Asia Tech Podcast: Recent Episodes
Michael Waitze Media
Digital transformation is often associated with industries that are already forward looking and generally technologically savvy. However, its greatest impact may come in areas that have traditionally resisted change.
Grassroots football and the global seafood trade may seem worlds apart, but both face similar challenges. ATP was joined by Tariq Cassim, co-Founder and CEO of Koach Hub and Scott Chambers, a co-CEO at Seafood Souq to discuss how transformation is not about shiny new tools. It is about rethinking how value and opportunity are distributed across ecosystems that involve millions of lives.
Some of the topics that Tariq and Scott covered in detail include:
- Before you digitize anything, understand the size and scope of the system you are impacting.
- If digital transformation threatens established advantage, expect pushback. Plan for trust-building as carefully as you plan for features.
- Stakeholder transparency forces clarity. Once they can see the benefits, adoption accelerates.
- If you want to sell digital transformation, do not sell dashboards, sell value recovery.
- Immutability builds trust. When stakes are high, data and the reports they produce need to be trusted.
Wealth management is facing a critical inflection point. Legacy systems built decades ago still power many private banks, creating inefficiencies that slow down operations and frustrate clients. Manual processes like emailing PDFs and reconciling data across multiple custodians remain common, leading to errors and missed opportunities.
In this episode of ATP, Olzhas Zhiyenkul, Founder of InvestBanq, contends that private banking runs on a fragile trio of Excel, PDFs, and eMail, because rebuilding the multi-layer “wealth stack” requires years of orchestration and leadership courage.
Some of the important topics that Oz covered in detail included:
- The biggest impediment to digital transformation is not technology is disarmingly human: incentives and incumbency. It requires courageous leadership making multi-year investments,
- Wealth management is harder to digitize than payments because digitizing wealth is orchestration engineering and filled with unseen complexity.
- Over the next two decades, more than $100 trillion of wealth will shift to millennials and other digital natives. They want “software first, human second” service, with expert help available when it adds real value.
- Fragmentation is wealth management’s defining feature and is biggest opportunity.
- The “connect-everything” problem is the core digital wealth management product.
AI is evolving from static question-and-answer systems to dynamic agents capable of reasoning, learning, and making decisions in real time. These intelligent systems rely on vast amounts of data to function, but the real challenge lies not in building the AI itself, but in ensuring that the data feeding it is clean, accurate, and accessible.
In this episode of ATP, Shanmuga Muniandy, Director of Architecture & Chief Evangelist, APAC at Denodo, argues that most AI failures are really data failures: stale copies, siloed systems, and patchwork security.
Some of the topics that Shan covered in detail included:
- Agentic AI chains reasoning steps, maintains context, calls tools/APIs, and makes decisions toward a goal.
- To get accurate agent behavior, data must be complete, clean, contextual, and timely.
- Real-time decisions require live context, which requires real-time access to data.
- Business leaders should not need to hunt tables or beg IT for extracts. Self-service data unlocks velocity. It also gives agents stable, well-defined inputs aligned to outcomes.
- Ethics and regulation should be part of the architecture that drives Agentic AI.
Artificial intelligence and blockchain are no longer separate innovations. They are beginning to merge, creating systems that are both intelligent and trustworthy. AI brings automation, reasoning, and decision-making, while blockchain provides transparency, provenance, and security.
On this episode of ATP, Qin En Looi, a Partner at Onigiri Capital & Saison Capital and Ganesh Kompella, a Founding Partner at Tykhe Ventures, highlight that this moment is different because of a shift in mindset and infrastructure.
Some of the topics Qin En and Ganesh covered in detail:
- Together, AI and blockchain unlock 'decentralized intelligence'.
- The AI and blockchain ecosystem has matured with stronger infrastructure, institutional adoption, and broad developer access.
- Clear, supportive regulation is shifting from hindering innovation to driving it.
- While core AI infrastructure may remain centered in the West, Asia’s talent and scale position it to lead in applied AI and blockchain use cases.
- DeFi will not replace traditional banks but will serve as their middleware, enabling faster, more transparent, and programmable financial services.
The global financial system is entering a period of profound change driven by the convergence of blockchain, artificial intelligence, and decentralized infrastructure. At the center of this transformation is tokenization, which converts real-world assets into programmable digital representations that can move seamlessly across modern, borderless rails.
In this episode, Nikhil Joshi, Chief Operating Officer at EMURGO, explores how the convergence of blockchain, AI, and decentralized finance is reshaping global markets.
Some of the topics Nikhil covered in detail:
- Anything can be tokenized, but not everything should be tokenized.
- Stablecoins are the bridge between traditional finance and decentralized finance.
- Agentic AI combined with programmable money can lead to automated treasury functionality.
- Institutional adoption is real, growing and nuanced.
- Interoperability is essential with payments and settlement rails first, then lending/borrowing, eventually hedging and structured products.
Finance is entering a period of deep structural change. What appears on the surface as small, incremental upgrades—banks digitizing workflows, adding AI tools, or experimenting with blockchain, masks a more fundamental shift: the financial system is being rebuilt from the ground up.
Karl Mohan, EVP, Financial Services and GM International at Crypto.com, explains that two forces stand at the center of this transformation. The first is asset tokenization and the second is the rise of AI agents.
Some of the topics that Karl discussed in detail include:
- The global financial system will be re-architected, but it will look like “incremental evolution” while it’s happening.
- Blockchains are machine-native ledgers and the more finance becomes machine-to-machine, the more value accrues to ledgers that are natively interpretable by software.
- The cross-border experience is moving from opaque and slow to transparent and instant which leads to faster remittance, lower uncertainty, and fewer human failure modes.
- Stablecoins are becoming remittance and savings primitives for the unbanked and underbanked.
- The biggest blocker to crypto adoption is anchoring bias, not technology. Every moment spent “digitizing an old workflow” is a year competitors spend compounding their advantage on a native architecture.
As digital ecosystems grow more connected, APIs have become the core channels through which data flows, services interact, and innovation happens. But this shift has also introduced new risks.
In this episode of ATP, Reuben Koh, Director, Security Strategy - Asia Pacific & Japan at Akamai Technologies, explains how essential APIs are to digital experiences.
Some of the topics Reuben covered in detail include:
- In today's digital world, APIs are no longer behind-the-scenes components—they are mission-critical interfaces that power user experiences, connect systems, and move sensitive data at scale.
- Despite their proliferation, most organizations have shockingly poor awareness of their own API infrastructure.
- One of the most revealing insights from Reuben was the scale of API abuse, not just mere attacks. Abuse happens when APIs are used in ways for they were not intended, oftentimes creating malicious, unexpected consequences.
- In 2024, for the first time, Akamai saw more internet traffic generated by APIs than by humans. Bots now dominate the digital landscape, probing, testing, and exploiting vulnerable endpoints.
- The finance sector, unsurprisingly, remains the top target for web application and API attacks. Reuben share some shocking examples.
Artificial intelligence has long promised to transform the way businesses operate, but only now are we beginning to see its full potential realized. Early waves of AI focused on prediction and content generation, offering useful but limited support. The newest evolution—autonomous agents—goes further by reasoning, sequencing tasks, and taking meaningful action.
In this episode of ATP, Gavin Barfield, CTO and VP of Solution Engineering for ASEAN at Salesforce, explains how this “third wave” of AI is transforming the way businesses operate.
Some of the topics that Gavin covered in detail include:
- The history of AI in business can be broken into waves. We are now entering the autonomous agent era, where AI doesn’t just suggest, but acts.
- The leap from generative to autonomous AI isn’t just about bigger language models—it’s about the rise of reasoning engines.
- Autonomous AI is only as good as the data it uses.
- Far from being merely theoretical, autonomous AI is already proving itself and early use cases are delivering!
- Gavin stressed that AI agents are not about eliminating humans, but about freeing them from low-value tasks and enabling them to do more meaningful ones.
- Gavin posited that CEOs will no longer manage purely human workforces. Instead, they will oversee a hybrid of digital agents and human employees.
In many emerging markets, traditional credit systems fail to serve the underbanked because they rely on formal employment records and financial histories that many people simply don’t have. But access to credit doesn’t have to be limited to those with paperwork.
In this episode of ATP, we talk to Rene Payan, Country Manager for the Philippines at PayJoy who explains how PayJoy is changing that reality by using smartphones as digital collateral and AI-powered risk models to “find a yes” instead of defaulting to “no.”
Some of the topics that Rene covers in detail include:
- For decades, the underserved and underbanked have been locked out of formal financial systems because they lacked traditional credit histories. PayJoy challenges that orthodoxy with a powerful shift in mindset: instead of searching for reasons to deny credit, the company actively searches for reasons to approve it.
- Smartphones can be more than devices, PayJoy has developed a unique approach to underwriting: it uses a smartphone’s functionality as digital collateral.
- PayJoy didn’t start out as a lender. The company originally offered its technology via SaaS to third-party lenders. But when partners failed to replicate PayJoy’s commitment to "finding a yes," PayJoy doubled down on direct lending.
- Long before AI became a buzzword, PayJoy was deploying machine learning to refine its pricing strategies and risk assessments. The goal isn’t just approval—but optimized approval.
- What PayJoy is building is not just a credit business, but an embedded finance ecosystem. Customers encounter financial services not in banks, but at retail counters while buying a phone.
Traditional financial systems rely heavily on trust—trust in banks, brokers, custodians, and exchanges. But emerging technologies like blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi) are challenging this model by introducing a trustless, self-custodied approach to asset management.
In this episode of ATP, Srikumar Misra, Founder of aarnâ Protocol, explains how decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain technology are reshaping investment and asset management. He breaks down the evolving landscape of digital assets into three key categories: Bitcoin as a store of value, utility-based native tokens, and tokenized real-world assets like real estate or art.
Some of the topics Srikumar discussed in detail include:
- Digital Assets Aren’t One Thing—They’re a Spectrum
- Access, Not Just Innovation, Is the Real Breakthrough
- Trustless systems challenge the status quo. DeFi’s foundational concept of "trustless" finance doesn’t mean mistrust—it means removing the need to trust third-party intermediaries.
- User Experience Will Make or Break DeFi’s Future
- Liquidity and slippage are serious concerns. While DeFi is maturing, it faces critical challenges with liquidity fragmentation. Liquidity infrastructure still lags behind TradFi, which handles trillions in daily volume with minimal price disruption.
The global fashion and consumer goods industries are facing a growing crisis of overproduction and overconsumption. Despite already having enough garments in circulation to clothe several future generations, fast fashion continues to flood the market with new items.
In this episode of ATP, Louise Blein and Amarine Erbs, co-founders of Yours, explore how overconsumption and the fast fashion industry have created a crisis of excess. They share their personal motivations for starting Yours—a safer, community-focused secondhand platform—and how their experiences as expats highlighted the wasteful repetition of buying new things with each move.
Some of the topics Louise and Amarine covered in detail include:
- Sustainability in fashion isn’t optional—it’s urgent. With 1.6 billion parcels shipped daily by air, we’re burning resources at both ends of the supply chain.
- Gen Z, the same generation that craves newness is driving secondhand growth. This duality—wanting both novelty and sustainability—is shaping the modern marketplace.
- Our closets and cupboards are overstuffed not out of necessity but as a proxy for comfort, identity, or status. This is not a fashion problem—it’s a human problem.
- A circular marketplace can’t just be a platform—it must be a community. Yours isn’t just a transactional space—it’s a social ecosystem. By attending events, partnering with donation centers, and prioritizing offline engagement, they’re creating a network that supports and educates.
- Thailand is the right place to build this—culturally and technologically. The country's digital infrastructure, growing startup ecosystem, and openness to social commerce make it a powerful launchpad—not just for Thailand, but for Southeast Asia and beyond.
Digital commerce in Asia is undergoing a profound transformation. The rise of mobile payments, government-backed payment rails, and local digital wallets is reshaping how people pay and how businesses operate. This shift is driven not only by convenience but by necessity, as financial inclusion increasingly depends on the ability to support local payment methods.
In this episode of ATP, we speak with Deborah Im, about the fast-moving evolution of digital commerce in Asia.
Some of the topics that Deborah covered in detail include:
- Payment optionality Is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s a strategic necessity. It’s the key to unlocking customer access and revenue.
- Government-built payment rails could be FinTech’s biggest competitors as PayNow (Singapore), UPI (India), and PromptPay (Thailand) are offering free or nearly free money transfers—domestically and cross-border.
- Data localization laws are fragmenting the internet—and potentially slowing innovation.
- AI has transformed legal and operational work—but still needs better data access.
- Asia is winning the FinTech race because it’s still scrappy. Its dynamism comes not from copying the West, but from building solutions tailored to fragmented, cash-heavy, mobile-first economies.
Quantum computing is poised to transform how we process information, making today’s most powerful computers look slow by comparison. Unlike classical computers that rely on binary bits—either 0 or 1—quantum computers use qubits, which can exist in multiple states at once.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Dipen Mehta, EVP & GM for APAC at Softserve, breaks down why quantum computing is a game-changer.
Some of the topics that Dipen covered in detail include:
- Quantum computing introduces qubits, which can exist in multiple states simultaneously—a phenomenon called superposition. This single feature allows quantum machines to process vastly more information at once, enabling computation on a previously unimaginable scale.
- We are still in the early innings of quantum’s commercial, but while we are early, it is inevitable.
- Quantum won’t replace classical computing—it will complement it. Each paradigm has its strengths, and early applications will likely leverage hybrid approaches.
- Artificial intelligence and quantum computing are on a collision course.
- Combining AI with quantum opens the door to what Mehta calls "real-time, hyper-personalized financial services."
Travel is evolving far beyond flights and hotel bookings. Today, technology—particularly artificial intelligence—is transforming how people choose destinations, plan trips, and engage with local experiences. From AI-powered travel planning tools to immersive digital environments that let travelers explore a place before arriving, the focus is shifting from convenience to personalization.
ATP went to the Travel & Tech Asia 2025 event in at Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok, where thought leaders from across the travel industry revealed how technology is fundamentally reshaping how people discover, book, and experience travel.
Artificial intelligence emerged as a driving force, not just for automating tasks, but for creating deeply personalized and intuitive interactions—from chat-based trip planning to virtual hotel walk-throughs using digital twins. AI is also helping hotels manage high volumes of guests, respond instantly to reviews, and even bridge language gaps, making the travel experience smoother for both tourists and locals.
Equally important was the role of frictionless infrastructure. Cloud-based hotel systems now let owners manage properties from anywhere, while smart payment orchestration ensures transactions go through even when the first attempt fails. Meanwhile, immersive experiences—like Muay Thai fights enhanced with projection mapping—demonstrated how blending culture and technology can create emotional connections with travelers and amazing travel experiences!
As someone who’s spent years talking to technologists, entrepreneurs, and industry experts, I can confidently say: something seismic is happening in travel. Not just in how we go places—but in how we decide where to go, how we experience the destination, and how platforms build loyalty and create seamless, intelligent experiences.
Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly across Asia, not only because of its economic potential but also due to the region’s strong appetite for innovation and global competitiveness. Countries are embracing AI to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and create smarter business strategies.
ATP spoke to Adrian Johnson, Senior VP and General Manager Americas and Asia Pacific at Hitachi Vantara about how countries like Singapore and China are not just experimenting with AI—they’re leading.
Some of the topics Adrian covered in detail include:
- Asia is the “market of the 21st century. With rapid economic development, fierce internal competition, and a drive for global relevance, Asia is leaping forward.
- Infrastructure built for yesterday can’t handle AI today. One of the biggest challenges companies face is that their current IT infrastructure simply wasn’t built for AI’s compute-heavy, high-performance demands.
- AI promises to level the playing field—but only if SMEs can access the tools. "AI-as-a-Service” could enable that, allowing SMEs to plug into powerful AI tools without building from scratch.
- No matter how powerful an AI model is, poor data quality guarantees poor outcomes. Getting data quality right is of the utmost importance.
- The next phase of AI is not just about private models—it’s about sovereign ones. These models will be geographically and legally confined, ensuring they comply with local laws and cultural expectations.
- AI isn’t just computationally expensive—it’s environmentally taxing. As quantum computing and edge computing enter the fray, there’s a pressing need to align innovation with sustainability.
Japan is facing a quiet crisis with over 9 million abandoned homes, known as akiya, scattered across the country—a number expected to double in the next decade. This phenomenon is largely driven by an aging population, declining birth rates, and continued migration to urban centers.
ATP spoke to Tsuyoshi Domoto, the Founder of Akiya Air, who has created a platform to help unlock the potential of akiya by offering a one-stop service for buying, renovating, managing, and monetizing these homes.
Some of the topics Tsuyoshi covered in detail:
- Japan’s tax system discourages demolition and incentivizes keeping decrepit houses standing.
- Navigating Japan’s real estate market as a foreigner can be quite challenging. Trying to purchase and renovate a rural home is nearly impossible without local help.
- While many foreigners may not know 'akiya' exist, those who do are enthusiastic. Some want a second home to visit regularly; others see it as an Airbnb-style investment for other foreign visitors.
- Financing can still be a major barrier as Japanese banks are still cautious about lending to foreigners, especially those without permanent residency.
- Akiya Air's vision is to create pockets of innovation and community in Japan’s countryside, akin to what he saw in Bali — digital nomads, creatives, and entrepreneurs co-living and co-working in revitalized areas.
Global financial systems are evolving rapidly, but many remain fragmented, creating barriers for people and businesses trying to move money across borders. While local solutions like mobile wallets have improved access in specific regions, they often operate in isolation.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Elie Bertha, Chief Product Officer at Thunes, explores why interoperability is becoming the cornerstone of global financial services.
Some of the topics that Elie covered in detail include:
- Connectivity may power global commerce, but interoperability—systems speaking to each other in real-time—is the glue that makes it functional.
- In emerging markets like the Philippines, Indonesia, and large swaths of Africa, mobile wallets have become essential tools for financial inclusion.
- The most persistent obstacles to seamless cross-border payments aren’t technological—they're bureaucratic.
- Frictionless payments aren't just convenient—they unleash liquidity.
- Digital wallets that hold fiat, crypto, or stablecoins offer the flexibility users need, but challenges remain. Stablecoins promise 24/7 global liquidity—but usability, acceptance, and integration into traditional systems remain hurdles.
Building and launching a FinTech in the United States is a far more intricate and regulated process than many presume. Unlike in Europe, where financial licenses can be “passported” across borders, the U.S. operates a dual regulatory system—federal and state-based—that requires fintechs to navigate a patchwork of licensing requirements.
In this episode of ATP, Trevor Tanifum, Managing Principal at FS Vector, discusses some of the challenges of launching a FinTech in the U.S., particularly if one is trying to enter from Europe.
Some of the topics that Trevor covered in detail include:
- Unlike the European Union’s passporting model, U.S. FinTechs must often secure individual licenses in every state they intend to operate, making compliance a heavy lift from day one.
- Attempting to self-license—acquiring the necessary state-by-state permissions without partnering with a bank—is a daunting path and can be fatal to early-stage companies running on limited capital and short timelines.
- Because self-licensing is so burdensome, many fintechs turn to bank partnerships. But these relationships are not easy to come by either for many reasons.
- One of the most surprising insights Trevor shared is that the U.S. consumer, unlike their counterparts in Asia or Europe, doesn’t prioritize fast payments. This is due in part to the prevalence of credit.
- If traditional FinTechs face a thicket of rules, crypto and Web3 companies often face a vacuum. There's no comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the U.S. which leaves companies vulnerable without clear guidance.
The global financial system is on the verge of a major transformation. While domestic payments in many countries have become fast, seamless, and available around the clock, cross-border transactions remain slow, fragmented, and dependent on outdated infrastructure.
In this episode of ATP, Naveen Mallela, Global Co-Head of Kinexys at JPMorgan Chase, explored what “Finance Without Borders” could look like in a world that increasingly demands instant, global, and seamless value exchange.
Some of the topics Naveen covered in detail include:
- In a world where commerce never sleeps, “Always-On” money needs to be the new standard for an "Always-On" economy.
- The sovereignty of money isn't just a political issue—it’s a core technical and infrastructural constraint that slows innovation across borders.
- Shared ledger infrastructure promises atomic, instant transactions that reduce or eliminate the need for reconciliation and interbank messaging.
- Tokenization unlocks trapped value, making assets and capital more productive and responsive.
- Stablecoins are mobile money for the Digital Age
Time is our most valuable resource, yet much of it is lost to repetitive digital tasks—scheduling meetings, replying to emails, searching cloud storage, or switching between apps. The concept of an AI-powered personal assistant challenges this inefficiency by providing intelligent, hands-free support that integrates directly into the tools we already use.
In this episode of ATP, Tiago Alves, Co-Founder and CEO of The Librarian, is building an AI-powered productivity assistant that brings order to digital chaos.
Some of the topics that Tiago covered in detail included:
- AI productivity tools like The Librarian democratize access to support that was once reserved for executives.
- The irony of time management is that it consumes so much of our day. We spend hours searching cloud folders, responding to emails, confirming appointments.
- What sets The Librarian apart is its ability not just to understand, but to act.
- Even with AI doing the heavy lifting, trust is earned. In the early stages, users often double-check that meetings were scheduled or emails sent.
- This isn’t about command-reply interactions. It’s about long-term memory. The Librarian builds contextual awareness over time.
In today’s digital world, individuals have lost control of their personal data. Our identities—once built on physical records and face-to-face relationships—are now scattered across platforms owned by BIG Tech. These companies track, store, and monetize our digital footprints, often without our explicit consent.
In this episode of ATP, we spoke to Glenn Gore, CEO of Affinidi, who challenges this status quo and argues that ownership of our digital identity should belong to us—not BIG Tech.
Some of the topics Glenn covered in detail include:
- Owning your digital identity means preserving and controlling YOUR narrative—and being empowered by it.
- BIG Tech currently owns your identity and they track, store, and monetize it without meaningful oversight or your full understanding.
- Surveillance capitalism isn’t concerned with who you are—it’s focused on understanding what you do.
- Reclaiming your identity requires a new tech stack and Affinidi is building it—complete with personal data vaults and verifiable credentials.
- As AI becomes personal and powerful, our data becomes more valuable. And we’ll want that AI to work for us, bot for BIG Tech.
The way insurance professionals discover and engage with information is undergoing a profound shift. As the industry faces rising complexity, staying informed requires more than just tracking simple updates—it demands a broader view of global trends, risks, and innovations. Traditional sources of information are no longer enough; curated, personalized content that delivers real contextual intelligence is becoming critical for success.
In this episode of ATP, Alex Hearn, the Founder and CEO of Slipcase, explains how the industry is shifting toward “contextual intelligence” — the ability to quickly access relevant, high-quality information that supports better decision-making and career growth.
Some of the larger topics Alex covered in detail include:
- With global risks compounding, brokers, underwriters, and risk managers must stay informed across a wide spectrum of issues to remain competitive.
- Traditional sources of information for insurance professionals had been fragmented and inefficient.
- The importance of building a centralized, consolidated, and curated stream of insurance-related information.
- His belief that audience building in insurance is about hyper-relevance, not scale.
- Artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing the way content is curated and discovered.
The way businesses move money is undergoing a major transformation, powered by advancements in AI, real-time payments, and stablecoin technologies. AI is no longer just automating basic tasks; it is enabling intelligent systems that can think, adapt, and optimize financial operations on the fly.
In this episode of ATP, Paul Harapin, Head of Asia Pacific and Japan at Stripe, explains how Stripe’s technology, now processing $1.4 trillion annually, is driving a shift from simple automation to intelligent, adaptive financial systems.
Some of the topics that Paul covered in detail:
- AI is now deeply embedded into Stripe's ecosystem, not just to optimize existing processes like fraud detection, but to reshape entire money flows.
- While generalist AI platforms like OpenAI and Perplexity dominate headlines, AI purpose-built for specific industries is where much of the near-term value is being created.
- Asia Pacific isn't just participating — it's leading the charge into real-time payments and alternative rails.
