Your Grit Story: Recent Episodes

Eric Chan

Welcome to Your Grit Story, where we chat with founders, leaders and changemakers who live by passion and perseverance to make the future a reality. Let’s be inspired by the stories of Grit!

In our latest podcast episode in the #Investing series, we had the privilege of hosting Alexander Piskunov, a Founding Venture Partner at KAAN Ventures. As a founder-turned-investor, Alexander is an esteemed professional with a remarkable background in investments, institutional fundraising, and portfolio development across the USA, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

Alexander's expertise spans emerging markets, making him a highly sought-after mentor and adviser in prestigious acceleration programs like the Founder Institute and Techstars. Additionally, he shares his wealth of knowledge as a guest lecturer at University of Cambridge. Having founded and successfully exited his own exotic wines startup, he shares his experience in starting up from scratch.

As the Founding Venture Partner at Kaan Venture Partners, Alexander brings a unique perspective on navigating the intricacies of the tech startup landscape. His experience spans investment banking, pan-European technology M&A, and cross-border tech private equity. With a background as a partner at Ruvento Ventures, a global venture capital fund specializing in early-stage deep-tech investments, Alexander has been at the forefront of shaping the future of innovative technologies.

Join us on this insightful podcast episode as Alexander Piskunov, Founding Venture Partner of Kaan Venture Partners, shares invaluable insights, stories, and advice drawn from his diverse career. Whether you're an investor, entrepreneur, or simply curious about the evolving landscape of finance and technology, this episode is not to be missed.

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🎙️ Podcast Spotlight: "Your Grit Story" Investor Series with Jeremy Au 🎙️

In this episode, we had the honor of hosting Jeremy, a dynamic entrepreneur-turned-investor, as he unveiled his story behind BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech Podcast

No stranger to the #startup community, Jeremy Au started his journey as a founder, spearheading his ventures in the ever-evolving tech landscape. Yet, his fervor for the industry surpassed personal projects, leading him to embrace a new mission: catalyzing innovation on a grander scale. Thus began his transformation from a founder into a pivotal figure in the world of investments.

We spent time unpacking brainchild, the "Brave Southeast Asia Tech Podcast." which captures the narratives of exceptional individuals and companies shaping Southeast Asia's tech realm. Through insightful dialogues, Jeremy's podcast has emerged as a valuable avenue for tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and investors, offering profound insights into the region's thriving tech ecosystem.

In this 52-min episode, we also spoke about

Lessons in Company Building: Disrupting the Norms: 🏗️
Balancing Family, Work, and Life ⏰
Had a good launch about countless topics 😄

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We are starting another evergreen series. The #Investing series.

And we are kicking off with our first guest, Yi Ming, who launched and grew #GrabRentals, the largest private-hire car rental fleet in Singapore, which is owned by Grab.

With over a decade of tech start-up experience, he started Krux Asia , a #VentureBuilder to build and scale high-impact ventures. He is also an Angel Investor, always looking out for companies that uplift people and society! 💫

In this episode, Yi Ming also shared with Eric, fellow Grab junior:

Growing zero to one businesses 📈
Helping #grabbers who were impacted by #RIF 💚
Angel investing in today’s #startup and #investment philosophy
Pitfalls for #founders to avoid 💪
Many others

We will be sharing highlights and more episodes to come!

➕ Follow Your Grit Story Podcast so you won't miss it!

👇 Catch the full episode! Links are in the comment section below.

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The 6th episode of the #Origins series has landed. 🚀

In this episode, we have Jonathan Low with us to share his journey. Being a dad of two, with lots of lessons and experience gathered from his past venture Honestbee, he is now venturing again with Thomas Jiang and Cayter Goh to make #payroll simple with Ajourney (YC S22).

Jonathan and host Eric met 12 years ago at Silicon Valley over NUS Overseas Colleges and the experiences at the Bay Area inspired Jonathan to take the leap into #entrepneurship.

