This episode of The Startup Vagabond is a conversation with Davidson Chua, founder of Influences, a Singapore-based platform helping creators and brands work together more effectively.
Davidson’s founder story started with Autosafe, a car community he built in Singapore during the COVID period. What began as a way to bring car enthusiasts together eventually became a marketing and media channel for brands. That experience showed him a bigger problem: companies were spending money on creators and campaigns without enough data, structure, or clarity around performance.
Influences is built to solve that problem.
The platform helps creators and brands manage campaign communication, track performance, organize revisions, measure ROI, and make creator marketing less fragmented. Instead of juggling emails, WhatsApp, Telegram messages, spreadsheets, and manual reports, Influences gives both sides a clearer way to collaborate.
We also talk about Davidson’s go-to-market strategy, including a creator hackathon that helped the company validate the problem, engage creators and brands, and drive early user growth. Since launching in July, Influences has reached thousands of users in Singapore and is now focused on building the right team and company culture before expanding into Malaysia, Indonesia, and other markets.
The broader takeaway: creator marketing is no longer just about reach. It is becoming infrastructure. Brands need better data, creators need better tools, and founders need to solve real operational pain instead of chasing hype.