- How Agentic AI will eliminate traditional bottlenecks between sales, payments, and customer service, especially for SMEs and startups.
- Stablecoins are poised to revolutionize remittances, treasury management, and cross-border B2B commerce, especially in emerging markets.
Building technology at scale is not about chasing the latest trends or making sweeping, one-time decisions. It’s about making a series of careful, long-term choices that prioritize control, efficiency, and resilience. Companies that rush into cloud adoption or AI implementations without understanding the trade-offs risk losing the ability to innovate on their own terms.
Technology leadership is never about a single, bold decision — it’s about a series of intentional, calculated choices that evolve over time. The Asia Tech Podcast sat down with Idan Zalzberg, the Chief Technology Officer of Agoda, to learn how complex technology infrastructures are built, maintained, and reimagined.
Some of the topics that Idan cover in detail included:
- One of the most surprising themes from Idan’s leadership style is his insistence that CTOs should continue to code. Remaining hands-on creates deep trust with engineering teams and maintains sharp intuition for decision-making.
- It’s not about being pro- or anti-cloud. It’s about being in control of your tech stack and cost structures — and re-evaluating continuously.
- To scale AI effectively, companies must build internal capabilities to continuously monitor, measure, and validate AI's impact.
- Rather than replacing engineers, AI is amplifying their productivity — making the best developers even more capable.
- Agoda’s future goal isn’t just to be a booking site — it’s to be a travel companion.
What if the very way we think about money and investments is about to change forever? As we navigate the complex worlds of traditional finance, fintech, and Web3, a provocative question emerges: Should every financial asset be tokenized? Some argue that tokenization brings transparency and accessibility to financial products, especially in emerging markets, while others caution against the blanket application of this technology. Are we on the brink of a financial revolution, or are we simply chasing a trend without fully understanding the implications?
At Onchain 2025 in Bangkok, recorded at the Sofitel So by Michael Waitze, the host of the Asia Tech Podcast, we captured more than 10 conversations that challenged some of the deepest assumptions in finance.
The debates were passionate and layered. Some experts championed tokenization as a force for transparency and accessibility, particularly in emerging markets where traditional systems often fall short. Others urged caution, warning that not every asset — or market — may benefit from being put on-chain.
As we dig deeper into this conversation, the complexities become even more apparent. Is tokenization simply another tool that can empower individuals with greater control over their investments? Or is it a transformative force that could fundamentally disrupt the fabric of traditional finance? While it offers the promise of enhanced liquidity and lower costs, not all assets may be suitable for tokenization. What should be tokenized — and what should remain untouched?
The future of finance may very well depend on how we answer these critical questions.
Are we ready for the financial revolution that 2025 promises?
At Money20/20 Asia in Bangkok, the Asia Tech Podcast, hosted by Michael Waitze, recorded more than 20 conversations with some of the brightest minds in finance and technology. The discussions revealed a clear theme: the future of money is about much more than transactions—it's about trust, sustainability, inclusion, and innovation.
From the rise of green fintech to the integration of AI into real-time financial decision-making, it’s clear that a more sustainable and intelligent financial system is not just on the horizon—it’s already taking shape. Embedding sustainability data into transactions and enabling consumers to “talk” to their money are just a few examples of how rapidly things are evolving.
As traditional banks and fintechs move closer together, the key question remains: will these innovations democratize access or create new barriers? The choices we make today will define the future. One thing is certain—the way we think about money is about to change forever.
Businesses today face a growing challenge: they are generating more data than ever before, yet struggle to make sense of it in a way that drives consistent, effective decision-making. Traditional analytics tools tend to focus on specific functions, leaving teams operating in silos with little understanding of how their choices affect the broader organization. While being “data-driven” was once considered a competitive advantage, it has become a vague and often unhelpful term.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Karen Kim, CEO of Human Managed, argues that being "data-driven" is no longer enough. Businesses aren’t suffering from a lack of information—they’re suffering from too much of it, without a clear way to turn that data into meaningful action.
Some of the topics that Karen covered in detail include:
- Decision Intelligence isn’t just about better decisions—it’s about decisions at scale.
- Karen introduced the idea of composite AI, where multiple AI tools and models—LLMs, agents, deep learning systems—are combined to build richer, more nuanced workflows.
- The problem is not access to tools—it’s connecting data to outcomes.
- The shift from data-driven to decision-centric.
- Service design will be the next frontier in AI.
Global supply chains have evolved into highly complex, technology-driven networks that power the movement of goods across borders. These systems rely on precision logistics, data-driven optimization, and seamless coordination between air, ground, and digital infrastructure.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Kawal Preet, President APAC at FedEx, shares key insights into how logistics, emerging technologies, and leadership intersect in today’s fast-changing world.
Some of the topics Kawal covered in detail include:
- FedEx isn’t just a logistics giant; it’s an organization deeply rooted in its people-first philosophy, "People-Service-Profit".
- The FedEx network isn't just about physical movement; it's about optimizing routes, reducing transit times, and making data-driven decisions to enhance efficiency.
- Supply chains have evolved significantly over the years, shifting from centralized, thick pipelines to agile, multi-dimensional networks.
- FedEx is embedding AI and digital tools across its entire value chain.
- As one of the largest logistics companies in the world, FedEx has made sustainability a core focus.
- APAC is the future of global trade.
Last-mile delivery has evolved into one of the most important and complex elements of modern commerce. As the final point of contact between a brand and its customer, it directly shapes satisfaction, loyalty, and perception. Today’s consumers expect speed, flexibility, and personalization—often driven by the convenience of same-day or even 10-minute deliveries.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Gautam Kumar, co-Founder and CEO of FarEye, breaks down why last-mile delivery is no longer just a logistics function—it’s the final, critical touchpoint in customer experience.
Some of the topics that Gautam covered in detail:
- Last-mile delivery is the real “storefront” of modern commerce. No matter how amazing your product is, the last-mile experience is what your customers remember.
- Generative AI Is transforming routing and real-time optimization.
- Data-driven delivery is about personalization and prediction. FarEye leverages historical data to optimize delivery attempts.
- Failed deliveries aren’t just costly, they’re environmentally harmful. Every failed delivery means more fuel, more emissions, and added pressure on the logistics system.
- Luxury deliveries will become a differentiator.
- Gen Z and Millennial consumers expect speed, transparency, and sustainability.
The rapid advancement of AI has sparked widespread excitement and speculation, but the real impact of AI goes beyond the initial hype. While AI tools have demonstrated impressive capabilities, the most successful applications come from combining AI with human expertise.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we talk to Simon Quirk, co-Founder and CEO of Graceview AI, about what it really takes to build an AI startup in today’s rapidly changing landscape.
Some of the topics that Simon covered in detail include:
- While there may be some overhyped valuations in the AI sector, the long-term potential of AI is undeniable.
- For any startup, identifying a niche and going deep is crucial. This approach not only helps in product development but also in building credibility and trust with early customers.
- Graceview’s approach blends AI with human expertise, ensuring that while AI handles the heavy lifting, lawyers review and validate the output.
- Why being model-agnostic is an advantage. The ability to switch easily between AI models depending on what is best suited for a particular task.
- The importance of curating and validating data over time and building this into a corpus of valuable data.
The way we pay is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by technology, consumer behavior, and the need for greater security. Traditional payment methods like credit cards are being replaced or supplemented by alternative payment systems such as mobile wallets, QR code payments, and real-time bank transfers.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Sheue Chee Beh, Head of Partnerships for APAC at Yuno, breaks down the hidden forces shaping how we pay today—and how businesses must adapt.
Some of the topics that Chee covers in detail include:
- Payment systems have continuously evolved to make transactions more seamless while preventing fraud. The goal has always been to enhance customer experience while ensuring security.
- One of the biggest challenges in payments is striking the right balance between convenience and security. Consumers want a frictionless experience, but reducing friction may increase vulnerability to fraud.
- Digital payments are not just for consumers—they are also transforming SMEs.
- Payment Orchestration: For businesses operating in multiple countries, accepting payments isn’t as simple as choosing one provider. Every market has its own preferred payment methods, banking infrastructure, and regulations.
- One of the most surprising insights was that alternative payment methods are outpacing credit cards in many regions, especially in Southeast Asia, India, and Latin America.
- One of the most exciting developments in the industry is the effort to connect different national payment systems into a seamless global network.
The global automotive industry is undergoing one of its most significant transformations in history, driven by shifting market forces, technological advancements, and geopolitical tensions. Once dominated by traditional internal combustion engine vehicles, the landscape is rapidly evolving as electric vehicles and hybrid technologies gain traction.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Hirotaka Uchida, Partner at Arthur D. Little, unpacks how Thailand, China, and India are shaping the global auto industry—and what it means for the future of mobility.
Some of the topics that Uchida-san covered in detail included:
- How Thailand has positioned itself as a key player in the automotive industry over the last 50 years.
- While Japan pioneered the hybrid revolution with the launch of the Toyota Prius in 1997, it appears to be losing ground in the EV market to Chinese manufacturers.
- The Thai government is now using similar incentives that it once used for Japanese manufacturers to attract Chinese EV companies
- How and why the traditional auto market in Thailand is declining after peaking in 2012.
- Quietly, India is emerging as a major automotive market.
- For better or for worse, geopolitical tensions are reshaping the global automotive landscape.
Building a successful startup isn't about perfection; it's about embracing imperfection, moving forward with bold ideas, and creating something exciting. The best businesses are born when founders focus on building something useful and pushing boundaries, rather than obsessing over flawless execution. Entrepreneurs often get stuck trying to make everything perfect, but in reality, innovation thrives in environments where risks are taken, mistakes are made, and imperfection is accepted.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast featuring Eli David Rokah, the CEO of StartupBlink, I was struck by his passion for startups, ecosystems, and how he approaches building and scaling his business.
Some of the topics Eli covered in detail included:
- For Eli, building a business is not just about profitability or prestige, but about creating something that excites the founder.
- Startup ecosystems are constantly evolving, with companies emerging and dissolving regularly. Trying to capture every shift in real-time would be an impossible task.
- The importance of a strong team and scaling beyond yourself.
- Startup ecosystems thrive in environments that encourage bold action and a willingness to fail. Perfectionism and fear of failure can be crippling, and startup founders need the audacity to pursue big ideas.
- How legal frameworks and cultural norms influence startup ecosystems. Eli pointed out that countries with lenient bankruptcy laws create a safer environment for entrepreneurs to take risks.
- Global thinking over local innovation is key.
The integration of AI into marketing has the potential to revolutionize how businesses approach their strategies, offering tools that can automate repetitive tasks while enhancing creativity and efficiency. AI platforms are increasingly being used to handle tasks like content creation, social media management, and campaign development, allowing marketers to focus on strategic initiatives.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Shalu Wasu, co-founder of gimmefy, shares his insights on blending AI and marketing to create more efficient workflows for marketers. Drawing from over two decades of experience in brand management, agencies, and media, Shalu explains how AI can automate routine marketing tasks, allowing teams to focus on high-impact strategies.
Some of the topics that Shalu covered in detail include:
- AI isn't just about flashy features or fun gimmicks—it's about driving real productivity.
- Building bespoke AI that can create content that aligns with a specific brand's vision.
- The difficulty of proper AI prompting and how it can be solved.
- How to push AI to become more creative and striking a balance between innovation and automation.
- Why being an entrepreneur and building a business requires one to embrace uncertainty and to navigate ambiguity.
In the U.S. equity market, European financial markets, and major Asian capital markets, algorithmic trading accounts for about 60-75 percent of the overall trading volume. Algo trading has been on the rise in the U.S. equity markets since the turn of the century but seems to have plateaued around 70-80 percent in the last 5 to 10 years.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we spoke with Nirav Shah, Founding Partner of Versor Investments, about systematic investing and how technology is reshaping the financial landscape. Nirav explained how quantitative trading models use data to identify patterns and opportunities in global markets, allowing for trades at scale across various asset classes.
Some of the topics that Nirav covered in detail include:
- Quantitative models operate at scale, meaning they can apply algorithms across various asset classes and geographies, from equity markets to commodities, currencies, and futures. This ability to scale is a key advantage for systematic firms.
- While systematic investing might seem purely data-driven, Shah highlighted that every algorithm starts with economic intuition. Before a model is built, there needs to be a reasoned hypothesis—an understanding of why a specific signal should correlate with future market behavior.
- Nirav believes that Versor’s edge lies in its use of alternative data—non-traditional datasets that aren’t created specifically for finance but can be harnessed to generate investment insights. This alternative data include news sentiment, social media sentiment, regulatory filings, credit card data, and app or web traffic.
- Even with advanced algorithms, there are times when human intervention can occur. Nirav explained that Versor typically lets models run without interference. However, in rare situations their investment committee steps in to adjust strategies.
- While alternative data provides a significant advantage, Nirav points out that it is operationally challenging to work with. Quant firms like Versor have developed a unique ability to handle large datasets, process information quickly, and connect with multiple data vendors.
- Nirav is optimistic about the future of systematic investing. He believes that we are at the cusp of an AI revolution, where technology will touch every part of the investment process. The increasing availability of alternative datasets, combined with the rapid advancement of AI tools, is creating a new landscape for investment firms.
Microfinance plays a crucial role in promoting financial inclusion, particularly in underserved regions like Pakistan. By leveraging mobile technology and branchless banking, microfinance institutions can reach populations with limited access to formal banking, offering them essential tools like mobile wallets, credit, and savings products. However, financial inclusion is more than just providing access to banking—it is closely tied to social inclusion.
In this episode, Kabeer Naqvi, Chairman of the Pakistan Microfinance Network, shared his journey in using microfinance to drive financial inclusion in Pakistan.
Some of the topics Kabeer covered in detail include:
- Launching EasyPaisa revolutionized financial inclusion in Pakistan by leveraging mobile penetration to bridge its banking gap.
- The critical link between financial AND social inclusion, particularly in Pakistan's rural areas.
- By immersing himself in the communities his microfinance initiatives were intended to help, Kabeer gained an authentic understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced by local populations.
- While microfinance serves small entrepreneurs and commercial banks cater to large businesses, a significant gap remains in the support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The "missing middle" represents a crucial area for future development, as addressing it could lead to broader economic growth and stability.
- An estimated 30 million children in Pakistan are out of school, a figure that presents a formidable challenge to the nation’s future workforce. Naqvi expressed his concern that without proper education and vocational training, Pakistan’s youth could become a liability rather than an asset. His call to action for both the private sector and government is clear: education reform and support for underserved populations must be a national priority.
The idea that remote work is just a cost-cutting measure is outdated and shortsighted. The real power of remote teams lies in accessing a global talent pool that brings top-tier skills and diverse perspectives to companies that know how to leverage them. Large corporations have been doing this for years, but now, even small and medium-sized enterprises can tap into the same competitive advantage.
In this episode, we dive into the future of business growth with Yoni Kozminski, co-Founder and CEO ofMultiplyMii, who tells us how leveraging high-performance remote teams is the secret weapon for scaling profitable companies.
Some of the topics that Yoni covered in detail include:
- The democratization of talent allows SMEs to achieve the same level of productivity and profitability as large corporations—if they know how to harness remote talent effectively.
- The Philippines' 120 million-strong population, combined with a robust education system where English is the official medium of instruction, makes it a prime destination for outsourcing talent.
- Outsourcing isn’t just about paying lower salaries. The real advantage lies in operational savings and the ability to reinvest those savings into growth.
- You need to be crystal clear about your business’s needs before onboarding remote talent. If your company’s internal processes aren’t solid, hiring remotely will only magnify those inefficiencies.
- Having a well-documented set of procedures is crucial to scaling a business, especially when remote teams are involved.
While fintech apps and tools promise to simplify personal finance, they often miss the mark by focusing too much on the tech itself, rather than the real needs of users. The key to better money management isn’t just about having access to financial services; it’s about designing solutions that truly make a difference in people’s lives.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast with Monica Millares, Principal Product Ways of Working at BigPay, we explored the complexities of financial management and why technology alone isn’t the answer. Even the best technology fails if it doesn’t solve a real problem or if it’s too complicated for users to engage with confidently.
Some of the topics Monica covered in more detail:
- Financial inclusion isn’t just about access—it’s about accessibility
- Financial literacy and financial inclusion are two distinct yet interdependent challenges. It’s not enough to simply provide access to services; you need to ensure that users understand how to manage their finances effectively.
- Instead of overwhelming users with complex products, fintech companies should focus on solving one key problem that matters to the user. By doing this, companies can earn trust, which in turn opens the door to introducing users to more sophisticated financial services.
- Financial products should be designed for simplicity and impact - the impact of a financial product is not just about what it offers but how it solves real-life problems.
- With AI becoming increasingly powerful, fintech companies have an unprecedented opportunity to create personalized, scalable solutions that can impact millions of lives.
Most of us don’t realize how much cutting-edge technology is transforming logistics and supply chain management. Behind every e-commerce order, retail shipment, and last-mile delivery, AI, automation, and data-driven intelligence are reshaping how goods move from warehouses to customers.
Smart warehouses are reducing reliance on human labor, dark warehouses are cutting energy costs, and AI-powered route optimization is saving businesses millions. Logistics is no longer just a background function—it has become a key competitive advantage, where efficiency, speed, and sustainability determine success.
As businesses push to meet rising customer expectations while cutting costs, technology is the only way forward. Companies are using predictive AI to optimize operations, digital twins to simulate logistics networks, and machine learning to improve last-mile delivery.
Sustainability is no longer optional—AI-driven logistics are reducing carbon footprints while maximizing efficiency. The future of supply chain management isn’t about controlling every step—it’s about seamless integration, real-time visibility, and strategic collaboration. In this evolving landscape, those who fail to adapt will simply be left behind.
The Smart Delivery Expo 2025 proved one thing above all: The future of logistics isn’t coming—it’s already here.
The question is, are you ready to adapt?
Cybersecurity is no longer an abstract concern or a niche issue reserved for IT departments—it is a fundamental business risk that affects companies of all sizes. Rapid technological advancements, particularly in artificial intelligence, have enabled cybercriminals to launch more sophisticated attacks than ever before. At the same time, organizations are struggling to keep pace with these threats, often relying on outdated security models that leave them exposed.
From small businesses with limited resources to large corporations and government agencies, no one is immune to cyber threats. The rise of deepfake technology, misinformation campaigns, and vulnerabilities in third-party integrations are reshaping the cybersecurity landscape, making it clear that traditional defenses are no longer enough.
The conversations at CyberSec Asia 2025 highlighted a critical truth: security must be proactive, continuous, and deeply embedded into business operations. SMEs and mid-sized companies are now prime targets for cyberattacks, as they often lack the infrastructure to defend themselves effectively.
Meanwhile, AI-driven attacks and quantum computing threats are evolving at a pace that traditional security methods cannot counter. With businesses shifting more of their operations online and relying on interconnected systems, cybersecurity is now a 24/7 battle that demands real-time monitoring and rapid response. The question is no longer if an attack will happen but when—and whether organizations will be prepared to handle it.
CyberSec Asia 2025 made it abundantly clear that the cybersecurity landscape is evolving faster than most organizations can keep up with. The companies and governments that treat cybersecurity as a priority will be the ones that thrive in the digital future. The question is no longer if you will be attacked, but when.
Are you ready?
In a rapidly evolving world driven by artificial intelligence and digital transformation, the ability to adapt and innovate is no longer optional—it is essential. Organizations that succeed in this landscape go beyond surface-level change, embedding experimentation, customer-centric design, and agile collaboration into their core. They recognize that transformation is a continuous journey, where the insights gained from failures are as valuable as those from successes.
DBS Bank’s transformation journey, detailed by Nimish Panchmatia, the Chief Data and Transformation Officer at DBS Bank, offers a masterclass in how businesses can use artificial intelligence, process innovation and customer obsession to redefine themselves.
Some of the topics that Nimish covered in detail included:
- The integration of structured data allows DBS to make data analytics a core driver of decision-making.
- While traditional AI has matured significantly, generative AI's potential is still being tested and validated.
- Customer obsessions must drive innovation.
- How DBS has embedded a startup mentality across its organization, encouraging experimentation where employees feel empowered to test new ideas.
- AI is also important for improving employee experiences.
The world of cryptocurrency is rapidly evolving, driven by a generational shift in how people approach wealth and investment. Traditional paths like real estate and stock markets are becoming less accessible, especially for younger generations, who are increasingly turning to alternative assets such as cryptocurrency, whiskey, and wine. Therefore, understanding the ongoing evolution of the crypto space in Asia is no longer optional—it’s essential.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Paul Quickenden, Chief Commercial Officer of Easy Crypto, shares key insights into the evolving world of cryptocurrency.
Some of the topics that Paul covered in detail include:
- There is a significant shift in how younger generations think about wealth and investment.
- The importance of the core innovation of blockchain technology - decentralization.
- The potential weakening of the U.S. dollar's dominance as the global reserve currency and its impact on international trade.
- Fractionalization of assets and if it is really a thing.
- Despite the growing interest in crypto, the user experience remains a significant hurdle for new investors.
Is artificial intelligence about to transform how we experience travel, from planning a trip to dealing with unexpected issues along the way? Does AI have the potential to make travel planning seamless by turning stressful, complex decisions into smooth, intuitive processes?
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we spoke with Adrienne Enggist, Senior Director of Product at Booking.com, to explore how AI is set to revolutionize travel.
Some of the topics that Adrienne discussed include:
- How AI can structure unstructured data to create a more agentic relationship, where it anticipates a traveler’s needs without the traveler having to micromanage every detail.
- The idea that customer reviews can be gamified or manipulated, leading to mismatched expectations. Adrienne pointed out that AI can help tackle this issue by filtering out misleading or irrelevant information from reviews.
- The subtle difference between 'personalization' and 'relevance'. It’s not about knowing every detail of a traveler’s life; it’s about showing them the most relevant options for their trip based on context and past behavior.
- Importantly, Adrienne doesn’t believe the human touch in travel will disappear. Instead, AI will help scale human interactions, allowing customer service agents to focus on complex issues while AI handles the more mundane tasks.
- The importance for large platforms, including Booking, to use and manage all of the data they gather with care and ensure at all levels that data is protected and privacy is paramount.
The event ticketing industry has apparently remained quite stagnant despite advancements in technology. Most ticketing platforms create frustrating experiences for both consumers and organizer with cumbersome processes and unnecessarily long waits to complete transactions.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we speak with Nicolas Deppenweiler, co-founder and CEO of tessera, a company laser focused on revolutionizing the outdated event ticketing industry.
Some of the topics Nicolas covered in detail included:
- Tessera was born out of a realization that ticketing, an industry generating billions in annual revenue, is unnecessarily complicated, clunky, and ripe for innovation.
- In today's world, where convenience reigns supreme, people expect to accomplish tasks in seconds. Yet, buying event tickets remains a tedious experience that often deters potential attendees.
- Big, incumbent ticketing platforms generally hold onto the revenue from ticket sales until after an event takes place, leaving organizers in difficult cash flow positions.
- Legacy platforms have become too big to adapt to modern tech stacks, opening the space for startups like tessera to modernize and innovate.
- The secondary market for tickets is also broken and can and should be integrated into one, seamless ecosystem.
- Data is the future of event management.
In today's fast-paced tech world, the notion of "disruption" is often glorified, but a more strategic approach is proving to be a game-changer for Pi-xcels: embedding innovative solutions into existing payment systems. Integrating new technology seamlessly into established retail infrastructure allows for faster adoption and global scalability.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Daniel Lim, founder and CEO of Pi-xcels, shares how his company is reshaping the payment industry by partnering with global device manufacturers and payment service providers to scale globally.
Some of the topics that Daniel covered in detail included:
- Embedding technology into existing systems is a better strategy than outright industry disruption
- Global scalability is easier with real strategic partnerships.
- Matching the speed of Pi-xcels growth trajectory with that of its global partners made global expansion that much easier
- The first partnership Pi-xcels signed might have been the hardest...but FOMO can move competing device makers to adopt the new technology so they are not left out.
