 2000. For example, Ivana Alawi 
would go live and you give her a halo-halo. She’ll see it, she’ll go “thank you (insert name here) 
for the halo-halo” and boom, that’s the authentic connection. What’s so beautiful about that is 
it’s not exactly a viral product. We’re more like a social n
​ etwork​ while TikTok is more social 
media​.  
 
Because it’s authentic, you’re not necessarily inviting your family or your friends but rather you’re 
downloading Kumu to find other people who get you. It’s more niche; we have a huge LGBT+ 
community, cosplayers, rappers, and DJs. One of my oldest friends, Angelo Medez, drove those 
kinds of subcultures in Manila. With folks like him, Victoria Herrera and Michiko Soriano, we 
really built a team that can empathize and understand the spirit of the Gen-Z and Millennial 
generation.  
 
Another thing that is more cultural rather than technological value is Kumu’s three core values: 
safety, positivity and acceptance. It creates a safe place. From a technological perspective, we 
take a small percentage of all the transactions and that’s how we earn. We don’t earn through 
AI-driven advertising and because of that, we don’t give data to advertisers. That takes the 
whole privacy issue out. We only have small ad revenue. 
 
Pawi 
Let’s talk more about the behind the scenes of the company. How big is Kumu and how many 
people work there?  
 
Roland 
Right now, we have around 65 people. We had multiple offices. I was sharing an office with 
Summit Media and we had a studio close to ABS-CBN but because of social distancing, we 
decided to just keep the studio open. Everyone now is working from home. Our team is broken 
up into product technology, programming and community. One of my co-workers, James, 
makes sure that we’re like Disneyland; they have one of the strictest security forces on earth. 
They religiously protect this positive atmosphere and that’s why we’re unapologetic with 
creating this community. With social networking, we have people who used to work from GMA 
and ABS-CBN. Because of the digital transformation in the region, it forces these family 
businesses to be more open-minded when it comes to investments. It’s family and we’re very 
grateful.  
 
Pawi 
How many users are we talking about now? How many people are on Kumu?  
 
Roland 
Since COVID, we noticed that we did shoot past 4 million users. They’re spread out around 50 
countries; 25% Metro Manila, 65% in the province (CDO, Cebu, Davao, Ilo-ilo, Bacolod, Naga and 
Laoag) and internationally, we have strong presence in the MENA region (Riyadh, Jeddah, Oman, 
Qatar). There’s also Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, US, Canada, Italy and Norway.  
 
Pawi 
That seems inevitable going back to the DNA of all this. You are yourselves diasporic Filipino 
like myself. When you come back here and work with the industry here, you bring this global 
perspective. That will eventually affect the way you operate.  
 
Roland 
It’s basically globalization. LA had an impact on the world because it was the headquarters of 
film creativity. Silicon Valley was able to have an impact because of the technology companies 
there. When I look at the Philippines, I can see how they make an impact on healthcare workers 
globally. And because of the workforce educated in English, we also became the customer 
service kind of arm for globalization. What would happen if the social media capital of the world 
created its own app? What would it like? That’s why we have some of the largest international 
investors in the world. They’re completely shocked by the type of engagement we’ve been able 
to drive. It’s everything to do with the Philippines being at the forefront of social media. It’s 
about authentic community.  
 
The biggest argument we get is that livestreaming isn’t new and since we’re in the Philippines, 
we’re told we should focus on sexy girls. I’m not going to do that. What we recognized through 
data is that just as enticing women live streaming for money is, there’s more on food, more on 
singing. The number one hashtag right now is t​ ambay​; it’s just people hanging out. 
 
Pawi 
You hit the nail on the head right there. The entrepreneur’s problem that they’re trying to solve is 
the irony that the Filipinos are the biggest voice on social media but we’ve always been the 
users.  
 
Roland 
Exactly. Why chase the culture when you can grow culture? You’ve seen growth hacks where 
YouTubers purposely use hashtags to gain a Filipino audience. When I tell my founder story, I 
purposely say that we all left the United States and moved to the Philippines for a better life. It 
messes with people’s minds because so many people are used to the narrative of going back 
being counterintuitive. We’re really focused on changing that narrative. The Philippines is more 
intuitive than people think.  
 