He shared in the episode about:

How experience starting Honestbee is incredibly awesome and incredibly awful as well
How he nearly missed the #YC application when his 2nd kid was just born
What Y Combinator values in the founding team
Juggling being a #parent and running an early startup

➕ Follow Your Grit Story Podcast so you won't miss it!

Ajourney #startup #founder

👇 Check out the full episode links in the comment!

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One day can change your whole life. #GWD2023 #10Jun23

In this year's Global Wellness Day, Alex Loh, CEO and co-founder of Actxa Wellness, shared the #Origins of the wellness startup and how he started his #entrepreneurship journey even when he was a JC teacher back then!

Alex unpacked with host Eric what #Integrated Wellness really means, adding the physical community and activities to the mix, on top of an app-delivered curriculum, delivering holistic employee wellbeing solutions.

In this episode, he shared about being a former national Water Polo player to help Singapore win the gold medal at the 2001 SEA Games. As a passionate community builder, he also spoke about starting Kampung Collective with Andee Chua to unite people and support each other! 👐

🌹Happy Mother’s Day Special Episode!

Episode 4 of the #Origins series landed with Sher-li Torrey sharing how Mums@Work (Singapore) helps mums reintegrate into the workforce. 👩‍💼

Hosted by Eric, who is a fellow parent of two himself, he chatted with Sher-Li about:

👉 The Day One of starting #MumsAtWork in 2010

👉 How #CareerNavigators help Mummies to strike a good work-life balance

👉 Parenting challenges | Not to force fit our own expectations onto our children’s

👉 Balance is ultimately a choice.

If you have a mummy-friend who is looking into reintegrating back to the workforce, you could share these links with her:

🔗 Mums At Work: https://www.mumsatwork.net/about

🔗 Career Navigators: https://www.cnavigators.com.sg/

Check out the full episode in the comments section.

Episode 3 of the #Origins series has launched. 🚀

In this episode, we had Kai, founder of Rocket Academy, a coding bootcamp that helps mid-career switchers land on their first tech role. 👨‍💻 👩‍💻

His journey as a founder did not start with Rocket Academy. After Kai caught the entrepreneurial bug at Silicon Valley while taking Computer Science at Stanford University and working at Nuna Inc., he started Project We Forgot in the healthcare industry before founding #RocketAcademy to help people become #SoftwareEngineers almost 4 years ago.

After helping Tech folks land jobs in top tech companies in Singapore, in the likes of Grab, Circles.Life, foodpanda and Decathlon , Kai is on with the next big thing, to #expand beyond the shores of the Red Dot, to Hong Kong, his second home! 🇭🇰

He also shared with host Eric about:

Key #pivots of Rocket and how the decision was made
Importance of #teamwork, especially as a sole #founder
"It’s more important to have 100 users who love the product than 1000 users who kind of like the product."

rocketship #techjobs #learncoding #singapore #hongkong

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Episode 2 of the #Origins series has landed!

In this episode, we have Eugene Ng, co-founder and CRO of StaffAny, a fast-growing startup transforming the future of shift work in the blue-collar industry.

As the saying goes, teamwork makes the dream work. And Eugene met fellow young co-founders Janson Seah, 👨‍💻 Jeremy Hon, and Kai Yi Lee through the NUS Overseas Colleges program and started StaffAny together about 5 years ago.

Having raised US$3.4 million late last year, Eugene and the StaffAny team are ramping up development, expanding to markets, and doubling down on improving productivity for businesses.

He also shared with host Eric about:

Finding channel-market fit, on top of product-market fit.
How #CustomerObsession is so important
Trust is the key to working as a team
Building the empathy-for-customer #culture in StaffAny

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Kicking off the #Origins 2023 series to uncover the Day Ones of #founders with The King of Nails.

Meet Daryl, the man 👨‍🎨 behind a Nail Deck, a nail 💅 cosmetic and care startup that created more than 700 gorgeous colours!