- Venture-funding allowed Pi-xcels to grow without the pressure to rush into markets that weren’t ready, but it also required careful communication with investors about the realities of working with multinational corporations.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we explore a refreshing approach to entrepreneurship with Oliver Palmer, co-founder of DQ Ventures. Instead of encouraging aspiring entrepreneurs to quit their jobs and dive headfirst into a startup, Oliver advocates for a more measured strategy.
Some of the topics Oliver covered in detail included:
- Why DQ Ventures focuses on working with slightly more mature founders—individuals who have been in the workforce for 10 to 20 years. These founders often have significant experience and insights into their industry, making them well-suited to identify and solve real problems.
- One of the most powerful insights from Oliver was the idea of making "little bets"---testing ideas in small, manageable ways before committing to a full-scale launch.
- The importance of investing in people, not simply in ideas., leading to the importance of finding co-founders who are not only passionate but also compatible.
- One of the key milestones DQ Ventures looks for before advising founders to quit their jobs is external validation.
- Entrepreneurial journeys do not have to be a high-wire acts. By taking a measured approach, making small bets, and validating ideas before fully committing, aspiring entrepreneurs can significantly increase their chances of success while minimizing risk.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Bhavik Vashi, Managing Director for APAC and the Middle East at Carta, shares valuable insights from his experience helping startups and investors navigate the complex world of cap table management and private financial markets.
Some of the deeper topics that Bhavik covered in detail include:
- Managing a startup’s cap table is one of the most foundational yet complex tasks a founder can face...and founders should aim to keep their cap tables as simple as possible.
- Choosing the right investors is key—trust, mutual goals, and alignment matter far more than almost anything else.
- Singapore ranks highly on the global scale for startup innovation and continues to mature into a world-class ecosystem.
- A shared skepticism about the concept of stealth startups, notting that founders who hide their ideas might miss out on valuable feedback and iteration opportunities.
- Most importantly, how Carta is transforming into an operating system for private financial markets, serving not just startups but also the investors who fund them.
The financial landscape is undergoing a significant transformation as traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi) begin to converge. Rather than competing, these two systems are evolving to complement one another, creating a more efficient and inclusive global financial system. This shift is being driven by innovations in blockchain technology, making financial services more accessible and user-friendly.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Karl Mohan, General Manager for APAC, Middle East, and Africa, and Global Head of Banking Partnerships at Crypto.com, challenges everything you think you know about money. Karl argues that the future of finance lies not in the rigid systems of traditional banks but in the innovative world of decentralized finance (DeFi).
Some of the topics Karl covered in detail include:
- Karl sees DeFi and TradFi as two sides of the same coin. This hybrid model will power the future of finance, blending the robustness and reach of TradFi with the innovative, decentralized capabilities of DeFi.
- Karl’s passion for financial inclusion, particularly in underserved markets. He believes that crypto has the power to level the playing field.
- Karl highlighted that regulatory clarity is crucial to driving consumer adoption. The more clearly defined the rules and safeguards around crypto, the more likely people are to trust and use these services.
- Crypto.com's three-pronged strategy to reach 1 billion users.
- Karl emphasized that financial literacy is a key part of driving crypto adoption and Crypto.com University is an important part of this goal.
In this episode, we spoke to Zohar Bronfman, the CEO of Pecan AI about how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way we understand human behavior and make business decisions. Predictive AI focuses on analyzing historical data to forecast future events, while generative AI creates new content or insights based on its learned patterns. Their combination offers powerful tools for businesses, allowing them to anticipate customer behavior and engage in more effective decision-making processes by simulating possible outcomes.
Some of the topics that Zohar covered in more detail:
- The idea that human behavior is largely predictable. A sophisticated AI could predict that you're going to pick up a glass of water moments before you even realize it yourself.
- Predictive AI and Generative AI are related, but serve different purposes and combining them could create revolutionary outcomes for businesses.
- AI is rapidly becoming as ubiquitous and essential as electricity and will soon be embedded in our everyday lives and business operations without most people realizing it.
- Human biases affect decision-making in ways we may not be aware of, but these biases can be corrected by AI.
- AI may never fully replicate the intentionality of human decision-making, but it can augment it in ways that allow us to make better, more informed choices.
Discover the best FinTech ideas that are reshaping Southeast Asia's financial landscape.
The Asia Tech Podcast attended the Singapore FinTech Festival 2024 to learn more about the most innovative ideas in FinTech and Financial Services.
We spoke to 19 of the most exciting FinTech innovations showcased at the SFF 2024.
From revolutionary embedded finance and insurance solutions transforming our daily interactions to AI-driven tools poised to empower everyone, these innovations are setting the stage for a new era in financial services.
Join us as we unpack the highlights of SFF 2024, the breakthrough ideas poised to reshape finance, empower consumers, and drive global financial inclusion.
Get ready to be inspired by the future of FinTech and the incredible possibilities it holds for everyone!
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we dive deep into the world of AI and data centers with Rich Farrell, APAC Director of Digitalization, Cybersecurity, and Data Centers at Eaton. Rich reveals how AI is one of the most transformative technologies of our time, but many businesses rushing to adopt it don't fully understand why.
Some of the big topics Rich covered in more detail:
- We highlighted that AI could be the most significant technological transformation we’ve seen. AI is not just a topic for tech insiders anymore; it has entered public consciousness and is driving conversations at the highest levels of business and government.
- The fear of falling behind competitors and customer expectations often drives the decision to adopt AI. Yet, without a well-defined purpose, companies risk implementing AI without seeing tangible benefits.
- Despite AI’s growing importance, there’s a glaring gap in expertise. This talent shortage makes it difficult for companies to implement and manage AI solutions effectively.
- One of the biggest dilemmas is the tension between AI's growth and sustainability goals. When big tech companies committed to being carbon-neutral by 2030, AI wasn’t on the radar.
- Data centers, the backbone of the digital world, are undergoing a transformation to support AI’s energy demands. New designs are incorporating renewable energy sources like nuclear and grid-aware devices that can optimize power usage and even sell energy back to the grid.
In the Asia Tech Podcast’s conversation with Peter Man, General Manager for Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau at Red Hat, we explored the complex landscape of digital transformation in Hong Kong and how open source technology plays a pivotal role in its future.
Some of the topics that Peter covered in detail:
- Geopolitical challenges drive the need for open source. Peter explained that open source technology offers a politically neutral, transparent solution in an increasingly polarized world.
- Digital transformation is Hong Kong is less about speed and more about leveraging technology to tap into new markets and customer bases, particularly through expanding into the Greater Bay Area.
- Open source, by its nature, is transparent—there are no hidden backdoors or trojan horses in the code, and businesses can audit and compile the code themselves.
- One of the biggest advantages of open source software is that it frees companies from the potential of vendor lock-in.
- Open source software fosters a collaborative approach to innovation, where the entire community benefits from shared knowledge and contributions.
In a dynamic conversation with Jayne Chan, Head of Startups at Invest Hong Kong, I had the privilege of exploring the intricacies of Hong Kong's startup landscape. Our discussion touched on the city's role as a financial hub, the impact of global talent, and the evolving tech environment that continues to shape its entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Some of the topics that Jayne covered in detail:
- Hong Kong's startup ecosystem is international and diverse. 27% of Hong Kong’s startup founders hail from outside the city, representing a rich blend of ideas and innovations from places like Mainland China, the UK, the US, France, and Australia.
- Hong Kong's status as one of the world’s leading financial centers provides a natural foundation for a thriving fintech sector. Ranked third globally, just behind New York and London, the city attracts financial professionals who often pivot into FinTech entrepreneurship.
- While FinTech dominates, Hong Kong’s startup ecosystem is increasingly diversifying into deep tech, biotech, and green tech...standing as the second-largest fundraising hub for biotech globally.
- Hong Kong’s unique geographical and economic positioning as a conduit to Mainland China could be a distinct advantage for startups. With a population of 86 million and a combined GDP of $2 trillion, the GBA offers immense market potential for both B2B and B2C startups.
- Invest Hong Kong doesn’t just promote Hong Kong as a destination for startups—it plays an active role in helping startups scale. Invest HK's connection initiatives act as a marketplace where startups can showcase their solutions and find the resources they need to grow.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast featuring Jon Stona, Vice President of Global Marketing at Airwallex, we explored how the company has revolutionized global payments by addressing real business pain points.
Some of the topics Jon covered in detail:
- How the company founders, who were running a cafe in Melbourne, were constantly frustrated by the complexity and cost of paying international suppliers.
- Airwallex's global reach has been built on the foundation of deep local knowledge, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.
- While tech is essential, real transformation happens when technology is combined with human relationships.
- How Airwallex is creating a modular financial operating system that is built for scale.
- Building a challenger brand requires trust, credibility, and cultural connection.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we dive into the rapidly evolving world of AI-generated avatars. We discuss how hyper-realistic avatars are transforming marketing, sales, and customer service by mimicking human interaction in ways that feel almost real.
We spoke with Igor Hofman from D-ID and he covered:
- How humans are wired to interact with other humans. This interaction, however, does not always have to involve a real person. If avatars are highly realistic and mimic human behavior closely enough, they can satisfy the brain’s need for human interaction.
- The pace of technological development in the avatar space is nothing short of astonishing. The advancements are moving so fast that it’s plausible to imagine a future where interacting with avatars could become indistinguishable from real human interaction.
- How avatars are already transforming marketing and sales. Avatars are increasingly being used to create personalized marketing content, enabling companies to target their audiences with extreme precision.
- One of the most promising applications of avatars is in customer service. Some companies are now using avatars to enhance or even replace traditional chatbots. Avatars bring a more personal and engaging touch.
- Igor sees the future in natural user interfaces (NUIs), where users interact with AI and digital systems as if they were speaking to another person. NUIs could revolutionize the way we engage with digital content.
As we move further into the digital age, the lines between our physical and virtual lives are becoming increasingly blurred. We already spend a significant portion of our lives in front of screens, and this digital immersion is only growing deeper. The future of the internet lies not just in new technologies but in how those technologies empower users to own and control their data, identities, and content. In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we dive deep into the future of the internet with Aaron McDonald, Founder and CEO of Futureverse.
Some of the topics Aaron covered in detail include:
- He has a nuanced view of the metaverse, one that challenges the notion that it’s a future concept. He explained that the metaverse is already part of our lives. The digital world and the physical world are tightly intertwined, and the future of the internet is about enhancing this immersion and fostering user ownership of data and content.
- The concept of self-sovereign identity, where we control our personal data and only share what is necessary, when it is necessary.
- Making technology feel like magic and creating products that hide the complexity and provide seamless user experiences.
- How interoperability, particularly in gaming and digital assets, is one of the hardest challenges the metaverse faces. The ability to use digital items across different platforms and experiences is key to making the metaverse a reality.
- The belief that we’re at a critical juncture where the physical and digital worlds are merging, and the decisions we make now will influence how seamlessly (and safely) they do so.
Blockchain technology is poised to reshape the future of payments and finance through its unique programmability and decentralized nature. One of its most significant advantages is the ability to settle transactions instantly, eliminating the delays and risks typically associated with traditional payment systems, especially in cross-border scenarios.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Tianwei Liu, a co-Founder and CEO of StraitsX, discusses the evolving landscape of digital currencies, including stablecoins, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and tokenized bank deposits.
Some of the topics Tianwei covered in detail:
- Emphasizing how vital it is to empower developers with the right tools to innovate. By building better APIs, StraitsX opened up a world of possibilities for other entrepreneurs and engineers to create more efficient payment systems.
- Working closely with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to ensure StraitsX' operations met regulatory standards. Tianwei explained how StraitsX was the first fintech in Singapore to be granted the widely accepted stored value facility license, which allowed them to scale operations.
- Stablecoins represent a significant evolution in the payment ecosystem, offering the benefits of blockchain technology while maintaining the stability of traditional currencies.
- Tianwei highlighted the immense potential of programmable money, which allows for the automation of business logic—such as expiration dates, discount vouchers, or conditional payments.
- Despite the complexity of blockchain and the technologies behind it, Tianwei believes the ultimate goal is to make these innovations invisible to the end user.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, John Lombard, CEO for APAC at NTT DATA, shared his leadership journey and key insights gained from a career spanning consulting, international business, and technology. John also discussed the future of AI and its transformative potential, comparing it to the impact of electricity.
Some of the topics John discussed in more detail include:
- The importance of flexibility, cultural awareness, and the ability to make informed decisions based on past cycles
- He emphasized that AI will be human-led in the near term, supporting rather than replacing human intelligence
- The growing demand for lightweight, specialized AI models
- John further stressed NTT DATA’s commitment to sustainability, particularly in reducing energy consumption in data centers and developing green technologies.
- The need for companies and individuals to invest in AI skills
Financial empowerment, especially for women, is a critical yet often overlooked aspect of personal development. Recently, the Asia Tech Podcast spoke with Pauline Kirk, the founder of Femvestorsglobal. Pauline's mission to empower women through financial literacy and independence is both inspiring and a call for change.
Some of the topics that Pauline discussed in detail:
- Pauline uses the term "The Disney Effect" to describe how societal norms and childhood influences shape women’s attitudes toward money.
- Pauline candidly shared her own experiences with financial highs and lows, and turned her "mess" into a message, advocating for financial literacy and empowerment.
- She emphasizes that understanding and managing one's emotions around money is crucial to developing a healthier relationship with money.
- Embracing failure as a necessary step toward success. In the context of financial empowerment, it means acknowledging past mistakes without letting them define your future.
- Financial independence starts with good habits, stressing the importance of developing and maintaining habits that align with long-term financial goals.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we explore the rapidly evolving startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia with Fannie Soubiele, Head of Venture Capital Business Development Southeast Asia at Google Cloud. Fannie shares her journey from working at some of the region's earliest venture capital firms to her current role at Google Cloud and her involvement with Epic Angels, a female-led angel investment network.
Some of the topics that Fannie covered included:
- Resilience as a fundamental trait for any successful entrepreneur. Maintaining the determination to keep moving forward, learning from failures, and staying committed to the vision despite setbacks.
- The evolution of Southeast Asia'a startup ecosystem. It is not just about the number of startups but also about the increasing sophistication of the support networks, including accelerators, VCs, and government initiatives.
- How visionary leaders are crucial for setting the direction of a startup and rallying their team around a common goal. Their ability to see beyond the immediate challenges and focus on long-term objectives make the difference between success and failure.
- A thriving startup ecosystem has far-reaching impacts beyond just economic growth. It can drive social change by providing new ways to address societal challenges and by fostering a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.
- The potential for angel investing to democratize wealth creation. Through platforms like Epic Angels, experienced professionals from diverse backgrounds can contribute to and benefit from the startup ecosystem.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast featuring Rob Bradley, Senior Vice President of Digital Revenue Strategy and Operations at CNN International Commercial, we explored the profound impact of technology on the media industry.
Some of the topics that Rob discussed in detail included:
- The media industry has always been at the forefront of technological innovation.
- How programmatic advertising changed the game and made the sales role more complex and valuable.
- While technology enables scale and efficiency of ad placement, a human touch still drives storytelling and creativity.
- The necessity to be data-driven to build trust and maintain long-term client relationships.
- How the media industry’s evolution has been relentless, with new platforms, technologies, and consumer behaviors constantly reshaping the landscape.
"I want Woodstock to be a go to place for any investing so whether you're investing in as you know, stocks or bonds or crypto and FX, whatever that is. And our priorities will obviously change, and things would take a long time, but for sure, Woodstock could be a good, a good place where people trust and, you know, they if I go there, I can get valuable advice, advices, and not like, recommend, stock recommends, but like, as in, like, you know, just people just giving, you know, coaching, like, oh, you know, this is, this is a good book, or this is a, you know, how you should think, like, that kind of advice, right? So this is where people should come for the community. They're valuable community, and also for easy access to markets, and also easy access to a bunch of different financial products, but also just be a better, you know, financial literate. Just increase your literacy in the markets, and therefore just become a better professional." - Brian Yun
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke with Brian Yun, a co-Founder and CEO of Woodstock, during which we explored key insights from his entrepreneurial journey. His experiences in engineering, trading, and tech, have equipped him with a unique skill set that he has leveraged to build Woodstock.
Some of the topics that Brian discussed in detail:
- How patience and persistence are essential for sustaining a business through its formative years.
- How his engineering background helps him understand and build complex systems.
- The immense power of social media in building audience, community and engagement.
- Investing is as much about understanding human psychology as it is about financial acumen.
- The importance of improving financial literacy and empowering individuals to make informed investment decisions.
"...when you bring technology into those communities, you can see how the child mortality goes down. You can see how the GDP in the country goes up. You can see all these fantastic innovations coming out of these countries and the entrepreneurship it sparks. But to answer your original question, it's easier to fundraise from organizations and businesses, because they really get it. " - Mea Thompson
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Mea Thompson, a co-founder and CCO of Unconnected.org. Mea shared some of her insights into the critical work of bridging the digital divide. Unconnected.org focuses on providing meaningful technology access to underserved communities worldwide, particularly emphasizing the importance of affordability and community-driven solutions.
Some of the issues Mea discussed in detail:
- The digital divide is more than just a connectivity issues. Many communities simply cannot afford the hardware and maintenance costs.
- Community-driven initiatives are key to driving connectivity success.
- Local teachers actually play a pivotal role in the digital inclusion process.
- Empowering local entrepreneurs to run and manage the telecommunications infrastructure, Unconnected ensures that its initiatives continue to benefit the community long after the initial setup.
- The impact of providing internet access goes beyond mere connectivity. It can transform communities economically, socially, and culturally.
- The sheer joy of making a difference in the world and seeing real, tangible impact.
"I think one of my biggest values as a human being is curiosity. I do try to show up a lot every day with curiosity. And so I think that the difference then is that instead of approaching something with judgment, I often approach it from a place of curiosity. I'm like, okay, well, tell me more. I also have a master's degree in conflict resolution, which is a really interesting background for an investor." - Kalsoom Lakhani
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Kalsoom Lakhani, a co-Founder and General Partner of I2I Ventures. As a daughter of a Bangladeshi mother and a Pakistani father, Kalsoom grew up with a rich tapestry of cultural experiences, which shaped her into a third culture kid adept at navigating diverse environments. This background fueled her curiosity and empathy, key traits that have significantly influenced her professional life and her approach to investing in Pakistan's nascent but growing startup landscape.
Some of the topics Kalsoom covered in detail:
- The evolution of the Pakistani startup ecosystem, which was still nascent when I2I was started in 2011
- The challenges of ecosystem building requires the convergence of multiple elements—entrepreneurs, investors, regulatory frameworks, and support systems.
- The resilience and ingenuity of Pakistani founders, who often operate with limited resources in challenging environments.
- The growing influence of artificial intelligence and the importance of addressing its ethical and societal implications.
- A recurring theme was the importance of embracing nuance and complexity. Whether in cultural identity, ecosystem building, or technology, Kalsoom advocates for a deeper, more empathetic understanding.
"I think what I've learned is, if I can do it this way, then anyone can. And the qualification is by doing it. It is always daunting, I think, and it was more of an internal struggle for me to make that first investment, to write that first check...I'm just more accepting of the fact that I'm not going to be great at something the first time, and that's okay, but the only way I'm going to become great is by doing it more times and getting better..." - Elena Kersey
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast Elena Kersey, the Community and Partnerships Lead at Epic Angels, shared key insights into angel investing. She emphasized that individuals from diverse backgrounds, including those without finance or tech experience, can succeed in angel investing with a willingness to learn and a passion for innovation.
Some of the topics that Elena covered in detail:
- The importance of the support system provided by a group of female investors, many of whom are also new to startup investing.
- Seeking out founders with a deep commitment to solving a problem, often based on personal experiences.
- Another critical lesson is the importance of investment and sector diversification.
- Elena stressed that one qualification for being an angel investor is by doing it. The experience of making that first investment, even if small, is invaluable.
- Angel investing is not a get-rich-quick scheme and a long-term perspective is essential.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of AI and filmmaking, the intersection of creativity and technology is producing groundbreaking results. I had the pleasure of speaking with Jud Willmont, the owner and Producer / Director at Willmountain Films, and Jacky Lin, a founding partner at Creative Fitting, to delve into their recent collaboration on an AI-generated film for the Shanghai Film Festival entitled M.A.D.
Some of the topics they covered in detail included:
- The importance of a hybrid approach in filmmaking. While AI can handle the heavy lifting of creating visual content, the essence of storytelling still relies on human creativity.
- The suggestion that AI should be treated as an artist rather than just a tool.
- The astonishing speed at which AI technology is advancing. They noted that the AI models they were using evolved even during the short three-week competition period.
- The significant challenges in using AI for film production is maintaining consistency, especially with character movements and expressions.
- As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, the unique perspectives and creative inputs from humans will continue to be what sets truly exceptional work apart.
And...
On Friday June 14th, the Global AI Film Marathon held the award ceremony in Shanghai Film Art Center. Jud and Jacky's film, M.A.D, won the Audience Award!
This is the official announcement of the winning teams in Chinese:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/N1IUAhtK6z4WQPYwEP_McQ
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Ryan Manafe, co-founder and CEO of Dagangan, shared his insights on revolutionizing rural distribution in Indonesia. Drawing from his personal experiences in Central Java, Manafe identified the significant challenges faced by rural communities in accessing daily necessities.
Some of the topics that Ryan covered in detail:
- In Indonesia, 80% of the population lives outside major cities like Jakarta. These areas represent a substantial market with unique needs, often neglected by large corporations.
- The importance of building a hub-and-spoke distribution network with micro-warehouses in villages.
- How local community leaders and religious figures play a vital role in educating villagers about new services.
- Facilitating access to the most remote markets for big brands like Coca-Cola and promoting local brands as well.
- How Dagangan isn't just about distributing goods; it's also about improving lives. For example, Dagangan partnered with a local milk company to address the issue of stunted growth in children by promoting affordable, nutritious milk in school canteens.
"So an event mesh is a data movement fabric, okay, yep, so the network, but it's the layer between the network and the applications. So if we explain it a little bit further, event broker is this technology that allows you to move data in a one to many manner, in a publish to subscribe manner. So for example, if an order is created, and we say that order event is published to the event broker, that order may have to go to the order management system. It may also go to the digital receipt system. It may also go to the loyalty system. So the same order has to go to multiple systems. And this pattern is called publish, subscribe, which is done by an event broker." - Sumeet Puri
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Sumeet Puri, Chief Technology Solutions Officer at Solace, shared deep insights on the transformative power of real-time data and event-driven architecture. He explained how advancements in network and computing capabilities have enabled industries to transition from traditional data handling to real-time data processing.
Some of the topics that Sumeet covered in detail:
- The evolution from traditional data handling to real-time data processing.
- Real-time data is no longer a luxury reserved for high-frequency trading desks. It has permeated various industries, enhancing customer experience and operational efficiency.
- The importance of event-driven architecture in facilitating real-time data movement. This architecture operates on the principle of event meshes, which are networks of event brokers that handle data in a publish-subscribe model.
- Real-time data processing democratizes access to information and services. Puri highlights initiatives like Singapore's SGQR and India's UPI as examples where real-time data movement has enabled even the smallest merchants to participate in the digital economy.
- The concept of 'Event Storming' workshops is an innovative approach to identifying and leveraging real-time data opportunities. By breaking down business processes into individual events, companies can uncover previously hidden efficiencies and opportunities.
"Resistance training is, you know, they can take away everything in terms of like, your comfort, your warmth, your food, you know, etc, make you disoriented, but they can't take away your will to resist, right? And they can't take away your mind, right? That's the thing that you can always control in terms of resistance. And so I emphasized that to her what they taught us over and over, which was, never forget who the enemy is." - Gene Yu
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, featuring Gene Yu, a Founder and CEO of Blackpanda, we explored innovative approaches to cybersecurity and the vital role of crisis response. Gene’s unique background as a West Point graduate and a former Green Beret significantly shaped BlackPanda's approach.
