A rumbling good idea
It all started with not knowing what to eat while seated in a restaurant in Silicon Valley. Elisha Ong and Dixon Chan, who were on a year-long overseas entrepreneurial internship programme with NUS Overseas Colleges, were stuck over menu choices and resorted to checking online reviews and friends’ recommendations. The meal and experience reinforced their belief that recommendations from friends were more reliable than those from unfamiliar reviewers. They felt compelled to do something about it and thus Burpple was born.

Burppling from Singapore to the world
Back home, and upon graduating from NUS Business School and NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences respectively, Elisha and Dixon incubated their idea at Plug-In@Blk71. Here they met Daniel Hum, who joined them as Burpple’s third co-founder and technical architect. The trio launched a mobile application by 2012, allowing users to take photos of their favourite food moments and share them with friends. Burpple was met with stomach-rumbling success. This soon led to new developments, including a food exploration feature, a Chinese version and a social food website that guides users on where and what to eat. With expansion plans in Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia, Burpple is already being used in over 115 countries around the world.