In this episode, the host Eric spoke with Daryl to find out about his passion for bringing colours to life, allowing unlimited creativity to flow to make home manicures fun and easy!

Not an easy ride for sure. After multiple challenges and hiatus in between the 12 years of running the company, Daryl persevered on this journey to become Singapore’s only specialist in innovative nail cosmetics and care!

It's been a while. And we are BACK kicking off again with...

A #SURPRIZE EPISODE!

Joining the #NOCAlumni series is a founder who is no stranger to the NUS Overseas Colleges community.

Not a first-time founder, Xander started 2 companies before but did not succeed. Instead of shunning away from #startups and #entrepreneurship, he immersed himself with young founders to guide and mentor them to start their ventures with the lessons learned, spending 4 years at NUS Enterprise, managing the #NOC programs, the renowned #student entrepreneurship program!

Passionate to start a venture again, he started The Surprize App with fellow co-founders in 2022 to change how we discover and experience products, by having fun!

Curious why #Surprize comes with a "z"? Check out the episode now!

Clean and safe toilets for the win! #WorldToiletDay2022

In this #Specials episode, we spoke to Jack Sim, also known as Mr. Toilet. Mr Toilet is the founder of the World Toilet Organization and BoP Hub and he has been spending the last 25 years improving toilet sanitization conditions worldwide.

At the age of 40, Jack has already started a series of successful businesses. He could have continued to grow the businesses or reap the harvest over the years, but he didn't. Wanting to live a purposeful and useful life, he committed his life to building the global sanitation movement, and WTO is a growing network of 235 organizations in 58 countries today.

Jack shared his 65 years of wisdom with host Eric in this 25-min episode. Check out the episode now!

SocialEntrepreneurship #WTO #BPO

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Wrapping up the #NOCAlumni series with the 9th Episode!

In this finale episode, we have Tiang Lim Foo, co-founder of Forge Ventures chat with our host Eric how he started his career from being a Biomedical Engineer to leading #growth for Evernote in Asia Pacific and eventually pivoting to #investing in early-stage startups. 🚀

We also spoke about the heartfelt motivation and reason why Tiang Lim started the #DadsInTech newsletter, which has nuggets of #fathering advice and tips from #entrepreneurs, #investors, and #ProductManagers like Joseph Ling, JJ Chai, and John Tan. 👨‍👧‍👦

If you are a #Dad in #Tech, check out the newsletter here: https://dadsintech.substack.com/

In this past year, Tiang Lim and the Forge Ventures team have been scouting for #exceptional #founders and injecting the first round of funds into high-growth startups like #Vouch and Jackett and Headquarters (HQ.xyz).

If you are building the future, drop a note to hello@forge.vc 🗯

➕ Follow Your Grit Story Podcast for highlights coming up!

👇🏼 Find links to the full episode in the comments below.

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Episode 8 of the #NOCAlumni series has landed.

In this episode, Mohan, co-founder of e27 shared how he transformed from a young geek yearning to join giant tech firms before the NUS Overseas College stint to a firm believer that startups can disrupt and make a massive impact after experiencing the startup culture in Silicon Valley. Today, he is an investor and startup ecosystem builder.

He also shared how e27 got established to build the startup ecosystem, connecting investors, startups, and founders.

If you are a founder looking for insights into getting your funding rounds, you won't want to miss this as Mohan shares insights on what founders should look out for to get their first rounds of funding.

➕ Follow Your Grit Story Podcast for more snippets and highlights!

What convinces and convicts Audrey Joy Tan to enable others to lead a flourishing life?

In Episode 7 of the #NOCAlumni Series, a familiar face in the NUS Overseas Colleges network, Audrey shared with the host Eric about her 1-year experience in #SiliconValley, how she got started on PlayMoolah after, and how things have evolved over the years.

In the whole episode, it is clear that one thing that never changed is the passion to prepare young people for the future through better money management.