Some of the topics Gene covered in more detail included:
- By wrapping their cybersecurity emergency response services in an insurance-like product and a SaaS platform, BlackPanda has made high-quality cybersecurity accessible to a broader market at a significantly reduced cost.
- Given the sensitive nature of cybersecurity, the background of the founders and the reputation of the company play a crucial role in gaining clients' trust.
- One of the most profound insights Gene shared was about transferring skills and methodologies across different domains. He spoke about his transition from physical security and crisis response in the military to the digital realm of cybersecurity. This shift was facilitated by his ability to apply strategic and tactical principles from his military experience to cybersecurity challenges.
- BlackPanda’s focus on emergency response and crisis management in cybersecurity has allowed them to carve out a distinct identity in a new and growing market.
- Most importantly, Gene shared a gripping, true story about rescuing a family friend that had been kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf, an experience that profoundly impacted his life. This mission highlighted the importance of resilience, adaptability, and human connection in crisis situations. Amazon commissioned Gene to write a book about the incident that will be released on October 1, 2024 and you can find it here.
So it's actually very interesting how technology is taking a lot of the grunt work out of investment banking, which allows the real investment bankers to focus on the important stuff, which is, you know, the negotiations and the closing of the deals and more personal stuff. There is a good company in Japan, which has a good precedent called M&A Research Institute, which is a listed. And within it's a listed company, it's a similar business, and we're following basically the same path as they have. And they closed 150 deals last year. And they made $60 million of revenue. And it's a very profitable business model. - Marcus Yeung
The journey of entrepreneurship is often fraught with challenges, triumphs, and valuable lessons. Asia Tech Podcast had the pleasure of conversing with Marcus Yeung, a seasoned entrepreneur and investment banker. Marcus is the co-Founder and Managing Partner at Match.Asia and the Founder of Seabridge Partners. Our discussion provided important insights into the world of entrepreneurship, particularly within the context of the evolving landscape of technology and investment banking.
Some of the topics Marcus covered in detail:
- Embracing failure and the important learnings that result from it
- The power of long-term relationships
- The role of technology in scaling businesses
- The importance of integrity, humility, and gratitude
- A future where investment banking is significantly disrupted by technology
- The importance of long-term relationships and career evolution
"Well, we think of this catalog as, ideally, a kind of cannon for progress, both in a very sort of explicit sense when it comes to, again, growing the GDP of the internet, making it much easier for people who have very ambitious ideas about a company they want to build to do that, and in an easier way than they might have to do if they were just trying to figure out everything themselves. You don't need to reinvent the wheel." - Tamara Winter
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Tamara Winter, the Commissioning Editor of Stripe Press, shares her insights on the unique mission and values guiding Stripe's publishing efforts. Stripe Press aims to disseminate practical and provocative content tailored to a specific audience of high-agency individuals such as founders, executives, and technologists.
Some of the topics that Tamara covered in more detail:
- How the creation of Stripe Press was serendipitous, born during a conversation between Stripe’s co-founder John Collison and entrepreneur Elad Gil.
- How physical books offer a timeless and beautiful presentation for important ideas. The tactile experience of a book, from its cover design to the feel of the pages, adds a layer of significance to the content.
- A dedication to curating a catalog that serves as a canon for progress underscores Stripe Press’s commitment to providing essential knowledge to its audience.
- Stripe Press's philosophy is that "the way you do one thing is indicative of how you do everything". This ethos ensures that each book they publish is not only informative but also a work of art.
- How Tamara's own background, growing up in a culturally rich and diverse environment, shaped her understanding of the importance and the power of ideas.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Meenah Tariq, CEO of Metric and an experienced entrepreneur with deep roots in emerging markets, shared her journey and the lessons she's learned along the way. Meenah discussed her early introduction to entrepreneurship in Pakistan, beginning with childhood ventures that sparked a lifelong passion for business.
Some of the other topics Meenah cover in detail:
- Her early experiences in selling lemonade and organizing neighborhood services laid the groundwork for her lifelong passion for entrepreneurship
- How adaptability is required to thrive in unfamiliar environments
- The transformative potential of technology in democratizing access to financial intelligence for small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
- Meenah's staunch advocacy for women entrepreneurs, recognizing the systemic barriers they face in securing funding and support
- The importance of resilience, and how community and support systems are pivotal in navigating the entrepreneurial journey
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Democratizing Financial Intelligence: A Vision for Global Business Empowerment
- Cultural Shifts and Financial Insights: Reshaping Business in Emerging Economies
- Transformative Tales from the Entrepreneurial Frontlines
- Bridging the Gap: Technology as a Catalyst for Entrepreneurial Success
- Lemonade Stands to Global Ventures: Entrepreneurial Lessons from Across Continents
"What we are saying is, hey, right now you have this unified infrastructure that allows you to do payment experimentation. And guess what, if you want to try and test different services, now you have access to an app store of services, you go in, in the Primer dashboard, they can just like toggle on and off, like the services you want to use. You can add test them, AB testing in the world of payments is simply impossible, right?" - Gabriel Le RouxSome of the topics that Gabriel highlighted in detail included:
- A pivotal shift towards modular payment systems, emphasizing flexibility and customization over the traditional one-size-fits-all solutions.
- The shift towards merchant-centric services, diverging from the historically provider-focused models, where businesses had to adapt to the limitations and structures of their payment service providers.
- The recent announcement by Stripe to open up its services aligns with a broader industry trend towards interoperability and flexibility.
- How Primer’s technology enables businesses to adapt their payment methods and procedures on a country-by-country basis seamlessly.
- The concept of "future-proofing" businesses through scalable payment infrastructures, allowing small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to implement a robust payment system early in their development phase, which can scale as they grow and expand.
"I think Hong Kong is a very special city. I think the spirit of the people, it's been a very entrepreneurial city over whatever, 100 plus years...Hong Kong, at the end day also has a good capital markets environment, for fundraising, especially for companies that have good traction and whatnot, I think it's a great place to track capital." - Christopher Yu
The Asia Tech Podcast hosted Christopher Yu, the President and CFO at KPay Group. Chris shared his journey from investment banking to the entrepreneurial sector, highlighting his transition from a generalist in the corporate realm to embracing more entrepreneurial challenges. It was a really cool conversation.
Some of the topics that Chris highlighted in detail included:
- The strength found in a longstanding partnership among KPay's founders, who have been together for over 15 years, proving that a cohesive team can significantly impact a business's resilience and adaptability.
- The importance of timing and self-awareness in corporate to entrepreneurial transitions, advocating for the entrepreneurial path as a platform for continued learning and growth.
- The necessity for building a deep understanding of the pain points faced by SMEs, emphasizing the importance of starting with a real, tangible problem and expanding solutions organically.
- Understanding local nuances while addressing universal pain points is crucial for successful market penetration and customer satisfaction.
- How KPay envisions a platform that is as seamless as upgrading from one smartphone model to another, emphasizing the importance of a synchronized, user-friendly experience that allows SMEs to focus on their core business.
"I've been moving by myself since I was 17... And each time I managed to pull myself up. And each time I managed to build a community around myself. And I think I was doing well in my own definition. So really, I believe any situation I can do well." - Jingjing Zhong
In a revealing conversation on the Asia Tech Podcast, Jingjing Zhong, co-founder of Superbench, shared her entrepreneurial journey and the innovative work her company is doing in the home services industry.
Some of the topics that Jingjing covered in detail included:
- Navigating cultural nuances can enhance business growth and communication
- The transition from corporate to entrepreneurship requires courage and the clarity of 'why'
- Emerging technological innovation can solve traditional business pain points
- Robust data management can lead to better decision-making and increased efficiency
- The importance of building a business model that scales by aligning closely with customer demands and industry dynamics
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- From Banking to AI: Revolutionizing Home Services
- The Future of Home Services: An AI-Driven Approach
- Empowering Small Businesses Through AI
- From Investment Banking to Tech Innovations: Revolutionizing Home Services with AI
"We are in a very interesting time where we will see the embrace of technology in a much more rapid rate…We want to be the first in the industry to be delivering a truly autonomous machine vision platform for manufacturing." - Dushyant Verma
The Asia Tech Podcast engaged with Dushyant Verma, a co-Founder and the CEO at SmartViz to explore the intersection of AI and Manufacturing.
Some of the topics that Dushyant covered in detail included:
- The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into manufacturing processes represents a pivotal shift from manual inspections to automated, precise quality control.
- The exploration of how technology empowers manufacturers to evolve from being process-focused to data-centric entities.
- The often-underestimated significance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing ecosystem.
- The global nature of the opportunity for AI technology adoption in manufacturing.
- The transformative impact of modular technology on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Revolutionizing Quality Control: The Future of Smart Manufacturing
- AI and Modular Tech: Transforming the Manufacturing Landscape
- From Manual to Autonomous: The Evolution of Manufacturing Processes
- Redefining Precision: AI's Role in Flawless Production
- The New Age of Manufacturing: Quality, Efficiency, and AI
"It was a bit of a blind bet... if something feels right, I don't really need a long time to make the decision... I was like, ‘You know what, what do I have to lose?’"
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Sherry Jiang, a co-Founder and the CEO of Peek. Sherry is no ordinary entrepreneur. She is super bright and filled with an energy that has to be experienced to be believed. Our conversation was so awesome, covered a ton of ground and I had to put an end to it, so that it would not turn into a three-hour episode.
Some of the topics that Sherry covered included:
- The importance of embracing change and taking calculated risks in both business and life
- The power of a clear and relatable vision (Marie Kondo of Finance) that also 'sparks joy'
- Embracing vulnerabilities and viewing setbacks as learning opportunities
- Creating a real emphasis on building a supportive community in the entrepreneurship ecosystem
- The necessity of balancing passion with practicality in the entrepreneurial journey
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Clutter-Free Finance: The Marie Kondo of Finance
- Embracing the Unknown: From Silicon Valley to Southeast Asia
- Breaking the Mold and Betting on Change
- Angel Investing and Cultivating Community in the Startup Ecosystem
- I'm All About Abundance Mindset
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by the co-founders of SeedFlex, Ritwik Ghosh and Sauvik Datta.
Ritwik Ghosh's extensive background in consumer and SME credit, first with Capital One Bank and then with Oliver Wyman, ingrained a deep understanding of credit systems in him, which he further enriched by spearheading Grab's fintech lending division.
Sauvik Datta's career spans over two decades in financial services, marked by significant roles at McKinsey, American Express, and Standard Chartered Bank, before his entrepreneurial venture with Validus Capital. His specialization in risk management, credit scoring, and the application of machine learning models for customer underwriting has positioned him at the forefront of financial innovation.
Some of the topics they covered in detail included:
- Identifying and bridging the market gap with a mission-driven approach and addressing the underserved micro-entrepreneurs and SMEs in Southeast Asia
- The power of data in unlocking financial services and enabling SeedFlex to extend credit to those deemed too risky by conventional standards
- Embracing technological innovation for seamless financial solutions and effectively introducing a "pay as you sell" advance
- The emphasis on ecosystem partnerships as a vehicle for scaling and building trust
- The creation of tailored financial products that cater specifically to the unique needs of micro-entrepreneurs
In an enlightening episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Igor Vincetic, the General Manager, Singapore at Electrolux, shares transformative insights into the ever evolving home appliance industry.
Some of the topics that Igor covered in detail included:
- The importance of innovation, customer-centricity, and sustainability
- innovative business models that focus on flexibility and convenience for consumers
- Creating holistic customer experiences, prioritizing service and relationship-building to enhance consumer satisfaction
- The necessity for companies to adapt continuously, keeping pace with changing consumer expectations and fostering a culture of agility and resilience
- Electrolux's dedication to leading the home appliance industry through innovative strategies, with a focus on sustainability and a customer-focused approach to business
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Navigating Innovation and Sustainability
- The Evolution of Consumer Needs: A Commitment to Service
- The Future is Convenient
- Leading with Purpose
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Nathaniel Yim, the Founder of Nila Studios and a non-executive co-Founder of Janio Asia. When Nathaniel asserted during our recording, "You cannot sell what you don't understand.", it really resonated with me. When you understand your products and their impact on customers, your enthusiasm, confidence, and sincerity shine through naturally.
Some of the other topics Nathaniel covered:
- Understanding your product's value proposition and the problems it solves for customers
- How customer empathy enables deep customer connections and fosters trust and credibility
- The critical role of content creation and leveraging networks in building brand visibility
- The importance of aligning marketing efforts with sales objectives
- The significant impact of personal branding and founder influence
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Whatever You Publish, Make Sure It Is Really Good
- You Just Have to Rise to the Occasion
- Infantry Is Like Sales
- That Opened up My Eyes to the Possibilities of Entrepreneurship
- You Have to Learn Everything and Do Everything
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we spoke with Nirali Zaveri, co-founder and CEO of Friz, about her transition from a corporate job, to founding a neobank for freelancers to pivoting towards a SaaS platform for marketing tech. Nirali discusses the challenges of scaling her initial venture, the strategic decision to pivot, and the lessons learned from being part of Y Combinator.
Some of the topics that Nirali covered in detail:
- The Power of the Ecosystem and Community
- The Startup Journey Is a Continuous Learning Curve
- Pivoting Is Not a Sign of Failure but a Step Towards Finding the Right Path
- The Importance of Being Customer Centric
- The Role of Accelerators in Shaping Founders and Startups
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- That Passion Is Really Different When You Can Use Your Own Product
- The Interface of the Internet is Going to Change Very Soon
- It’s Super Critical That Everything Gets Discussed
- They Scaled Their Learning Curve Very Quickly
- Be Willing to Fail Publicly
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Maaike Doyer, a Founder and Managing Partner at Epic Angels, back to the show to discuss a recent article she wrote on 'Why Stricter Angel Investing Rules Miss the Mark'. In the 3 years since Maaike founded Epic Angels along with Hester Spiegel-vdSteenhoven, the network has grown to nearly 300 female investors across 27 countries!
Some of the topics we discussed in detail from Maaike's article included:
- The untapped potential of women in angel investing and the importance of creating a supportive network to facilitate their growth
- Advocating for less restrictive regulatory criteria that would allow a wider range of individuals, especially women and younger investors, to participate in angel investing
- Her passionate explanation for the importance of education and access in empowering more women to become angel investors
- How collaboration among relevant stakeholders can lead to more inclusive investment opportunities and regulatory frameworks that recognize the diversity of investors’ backgrounds and experiences
- Maaike's unwavering passion for making a difference and challenging the status quo
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Redefining Risks: A Mission to Diversify Angel Investing
- Changing the Game: A Journey to Reshape Angel Investing
- The Power of Networks to Unlock Investment Potential
- It's More About Courage than Anything Else
- Redefine Regulations from Constraints to Catalysts
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we explore the entrepreneurial journey of Itai Boublil, a co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of KNOTS. KNOTS is reimagining the workplace for finance professionals; it is the first GenAI employee for finance teams.
Some of the topics that Itai discussed:
- A funny story about his first trip to the US from Israel to visit his cousin
- The critical role that technology can play is solving complex problems for finance teams
- How GenAI will not replace you, but it will surely change the way we work
- Building a culture of innovation and continuous improvement
- The expectation that KNOTS will evolve into a comprehensive ecosystem that connects different departments within a company, powered by AI
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- It’s Not About What Are We Trying To Build, It’s About What Are We Trying to Change
- We Wanted to Provide a New Experience for Finance Teams
- How Do You Take 16 Hours of Work and Turn It Into 10 Seconds?
- The Idea Is to Humanize the Whole Process
- I Enjoy Solving Complicated Problems
In the complex and vibrant Asian metropolises, the process of relocation and finding the right place for you and your family to reside can often feel daunting. The region presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities and addressing them requires an innovative approach.
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Dominic Schacher, a co-Founder of Rently, as he delves into the intricacies of the Asian real estate market, marked by its chaotic rental processes and procedural intricacies.
Some of the topics Dominic covered in detail include:
- The complexity of relocation and real estate in Asia
- The role of curated real estate platforms
- The convergence of PropTech and FinTech and how this leads to innovative solutions
- Building a flexible and scalable tech infrastructure
- Expanding outside of Asia while continuing to create a comprehensive real estate service offering
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Let’s Provide a Great Experience
- Providing an Experience for Both Sides That Is Ideal
- It Was Literally Geotagged to Your Biometrics
- Less Is More, But Higher Quality
- The Game Changer for Us Is the Real Estate Management Piece
The Asia Tech Podcast really enjoyed its conversation with Swapna and Nirmal David, the co-founders of Hobo Interactive. In an era where digital interactivity redefines our narrative experiences, Hobo Interactive focuses on bringing high quality visuals and appealing storytelling to games and other interactive experiences. Their journey, woven with the threads of world-building, storytelling, and a risk-taking entrepreneurial spirit, offers a captivating insight into the transformative power of gaming as a storytelling medium.
Some of the topics that Swapna and Nirmal spoke about in detail include:
- The Power of Storytelling in Gaming
- Gaming's Expansion Beyond Traditional Audiences
- The Evolution of Gaming as a Community Experience
- Building and Integrating Rich Worlds and IP Development in Gaming
- Fearlessness and Creativity in Entrepreneurship
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- It’s Less about the Game and More About the Community
- The Medium of Games Can Have Way More Powerful Storytelling Tools Than Films
- I Had Civilizations to Build and Empires to Destroy and Create
- We’ve Always Been Storytellers
- We’re All Gamers, Naturally
Two cool quotes I just had to share:
- Nirmal David: "For me, world building is the first thing when it comes to any storytelling... I think games are the most powerful medium for that."
- Swapna David: "We've always been storytellers...everything's a story for us. Funny story, engaging stories. That's been where we've always been. So I think was organic for us to get into this industry."
In an enlightening conversation on the Asia Tech Podcast, Rebecca Schwabe, COO and Founder of Saigon A.I., shared invaluable insights into her journey through the tech industry, the evolving landscape of technology in Vietnam, and the unique challenges and opportunities of being an entrepreneur in this rapidly transforming space.
Some of the topics that Rebecca covered:
- Her career pivot from finance to tech
- Why she identified Vietnam as an emerging tech hub
- The impressive growth of Vietnam's tech ecosystem
- Breaking stereotypes and encouraging women to participate in the tech revolution
- Artificial intelligence and the future of tech
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Truth and Explainability
- It Was a Lot of Fun Until You Got a Page at 2 AM
- The Next Tech Frontier: Vietnam's Emerging AI Landscape
- Empowering Women in Tech in Vietnam
- The AI Revolution in Southeast Asia
Freight forwarding is a complex and often misunderstood industry that plays a crucial role in global trade. The Asia Tech Podcast had a fascinating conversation with Glenn Lai, the co-founder and CEO of FR8Labs to learn more the industry at large and FR8Labs specifically.
Some of the insights that Glenn shared with us included:
- Embracing unconventional career paths can lead to innovative solutions
- The role of a freight forwarders and why FR8Labs focuses on SMEs
- The power of digital transformation in traditional industries
- Leveraging existing networks and knowledge
- Building scalable and adaptable business models - The platform approach
- The role of AI and technology in enhancing industry practices
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- You Can’t Really Have Digital Palm Oil
- The Paper Becomes the Commonality Across the Entire Chain
- Redefining Logistics and Revolutionizing Freight Forwarding
- Reshaping the Future of Freight Forwarding in Southeast Asia
- Digital Transformation and Leading a New Era in Asian Freight Forwarding
The Asia Tech Podcast had the opportunity to delve into the world of payment innovation with Gabriel Le Roux, the co-founder and CEO of Primer. Gabriel's journey from working at Braintree and PayPal to creating Primer provides invaluable insights into the evolution and future of payments.
Some of the topics that Gabriel covered:
- The growing demand among businesses for more comprehensive payment solutions
- The impact of integrated payment ecosystems
- The power of data-driven decision making in payments
- How Primer is leveraging AI for payment optimization
- Primer's vision for the future of payments
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Rethink the Way You Are Managing Payments
- We Want to Give Superpowers to People Managing Payments
- This Notion of Payment Success Is Super Critical to Us
- You Need to Think of Payments as a Catalyst for Innovation
- We Are Fundamentally Reinventing Payments
The Asia Tech Podcast had a captivating conversation with Neha Mehta, author of "One Stop" and founder and CEO of FemTech Partners in which she unraveled the complexities and the potential of Super Apps in the context of financial inclusion. Her insights shed light on the evolving digital landscape and its impact on society in Asia. The future looks promising, with technology paving the way for more inclusive and efficient financial services.
Some of the main topics that Neha covered in detail included:
- Her Personal Growth Journey Amidst Global Challenges
- How Super Apps Continue to Build a New Era of Digital Integration
- The Role of AI in Financial Services
- The Future of Super Apps: Quality over Quantity
- Why Financial Literacy Is a Key Component for Inclusion
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Super App Revolution: Insights on Tech and Inclusion
- Empowering the Unbanked: A Deep Dive into Super Apps
- Super Apps as Catalysts for Change
- A New Digital Era: Super Apps and Financial Empowerment
- Reimagining Finance and the Power of Super Apps
Look for Neha Mehta's book, "One Stop" here.
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Pablo Riveros, the founder of Manabu.dev an innovative platform utilizing AI and machine learning to simplify sustainability and ESG reporting for businesses.
Some of the topics that Pablo discussed in detail:
- How entrepreneurs benefit from a global perspective
- The importance of building global communities
- The necessity to build sustainability into the core of one's business
- Harnessing the power of data and technology to solve real-world problem
- Entrepreneurs need to be flexible and adaptable
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- From Digital Nomad to Tech Innovator
- Tech, Travel, and Transformation
- Blending Tech, Sustainability, and Building Communities and Startups
- Sustainability in Tech: Helping Companies Understand Their Data
- Building ESG Frameworks With Visual Data
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke with Shrikant Patil, the CEO and Managing Director of DigiAlly, and explored the importance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the global economy and the challenges they face in accessing finance.
Some of the top insights that Shrikant shared:
- SMEs contribute significantly to GDP and job creation
- Trust is a major barrier for SMEs in accessing finance
- Credit score alone is insufficient for assessing the financial feasibility of SMEs
- The potential for SME financing is enormous
- Collaboration between fintechs, governments, and institutions is crucial
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Credit Score Is Stale the Moment It Is Created
- Bridging the Gap: Financing SMEs for Growth
- Driving Economic Growth through SME Financing
- Transforming SME Financing: The Power of Alternative Data in Assessing SME Creditworthiness
- The Role of Trust in SME Financing
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Daniel Lim, the Founder and CEO of Pi-xcels, a technology company that specialises in digital receipt issuance, offering an eco-friendly alternative to paper receipts for retailers, corporates, and any establishment that utilises receipts.
Some of the insights I learned from Daniel included:
- The Value of Embracing a Non-Linear Career Path
- The True Power of Collaboration
- The Value of Shopper-Centric Data
- Augmenting Existing Systems for Greater Impact
- Balancing Perfection and Good Enough
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- A Shopper-Centric Experience
- From Geeky Hardware to Transformative Software
- Unlocking the Potential of Offline Retail with Innovative Technology
- Enabling Seamless Experiences and Empowering Shoppers
- How Pi-xcels is Enhancing the Shopper Experience
The Asia Tech Podcast had the opportunity to speak with Mehdi Ravanbakhsh, the CEO and Founder of Mapizy, who has over a decade of experience in geospatial mapping and AI. Mehdi shared his insights on the importance of learning languages, the intersection of geospatial mapping and AI, and his journey from academia to entrepreneurship.
Some of the topics that Mehdi discussed in detail:
- Language as a key to understanding culture
- How geospatial mapping and AI go hand-in-hand
- The fact that drones have revolutionized aerial mapping
- How mapping data on the blockchain ensures transparency and accuracy
- The importance of entrepreneurship requires taking the first step
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Just Start Something
- How AI Is Changing the Game
- Ensuring Data Integrity in Geospatial Information
- Starting from Somewhere: The Key to Entrepreneurial Success
- Information About the Built and Natural Environment
The Asia Tech Podcast hosted Michael Currie, the founder of Fling, who shared several insights he has gained from his experience in the drone industry in Southeast Asia. With a background in financial software development and AI research, Currie moved to Southeast Asia in 2017 and founded Fling in 2018, a company pioneering drones and AI in the region.
