Chen Junyi in the Digital Age

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M2COMM's founder and chairman, Wei Junkai, holds a doctorate and master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, and holds multiple patents. With a technical background, he is very eloquent when it comes to communication protocols and the Internet of Things. Under his leadership, M2COMM is heading towards the world. How can Taiwan's new startups gain a place in the development of the Internet of Things?

Wei Junkai, the founder of M2COMM (hereinafter referred to as Yunchuang), opened a black briefcase to show M2COMM's main "visible" product - electronic shelf labels. After the startup screen flashed several times, a few lines of text and prices were displayed on the label. The highly stylish appearance of the electronic shelf label was finalized after many designs. "European customers are very picky about the design." Wei Junkai said. The electronic shelf labels of different sizes in the box have helped Yunchuang to travel to 12 countries around the world, and the cumulative shipment volume has exceeded 1 million.

However, looking back at the development of M2COMM at the beginning, the electronic shelf label is a bit like an "accident". Talking about this entrepreneurial journey, Wei Junkai started with his view on the opportunities of the Internet of Things, "Is the Internet of Things a must-have device for consumers?"

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Targeting enterprise customers, building a communication protocol from scratch

Wei Junkai believes that the current development of the Internet of Things has not yet found rigid demand on the consumer side. "For consumers, Internet of Things products are just nice to have." Therefore, before starting, M2COMM targeted corporate customers because the Internet of Things can indeed create new value for enterprises, reduce waste, and increase returns. "In short, there is ROI (return on investment)."

Take the electronic shelf labels used in retail stores as an example: When a new marketing strategy is launched, it used to take a lot of time and manpower to make and place paper labels. If the results are not satisfactory, changing the marketing strategy is another hassle. If various information can be linked through electronic price tags, "a new promotion strategy can be decided in the morning and take effect in the afternoon. If the checkout system does not respond well, it can be changed immediately." Wei Junkai said.
After choosing the enterprise end as the target, Yunchuang began to build its own "Internet of Things communication protocol". This direction is not only rarely touched by new startups, but even many large companies in Taiwan have shied away from it. Building a communication protocol is naturally difficult, but what is even more difficult is that the subsequent verification requires a high cost and time. "How do you make customers believe that your protocol can work? The best way is to demonstrate it yourself." Wei Junkai said.

So M2COMM entered the retail industry and began to build electronic shelf labels, IoT local area network base stations, and even back-end network management software. In the end, Yunchuang did everything. They tried to learn about manufacturers, supply chains, electronic circuits and other areas that they were not familiar with. It took more than three years to get customers and understand electronic shelf labels and IoT solutions. Currently, M2COMM's products are available in retail stores in France, Germany, Belgium and other places.

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Goal: To become the Internet of Things (IoT) platform

The horizontal field other than retail is the next potential source of revenue for M2COMM. "There are more and more demands for connectivity in other fields, whether it is manufacturing, logistics, automation control, or medicine and healthcare," said Wei Junkai.

For the next stage of Yunchuang, the electronic price tag is more like a product for the show of force. In the future, different terminal devices in different fields will need to be connected to the Internet. As long as the underlying communication architecture is similar, Yunchuang can provide a networking environment and cooperate with partners in the ecosystem to provide services.

For example, medical institutions may need special tablets and devices to connect to the Internet. "They have their own ideas and cooperative manufacturers. We will work with these manufacturers to teach them how to use Yunchuang's IoT architecture to connect devices," said Wei Junkai.

After all, in the world of IoT, there are all kinds of terminal devices, and each vertical field has different application methods. For IoT to expand, the most important thing is the ecosystem. Experts in vertical fields may have a deep understanding of devices, peripherals, and usage scenarios, but they don’t understand communications. The communication environment and platform provided by Yunchuang can make their imagination of IoT come true.

Q: Why did you choose the European market as your target?

Electronic shelf labels have been used in Europe for some time, especially in Northern Europe where labor is expensive. Although the early electronic shelf labels were not smart and could only communicate in one direction, the European market is already quite familiar with their existence. When developing new products, you must consider market acceptance. If you also need to educate the market, it will be very hard for startups.

Q: What is the next important issue in the Internet of Things?

In the future, people will pay more and more attention to information security. No one wants their data to go through other people's servers, especially in the manufacturing industry with extremely confidential data. They all hope to be able to control all the data themselves, so the regional IoT environment is very important, and Yunchuang's products can also reflect the value.

Q: What’s the next step for M2COMM?

We are promoting the regional IoT platform to more different fields. Currently, Japanese semiconductor manufacturers have applied Yunchuang Communication's electronic tags. We are also cooperating with convenience stores and drug stores in Taiwan. In the next 3-6 months, we will see convenience stores adopting our electronic tags.