#TheFlourishingLifeCompany #FinancialEmotionalResilience

Check out this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts! Link in comments for quick access. 👇🏼

➕ Follow Your Grit Story Podcast for more snippets and highlights!

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How did Hong Ting rediscover his #love for #technology?

In Episode 6 of the NUS Overseas Colleges Alumni Series, we have Hong Ting to share with our host Eric about the anchor that helped him discover his love ❤️ for #tech 📱, which is the 1-year stint at #SiliconValley 🇺🇸 through the #NUSOverseasCollege program.

Hong Ting also shared with us his humble beginnings of starting 2359 Media with Zhou Wenhan more than 13 years ago, and the experiences he has gathered to help him through the years.

As Hong Ting is now on the second leg of his #entrepreneurship journey, we also had a sneak peek 👀 at Hong Ting's in this episode. Super exciting!

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Episode 5 of the #NOCAlumni Series has landed.

In this episode, we chatted with Ethan Ang, co-founder of NodeFlair - Tech Salaries, Jobs & more to understand his journey of starting this tech startup, with a vision to be the best career recommendation engine for the 25M tech talents globally.

Inspired by ShopBack co-founder Joel, Ethan joined ShopBack in its early years and built the Taiwan and Vietnam Tech Hubs from scratch. With massive learnings in hiring, he applied them to start #Nodeflair with felllow #shopback alumni Adrian, who is also passionate in the #HRTech space.

What would you do if your start-up failed?

Instead of giving up and looking for a job, Vinod Nair started MoneySmart Group 13 years ago, with only $5k left in his bank account.

In #NOCAlumni Series - Episode 4, the #podcast host Eric Chan spoke to Vinod, founder of #MoneySmart, the all-in-one portal for personal finance as he shared his journey and lessons of starting up.

From bootstrapping for 4 years when the VC landscape was not as mature then, to tiding the wave via a timely loan from NUS Enterprise, Vinod overcame the huddles and grew the company to a 100-strong team to make financial decisions easier for everybody.

We will be sharing more 📽️ snippets and 📹 highlights, and also his experience during the NUS Overseas Colleges on this page!

➕ Follow Your Grit Story Podcast and stay tuned!

👇🏼 Check out full episode in the comments section.

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NOCAlumni Series - Episode 3 has landed.

Remember the olden "Kampung" days when neighbors were close-knitted? Do you recall our #neighbourhood used to be more vibrant?

This is what Darrell Zhang is trying to bring back to the #community with NextBlock, where neighbours are not strangers. With NextBlock, it opens up opportunities for neighbours to connect with each other and discover about the estate.

In this episode, Darrell shared with Eric Chan Jq on his journey of #entrepreneurship that led him to his current venture and how #NextBlock went from 0 to 15,000 users in just a few months. Pretty impressive!

Being part of the NUS Overseas Colleges (Shanghai) program back then in 2008, he also experienced the ins and outs of a startup and even represented the company to deliver sales pitches. As an intern. Yes, as an #INTERN!

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NOCAlumni Series - Episode 2 has landed.

No one has to be alone. Everyone can be supported.

This fuels the passion of Shamantha Yan to impact lives via Growthbeans. Together with her twin sister, Shane Yan, they are helping others grow and increase their quality of well-being.

Having gained exposure and experience during NUS Overseas Colleges Bio Valley (Philadelphia) in 2007 helped Shamantha break out the limiting belief she had, helping her realize that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. After a self-discovery journey during her sabbatical, Shamantha Yan joined her twin sister to run #GrowthBeans. 🌱

In recent months, Shamantha has been spearheading Growth Collective SG, a collaboration with Community Foundation of Singapore, Empact, Singapore Anglican Community Services, SG Assist, Empatho (Singapore), Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) to form growth circles where everyone can receive and give support to one another. 🤗

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Since its inception in 2002, the highly acclaimed NUS Overseas Colleges Program alumni have founded more than 700 companies and received more than S$800 million in investments and funding.