Some of the topics Michael covered in detail:
- The Importance of Listening to Customers
- Enablement Over Disruption
- Overcoming Operating Challenges in Low-Wage Environments
- Leveraging Commodity Drones with Proprietary AI Software
- Expansion and Growth Opportunities for Fling
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- This Is Where I Really Learned to Listen
- Visibility Into the Whole Supply Chain Process
- How Fling's Drones Are Revolutionizing the Supply Chain
- Transforming Warehouses with AI
- Pioneering Drones and AI in Southeast Asia
Asia Tech Podcast hosted Sean Ringsted, Chief Digital Business Officer at Chubb. Sean shared his insights about the balance between technological automation and the human touch, integrating technology into the partner experience and omni-channel distribution.
Some of the topics Sean covered in detail:
- Technology as an enabler
- Balancing technology with the necessity of the human touch
- How omni-channel is the next step in the customer journey
- The importance of embedded insurance building trust and loyalty
- The continuing massive opportunity for Chubb in Asia
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Future of Partner Experience: Technology and Beyond
- The Rise of Phygitally-Enabled Sales and Services
- Creating Seamless Experiences in the Digital Age
- Enhancing Partner and Customer Experiences
- Building Resilience Through Innovative Insurance Solutions
Sign up for the live broadcast of 'Insurance for the New Possible' from the Singapore FinTech Festival here.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Sam Fromson, the co-founder and COO of YuLife, and Stephen Barnham, the Global Chief Digital and Information Officer at Dai-ichi Life Holdings.
Sam and Stephen discussed their partnership and the innovative approach they are taking to reimagine the insurance industry. YuLife is on a mission to inspire people to live their best lives everyday. As a 120-year-old life insurance company dominant in Japan, Dai-ichi Life is looking for new growth opportunities to become a leading global insurer.
Some of the topics that Sam and Stephen discussed in detail:
- How YuLife is reimagining the insurance industry by focusing on wellbeing
- Building lifelong partnerships with their customers
- Gamification as a tool for engagement
- The challenges of entering new markets and the massive opportunity in Japan
- The importance of win-win partnerships and how Dai-ichi Life is the perfect example of this
- Balancing urgency and long-term vision
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Building Long-Term Partnerships: The Mutual Benefits of YuLife and Dai-ichi Life
- The Role of Gamification in Customer Engagement
- Gamifying Insurance: Finding Growth in New Business Models
- Taking a Long-Term View: Balancing Urgency and Strategic Planning
The Asia Tech Podcast spent some high-quality time speaking with Nima Karimi, the founder and CEO at Lendela. Lendela is APAC's first and only personal loan matchmaker.
Some of the topics that Nima covered in detail:
- The need for transparency in Consumer Lending
- How borrowing money can be a lonely experience and how Lendela makes it better
- The benefits, challenges, and expectations that accompany VC money
- Making the Consumer Lending experience more enjoyable and efficient
- The importance of cultural adaptability and how it helps building a startup in Southeast Asia
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Transforming the Borrowing Experience
- The Rise of Fintech in Southeast Asia
- Challenges and Opportunities for Startups in Southeast Asia
- I Feel Like I Started Over Again
- I Was Terrified of Doing It On My Own
The Asia Tech Podcast recently spoke with Rhonda Wong, a co-founder and the CEO of Ohmyhome. Ohmyhome is a one-stop prop-tech company that aims to be the most trusted and comprehensive property solution for everyone.
Some of the topics that Rhonda discussed in detail include:
- How her personal journey taught her the importance of having a stable and loving family
- The simple need to provide a better experience to families moving home
- Combining the financial aspect of real estate transactions with a genuine focus on the well-being and satisfaction of Ohmyhome's customers
- Getting comfortable with being an outlier across domains
- The genuine joy she feels when customers reflect their satisfaction with her and the team
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Come To Work Expecting to Solve Problems
- You Don’t Need to Have a Larger Place to Be Happy
- The Power of Aligning Business and Purpose
- Building Trust in the Property Market
- A Vision for a More Transparent Real Estate Industry
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we are joined by Jay Tye, the COO of Echo-MR. Our conversation with Jay delves into the changing landscape of market research and the role of innovative technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping its future.
Some of the topics that Jay discussed in detail:
- The Role of Market Research in Decision-Making
- The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Market Research
- The Zen of Riding a Motorcycle and its connection to Market Research
- Embracing Risk and Innovation
- How the next generation will be the catalyst for driving innovation
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- You’ve Just Gotta Trust the Universe
- You Have to Slow Down to Speed Up
- Speed Creates Focus
- AI Is a Really Good Co-Pilot
- Motorcycles Are Just Bikes With Engines
The Asia Tech Podcast hosted Ameer Jumabhoy, a co-founder of utu, founded with the singular vision of enhancing the benefits of tax-free shopping and going beyond the savings of tax refunds for travelers.
Some of the topics that Ameer discussed in detail:
- The evolution of tax-free shopping and utu's tech twist
- VAT or GST refunds to upsize purchases and provide valuable experiences to tourists
- The challenges of building complex digital wallets in the context of cross-border travel
- The importance of superior customer experiences in luxury retail
- The benefits of tax-free shopping for countries and the power of rewards
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Unlocking Value: Tax-Free Shopping and the Rewards Revolution
- Revolutionizing the Travel Retail Experience
- The Intersection of Technology, Travel, and Rewards
- Leaning on Our Experience in Uncharted Waters
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke with Ujjwal Deep Dahal, CEO of Druk Holdings & Investments, the commercial and investment arm of the Royal Government of Bhutan. Ujjwal shared his perspective on the importance of technology and innovation in solving societal problems and building a sustainable future. As an electrical engineer with experience in the power sector, Dahal has witnessed the transformation brought about by the internet and believes that it has provided opportunities for reflection and problem-solving.
Some of the main topics Ujjwal covered:
- His perspectives on the continuous innovation brought on by technology
- The importance and significance of electrifying 99.99% of Bhutan
- Druk Holdings & Investments' focus on leveraging technology to become an innovation hub in the region
- Bhutan's commitment to sustainability and using its net carbon-negative position to do Bitcoin mining
- Self-sovereign digital identity and the introduction of the Super Fab Lab in cooperation with MIT
Some other titles we considered:
- What Really Inspires Me Is to Solve Problems that Matter to Society
- Why Bhutan Is a Legitimate Place to Innovate
- Building an Innovative and Sustainable Future
- Bhutan's Leapfrogging into the Fourth Industrial Revolution
- Embracing Change: Bhutan's Journey Towards Technological Advancements
The Asia Tech Podcast went to the F1 Grand Prix in Singapore.
It costs over $1BN dollars to develop a championship-winning F1 engine, hundreds of millions of dollars yearly just to run a team and many years and over 1,000 people to design each new car.On the Asia Tech Podcast, we normally talk to startups and venture capitalists in Asia…but none are spending that much on R&D.By 2026 the F1 cars will have completely new engines and by 2030, F1 teams need to reach net-zero emissions.…and we went to the F1 Grand Prix in Singapore to find out what the fans think about this!
After seeing a lot of surveillance camera networks pop up on the streets in China back in 2017, Liza Lin and her writing partner Josh Chin's interest was piqued. They were not surprised that the Chinese government was spying on its citizens, but they were surprised by the method. Liza is a co-author of, "Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control" and an award-winning China technology correspondent at The Wall Street Journal.
Liza joined us for a fascinating conversation that covered:
- China's surveillance relied on advanced technology from US suppliers
- The implementation of export control policies covering advanced technology and chip sales to China
- The impact of these policies on US technology and chip companies
- A renewed focus by the Chinese government to foster technology independence
- The impact on global supply chains and China-US relations
- How some US companies have been able to circumvent these restrictions
- The potential for the balance of power in the semiconductor industry to shift as China invests heavily in this sector
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- At The Beginning, Everybody Thought Technology Was Neutral
- Nobody Wants to Be the Next Huawei
- A Looming US-China Rivalry in the Semiconductor Industry
- Export Controls and the Implications for National Security
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Jeremy Au, an investor and the Chief of Staff at Monk's Hill Ventures, talks about his experience building companies, the lessons learned, and his transition into venture capital.
Some of the topics Jeremy covered in detail include:
- Entrepreneurial success patterns and the importance of being able to explain the problem one is trying to solve
- The challenges of unit economics in Southeast Asia
- The necessity of creating a path to profitability for startups
- Long-term optimism about the future of Southeast Asia
- The joy of helping founders navigate challenges and build a better future
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- If There Is a Problem, Let’s Go Fix It
- There Are Different Seasons In Your Life
- Venture Capital Is About Building the Future
- There Is a Lot of Work and You Don’t Know What Needs to Be Done
- It’s a Humbling Experience
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Amrita Vir, a co-Founder of Findicate and the Head of Strategy and Business Expansion at wagely. Let's just say that Amrita is s special kind of amazing.
Some of the topics we covered with her include:
- Going to Harvard for her MBA and a Masters of Public Policy
- Moving to Singapore to work for GRAB
- Financial wellness and the role wagely plays
- Gender disparities in access to financial services and startup funding
- The mission and goals of Findicate
- Amrita's FinTech Podcast
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- How Do People Live Financially Healthy Lives?
- Where Is the Bank for Gig Workers?
- How Do You Quantify Financial Health?
- It’s an Arbitrage Opportunity
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Sina Meraji, the Founder and CEO/CTO at Learning Loop to the show. Sina is one of our favorite people for the passion he brings to the tech startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia, his thoughtfulness and his relentless efforts to be better.
Some of the topics that Sina discussed:
- How Learning Loop has grown and iterated since its founding
- The power of getting Founders together to maximize their learning and maximize their luck
- Overcoming fear and uncertainty and purposefully building expertise
- Why Sina decided to start writing more content and the impact of the Butter Kaya Breakfasts
- Singapore's success story
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Stuff I Build at Learning Loop Is the Stuff I Stand For as a Person
- There Are Four Ways to Create Luck
- You Have to Fight Mediocrity
- You Can Trust the Green Light and Red Light
- That Is Luck, But I Created It
The Asia Tech Podcast was wowed by its conversation with Tom Williams, a co-founder and the CEO of Number 8 Bio. From the origins of the company's name to the potential impact it could have on climate change, this entire conversation was truly amazing.
Some of the topics that Tom discussed:
- Malthusian Population Theory - Synthetic Fertilizer and Crop Breeding
- The mechanization and automation of farming
- The impact that agriculture has on climate change
- How the Syn Bio 10x program unlocks the latent potential of Australia’s academic scientists
- The importance of addressing the sustainability issues in agriculture
- The opportunities and risks of commercializing deep tech innovations in agriculture
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Number 8 Wire Mentality
- The Sustainability Angle Is Really Important
- Life Is a Little Bit Harder to Engineer Than I Originally Thought
- Synthetic Biology and the Future of Agriculture
- Agriculture Is Inherently a Biological Process
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Natalie Rafeh, CEO of Splashup, to discuss some of the issues and opportunities surrounding starting a brand in today's market. She also acknowledges the challenges of navigating the ecosystem and marketing a brand effectively. Natalie explains how Splashup, an AI-driven partnerships platform, helps brands connect with complementary brands post-checkout to reach new target audiences.
Some of the larger topics Nathalie covered:
- Why communities are so important for brand building
- How privacy has become a big concern for online shoppers
- The significance and impact of changes in privacy and cookie tracking on the advertising landscape
- How AI enhances the pos-purchase experience to help brands connect with complementary brands
- The insights gained and the power of sharing ideas as a startup advisor at UNSW's Entrepreneurship Division
- Why building a startup is like surfing!
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- A Beautiful Entrepreneurial Curse
- It’s All About the Back and Forth
- We Are this New Channel That Is More Cost Effective]
- Build a Community First
- It's Just Like Surfing
The Asia Tech Podcast digs deep into a conversation with Pang Xue Kai, a co-Founder at Untukmu as he shares the genesis of his decision to leave his robust business in the crypto industry and pursue a new venture focused on gifting.
Some of the topics that Kai discussed:
- How the accelerating development in the AI space drove his decision to start a new company
- The idea that AI and Crypto will eventually intersect
- The cultural importance of gifting
- The core AI systems being developed at Untukmu can be used in multiple industries
- How AI can be used to create real personalization
- Why storytelling matters
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- AI and Crypto Will Cross Paths
- How to Turn a Want Into a Need
- Unveiling the Power of AI in the Gifting Industry
- AI Will Not Replace You, It Will Enhance You
- The Eureka Moment in Gifting
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Tim Warren, a co-Founder and CEO of Ambit, a platform for customer service at scale through automated conversations. Tim expressed optimism about the future of AI and emphasized the importance of addressing issues such as bias and privacy regulations.
Some of the topics Tim discussed:
- The development and adoption of large language models (LLMs)
- The role of GPUs and the potential for specialized hardware for AI
- AI and wearables
- The potential benefits of AI in increasing productivity rather than replacing jobs
- The challenges and implications of bias in AI and the need for regulation and privacy protection
- This thoughtful article Tim wrote about organizational readiness for AI
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- We're Stronger When We Do It Together
- Imagine When AI Meets Wearables
- Everything is Derivative
- AI Is a Cultural Mirror
- Simple Questions for People are Complicated Questions for Machines
- I Do Think It’s a Hybrid Experience
In this truly amazing episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Alex Bouaziz, a co-Founder and the CEO of Deel shares his journey from not speaking a word of English when he arrived in Israel to building a company that enables companies to hire and manage remote employees around the world.
Some of the topics that Alex discussed:
- The importance of product-founder fit
- How his personal background as a second-generation immigrant influences his desire to help others succeed
- The challenges of building a localized platform in different countries
- Enabling companies to work with anyone, anywhere in the world
- The desire to make a positive impact by providing opportunities and empowering individuals
- The importance of the Asian market to Deel
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- There Are Amazing People Everywhere
- Entrepreneurial Families are the Ones That Pressure You the Least
- That’s Why I Wake Up in the Morning
- We Want to Help You Hire in That Country When You Don’t Have Infrastructure
- Empowering the Global Workforce and Democratizing Opportunity
This episode of the Asia Tech Podcast features Kirill Bratchenko, the Managing Director of Novation Academy. Kirill shares his inspiring journey from Ukraine to Cambodia and his almost two decades of entrepreneurship.
Some of the topics Kirill discussed:
- How a one-year contract to go to Cambodia changed his life
- Building a company in Cambodia and what he learned along the way
- How his fear of flying lead to his interest in aviation and building a flight training school
- The huge potential for civil aviation growth in Asia
- Kirill's dreams for the future
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Have Fire in My Eyes
- My Fear of Flying Was From Lack of Control
- I Want to Build It All Around the Academy
- It’s a Crazy, Crazy Dream
Get ready to be inspired by the incredible journey of Andrew McKeown, CEO at LogChain, as he shared his story on the Asia Tech Podcast. Andrew's passion for logistics and supply chain shines through as he recounts his unconventional entry into the industry. From working in civil engineering to becoming a specialist in chemical logistics, Andrew's career has taken him to different parts of the world, including living in shipping containers in Iraq and working in Zambia and the DRC.
Some of the topics that Andrew covered in detail:
- A focus on Change Management with a clearly identified "Why"
- Blockchain in the context of LogChain and why data immutability for Logistics is so important
- How digital transformation is NOT about moving documentation online, but is about harnessing the power of data
- The need for logisticians to embrace change, be flexible, and cut through obstacles
- Why Bruce Lee would have made a great logistician
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Change Management Is Never the What, It’s Always the Why
- You Need To Respect the Domain Knowledge
- Disruption Means a Ship Going Sideways in the Suez Canal
- It’s Not About Documents, It’s About Data
- We’re Turning the Clipboard to Glass
- Logistics Will Always Be People Managing Assets Moving Other Assets
Get ready to be inspired by this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast with Sheldon Li as we embark on a transformative journey through the founding of Buyandship and its focused purpose of helping people buy products from anywhere and making the entire experience feel like shopping locally. This episode is packed with wisdom, innovation, and the remarkable story of Buyandship.
Some of the topics that Sheldon covered:
- How Sheldon's sister helped inspire the founding of Buyandship
- Uncovering the sources of price arbitrage in cross-border eCommerce
- How data and technology continue to revolutionize online shopping
- Innovative global expansion and market entry strategies
- The profound impact of sustainability and eco-friendly practices in Buyandship's logistics partners
- The power of focus, the art of saying "No.", and some invaluable lessons learned from making mistakes
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Experience Has to Be the Same as Shopping Locally
- I Am Able to Sell Anything as Long as the Product Is Being Sold Online
- Talking To Another Person Is Always Inspiring
- The Best Way to Work With Local Partners Is to Align Long-Term Interests
- Until I Make That Mistake Myself, I Would Not Really Learn It
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, we speak with Derek Feebrey, co-founder of TrendSpek, a tech company revolutionizing the way built structures are inspected. With roots in aviation and drone services, TrendSpek uses drone technology to capture high-resolution images and generate detailed 3D interactive reports of structures like bridges, vastly outpacing traditional methods.
Some of the topics Derek covered:
- How TrendSpek uses drone technology to inspect built structures
- The production of extremely granular data sets and interactive reports
- How Precision Reality Twins improves asset value and early detection of defects
- The potential for artificial intelligence to fill in some data gaps for older buildings
- The crucial role TrendSpek can play in the insurance industry
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- They Dub It 'The Cradle to Grave'
- The Ancestry.com for that Particular Asset
- We Can’t Keep Going On the Way We Are Doing It
- What’s the Best Roof Slope?
The Asia Tech Podcast had an awesome conversation with Carl Heaton, the Head of UX/UI at True Digital.
Carl tells incredible stories, has had some amazing experiences and shares some great insights on entrepreneurship, Thailand and how to build and keep a high-performing team engaged.
Some of the topics Carl covered in detail include:
- Some of the mythology around entrepreneurship
- The entrepreneurial spirit of the Thai people
- Thailand's watershed co-working moment
- How Thailand's tech scene has changed since his arrival more than 15 years ago
- Some of the challenges and benefits of transitioning from entrepreneurship to corporate life
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Process Was Hilarious
- Covid Killed My School
- I Want to Teach Somebody I See Tomorrow
- I’ve Got Things to Fix
- It’s ‘Buy One Get One Kinda Free’
Asia Tech Podcast reached out to Elitza Stoilova, the CEO of Umni because her background was so fascinating, we just had to find out more. We were not disappointed.
Some of the topics that Elly covered:
- Her career started in Tunisia and Morocco (This is NOT your standard story!)
- Her first roles were in Journalism and PR
- Moving to Saipan and staying for almost two decades
- Not having enough shared memories with her family and moving back to Bulgaria
- Participating in Founder Institute
- Giving SMEs tools to compete with the big guys
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Don’t Know Where Saipan Is, But Why Not Try
- I Fell In Love With Tourism
- If You Want to Discover the World, You Have to Cross the Water
- There Are No Ex-journalists
- It Is Really Important to Keep Your Mind Young
- Failure Is Imaginary
- AI Is Here to Save and Extend Our Lives
Feel free to reach out to Eliza at sales@umni.bg or on Instagram.
The Asia Tech Podcast had an informative conversation with Young Yang, the CEO, Southeast Asia Markets at ZA Tech.
Some of the topics that Young covered:
- ZA Tech's decision to expand to international markets outside of China post-IPO
- The importance of productizing Zhong An's technology
- The power of the partnership with Softbank's Vision Fund
- Two-year productization cycles and ZA Tech's company culture
- Social media marketing for the insurance industry
- Being prudent and cautious in the application of LLMs
Some other titles we considered for this episode, but ultimately rejected:
- We Create Technology In a Different Way
- What If Money Is Not a Problem?
- Every Technology Should Fulfill a Specific Business Purpose
- Mindset Is the Most Difficult Thing to Change
- You Need to Make Fun Out of Challenges
This episode is sponsored.
The Asia Tech Podcast reached out to Paul Meinshausen again after seeing an interesting post he made on LinkedIn.
Paul is one of the most thoughtful people I know. Please read the article referenced above and then listen to this episode...
The title of the Michael Lewis book I could not remember is "Liar's Poker".
Paul references this blog post by Andrej Karpathy...read this as well.
It would not hurt to know a bit more about logistic regression.
I agree with Paul's assessment that we are moving from a deterministic world to a probabilistic world.
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Pace Is Extremely Fast
- The Explore-Exploit Tradeoff
- The World Is Dynamic and Chaotic
- God Does Not Play Dice
- We All Have the Right Degree of Change That We Can Absorb at a Given Time
- Everything Is New for a Three-Year-Old
The Asia Tech Podcast had an enlightening conversation with Aram Mughalyan, a co-Founder of Solidate. Solidate is a community-owned, decentralized platform for freelancers to find the best web3 jobs.
Some of the topics that Aram discussed:
- The importance of small gains and rigid discipline
- Having a great corporate job but feeling like something was missing
- Why he came to Southeast Asia and settled in Singapore
- Quadratic voting
- Building an on-chain reputation
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- All the Limits We Have Are the Ones We Set Ourself
- Just Like My Parents Wanted Me to Do
- We Need an Alternative System
- There Is Always Going to Be Uncertainty
- If No-one Wants Me, I’ll Start My Own Company
During this episode, Aram mentioned a book by David Goggins entitled "Can't Hurt Me".
The Asia Tech Podcast was fortunate to have the opportunity to talk to an incredible entrepreneur from South Africa, Thandwefika Radebe, a Co-Founder at Qwili. Qwili is a digital marketplace used by merchants to sell value-added services to consumers who are often not able to access these services themselves.
Some of the topics that Thandwe covered:
- Why he studied developmental finance
- His discomfort caused by the obvious economic disparity on the continent
- His family's reaction to him leaving a stable corporate job
- Changing the perception of investing in Africa with data
- The importance of familiarity and certainty when it comes to tech startup investing
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Felt a Bit Distant from My Mission
- The Only Difference Is a State of Mind
- You Just Need to Convert One Person
- Infighting Is the Fastest Way to Look Disorganized
- Bringing Prosperity to My People
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Gavril (Gary) Gavrilov, the CCO at Humans in the Loop. Humans in the Loop was founded in 2017 with the vision to connect conflict-affected communities to digital work.
Some of the topics that Gary covered:
- Artificial Intelligence and its philosophical implications
- Ethical AI as a core concept of Humans in the Loop
- Artificial Intelligence and embedded biases
- The risks involved in doing this work in conflict-affected regions
- The positive impact that Humans in the Loop has on its beneficiaries
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Large Language Models Have Been In Development Since the 1960s
- It Brought It to Our Living Rooms
- AI Is the New Electricity
- It Comes up in the Most Unexpected Places
- The Challenge Is the Human Verification
Watch the short video snippet here.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Travis Erridge, a co-Founder and CEO at TMX Global for a deeply insightful discussion at TMX's Metaverse event at TDPK in Bangkok.
Some of the topics Travis covered:
- The genesis of TMX and how it morphed into a technology company
- How businesses can leverage technology to drastically improve supply chain efficiency
- How technology helps TMX collaborate with its partners
- Some of the challenges for implementing the metaverse across the supply chain
- Managing through growth and maintaining core company values and culture
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- We Know We're Growing, but We're Never Satisfied
- Building a Tech-Driven Future
- We Have Reached a Technological Tipping Point
- Employing the Metaverse to Simplify Complexity
- Creating the Supply Chain's Future
Watch the video produced by Lexicon here.
Synthetic Biology is fun.
Yes, I said it.
Speaking to Dr. Jason Whitfield, Program Manager of SynBio 10x at UNSW Founders, about Synthetic Biology was even more fun.