Pawi 
I’ve been saying that. We always discount ourselves so now is the time to finally unleash it.  
 
Let’s talk about the future a bit more. You’re talking about reaching critical mass, you’re 
reaching all these users and getting all these investments from all over the world. What exactly 
is next for Kumu?  
 
Roland 
Some advice that I got is to recognize where the wave is and ride that wave. The big wave that is 
hitting the Philippines with Kumu being the surfboard is the fact that you’re dealing with one of 
the fastest growing countries in the world right now. It’s a combination of a perfect storm. 
Number one, you have billions of dollars of investments in making the internet better. Number 
two, if you look at all the technology unicorns that happened in India, it all happened after 
Xiaomi, Huawei, VIVO and OPPO flooded the entire country with cheap high quality 
smartphones. They’re all launching 64GB phones for only a hundred dollars, which is crazy. 
Number three, you have a market of over 50 million internet users who are median age. When 
you see those three ingredients together, it’s beautiful.  
 
For us, we have exponential growth in our e-commerce business. We’re dramatically growing 
our user base globally because we’re actually two quarters ahead of schedule. The Philippines 
is going to be a 25 billion dollar economy in the next two to three years and all Kumu needs is a 
small share of that market share to be a significant business. This ironically goes back to what 
my partners said earlier: create technology jobs in the Philippines and that’s how you’re going to 
make an impact. Right now, we have over 240 live streamers who earn full time income on 
Kumu and 6000 who earn part time. That’s what we're focused on.  
 
Pawi 
Kudos to Kumu (laughs). What can aspiring tech entrepreneurs here in the Philippines look 
forward to the tech industry at large?  
 
Roland 
I highly recommend you guys to read the G ​ oogle Temasek Report​ on Southeast Asia because 
you’ll start seeing a lot of different opportunities in terms of improving the way of life in the 
Philippines. The biggest piece of advice I can give is to look at five key things. Number one, it’s 
not just about fundings. Two, what is your technological advantage? Three, how is your team? 
Four, what is your operating plan? Five, the most important thing, is timing. I recommend you 
guys go to ​AIM-Dado Incubator​ at Asian Institute of Management or Q ​ Bo​. Right now, we’re in the 
middle of digital growth. Go out there and try a bunch of stuff because this is an exciting time to 
start a company in the Philippines.  
 
Yeah, there’s COVID but here’s a deal. Look at 2008, it’s in the middle of a crisis with the 
greatest opportunities. If you can find a particular business opportunity in the middle of this 
environment, you’re going to shine and look completely different.  
 
Pawi 
On that note, to wrap things up, we’re continuing to our Play of the Week segment. We talked a 
lot about work and now, let’s talk about play. Any fun activities or recommendations to our 
listeners to unwind from the busyness of business?  
 
Roland 
To unwind, you have to manage what’s in between your ears. I always start the day with a 
ten-minute morning meditation. It’s super simple. I start with gratitude, I put myself on this 
higher presence and think about the things I’m going to accomplish today. It helps retrigger and 
rewire my brain so I don’t have to unwind so much. I could be happy with accomplishing those 
three simple things.  
 
Pawi 
We see some of the best in the world exercise such practices. My play of the week is something 
more specific and it’s a shameless plug. I’m proud to say that I’m celebrating my fifth year as a 
published children’s author this weekend. J ​ amie’s Best Friend​ is now on A​ mazon Kindle​. It’s 
written by me and illustrated by Winnie Wong. It’s around PHP 500; support your local 
storytellers! If you want to keep up with ​Jamie’s Best Friend​, I’m on ​Instagram​.  
 
How about you Roland? How can people keep up with you and Kumu?  
 
Roland 
I’m so lame I’m only on ​LinkedIn​ (laughs). You can just download Kumu on the A
​ pple Store​ and 
the ​Google Playstore​.  
 
Pawi 
Thank you for joining us today, Roland. And thank you for listening! If you haven’t already please 
stay tuned to Hustle’s Inside the Industry on Spotify, Soundcloud, Apple, Google - you name it, 
don’t forget to hit that subscribe button.  
 
Before you go, if you or anyone you know is a professional in a bold and exciting industry, we’d 
love to hear all about it. Email us at h
​ ustle@rappler.com​ for your chance to be the next guest 
here at Inside the Industry.