There must be a reason why this program is so successful, developing passionate entrepreneurs and problem solvers, growing the startup scene in #Singapore 🇸🇬 in the past decade, together with other programs by NUS Enterprise.

To uncover the above, we are excited to launch #NOCAlumni Series, chatting with #alumni who went through the program and went to chase their #passion to create #impact through starting up. Hosted by Eric Chan Jq, who is a NOC Alumni himself, he speaks with founders venturing in different verticals - Education, Mental well-being, Finance, HRTech, and many more.

In the first episode of this series, we chat with Felix Tan, who is helping Gen Zs bridge the career transition gap with their #skills, instead of putting emphasis on grades.

Felix is the CEO and co-founder of Skilio. Being passionate about the education space and being involved in the youth community, Felix started the company during his 1st year in National University of Singapore as a student and found his co-founders along the way to join him in this journey to help job seekers get hired for their skills. 🌟

Check out the episode link in the comments section below.

➕ Follow Your Grit Story Podcast and stay tuned with episodes of other founders (some veterans coming up too! 😉)

Founders #Startup #Entrepreneurs #NOCAlumni #NUSEnterprise #NUSOverseasColleges

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We have the 4th episode of the #Parenting series to wrap it up! Parcsen, Head of Programs at DADs for Life & Centre for Fathering shared with us his lessons and insights around #marriage and #parenting. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Parcsen is married for 31 Years, and he is a Father of 3 kids who are already adults! Given his fair share of going through the ups and downs in his own marriage in his early years, he is deeply passionate about coaching couples and helping them to build strong marriages, which is the key to good parenting. 🗝️

He is also a Grandfather, definitely the first one on our podcast! The host, Eric Chan Jq also took the chance to ask about how to manage multi-generation relationships, which might be tricky at times! 😂

He is also a podcaster at WADT, with co-host Hafiz Othman, that has done over 60 episodes about tips to overcome #fathering challenges and connect with our family. Search "WADT" on Spotify to check it out!

[1 June 2022] Happy Global #Parents Day!

Parenting is hard, especially in this dynamic environment. But it is not impossible.

In the 3rd episode of the #Parenting series, Bryan Tan, CEO of DADs for Life & Centre for Fathering shared with our host Eric Chan Jq about his transformation journey from a lost and uninvolved dad to an invested and nurturing dad.

One who is #passionate about involved parenting, Bryan reminded us that parenting is indeed a #partnership between Mum 👩 and Dad 👨, and he also shared the importance of BEING PRESENT, especially in the formative years of the children. 👶

Leading Dads For Life, he strongly believes in #coaching parents and building a supportive #community for #fathers! With #Singapore opening up, he also shared with us exciting activities that are coming up in next few months for #Families! 🎉🎉🎉

🎧 Catch the full episode via the link in the comments below.

DadsforLife #CentreforFathering #ParentsWithGrit #Family

Our guest for this special episode wears many hats. Dr Loretta Chen is a Professor, Author, Creator, Artist, Director, Entrepreneur, Speaker, and Trainer. Honestly, she reminds us of our previous guest, Ng Nichol, whom we called a #Superwomen! One more added to the list! 🦸‍♀️

Loretta, co-founder of Smobler Studios, is a natural storyteller as she shares with us the fundamental pillars around what she does are [3C] #Create, #Connect, and #Communicate, and what fuels her to achieve so much are [3P] #People, #Purpose, and #Possibilities.

She also shared with us about her family and what fundamentally drove her are her values, being kind and considerate and never making anyone less off in her pursuit. ❤️

As an advocate of [DEI] #Diversity, #Equity, #Inclusion, and mental health, she sees the world with a different lens after she lost her first partner when she was 24, which she shares openly about it.

In this episode, she also shared about Smobler Studios's vision of Cobbleland in The Sandbox, currently one of the biggest #metaverses. They also partnered with The Food Bank Singapore recently to create awareness and raise funds for the hungry in Singapore, marking the first time that an NGO is entering the NFT/Metaverse space.