Some of the topics Jason discussed:
- Working every day, but not feeling like it's work
- Doing a Ph.D. and making things glow
- SynBio 10x and the importance of institutionalizing this type of innovation
- Partnering with Main Sequence Ventures (Phil Morle and Gabrielle Munzer)
- Design, Build, Test, and Learn
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Tired Is…Just a Given
- I Don’t Do Well With Boredom
- I'm a Recovering Academic
- It’s Drinking From the Firehose
- That’s Great. That’s Speed.
- This Isn’t a Garage Band Project
Bangladesh is the 8th largest country in the world by population and its capital city, Dhaka, is one of the world's most densely populated.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by and incredible founder from Bangladesh, Reyasat Chowdhury, a co-Founder and the CEO of Shuttle. Shuttle is a mass-transit startup based in Bangladesh that serves both B2B and B2C customers.
Some of the topics that Reyasat discussed:
- His and his brother's entrepreneurial motivations
- The importance and significance of population density in the building of Shuttle
- Why Dhaka's bus companies were not interested and why Shuttle switched to minivans
- Initially launching a service only for women
- Moving into the B2B segment and building a subscription service
- Creating other value-added services for Shuttle’s riders
Some other cool titles we considered for this episode:
- Someone Who Leads, Someone Who Conquers
- We Are Able to Use the Population Density to Our Advantage
- We See a Huge Opportunity on the Supply Side
- We Could Just Focus on Doing Something Impactful
- Last Year Was All About Growth
Asia Tech Podcast learned a lot from our conversation with Matthew Oostveen, the CTO and VP Asia Pacific and Japan at Pure Storage.
Some of the topics that Matt covered include:
- Starting a company called CyberLabs and building bespoke rigs for gamers
- Public cloud versus private cloud
- The notion that organizations should be taking control of their systems and data
- Cybersecurity, data protection, and homomorphic encryption
- Material Science and the Future of storage technology
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- At That Point, I Knew Tech Had Me
- The Integration of the Software Layer and the Hardware Layer
- I Was Interested In Making Things Go Fast
- Storage In the Cloud Is Like a Fisher-Price Toy
- Latency Is Always a Challenge
Matt noted that this ("The Tyranny of Distance') was an interesting book.
Paul Meyers, the Head Coach at Asia Founder Coaching, needs no introduction. We were honored to speak with him.
The title of the episode says pretty much everything about Paul. He definitely has superpowers...:-)
Some of the topics that Paul covered in detail:
- Doing crazy things in the 1990s
- Helping ADB set up their impact venture fund
- Identifying the need for founder coaching in Southeast Asia
- Having similar experiences as a founder himself and wanting to give back
- Founder mental health, particularly when starting a high-expectation business
Some other pithy titles we considered for this episode (Paul says a lot of quotable things!):
- We Have 873 People in Common
- All I Can Do Is Take Care of My Side of the Street
- I Was a Merchant Marine. I Was a Dry Cleaner. I Was a Kosher Caterer.
- There Is a High Expectation of Success
- It’s Pretty Fun. It’s Pretty Magic.
Nobody in Thailand may understand the eCommerce market more than Axel Winter, a co-founder and the CEO of Pivot Digital. ATP was fortunate to have an in-depth conversation with Axel about his background, experiences, and learnings.
Some of the topics Axel covered:
- The benefits and drawbacks of different eCommerce business models
- Building omnichannel retail at Central Group
- JD and Central Group’s eCommerce partnership and strategy
- What went wrong, what went right, and what was learned
- Deep insights into the eCommerce market in Thailand
- Finding the right balance between product selection and ease of discovery
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Let’s Try to Shake the Tree
- I Always Had a Hang for Open Source
- In Life, We Tend to Gravitate to What We Actually Want
- I Think You Need Different Models
- Doing Good Things Is Always a Bit Hard
- It Never Stops. It Never Slows Down.
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Maaike Doyer back for some follow-up. Maaike was first on the show in June of 2022 with another Founding Partner of Epic Angels, Hester Spiegel-vdSteenhoven.
Epic Angels recently published a very useful Angel Investor Glossary and I wanted to dig into this with Maaike.
Some of the topics we covered included:
- Breaking the glossary down into three categories -> Investor's Toolkit, Due Diligence & Financial Metrics, and Instruments Jargon
- Epic Angels' inspiration for making this glossary
- A deeper dive into a couple of the terms in each category
- The role of AI in building this list (Did someone say 'Chat-GPT 4'?)
- A call out to the listeners for other terms or concepts that you would like defined!
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Importance of Understanding Startup Jargon
- Navigating the Data Room
- Why Terminology Should Not Distract from the Core Message
- What Are the Terms YOU Would Like to Know?
On this special edition of the Asia Tech Podcast, we were very fortunate to be able to spend some time with Lee Wan Sie, a Director at IMDA Singapore. IMDA leads Singapore's digitalization journey by developing a vibrant digital economy and an inclusive digital society.
Some of the topics Wan Sie covered:
- Her dedication to public service and her desire to make a difference in Singapore’s society and economy
- The importance of creating more responsible AI and its already pervasive existence in our day-to-day lives
- Encouraging and supporting women to pursue careers in technology
- The powerful impact of accessible female role models in Singapore
- Working with the Singapore Computer Society on The 100 Women in Tech List
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Want to Make Sure that What I Do Makes a Difference
- Thinking Beyond Singapore's Physical Limitations
- It’s Really About Building Trust
"Celebrate the Achievements of Women and Girls in Tech" and make your nominations now!
Asia Tech Podcast was fascinated by its conversation with Eugene Fitzgerald, PhD, the CEO and Director at MIT Research Enterprise Singapore.
The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) is a major research enterprise established by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in partnership with the National Research Foundation of Singapore (NRF) in 2007. SMART is the first entity in the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) developed by NRF.
Some of the topics Gene covered:
- Working at Bell Labs
- Innovation and the commercialization of Strained Silicon
- His earliest introduction to Singapore
- Somehow Gene’s interests and Singapore’s interests seemed to be in sync
- Managing uncertainty while also managing risk
- How the path of research to market was more complicated than expected
- Finding the balance between research and commercialization
Other titles we considered for this episode, but ultimately rejected:
- I Was Stunned, Actually…Stunned
- Every Faculty Member Is Essentially Running Their Own Business
- I Had No Idea of the Scale Required
- I Had More of a View of the Future
- We’re Doing Caricatures of Everything
- Increasing Man-Machine Interface
- It’s a Search for Value
Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Dennis Keller, the CEO of Seaplane Asia, back to the Michael Waitze Media platform, to talk about the exciting developments in his business.
Some of the topics that Dennis covered:
- How COVID actually helped the business in the long-run
- The excitement and significance of having their first aircraft delivered
- Working together with resort partners to really understand what guests want
- Building Seaplane Asia into a scalable business
- How to use capital efficiently, even in a business that owns hard assets
Other titles we considered for this episode, but ultimately rejected:
- The Intersection of Aviation and Hospitality
- It’s Only Concrete If You Have the Aircraft
- It Should Be Seamless; It Should Be Premium
- It’s Premium, It’s Innovative, It’s New
- It’s a Memory Maker
Asia Tech Podcast was excited to have Gene Yu back on the platform. Gene is the Founder of BlackPanda, Asia's premier digital forensics and cyber incident response firm. BlackPanda recently announced a $15 mm Series A raise. I wanted to have Gene on to talk about the significance of the raise for BlackPanda, particularly amid a difficult fundraising environment.
Some of the topics that Gene discussed:
- Experiencing the fundraising winter firsthand
- Currently, nobody to call for digital incident response though we already enjoy physical incident response services
- The Great Fire of London (1666)
- Do we need a Cyber 9/11
- The combination of cyber incident response with insurance
- Data collection and modeling patterns of risk
A couple of other titles we considered for this episode but ultimately rejected:
- What Is the Activation Rate?
- The Forensics Is the Most Important Data
Asia Tech Podcast welcomed David Gritz, a co-Founder and Managing Director of InsurTech NY to the show to do an emergency pod about the situation surrounding Silicon Valley Bank.
Some of the topics that David covered:
- Silicon Valley was not a traditional bank and built services specifically for startups and VCs
- SVB's asset and liability duration mismatch and why it mattered
- Largely repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999 was one of the worst regulatory choices of the last 30 years
- Were some venture capitalists hypocritical in their reaction to SVB's liquidity issues?
- Did VCs have personal money at SVB as well?
- How the lack of finance knowledge of many startup founders contributed to SVB's demise
Other titles we considered for this episode but ultimately rejected:
- Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Collapse
- Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Reveals Fundamental Issues in Tech
- Silicon Valley Bank - Implications for Startups and Investors
- Silicon Valley Bank - Lessons Learned and What's Next?
Asia Tech Podcast caught up with Hans-Justus Daase after meeting at the .NFQ Summit in Ho Chi Minh City. Justus is a co-Founder and CEO of Mertus, which offers services around recruitment and consulting with a focus on IT-Projects.
Some of the topics that Justus discussed:
- Being educated as a lawyer, but always trended towards entrepreneurship
- The status of digital transformation in Europe
- The challenges of hiring tech talents in Germany for Germany
- The importance of open and clear communication in hiring
- Dealing with the uncertainty of building from scratch
- Gen-Z's impact on the labor market and hiring globally
A couple of other titles we considered for this episode, but ultimately rejected:
- You Have to Find a Different Solution
- You’re Asking to Be Disappointed
The Asia Tech Podcast has been looking forward to a conversation with Carl Hemus for a while now. Carl is the Chief Operating Officer for TMX Global, APAC's leading business transformation consultancy, creating the region's innovative digital and supply chain solutions.
Some of the topics that Carl covered:
- How he grew up with 3PL (Third-party Logistics) in his DNA
- A deep-dive into the importance of eCommerce logistics
- How TMX is changing the game in delivery, supply chain, logistics, and warehousing
- Practical applications of the most cutting-edge technologies - real use cases for metaverse technologies
- The significance of engaging all stakeholders and non-technical team members
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- We’re in There Driving Collaboration
- Making the Metaverse More Tangible
- It’s Very Much Reality in the Virtual World
- You’re Missing the Biggest Part of the Market
- Can You Drive a Forklift in the Metaverse?
Attend TMX's Metaverse Event in Bangkok on March 23, 2023.
Register here.
The Asia Tech Podcast learned a lot from its discussion with Rishabh Singhi, the Founder and CEO of DishServe. DishServe endeavors to make healthy food accessible, affordable and tasty.
Some of the topics Rish covered:
- His incredible experience as a founding team member and COO at RedDoorz
- How DishServe initially tried to make it easier for smaller F&B brands to expand
- The impact of global macro changes on DishServe's original business model
- Business model iteration and starting with small experiments
- The ultimate decision to create their own brands and build their own factory
- DishServe's three major innovations - Food Technology, Distribution, and Supply Chain and Logistics
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- How Can We Have a Perfect Operating Model?
- Either We Change or We Die
- The Healthy Food Space Is Underserved
- You Guys are Taking Too Long, I Am Just going to Start Selling
- At First, There Was Denial
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Paul Meinshausen, a co-Founder and CEO of Aampe, back to the show for a well-deserved catch-up. Aampe adds AI and ML optimization to your existing marketing stack so you can send better messages in hours, not months.
Some of the topics that Paul discussed:
- Being sharply focused on consumer app companies
- The impact of the change in the funding landscape in 2022
- Where Aampe's products fit in its customers' minds
- The importance of every business identifying the right customer
- Helping other businesses focus on profitability
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- There Are So Many Dimensions to How One Can Think About Growth
- Enjoy the Joy that People Feel Whenever They Discover Something
- The Odds Are Stacked Against You
- Actually, Ignorance Is Bliss
- You Swim In a River of Fear and Doubt
Asia Tech Podcast was excited to follow up with Jan Stassen and Laura Ludwig, the co-founders of Museum of Values. The Museum of Values creates immersive spaces for real encounters, encouraging opportunities for reflection that bring values to life and makes them more tangible.
We met in Ho Chi Minh City at the .NFQ Tech Summit and after listening to Jan's presentation and talking to Laura afterward, I had to have them on the show.
Some of the topics that Jan and Laura discussed:
- How artistic experiences can help facilitate change
- The growing conversation around ethical responsibility in tech
- The fact that only 0.30% of the world's population is developing technology that the rest of the world is using
- Why is there no Hippocratic Oath for technologists?
- The ease with which we look back and the difficulty of looking forward
- How to think about balancing the time we spend in the digital and physical world
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Selling Sweet Dreams
- We Are Creating Our Own Path
- This Narrative Is Not Working Anymore
- Making Something Implicit, Explicit
- What Does the Community Need?
- We Bring Our Own Vocabulary
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an interesting conversation with Phil Morle, a Partner at Main Sequence Ventures. Main Sequence Ventures is Australia’s deep tech investment fund tackling the world’s biggest challenges by turning today’s scientific discoveries into tomorrow’s industries.
Some topics discussed by Phil:
- Phil’s Valuable life process
- The market making Phil’s excited about after Covid-19 helped accelerate it
- Creating an entrepreneur programme for people to acquire the necessary skills
- How one programme part of the University of New South Wales stood out instantly to investors and raised 15 Million dollars before the programme ended
- Phil’s collaboration plans for 2023
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Holding You Accountable
- You Are Eating What You Kill
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an interesting conversation with Dr Amy Gershkoff Bolles, Global Head of Digital & Emerging Technology Strategy at Levi Strauss & Co. Levi Strauss & Co. is one of the world's largest brand-name apparel companies and a global leader in jeans wear.
Some topics discussed by Dr. Amy:
- The compulsory elements put in place at Levi Strauss & Co. to try and create the most personalised and relevant experience for each customer
- Levi Strauss & Co’s digital transformation and how the continued drive of innovation has enabled Levi's to have a long-standing history
- The two factors that can be found in companies that have a long-standing history that allows them to stay relevant
- The importance of taking the time and energy to understand and build a proper framework
- Why AI and data are critical components needed for digital transformation
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Outreach Needs to Be Targeted to Feel Personalised
- Continuing the Relevance
- The Driver Is Always the Customer
- Successful Innovation Is Focusing on a Few Fundamental Pillars
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an interesting conversation with Esmar Mesic, Head of Product at TrueProfile.io. TrueProfile.io is a career toolkit that gives ambitious healthcare professionals everything they need to build a successful career overseas.
Some topics discussed by Esmar:
- Esmar’s big opening from working with the biggest telco company at that time
- Why it is important to ask oneself questions to understand one's strengths and weakness
- The importance and effectiveness of training oneself to have an ‘I’m always there to try’ mindset
- The breakthrough from Esmar’s big fail
- Why the hiring process is so critical
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Used to Think Speaking More Is Cool but It’s the Other Way Around
- Everything Should Be an Experiment, You Never Know What’s Going to Work
- Failure Is an Integral Part of Success but It’s How You Treat It
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an insightful conversation with Michael Vandi, Co-founder of Addy AI. Addy AI is a secure AI email assistant that writes your emails for you in seconds, with your preferred style and tone.
Some topics discussed by Michael:
- How being away from familiar faces helped Michael focus on his startup’s progress
- The effectiveness of categorising and nurturing one's strength
- Using AI to augment the productivity of humans rather than replace it
- Why Michael is worried about AI being taught how to go astray
- How having a teacher as a parent shaped Michael and became a very valuable lesson
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Being Able to Complete It
- Improving Productivity
- Providing Data Strategically and Objectively
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an interesting conversation with Paul Jackson, Regional Managing Director of APAC Cyber Security & Investigations at Kroll. Kroll leverages its unique insights, data, and technology to help clients stay ahead of complex demands.
Some topics discussed by Paul:
- How working for the Hong Kong Police felt like winning the lottery for Paul
- How the pandemic changed many companies' methods of operating
- The two reasons why the percentage of risk of breach of a company is lower in Asia
- The importance for a company to discuss what they want to protect and what the value is
- The emphasis on needing to understand how to use third parties the smart way and the need to practice scenarios to test readiness
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Having Processes in Place With the Right People Is Critical
- How Much You Are Trying to Spend on Security vs What You Are Trying to Protect
- Protecting the Important Things Without Going Overboard on Spending on the Latest and Greatest Tools
- Speed is Everything
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an energetic conversation with Vishal Doshi, Founder and CEO of AUM Biosciences. AUM Biosciences is focused on advancing a clinical pipeline of precision oncology therapeutics designed to deploy multi-faceted inhibition strategies to reverse cancer resistance.
Some topics discussed by Vishal:
- Why Vishal swapped his lab coat for suits
- The motivational factors that are used to push a good scientist
- The bug inside Vishal’s family that was passed down into his DNA
- How a regular part-time job contributes to a good entrepreneur
- The 3 things needed to succeed in the BioTech industry
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Finding Things That I Can Do Differently
- If You Want to Be the Boss, Learn How to Do the Smallest Job First
- It’s All About Relationships, Papers Are Crucial
- Trust Is the Biggest Thing That Makes You or Breaks You
- Starting Right at the Bottom of the Pyramid
- You Can’t Give the Memory Card to the Patient, You Have to Give the Drug
- Thought Processes Are Intentional but Actions Are Not
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech podcast recorded an interesting conversation with Chee Yeng Tan, Founder of Clicks™. Clicks™ aims to create an online network for everything related to real estate.
Some topics discussed by Chee Yeng:
- Having a mid life crisis and taking the plunge
- How an iPod touch triggered Chee Yeng’s view on how technology was going to evolve
- Why the current real estate business is lagging quite badly
- Chee Yeng’s ultimate vision
- The rationale behind providing free listings for Clicks
- The unique factor of real estate business and its missing gap
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Was Looking High and Low for Help but No One Was Able to Help Me
- Human Beings and Humans Psychology Is Something You Cannot Ignore
- Coexisting Beautifully
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an interesting conversation with Jonathan Tanner, CEO of MitchelLake Group. MitchelLake Group is a global, specialist provider of executive search, board & advisory solutions for ventures and innovation, from startups to global brands.
Some of the topics Jonathan covered in this conversation:
- The future of AI and running alongside human performance
- The importance of being absolutely present and positive in the market
- Playing the long game and staying curious
- Doing a lot with very little
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- If We Really Want to Succeed, We Have to Succeed Together
- Good People Attract Good Things
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an interesting conversation with Julia Zhou, the Head of Ventures at AlphaLab Capital. AlphaLab Capital is a technology-driven trading group that transacts over $2B daily in crypto assets on 40+ exchanges, both centralized and decentralized.
Some of the topics Julia covered in this conversation:
- What the early internet felt like for Julia in the early 2000s
- Benefitting from ambiguity and uncertainty
- How Julia found her entrepreneurship calling
- Julia’s turning point in her business
- The effectiveness of having an evaluation process and risks metrics
- Julia’s experience of working with a community of people who are building their vision
- Changing perspectives and feeling the difference
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Institutional Investing
- Process Over Outcome
- In It for the Community
- I Feel Like I Can Make Things Happen
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
The Asia Tech Podcast reached out to Ganesh Kompella, a Founding Investment Partner at Tykhe Block Ventures, after reading a thought-provoking article he recently published on LinkedIn. We enjoyed reading the article and wanted to dig a bit deeper with Ganesh.
Some of the topics Ganesh covered in this conversation:
- The global macro environment and the impact of inflation
- Ganesh's introduction to blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and Ethereum
- Asset correlation and Bitcoin
- FTX, 3AC, Celsius Network
- Proof of reserves
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an interesting conversation with Victor Cho, CEO of Evite. Evite is the world's leading digital platform for bringing people together to celebrate their most important life moments.
Some of the topics discussed by Victor:
- How being immersed in coding help Victor understand what he wanted to be and do
- Victor’s take on why the social media system is very hard to correct
- How robots help promote more simulated interactions when parties are away from each other
- One of the biggest tensions that the society is going to face
- Companies only really scale when one builds leadership at every level
- The benefits of having a framework put in place
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
[Communication Becomes Way More Important]
- It’s Just Different
- Is That the Humanity We Want to Build?
- You Are in Way Less Control
- Finding Value Out of It
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an interesting conversation with Andrew Zinchuk, a Managing Partner at ZAS Ventures. ZAS Ventures is a venture capital firm in San Francisco & Kyiv, that boosts outstanding entrepreneurs from Central & Eastern Europe building SaaS & cloud startups.
Some of the topics discussed by Andrew:
- How Andrew's entrepreneur journey after his idea was “stolen”
- Ukrainians are amongst the top 10 unicorn founders in the US
- Andrew's layers of reasonings behind running his own company
- How Eastern European startups conduct things differently compared to US startups
- Two significant issues being faced by fully remote startups
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- You’re Sinking, You’re Sinking, You Have Something on Your Neck That’s Breaking You Down
- You Keep Going
- Do Something Amazing With That Money
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an interesting conversation with Wally Wang, Founding Partner at Scale Asia Ventures. Scale Asia Ventures is a Palo Alto-based American venture capital firm that aims to support startups at a global scale.
Some of the topics discussed by Wally:
- The factors that influenced Wally into the startup world
- What got Wally interested in artificial intelligence and machine learning
- The significance of getting enough exposure to be able to instantly identify what’s missing from a startup
- How a change of environment can instill traits of a founder
- The advancements in technology that help machines evolve themselves
- The similarities between the creations of a machine and a human
- Wally’s sneak peek at what’s coming
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Eating the Whole Internet and Coming Up With a More Intelligent and Better Internet
- Think About Change
- There’s So Many Things You Can Do
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an interesting conversation with Fateh Ali, Co-founder and CEO of Kitcod. Kitcod is social-as-a-service that enables an in-app social community for consumer apps across industries, globally.
Some of the topics Fateh discussed:
- Fateh’s decision to leave school temporarily to support his family
- Fateh’s first tech gig with Pizza Hut
- Fateh’s first time exploring globally and first time working out of India with JP Morgan
- The emphasis on having side gigs
- The two factors that motivate Fateh to keep going
- Building a social community collaboration within any app
- Fateh’s learning takeaways from working with Antler
- What Fateh is trying to achieve with Kitcod
- Kitcod’s future wishes and what they want to achieve
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- If You Could Give Them Something Back in Return, It Might Really Be a Beautiful Thing
- Early in the Game
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an insightful conversation with Heikki Nousiainen, Field-CTO & Co-founder at Aiven. Aiven makes setting up cloud databases so simple anyone can do it.
Some of the topics that Heikki discussed:
- Finland’s environmental influence on developing great tech
- How Aiven aims to help developers and organisations build on top of the current technology
- The benefits of having a tendency of just wanting to know more
- Aiven’s mission
- Maximising existing data to create new services
- Aiven’s drive to find new innovations to distill information and data
- Aiven’s future plans to enter a very tempting market
- Supporting other startups in a unique way
Some other titles we have considered for this episode:
- Focus on Things That Make a Difference
- It’s Very Hard to Build Something in Secret
- Bringing Out a Great Product
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
FTX and its aftermath is an ongoing conversation and we want to continue to be a part of it.
Asia Tech Podcast invited one of the region's most thoughtful investors, Rajive Keshup, to come to the show and give some of his insights into how we got here and where we are going.
Some of the topics that Rajive discussed:
- In-depth detail of the FTX situation and what the potential outcomes are
- The impact of the Federal Reserve on all financial markets
- The implications of the changing macro environment
- The Binance and FTX rivalry
- Putting the economics of FTX into context
- The necessity for and the inevitability of regulation
- Just how small the circle of players is
- The impact on the VC world
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Think Every Year Will Have Something
- Everybody Knew Something Was Going On
- The Circles Trading Against You Are a Lot Tighter
- They Sponsored Stadiums
- Season 4: The Run to Dubai
Asia Tech Podcast had Joel Lin, Contributor at CitaDAO, back on the show. We needed his expertise to further our discussion on the volatility in the crypto markets.
Some of the topics Joel covered:
- Recent financial crises juxtaposed with FTX, Alameda Research, and Binance
- Sam Bankman-Fried and Changpeng Zhao rivalry
- How much regulators knew about FTX
- The importance of code auditing
- Do smart contracts solve this?