Recently, she has been busy writing a book, M/OTHERS , which highlights the challenges of mothers who raise children despite extraordinary circumstances. Follow Dr Loretta Chen as she shares more about her latest book launch! 📖

👇🏼 Catch the full episode via the link in the comments section.

👩‍👧‍👦 Happy Mother's Day to all Mummies out there!

What could be better than to hear from the co-founder of Mums for Life, Adriana Lim Escaño about her motherhood journey of FOUR kids in the second episode of the #Parenting series!

Adriana Lim, who is a leader in the Retail industry, is also the founder of ABRY Pte Ltd and she shared with us about her parenting struggles while chasing after her own dreams and the revelation that she had, which transformed her from an over-achiever perfectionist to a #nurturing mum who embraces real #motherhood and believes in being a #happy mum instead of a perfect mum.

🎧 Catch also previous episodes from other mumpreneurs-guests Ng Nichol and Alice Yu Yuebo 余跃波! Easily search for "Your Grit Story" where you hear your podcasts!

HappyMothersDay #MothersDay2022 #MumsForLife #Parenting DADs for Life & Centre for Fathering #Founders #Entrepreneurs

We are kicking off a new #parenting series that will run across May and June, with Mother's Day and Father's day around the corner!

Our first guest of this series is Alice Yu Yuebo 余跃波, #founder and #podcast host of Mama on Palette, Singapore's first community for mothers who love arts, helping mothers embrace happier parenting through art!

During this podcast, we chatted about:

👉🏼 How it all got started when Alice's husband asked her to pick up her brushes to overcome challenges during pregnancy 🤰🏼
👉🏼 The journey of starting and growing a supportive community of more than 500 mothers who love art 🎨
👉🏼 Organising Making of Happier Parenting event with The Red Pencil Humanitarian Mission, theAsianparent, vLookUp - Starting 4th May 2022 - https://www.linkedin.com/events/themakingofhappierparenting-per6926911096264015872/
👉🏼 How Alice You manages her time with her #passion project, family, on top of a demanding full-time role ⏱️
👉🏼 Balancing #scope and #priorities between her husband via a 家庭会议 (Family Meeting in Chinese) 🤝🏼
👉🏼 What's the best method of managing conflicts with a preschool child 👪
👉🏼 Other tips for parenting 💡

MamaOnPalette #Parenting #Art #Community #Mumpreneurs #Founders #Entrepreneurs

The Earth Day theme for 2022 is "Invest in our Planet". That's something close to the heart of our next guest.

In this special #EarthDay2022 episode of Your Grit Story Podcast, we are extremely honoured to have Steve Melhuish, a sustainability investor and founding partner at Wavemaker Impact and Planet Rise. He is also the co-founder of PropertyGuru Group, that just went public in NYSE last month in March 2022. 📈

We took this precious opportunity to learn about his journey of bringing PropertyGuru from ZERO to ONE, and also deep-dive into his passion in sustainability, investing in our planet, the Earth. 🌍

Watch the episode snippet of Steve's response when the #podcast host Eric Chan Jq asked why he is so passionate in investing and supporting companies tacking the problems around #ClimateChange and #Sustainability.

➕ Follow Your Grit Story Podcast so you won't miss any snippets and highlights coming your way. We will be drop the full episode, which we covered topics like how to position CleanTech companies like TablePointer for #ProductMarketFit and common pitfalls for #founders.

If you are in the sustainability space, you won't want to miss this!

EarthDay #ClimateChange #Sustainability #Startups #Entrepreneurs #Innovation #YourGritStory

[Special Easter Episode] This #entrepreneur is driven by her Faith. ✝️

In this episode, Charmain Tan, CEO and founder of QuickDesk shared with our host Eric Chan Jq on how her faith kept her going, overcoming challenges to help businesses empower and automate sales through technology and education. 📖

She also shared about her lowest points of life having depression and how she is given a new life 🌱 to do things right again through her faith. Thanks for opening up and sharing about your life, Charmain! 🤗

With timely miracles in her journey startup up, she made it to Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30 list for #EnterpriseTechnology and Singapore’s top 100 #WomenInTech List. Humbly, she believes that these achievements is to help her impact more lives and it's a way for her to give thanks to people who supported her along the way.

Charmain also appreciated her mentors such as Ben Leong and Kristav (Kris) Childress, for being there for her to provide timely and precious advice. Paying it forward, she is running a cross-chapter mentorship program via Entrepreneurs' Organization. 🤝🏼

➕ Follow Your Grit Story as more episodes are coming up!

Faith #Entrepreneurship #Impact #QuickDesk #YourGritStory #BeInspired

It's a wrap to the #ChangeMaker series on the World Social Work Day 2022! #WSWD2022 🌏

In this 4th episode of the series, Denise Tay, co-founder of KampungKakis, shared with the host Eric Chan Jq on the "why" and the "how" of the Neighbourhood Buddy Matching platform. 🏘️

With her co-founders Mae Tan and Michelle, the trio came together to start this as COVID-19 hit the shores of #Singapore, to support the eldery and vulnerable during the pandemic and beyond.

Supported by philanthropic organisations such as The Majurity Trust Temasek Trust, and Awesome Foundation, Kampungkakis has grown the community to >1000 volunteers, matching eager-to-help community organisations (Willing Hearts, @communituition, and , Hey, You Got Mail!) with the needy on the ground. 🔗

With these, Denise is running it on top of her full time job at Income as a Growth Hacker (What a cool name!). She is also involved in spreading awareness for Social Enterprises like Swapaholic Official , Innervate Fitness, and boxgreen, which we managed to chat with co-founder Walter Oh in our 2nd episode of the series!

Clearly, Denise's Passion for #SocialGood is deep with #KampungKakis and the #SnackGood Initiative by Income!

KampungKakis #SocialGood #ChangeMakers #Volunteering #cityofgood #YourGritStory #BeInspired

Happy International Women's Day 2022! 👱‍♀️

In this third episode of #ChangeMaker Series, Ng Nichol, co-founder of The Food Bank Singapore and CEO of X-Inc shares her advice and learnings for female founders and go-getters 💪🏼 out there, given her enriching experience in running enterprises as a female founder, especially in a male-dominant industry, and being a mother of FOUR kids!

If you are a #Female #Founder or a #Hustler who is breaking through the glass ceiling right now, this episode is for you.

💡 In fact, through the interview, we realised that Nichol is not just a women. She is a #Superwoman! Catch the episode on Spotify to find out why and also to know more about her mission to end Food Insecurity for all!

InternationalWomensDay #IWD #BreakTheBias #WomenInBusiness #CelebrateWomen #Entrepreneurship #FoodBankSingapore #ChangeMaker #SocialImpact #Founders #YourGritStory

Meet Regina Tan. 👩🏼

🌤️ Rising from a near-death experience, Regina Tan left her high-paying job at Bloomberg and embarked on a meaningful mission with childhood friend, Hiddi Chan to start Immortalize.io to digitalise 💻 the Last Mile of Life Marketplace, bringing high quality 👍🏻 providers to us to help with legacy planning.

Immortalize #Startup #LastMileOfLife #LegacyPlanning #EstatePlanning #YourGritStory

Our 2nd guest on the #ChangeMaker series is a founder who left a cushy job in banking to start a #SocialEnterprise as a vehicle of change, creating healthy snacks and doing good from the get-go.

The social entrepreneur is Walter Oh, co-founder of boxgreen.