- Web2 projects disguised as Web3 projects
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- He Tried to Run an Exchange Like a Bank
- People Trust the Community
- Not a Failure of Regulations, But of Regulators
- The Web3 World Can Not Be an Imaginary World
- You Gotta Wonder Where All That Money Came From
The Asia Tech Podcast recorded a substantial conversation with Mahnoor Farishta, Founder and CEO of Khair. Khair is a health-tech company that aims to digitalise healthcare for women from awareness to access.
Some topics discussed by Mahnoor:
- The change of mindset regarding work output
- The origin of Mahnoor’s ‘I want to have impact’ mindset
- The importance of knowing and acknowledging your privilege
- The impact of income status on the healthcare system in Pakistan
- Hitting the right problems in Pakistan
- How the Covid-19 lockdown triggered the big idea spark
- Khair’s sustainable innovations to help Pakistan’s period poverty
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Work With an Impact
- Our Time Was Gonna Come
- It’s About Time
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast had to get on a quick call with Hayden Hughes, a co-Founder and CEO of Alpha Impact. Alpha Impact is a social trading platform designed to filter through the noise of crypto trading.
We recorded this episode on Tuesday, November 8...since then more news has emerged, but this is not settled yet.
Some of the topics we covered:
- The ongoing situation at Alameda Research and FTX
- Algorithmic stablecoins
- Staking
- The Sam Bankman-Fried and Changpeng Zhao conflict
- The difference between Luna-Terra and FTX-Alameda
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Lessons Learned From Previous Events
- Every Transaction Is Public
- I Don’t See How There Can Be No Plan
- It’s an Emerging Science
- It’s Actually a Death Spiral
The Asia Tech Podcast recorded an energetic conversation with Cathal Donnellan, Co-founder and CEO of SnapEx. SnapEx is an application that provides the best trading experience to beginners and professional traders.
Some topics discussed by Cathal:
- The importance of going into the major Chinese developing economy
- How does Cathal improve efficiency by hopping from country to country
- Cathal’s fundamental steps of making things happen
- The breakdown of the different licences and choosing the right one
- The major issue with copy trading
- Cathal’s take on the most important and key thing to look out for
- SnapEx’s next very big thing in the near future
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Going Out There
- Make It Happen
- The Best That We Can
- Finding Your Place in the Market
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
The Asia Tech Podcast recorded an insightful conversation with Constantijn Van Oranje-Nassau, Envoy at Techleap.nl. Techleap.nl is a non-profit, publicly funded organisation that organises events and programmes to aid meaningful connections to help startups grow.
Some of the topics discussed by Constantijn Van Oranje-Nassau:
- Pulling together a digital leaders club and organising a startup fest
- Top-down culture VS bottom-up culture
- Do entrepreneurs want to run big companies
- Cultural differences: Risk-averse VS Risk takers
- Downside and upside of investing
- You don’t always need to be in the country to bring the same type of competitiveness and innovation home
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- You Are Never the Only Change Maker
- Making Change in Your Own Environment
- If I Feel I Can Do Something About It, I Want to Step Into It
- Getting Infected and Bringing That Kind of Innovation and Competitiveness Home
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
The Asia Tech Podcast recorded an insightful conversation with Joel Lin, Contributor at Citadao. Citadao is a Decentralised Finance platform that aims to resolve problems like lack of liquidity, access limitation, and lack of composability in the real estate ecosystem.
Some topics Joel discussed:
- The link between the Web3 space and the gig economy
- A task-oriented model VS a typical business model
- Does having a job titles limit one's capability
- Benefits of using Blockchain treasury as a bank account
- The impact of having good quality members anchored together by a common mission and vision
- Problems linked to real estate equity
- KYC VS AML
- Benefits of Zero-knowledge proof
- Newly introduced Soulbound Token
- The importance of understanding the legal landscape of movable assets
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Defining Yourself
- Having a Say in How You Want to Live Your Life
- The Consensus Mechanism Is the Best Mechanism
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
The Asia Tech Podcast recorded an energising conversation with Jason Neubauer, Founder of Affect Change. Affect Change is a global media and content provider that focuses on showcasing people and organisations around the world "Affecting Change" and enhancing people's quality of life every day.
Some of the topics Jason discussed:
- How 7-year-old Jason created a profitable business
- Jason’s ticket out: Being on Wheel of Fortune
- The constant commitment to level up and to understand the survival consciousness
- Jason’s Santa Claus Effect
- Seeing the domino impact from one’s small action
- Jason’s strategy of testing the international market and working backward
- Covid 19 ’s unanticipated impact on Affect Change
- A perspective on community building and NFTs
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- It’s a Journey for Everyone
- Everything Is a Stepping Stone
- The Constant Commitment to Level Up
- Be Authentic and It’ll Catch Up
- The Impact of Collective Energy
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
The Asia Tech Podcast recorded an enriching conversation with Hong Zhuang Lim, CEO at ShuttleOne. ShuttleOne is a cross-chain infrastructure that facilitates multiple blockchain interoperability and to the real world seamlessly.
Some of the topics Hong Zhuang discussed:
- The impact of multicultural experiences
- Breakdown of Hong Zhuang’s farm business
- The power of exploring and making connections
- How Hong Zhuang was introduced to crypto mining
- Ethereum’s journey
- What does ShuttleOne do?
- Financial literacy: Constant and consistent learning and revising
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Go Where My Interest Goes
- Life Is All About Tinkering and Experiences
- We Don’t Question the Right Things Enough
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
The Asia Tech Podcast was honored to chat with Oi-Yee Choo, the CEO at ADDX and Sumit Kumar, a Managing Director and Partner at BCG.
Some of the topics we discussed included:
- On-chain asset tokenization and fractionalization
- The impact of the Terra-Luna situation on crypto markets
- The current status of the on-chain tokenization landscape
- How the regulators view the market
- What can and can not be tokenized?
- What is the necessary tech stack?
- What are the roadblocks to growth for this market?
- The significance of the Ethereum merge
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- All of Them Are Some Form of Tokenization
- You Can Fractionalize On a Spreadsheet
- It Will Take Some Time for the Incumbent System to Shift
- Not Everybody Can Be a Fast Follower
- Crypto Winter Is Actually Blockchain Summer
You can read the related report published by BCG and ADDX here.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an insightful conversation with Roger Ying, Co-Founder at PolicyDock. PolicyDock is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution for insurers, brokers, and agents. PolicyDock digitizes and automates insurance workflows, and drastically reduces the time to launch insurance products online.
Some of the topics Roger discussed :
- Cultural differences experienced by Roger
- What is PolicyDock?
- Is South Africa one of the most innovative countries?
- PolicyDock’s business model and unique selling point
- What is Point in Time insurance?
- PolicyDock’s collaborations
- What does growth look like for PolicyDock?
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Insurance Is Reverse Banking
- Managing Risks and Providing Better Customer Service
- Navigating Through Differences
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
Asia Tech Podcast recorded an energising conversation with Spenser Skates, Co-founder and CEO at Amplitude. Amplitude is a self-service digital analytics platform that empowers companies to build better products.
Some topics discussed by Spenser:
- Market Centric VS Product Centric
- The internet’s evolution
- Creating voice recognition before Siri was created
- What was learned building Sonalight
- How does Amplitude work?
- The effectiveness of product data
- How partnerships are driving product growth
- Amplitude’s big opportunity
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Most Important Thing Was a Social Interaction
- It May Sound Obvious but Isn’t Until You Look at the Data
- Understanding More About Product Data
This episode was produced by Stephanie Ng.
The Asia Tech Podcast recorded a heartwarming conversation with Nadia Ismadi, a Co-founder and the CEO at Pod. Pod is a financial well-being platform to help users reach their financial goals by using technology and basic financial products.
Some topics Nadia and I discussed:
- Nadia’s glimpse of entrepreneurship through her grandfather
- The importance of using a customer-centric strategy
- Why did Nadia leave a big company to pursue Pod?
- The challenges and lessons learnt building Pod
- Some of the financial barriers Pod is trying to solve
- A new way to look at credit analysis
- Understanding consumer patterns and getting feedback
- Having pillars you want to focus on and build everything else around that
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Just Wanted to Learn
- I Would Rather Crash and Burn, Rather Than Wonder
- I Am Not Responsible for Anyone Else but Myself
- You Don’t Have to Internalise Everything
The Asia Tech Podcast recorded a great conversation with Beth Ann Lopez, a Co-founder and CEO at Docosan, a healthcare marketplace that aims to make it effortless to access healthcare and help find a doctor who is available.
Some of the topics that Beth and I discussed:
- How Beth ended up being a founder in Vietnam
- Culture Shock
- How building a business in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh is different
- Docosan’s mission and how it helped attract locals to join the team
- Healthcare and medical care literacy
- The Startup ecosystem in Vietnam is just getting started
- There are many female businesswomen in Vietnam
- Access to clean water is more important than access to wealth
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Broaden Your Perspective and Adapt Along the Way
- Just Getting Started
- Creating a More Tech-Savvy Healthcare Industry
- Making Healthcare More Convenient
Asia Tech Podcast recorded a great conversation with Lars Jankowfsky, the Founder of NFQ Asia at the Redhill office in Singapore. NFQ Asia teams up brilliant minds to scale ambitious tech-driven businesses.
Some of the topics that Lars discussed:
- Being a bonafide nerd and programming on a Commodore 64
- Started coding as a fourteen-year-old
- Founded his first company in 1997
- Coded a prototype of BMW i-Drive
- The difference between now and the 2000 dot com bubble
- Building a flight search engine and selling to Kayak
- Transitioning from a tech guy to a businessman and learning from mistakes
- The importance of attitude in hiring decisions
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Not Only Different But Better
- I Think We Are Looking at a Different Crisis
- I Was Never Interested in Running a Dev Shop
- Scalable Products Are Much More Interesting
- I Am Not Really a Tech Dude Anymore
- You Need to Go Where the Talent Is
- People Told Me I Sing Decent in Karaoke
The Asia Tech Podcast had such a great conversation with Benjamin Twoon, a co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Fundnel, a platform that is unlocking access and liquidity in the private capital markets.
Some of the topics that Benjamin and I discussed:
- The sheer challenge of any entrepreneurial journey
- The importance of capital and access to it to drive change
- How the JOBS act of 2012 led the way
- Where Hg Exchange fits in and why getting licensed is so important
- The role that tokenization plays in capital access and liquidity
- Some credible alternatives to Ethereum
- The emergence of market-makers for digital assets
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Am the Accidental Entrepreneur
- Give Me Four Years…
- Entrepreneurship Is a Catalyst for Singapore
- We Were All Very Committed to This Mission
- Value Is Being Captured In the Private Markets
- I Had to Go All-In on Entrepreneurship
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Deep Singh, the Founder and Group CEO at CrediLinq.AI Group. CrediLinq's goal is to create a more inclusive, accessible, digital-first, and frictionless customer experience where every business can get quicker access to growth capital.
Some of the topics that Deep covered:
- The concept of identity and growing up in multiple countries
- Pivoting the business model in the first 6 months of CrediLinq
- Risk as a Service
- The importance of building a scalable technology stack
- Using alternative data to underwrite credit
- Just how important financial inclusion is
- How real partnerships help drive regional expansion
- Capital raising in a volatile environment and VC resilience
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- How Do You Accelerate Financial Inclusion?
- The Ecosystem Approach
- That’s the Passion That Really Ignited the Fire
- The Transmission Mechanism Has Increased
- It Started to Become More Data-Driven
The Asia Tech Podcast had so much fun talking to Anand Jain, a co-Founder and the Head of Product at CleverTap. CleverTap helps build amazing user experiences for the world’s leading digital-first brands. Its smart, all-in-one platform combines the best analytics, segmentation, and engagement tools so that companies can build valuable, long-term relationships with their customers.
Some of the topics we covered:
- Meeting important obligations at a very young age
- Teaching himself how to repair electrical and electronic products
- The concept that people that don't know you don't know your struggle
- The importance of hiring people that are genuinely curious
- The difference between leadership and management
- Getting comfortable with doing things differently
- Marketing personalization and the importance of data
- The $1.6MM James Bond Story
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Helped Myself to Technology
- If You Ask Me One Question I Can’t Answer, I’ll Walk Out Myself
- Either You Do It or You Don’t
- You Have to Pause and See if You’re on the Right Track or Not
- Leadership Is Truly Earned
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast reached out to Daniel Liebau, the Chief Investment Officer at Modular Blockchain Fund. The Modular Blockchain Fund was jointly developed by Modular Asset Management and asset class expert Lightbulb Capital. The Fund offers a long-only investment opportunity in liquid cryptocurrencies.
Some of the topics Daniel covered:
- Doing research and analysis on foundations to pick the winners
- What makes a good smart contract foundation
- Sustainability of smart contract platforms leading to the adoption of Web3
- The issue of unethical behavior in the cryptocurrency industry
- Does the industry need to up the game with regard to risk management, operations, and general management?
- The importance of regulation and valuation frameworks for crypto market maturity
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
We wanted to have a discussion about "The Metaverse for the Masses" and we could not have asked for two better guests.
Andy Tian, the CEO of Asia Innovations Group, and Alvin Wang Graylin, the China President at HTC, have not only known each other since their days at MIT but are also long-time experts in this field.
Some of the topics we covered:
- What is the metaverse and how would we define it?
- The necessity of technological on-ramps, awareness, and literacy
- Emerging market users and what they really want from the metaverse
- Asia Innovations Group's metaverse white paper
- Is blockchain technology necessary for the widespread use of the metaverse?
- Do we sometimes forget how immersive real-life already is?
This episode was produced, directed, and hosted by UnderCover Media.
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Gabriel Henry Lopez, a co-Founder, and the Chief Technology Officer at MedHyve. MedHyve is an online medical marketplace that connects healthcare buyers directly with the biggest brands and medical suppliers.
Some of the topics that Gabriel discussed:
- Dropping out of a prestigious computer science program to build MedHyve
- Relentlessly convincing his parents that he simply had to do this
- How his co-Founder's previous experience in the healthcare field was helpful
- Getting comfortable with risk-taking and the inherent difficulties of entrepreneurship
- The impact of the pandemic on the growth of MedHyve
- Does his family really understand what he is doing and building?
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It Came to a Point Where I Had to Make a Choice
- I Was Running a Thesis
- We Had to Hire More Older-Looking People
- It Was an Uphill Battle but We Were Able to Do It
- I’m Making Real Jobs!
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Lindsay Davis, a co-founder of the FemTech Association of Asia, the gateway to the FemTech industry within Asia, driving advancement in available, accessible, and affordable healthcare for every woman at each stage of life, through knowledge, solutions, and funding.
Some of the topics Lindsay discussed included:
- Going to Texas for university and finding herself
- Living in Europe and moving to Singapore
- Why she co-founded the FemTech Association of Asia
- Getting the market ready for funding more FemTech investment
- Thought leadership and understanding the changing needs of women
- Creating the opportunity to demand more in the FemTech space
- The economic importance and opportunity for women's health
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Love Being a Part of a Team
- Finding Comfort With Discomfort
- I Wouldn’t Work on Something That I Thought Didn’t Have Infinite Potential
- We Invest in What We Relate To
- Women’s Health Is Not Just for Women
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Dr. Krystine Kua, a co-Founder and the Head at KSK City Labs. KSK City Labs aims to revolutionize the real estate industry by building technology that contributes to a better quality of life for the communities and cities in which it operates.
Some of the topics that Krystine discussed:
- Studying medicine and working as a doctor
- Teamwork in the emergency room to teamwork in the boardroom
- Switching career paths and ultimately deciding to join the family real estate business
- Building technology to improve the lifestyle of tenants
- The role of eCommerce
- Optimizing for sustainability
- The fun and challenge of working in a dynamic family business
- Learning important leadership lessons from her father
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It’s Almost Easier to Disrupt Ourselves
- We Didn’t Just Want to Build It and Walk Away
- The App Can Host Their Lives
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast had an interesting conversation with Daan van Rossum, the CEO of FlexOS and Dreamplex.
Some of the topics Daan covered:
- Wanting to be an entrepreneur from an early age
- Leaving a good job in marketing strategy because he was not growing professionally
- The complexity of building businesses in Southeast Asia
- The entrepreneurial drive of Vietnam's younger generation
- The extent to which work and workplaces are evolving
- Dreamplex and FlexOS
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- What Employees Want Need to Be Front and Center
- Building Workspaces Where People Live
- Now Anyone Can Work From Anywhere
- I’ve Somehow Made It to 7 Years in One City, One Country
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast really enjoyed having Triveni Rajagopal, Senior Director, Personal Care Digital Transformation Lead at Unilever, on the show. She humorously noted at the beginning of our conversation that she was "born into advertising, married into advertising, went into advertising, and is now in marketing."
Some of the important topics that Triveni covered:
- How technology plays a role in the way communication evolves
- The impact of authenticity on imagination
- Message construction as a science
- The role that data plays in marketing
- Democratizing access to technology and working with brands that do so
- The oncoming metaverse and the potential impact on brands
- Being attuned to popular culture and how it keeps her young
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- How the Shape of Communication Is Changing
- Every Day the Narrative Changes
- The Power to Change Ideas and People’s Minds
- We Make It Into a Science
- I Make All the Brands Young
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
With all of the recent activity in the cryptocurrency markets, I wanted to have a conversation with one of its most rational and informed participants. I naturally invited a previous guest of the Asia Tech Podcast, Hayden Hughes, a co-Founder and the CEO of Alpha Impact.
Hayden has been posting, blogging, and not-sure-what-to-call-it over the past few weeks and I wanted to cover some of the topics he was addressing:
- Algorithmic stablecoins
- The logistics around the crypto lending markets
- Terra and Luna's watershed event
- The implications of Celsius, Zipmex, and others halting withdrawals.
- What regaining trust looks like for firms in the crypto space
- The inevitability of the future of finance is digital
- What regulation could look like going forward
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Market Has Run Out of Things to Be Scared Of
- Crypto Is Pretty Forgiving
- We Were in Several Months of Down Only
- It Has Been a Crazy Couple of Months!
- This Isn’t the First Time Crazy Finance Bros Have Taken Such Risks
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
Matas Danielevicius is a friend, so the conversation was easy...he is also a very talented guy. And not just his marketing skills, his leadership skills and his company building skills. Matas is also an accomplished actor. He is also a co-Founder and the CEO and of Gaorai.
Gaorai is an agri-tech platform that connects farmers to freelance agri-drone pilots. Gaorai is improving precision application and sustainability of crop protection products in Thailand and the region.
Some of the topics that Matas and I discussed:
- Spending most of his professional career in Thailand
- The struggle to maintain a good work-life balance
- Filming and acting in a feature-length motion picture
- Building Gaorai
- Scaling drone technology and working with corporates
- Helping small-holder farmers
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I’m Here to Improve My Skill, Not to Be Famous
- I Can Make More Daring Choices
- I Never Understood What I Was Eating
- If They See It They See It, but if Not It’s Gone Forever
- The Future in Drones Is So Massive
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast sat down in the studio at Seven Peaks Software with Wimintra J. Raj, the Founder in Residence at NFQ Thailand. I have been following Wimintra's career for years...she is not peaking, but she is surely accelerating!
Some of the topics Wimintra covered included:
- Reinventing herself and accepting that one can not know everything
- The challenges of running a software company
- The importance of face-to-face meetings to truly connect to colleagues
- Mentoring and being mentored
- The difficulty of hiring great tech talent globally
- Technology as an enabler for all companies regardless of industry
Some of the other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Thought I Was a Big Shot
- I Have to Go Somewhere Bigger Than Me
- It Took Me All the Way to Germany
- They’re Not Only Doing Their Job, They’re Teaching Me
- It’s Sophistication
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Jacky Lai, the CEO at Peeba, which is "Reinventing the supply chain for independent retailers in Asia".
Some of the topics that Jacky discussed:
- Growing up in Canada
- Starting an eCommerce company while studying at Emory University
- Going back to Hong Kong to start a business there
- How a lack of technology inhibits scale
- Online-only stores being unsustainable
- Building a wholesale market for retailers
- What he learned from talking to potential customers
- Dropshipping versus more traditional eCommerce
- Raising capital
- What growth looks like for Peeba
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Stumbled Across One, and I Thought I Could Make It Better
- It’s Too Much Work for Unclear Value
- We Only Make Money When They Make Money
- We Have to Grow Fast and Big
- It’s Hard to Squeeze Efficiency and Value
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was invited to attend the Chainalysis Links event in Singapore. We were fortunate to be able to chat with Caroline Malcolm, the Head of International Public Policy and Research and Ulisse Dell'Orto, the Managing Director for APAC and Japan at Chainalysis.
Some of the topics that Caroline and Ulisse discussed:
- The importance of building communities
- The necessity of Public Private Partnerships for the mass adoption of crypto
- Helping Society and Governments prepare for technological change
- New ways of achieving policy objectives - keeping people safe
- Blockchain and distributed ledger technology education and literacy
- The significance of working with regulators globally
- Access to data and sharing that data to make better policy decisions
- The sheer speed with which the blockchain industry is moving
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Even When It’s Your Full-time Job, It’s Hard to Keep Up With
- You Cannot Ban Cryptocurrencies
- Value Will Be Exchanged Differently
- Turning On the Lights Just a Bit
- It's Very Novel to Have This Level of Transparency
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast traveled to the Fintonia offices in Singapore to have a chat with Adrian Chng, the Founder, and Chairman of Fintonia Group. We are starting to get used to these in-person recordings!
Some of the topics Adrian discussed included:
- His background in the startup space and being involved in a large acquisition
- Institutions getting more involved in bitcoin and cryptocurrency
- The pathway to mass adoption of crypto
- The necessity for more infrastructure to get built
- Working together with regulators
- Web 3.0 and the metaverse in the context of finance
- Fintonia and where it fits in the big picture
- Entry-level access to crypto products
Other titles we really considered for this episode:
- You Can Reach People You Haven’t Reached Before
- Back Then I Was Very Skeptical Too
- If Everyone Thinks It’s Worth Something, It’s Worth Something
- What Is It, and Is It Big Enough?
- When It Bounced Back, We Bounced Back
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Denise Sandquist, a co-Founder and the CEO of Fika. Fika is Vietnam's fastest-growing AI social & dating app...but when you listen to this episode, you will find it is much more than that.
Some of the topics that Denise and I discussed:
- Being born in Vietnam and adopted by a family in Sweden
- Inspired by the power of social media and how she found her birth parents
- The idea of Fika is more than just a dating app
- Connecting people through interests
- Understanding one's self and the complexity of relationships
- Building sustainable relationships
- The happiness of seeing other people happy
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Relationships Are Very Complicated
- We Wanted to Solve Was Loneliness
- A Lot of It Is About Communication
- I Was Curious Why I Was the Way I Am
- It’s Difficult to Be Disciplined
- I Became a Spokesperson
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was excited to do have a conversation with a co-Founder of a business in Laos. Souliyo Vongdala, the co-Founder and CEO of LOCA, was just that person...and we would love to have more Founders from Laos as well. LOCA is the only "Licensed" Laos-Based Ride-Hailing Service Application in Laos.
Some of the topics that Souliyo discussed:
- Moving to the United States when he was 18 years old
- Creating the Lao keyboard for the iPhone and getting inundated with eMail
- Fibbing to his mother about going back to work in Laos
- Founding Laos' first ride-hailing business even though people said they did not want it
- The impact of COVID
- Figuring out the right marketing model
- Building an entire ecosystem around LOCA's driver partners and their families
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- People Like to Think We Are Killing the Taxis
- How Can I Make My Decision Right?
- It Takes Time, Like a Mother Tongue
- Sustainable Means Sustainable Income
- I Registered Myself, and I Drive
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
David Case knows about which he speaks. To say that David has a wealth of international, cross-border legal expertise would be an egregious understatement. As the Founding Attorney at Asia Pacific Advisory, David primarily advises and assists clients in Asia and the U.S. with their venture capital, intellectual property, and commercial transactions.