Not a stranger to the #startup scene, Walter Oh is one of the EDGE - Youth Wing of ACE 35 Under 35 (2020) and he was part of the Startup Grind Singapore team. In recent years, he has been advising and investing in #sustainability and #socialimpact startups. 🌍

Giving back has always been the mission for boxgreen. Empowering the lives of marginalised communities such as the ex-offenders and single mothers, co-founders Walter Oh and Andrew Lim are among the DBS Bank Foundation Fellows. In the early years, they also garnered support from raiSE SG, NVPC - Towards a City of Good, and Yellow Ribbon to tide through the waves. 🏄🏼

Building a positive and inclusive work culture, boxgreen is awarded the 2021 Singapore Best Workplaces Award and certified a Great Place To Work® Singapore. With a spirit of giving back, the team also volunteers at Willing Hearts 💝 and The Social Kitchen!

Follow Your Grit Story for more episodes coming of the #ChangeMaker series!

boxgreen #SnackGoodDoGood #SocialEntrepreneurship #Founders #Entrepreneurship #YourGritStory #BeInspired

Imagine every dollar spent can contribute to a better world.

That is the future that our first #podcast guest of 2022, Ee-lin Chua, co-founder of Fairmarch has been building for the past few years! No better way to kickstart the Your Grit Story #ChangeMaker series!

Together with Victor Chua and Jorena Tan, they are building a community that connects like-minded people who want to do good with businesses that drive social impact.

Being a differently-abled team that embraces #diversity and an #inclusive work culture, they have supported over 330 beneficiaries!

Driving towards the mission of doing good, Fairmarch partnered with SG Enable to host a Gift Market to showcases products made by talented makers and artists with disabilities from over 20 social service agencies and social enterprises such as SPD and TOUCH Community Services!

What is really #inspiring is that Ee-lin Chua is doing this on top of a full time job at PropertyGuru Group leading Business Intelligence! That's whole lot of #Passion and #Perseverance.

SocialEnterprise #SocialImpact #inclusivehiring #differentlyabled #ChangeMakers #YourGritStory #BeInspired

Imagine a keyless world. That is what Anthony Chow and the igloocompany team are working towards.

In October 2021, igloocompany has set up presence at United States and is embarking onto a journey to deploy 1 million devices in the country. Exciting times for the Singapore startup, holding the Singapore flag high, bringing the company across shores to expand globally!

In this 8th episode of Your Grit Story, Anthony shares with us:

- his journey in starting and #rebranding igloocompany with multiple verticals
- how #software helps the company to solve problems at scale
- how to bring the #team together to achieve greater things together
- what he looks for in #talents joining the thriving team

#igloocompany #Startup #Founder #AWorldWithoutKeys #YourGritStory #Inspiration

Not everybody has access to knowledge. Not everybody has access to mentorship..

Our next guest on our Your Grit Story Podcast 📹 Episode 7 is a “relatively young” founder who aspires to democratize mentorship for all.

Only at the age of 24, Felix Lee has already exited a startup when he was 20 and he is building the next big platform for mentors and mentees to connect and learn. Just launched in 2020 about a year ago, ADPList has grown rapidly to more than 4000 mentors from over 70 countries, meeting and sharing their experience with over 20,000 mentees.

In August 2021, the team atADPList has raised US$1.3 Million funding from prominent investors like Surge, Sequoia Capital, ready to propel growth of the platform and community further, benefiting even more people globally.

The guest, Bjorn Lee and host, Eric Chan Jq have known each other for 10 years (since 2011 when Eric is attending NUS Overseas College in Silicon Valley) and they caught up to chat about what happened from 2011 till today.

Bjorn founded an EdTech company back in 2011 when in Silicon valley and took a toll on his health, which gave him a wake-up call, to rethink about what is important in life. Passionate to solve a problem in a space that he is interested in, he started MindFi in 2017, faced huge challenges and almost gave up. After a silent retreat at Phuket, he was invigorated to refocus with a huge pivot, rising up to build a compelling product to gain traction in the market.

In 2021, the team at MindFi has raised its seed funding of 1 Million dollars from prominent investors and they are in the recent batch of Y Combinator. MindFi has been scaling up rapidly since the start of the year, creating social impact to individuals and catering to the demand in the growing market.