Some of the topics David discussed:
- Growing up in Silicon Valley
- The intersection of technology and the law
- How the law is flexible enough to handle technological change
- The experience of working as a lawyer in Japan for more than 2 decades
- The power of fluency in written and spoken Japanese
- NFTs as a legal framework and an economic paradigm
- Creating a metaverse with laws
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- It's Hard to Find a Good Attorney
- The Law Is Not Simple, It's Just Flexible
- There Are Going to Be Two Worlds for Sure
- Everything Was Just Beginning With the Computer Revolution
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Paul Harapin, the Head of Asia Pacific and Japan at Stripe. Yes. That Stripe.
Some of the topics Paul covered:
- The moment in his career when he discovered startups for the first time
- Working with people with whom he has a deep level of trust
- Hiring people willing to take the next risk
- Being comfortable working with ambiguity
- The challenges of product localization
- Being in the early days of cryptocurrency in the creator space
- Having the skillset to build something from 0 to 100
Some other titles we considered of this episode:
- You Just Keep Pushing and Pushing
- Working Everything Out as You Go
- The Customer Is Extracted From All the Complexity
- The Only Time You Think About It Is if It Breaks
- It Wasn’t Scary for Me
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was more than excited to have Maaike Doyer and Hester Spiegel-vdSteenhoven, the Founders of Epic Angels on the show. Epic Angels is a network of female executives and operators who have built and expanded companies in all parts of the world.
Some of the topics we discussed:
- Starting their careers with corporate roles
- What they learned and why they decided to start their own businesses
- Female entrepreneurship, and being female in the corporate world
- The importance of having female role models
- Democratizing angel investing
- Expanding the number and impact of female investors
- Diversity and quality of EA's angels is a key strength
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Like Complex Projects
- The Concept of Hypergrowth Does Not Exist in Corporates
- Building Diversity From the Start
- Adding Value at an Early Stage
- Creating a Community Where Angel Investors Can Learn
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast really enjoyed our conversation with Faye Yang, the Founder of Unschul, the movement to liberate art.
Some of the topics we discussed with Faye:
- Born in China but raised in the United States
- Attending three different high schools and two middle schools
- Living around the University of Michigan and experiencing one of the biggest street-art fairs in the US
- Falling in love with art and selling her first piece as a young teenager
- The impetus to focus on engineering rather than art
- The belief that art should not be so expensive that it becomes unattainable
- Fractional art ownership and profitability for more artists
- Attacking the proximity problem for artists
- Being inspired
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Art Is Part of Every Culture
- Art Belongs to All of Us
- Our Art Tends to Be Undervalued
- I Want to Create a Free Market for Artists
- Art Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast had a fascinating conversation with Phoram Mehta, Senior Director, APAC Chief Security Information Officer at PayPal.
Some of the topics Phoram discussed:
- Studying engineering and going to the United States for graduate school
- Loving puzzles and solving complex problems
- The nature of online security and the adversary on the other side
- The power of a community when working in cybersecurity
- An Asian perspective
- Mobile phones and devices brining a lot of first time users onto the internet
- The growth of gaming in Asia and the impact on cybersecurity
- Why partnerships are so important
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Programming Was My Nature
- It's a Real-life Competition Going On
- The Competition Is Always Improving
- Striking the Right Balance
- Preserving the Trust
This episode was expertly produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Yu Taniguchi, the Founder and CEO of TableCheck. TableCheck empowers restaurants with technology to enhance operations, engage guests and optimize business.
Some of the topics Yu covered:
- Moving between Singapore and Japan as a youngster
- Brought up with a conventional outlook of success
- But not wanting to live a conventional (business) life
- Initially working for a credit card company, but getting bored quickly
- Spent 8 months at a startup, but found out that a large portion was sold to VCs
- Deciding to start his own company, which felt inevitable
- TableCheck's (almost) three business models
- The volume and importance of the data that TableCheck can gather
- Optimizing the transactional part of the dining experience
- Sushi being his favorite food
- The intended future of TableCheck
- What do お父さん and お母さん think of his business
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Never Wanted to Go to High School
- I Will Help You Just as Long as You Make Me the CEO
- 95% Of the Restaurants Believed That Bookings Will Stay Offline
- It Was Clear I Was More Capable
- World Conquest in 15 Different Languages
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was humbled to have Dayana Yermolayeva join the show. Dayana is a co-Founder and the CEO of JiPay, an app for families to manage their household spending.
Some of the topics we covered included:
- Being from Ukraine and growing up in the UK
- Doing a really cool, triple degree program at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Universita Bocconi, and the University of Southern California
- Having a well-developed worldview as a result of living in many countries
- Coming from a family of entrepreneurs
- Consulting or investment banking?
- Being a pilot and flying over the Grand Canyon
- Domestic workers saving money for their families
- Helping them save and invest
- Does gamification help teach about saving money?
- $1 MM of top-ups monthly
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Did Not Think I Would Become an Entrepreneur So Early
- And Yet, the Employers Are Still Pretty Happy
- Once You Have Something to Say, the Age Thing Kinda Goes Out of the Window
- I Came to Singapore With No Network, No Connections
- If I Did It Once, I Could Do It Again
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Dan Bognar, the Group Vice President & General Manager, Asia Pacific & Japan at DocuSign. We don't need to explain what DocuSign is, right? Anyway...
Some of the topics Dan covered:
- Consulting for almost 10 years before joining the tech world
- Taking measured career risks
- Living at work, not working from home
- Digitalization and never having to put ink on paper anymore
- Blockchain's evolution and more efficient ways to sign contracts
- No-code, low-code in the enterprise
- Surging demand during the pandemic
- Working with startups and creating immersive experiences
- Hybrid document signing
- Demand for mobile and optimizing for it
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- You're a Young Kid...You'll Figure It Out
- I Had to Get Involved With All These Dot Coms
- We’re Not Afraid to Disrupt Ourselves
- We Want People to Agree From Anywhere
- Being Able to Do It From Anywhere Is Such a Beautiful Thing
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Andrew Forman, the Founder and CEO at Givz.com. Givz is the eCommerce marketing platform that grows sales, creates social impact and reduces discount dependency.
Some of the topics that Andrew discussed:
- Attending Harvard Business School and networking in a multi-college environment
- How investment banking helped him learn about starting a business
- The real impact of discounting and customer expectations
- Customers' response to GroupOn
- Data analytics and customer behavior
- How Givz works and the impetus for starting it
- Changing the Givz model and getting the team to come along for the pivot
- The online implementation and how Givz works offline as well
- Creating an infrastructure for brands and charities to work together
- The normalization of QR codes in the United States
Some other titles we considered:
- The Pandemic Saved the QR Code
- There Is an Element of Luck
- Placing Yourself Strategically Is 90% of the Battle
- It Was the Beginning of the End, I Knew...
This episode was expertly produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was so happy to be joined by Dr. Ritu Verma, a co-Founder, Managing Partner at Ankur Capital Fund. The Ankur team believes "great entrepreneurs coupled with the essential business building blocks leads to great companies."
Some of the topics Dr. Verma covered:
- Beginning her career as a Physicist
- The excitement and challenge of moving to Vermont for school
- The benefits of moving out of your comfort zone at a young age
- The subtle change in how the world perceives Impact Investing
- How Impact Investing leads to a better world
- Seed-stage investing compared to later-stage investing
- Leaning into her science background to help make better investment decisions
- Asia as a leader in climate impact investment
- How the investment landscape has changed in India in the past 10 years
- Women in technology and STEM
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It Was an Adventure, so That’s What Was Great About It
- This Is a Sort of Space That Makes You Dive Deeper
- Being Thrown off the Cliff to Think
- The Sheer Joy of Seeing Interesting Things Come Up
- It’s Exciting Having the Tools for Innovation
- I Learnt About Telegram on a Sunflower Seed Field
The episode was expertly produced by Isabelle Goh.
Asia Tech Podcast reached out to Corey Wilton, a co-Founder of Mirai Labs (Pegaxy) after reading a post he wrote on LinkedIn.
Some of the topics Corey discussed:
- Started his first business when he was 16 years old
- Wanting to be a fighter pilot
- Learning about bias at a young age
- Deciding not to go to university and doing door-to-door sales
- His first business success in customer support focused on ICOs during first crypto boom
- Moving into the F1 Delta community and learning about crypto asset lending
- Building his own 'guild' to see what needed to be fixed
- Automating asset lending to allow for smoother asset transfer and profit sharing among players
- Intending to release Pegaxy to a small audience while building a 2 year roadmap
- Struggling to control demand for Pegaxy after its beta release
- Business fundamentals DO matter
- Profitability and business sustainability are more important than short-term hype
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Was Trying to Harbor a Strong Mind
- You Just Need a Thousand Horses and One Wallet
- I Just Kept Telling Myself “Its the Next Door”
- It’s Easy to Get Jaded When You Have Still Done Nothing
- Hitting the Lottery Is Not Always Good
- Are We Also Passengers on a Train?
The audio on this episode was expertly edited by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Irene Umar and Evan Spytma of YGG SEA into the studio at Seven Peaks Software in Bangkok. Irene is a co-Founder and and Indonesia Country Manager and Evan Spytma is a co-Founder and the CEO of YGG SEA.
With the coming IDO of YGG SEA, we wanted to have them on the show to discuss:
- How Evan originally met Gabby Dizon, a co-Founder of YGG
- The early days of play-to-earn
- Investing in games and launching them on the YGG platform
- A Prime Brokerage model for NFTs?
- YGGs original investment coming from IVC
- Does GameFi accelerate DeFi
- Preparing the next generation for the metaverse
- The YGG SEA IDO and CopperLaunch
- Moving from a governance token to a utility token
- Semiotic.ai
- Irene and Evan's trip to a Buddhist temple
- The bonus conversation!
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Can't You Feel the Love?
- Did You Collect Your Unicorn Milk?
- The Guild Really Is Just Phase 01
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Anthony Kang, the Founder and CEO at BitFans. BitFans is a web 3.0 technology company that helps creators and their community members build deeper bonds with each other using the power of digital tokens.
Some of the topics that Anthony discussed:
- Starting out in sales and marketing and investment before getting into tech
- Sales and psychology
- Fear over foundational change
- The transitions from Web 1, to Web 2 and Web 3
- Asset ownership and the role of tokenization
- The decentralization of social media
- How BitFans helps creators mint NFTs and build DAOs
- Metaverse interoperability
- The first BitFan cohort
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- There's Just Good Talent Everywhere
- A Diversified Team Scattered All Around the World
- The Rocky Road to Achieving Dominance
- If Blockchain Was the Government of the Earth
- Without Data, They're In Big Trouble
The Asia Tech Podcast enjoyed chatting with Kenneth Lou, a co-Founder, and CEO of Seedly. Seedly helps make personal finance relevant and simple for the masses.
Some of the topics that Kenneth covered:
- Growing up in an academic environment that nurtures entrepreneurs
- Starting Seedly in a dorm room at NUS almost 7 years ago
- Somehow always being passionate about finance
- Meeting his co-Founder in Silicon Valley
- Getting initial funding from East Ventures
- Starting Seedly as an expense tracking tool
- Seedly evolving into a community and content platform
- Seedly Personal Finance Festival 2022
A couple of other titles we considered:
- Is It a Project?
- How Do You Save and Invest?
The Asia Tech Podcast had a great conversation with Anita Jiawen Sadasivan, a co-Founder and Chief Wellbeing Officer at MindFi. MindFi's mission is to transform the narrative around mental health in Asia. Anita is a pretty incredible entrepreneur, mental health advocate and powerful pole dancer.
Some of the topics we covered:
- Anita's educational background in mental health and her passion for pole dancing
- Winter blues and seasonal affective disorder
- Coming back to Singapore to take care of her father
- The connection between physically fit and mentally fit
- The signs of sliding into depression
- The founding of MindFi
- Corporate interest in the mental health of employees, but not knowing where to begin
- The Y-Combinator experience
- Using Data, AI and Algorithms
- Finding joy in helping others and building a passionate team
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- That's Just Part of My Journey
- Companies Benefit with Mentally Healthy Workforce
- There Aren't Enough Mental Health Specialists to Go Around
- Seeking My Own Answers
The audio on this episode was expertly edited by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast had an exciting and in-depth conversation with Ben Harburg, a Managing Partner at MSA Capital. He serves as the CIO of Emerging Technology Markets and leads global growth for MSA’s portfolio companies.
MSA is a global investment firm that invests from seed-to-growth stage investments across consumer, enterprise, core technologies, and healthcare. The firm was established in 2014 and manages $1.7 billion in capital across multiple funds.
Some of the topics that Ben covered:
- Did a Fulbright for a year in Germany studying Islamic Sciences and Oriental Philology
- Traveled to Egypt as a 13-year-old
- Grew up as an ex-pat, so had a global perspective from an early age
- China is an innovation leader across multiple tech verticals
- Alibaba's expansion strategy does not work
- Investing in the GoJek of Iraq
- The difference between emerging markets and emerging technology markets
- How the United Arab Emirates built a platform for long-term entrepreneurial development
- A large and growing appetite for tech startup investment in Africa
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Touching Down, I Remember the Heat
- There Is an innovation Pendulum
The Asia Tech Podcast loved having Mario Peng in the studio at True Digital Park (We now have another studio at Seven Peaks Software!) to talk about PropertyScout. We had Mario on the show back in September 2020 during the earliest stages of PropertyScout and with all of the changes and growth the company has experienced, we had to have him on again for an update.
Some of the topics we covered this time:
- There were over 150,000 listings on PropertyScout at the time of the recording
- Multiple listings and some of the challenges PropertyScout is solving around co-broking
- ProperyScout's core is the transactional marketplace
- The importance of setting up standard operating procedures
- The necessity of a culture of trust and transparency
- Building versus buying specific skill sets
- Developing a technology platform for exponential growth
- Doubling down on property management
- Delivering a great customer experience requires solutions to multiple problems
- Fundraising can be fun!
With all of the news about ADDX launching private market services for wealth managers, we had to have Oi-Yee Choo back on the show to dig a bit deeper into the press releases. We were not disappointed...
Some of the topics that Oi-Yee covered:
- Being promoted to CEO felt like a natural progression as she had been part of senior management decision making for two years
- The maturing of the crypto sector and the opportunity to expand the asset and product base
- The regulatory environment locally, regionally, and globally and its potential harmonization
- The decline in the returns of public investments
- Building trust over the past two years led to more diverse partnerships
- ADDX Advantage and working with StashAway and CGS-CIMB
- Fractional access to private market products
- Diversifying ADDX's investor base
- Expanding into other markets outside of Singapore and outside the region
The audio on this episode was expertly edited by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Takahito Iguchi...you know who he is. You remember his photos in those cool-looking glasses as the Japanese competitor to Google Glass. He is back with a new product called CubeMint, an attempt at creating an offline to online audio metaverse.
Some of the topics that Iguchi-san covered:
- His original product launch of Sekai Camera
- Moving to San Francisco from Japan to get better connected to the VC and startup world
- Raising $15MM for Sekai Camera at a Techcrunch event
- Leaving Sekai Camera to found Telepathy
- Eventually getting fired from Telepathy and losing everything
- Feeling depressed and considered leaving the startup community completely
- The realization that many people feel isolated and that audio is a great connector
- Creating the audio metaverse and CubeMint, currently using Polygon's Matic
- The merging of physical spaces and the CubeMint metaverse
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Henry Motte-Muñoz, the Founder of Edukasyon, to the show. Edukasyon is the go-to, online youth platform for making better-informed education, career, and life decisions.
Some of the topics that Henry and I discussed:
- Growing up between Europe and the Philippines
- Listening to impact, courage, and 'giving back' conversations around the dinner table
- Working at Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital
- Getting a scholarship to attend Harvard Business School
- The benefits of Boston being a multi-campus city
- Always wanting to go back to the Philippines and build something with impact, at scale, using technology
- Education is the largest government expenditure in the Philippines
- The Philippines PISA ranking
- Moving from large, macro investments to real systemic changes
- The importance of basic, foundational academic skills, making the right education choices, and soft skills
- Scaling content in a way that is accessible
- Working with partners like AWS EdStart
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Everyone Was Giving Back In Some Form Or Another
- It Took Me a Solid Decade to Figure Out What To Do
- All Countries Go Through Stages
- What Are You Really Trying to Teach?
- Education Is a Multi-Stakeholder Industry
- What’s Your Vision for an Educated Child?
- How Does This All Feed Into a Career?
- It’s Not About Catching Up, It’s About Getting Ahead
- Our Role as Humans Is Not Just to Be a Production Unit for Some Company
I wanted to catch up with Phil Morle (I don't need to explain who Phil Morle is, do I?) and have a conversation with him about the relationship between early-stage investors and the founders in whose companies they invest.
Phil has been writing a lot lately, or maybe I just noticed...but either way, his writing is resonating with me and a recent 'article' he wrote prompted this recorded conversation.
Listen as Phil, who is one of the most thoughtful investors I know, expounds (Yes. He presented and explained his ideas systematically and in detail...) on the fragility of the relationship between early-stage investors and founders.
Phil discussed:
- Being 80 days into a 30-day writing challenge
- The immense difficulty of building something from scratch and trying to turn it into something meaningful
- How founders are obsessed with the ideas that underpin their companies
- The concept that founders are motivated more by impact than money
- The reality of being time-poor and the need for investors to respect their time
- Founders are all-in...Investors are not
- Founders are "bad at some things" but may have to do everything at the start
- The imperative for investors to "be there" for the founders
- Co-imagining the future with the founders
Other titles we seriously considered for this episode:
- Drinking From the Firehose of Life
- Red Flags In Little Emoticons
- Funding Discovery, Not Growth
- Building Something While the World Doesn't Care
- Squeezing Out All the Toxic People
The audio on this episode was expertly edited by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was honored to have Dr. Pinak Shrikhande, Director at HealthQuad, join the show. HealthQuad, India's leading healthcare venture capital fund, partners with extraordinary entrepreneurs to nurture and scale up transformative and impactful healthcare businesses in India.
Some of the topics that Dr. Shrikhande covered included:
- His experiences as a practicing critical care physician for almost 20 years
- Dealing with life and death situations every day
- While at Fortis Hospitals, built the first eICUs in India
- Always wanting to make a difference and be at the cutting edge of technology
- Digging deeply into eICUs
- Extracting data remotely and filling the expertise gap with technology
- How COVID created a paradigm change in the way people thought about healthcare delivery
- Some of the challenges of working across national borders
- Raising and deploying the first HealthQuad fund
- HealthQuad's investment thesis
A few other titles we considered for this episode:
- Try and Tip the Balance Towards Life
- It’s Kind of DNA-ish
- One Should Not Die Because of Lack of Quality Care
- Using Technology As a Bridge to Get Quality Care
The Asia Tech Podcast was graced with the pleasure of Jennifer Tiang's company. Jennifer is the Regional Cyber Lead - Asia at Willis Towers Watson. The recently rebranded WTW provides "data-driven, insight-led solutions in the areas of people, risk and capital that make your organization more resilient, motivate your workforce, and maximize performance."
Some of the topics that Jennifer covered:
- Born and raised in New Zealand, based in Singapore
- Studied law and moved into the insurance broking business
- Studied Mandarin in Shanghai
- The macro change of insuring digital and non-tangible assets
- How risk is constantly being reassessed
- The importance of the data behind the risk analysis
- The significance of asking clients the wrong questions
- It is not just about insurance, it is about minimizing cybersecurity risk
- The need to consider financial, legal, and business interruption risks
- Having an advantage coming from a legal background
- Insurance for NFTs?
Other titles we may have considered for this episode:
- Navigating Into Asia from the Bottom of the World
- If You Know, You Know
- It Is Not Binary Anymore
- As Amorphous as Cybersecurity
- Insuring Your Lifeblood, Your Data
- You Can't Build Buildings That Are Not to Spec
The audio on this episode was expertly edited by Isabelle Goh.
The Asia Tech Podcast was pumped to have Evan Wong, a co-Founder, and CEO at Checkbox(dot)ai on the show. Checkbox is a no-code platform that allows users to build their own business apps for process automation.
If you talk to Evan, you can hear the boundless energy in his voice and one can not help to get excited about the business he is building at Checkbox.
Some of the topics Evan covered:
- Starting his first business, Hero Education, while still at university
- Fell in love with entrepreneurship and started another company after graduating
- Mom is an accountant and Dad is a business analyst
- Building business relationships early and getting great feedback
- How he met (already knew!) one of his co-founders
- The importance of having great investors and the unfair advantage it provides
- Why no-code matters and what has changed since Checkbox was founded in 2016
- Creating continuity and minimizing key-person risk
- Googling "list of software terms you should know"
- Expanding into a global business
- Building a remote team and the extra effort it requires
- Expert Process Automation (EPA) and the competitive landscape
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Are You Sure?
- Every Single Company Is Going to Have Its Own Unique Path
- They Come On the Journey With You
- We Met When We Were 12 Years Old
- It Takes a While to Build a Good Company
This episode of the Asia Tech Podcast was brought to you by IR - leaders in performance and experience management. Click here to download the ultimate guide to future-proofing the hybrid workplace.
The Asia Tech Podcast had a super-cool conversation with Hoyin Cheung, the Founder, and CEO of Remo(dot)co. Remo is an interactive virtual event platform that empowers you to grow and engage your audience.
Some of the topics that Hoyin covered:
- Being born in a small, university town in Illinois and moving (back) to Hong Kong when he was 9 years old
- The benefits and drawbacks of joining a new school and making new friends
- His Mom's family were business people, Dad's not so much
- Encouraged by his Dad to study bioengineering; could always transition to business
- Actually doing stem cell research, loving the science but itching to do business
- How working at a bank helped him understand how businesses actually work
- Taking the leap and starting his own business
- The inevitable bifurcation of your circle of friends
- How the car mount business led to an Instagram marketing business
- Building a team remotely and attending remote-work events
- Remote working was still a bit fringe and parts of the experience were not great
- Wondering how to replicate that feeling of working together in an office in an online setting
- Making a bet that remote working was going to be a long-term trend
- The importance of having a well-thought-out mission
- Using technology to create human experiences, not solving problems
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It Felt Like One Massive Suburb
- You Can Start Off With Something
- The Whole Part of Entrepreneurship Is Discovery
- I Was Done With School
- One of Them Always Leads to the Other
- It's a Great Idea One Day, The Next Day It’s a Bad Idea
- Create Authentic Conversations that Develop Meaningful Relationships
- I Want to Host a Conference. Can I Host a Conference?
- Humans Do What Humans Do Best
- I Was Born In Illinois
This episode of the Asia Tech Podcast was brought to you by IR - leaders in performance and experience management. Click here to download the ultimate guide to future-proofing the hybrid workplace.
The Asia Tech Podcast was intrigued by our conversation with Sina Meraji, the CEO and Founder of Learning Loop. Learning Loop is a proprietary learning framework that helps people learn one valuable and relevant unknown together, every month. Its goal is to create the point at which technology and core human values intersect.
Some of the topics that Sina and I discussed:
- Growing up in Iran and moving to Malaysia when he was 15 years old
- Coming from an educator family
- Being motivated to solve the wealth gap with education
- Breaking the traditional boundaries of nationality and race
- Moving to Singapore from Malaysia because he could not open a business bank account
- The mismatch between knowledge consumed and the positive output it creates
- The necessity for creating a feedback loop in education
- Curiosity-based learning and what it takes to keep people interested
- Why companies are not asking themselves why consumers should stay
- How attention management is crucial to learning
- Redesigning the learning experience based on intrinsic and extrinsic motivations
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Who Is Responsible for the World's Problems?
- Traditional Education Being a Means to a Capitalist End
- You Need to 10X It Just to Get to Point Zero
- How Would You Solve Some of the World's Hardest Unsolved Problems?
- Problem Solving Is Such a Skill
- These Are the Results of Man-made Systems That Are Failing
- If We Want to Solve the Outcomes, We Have to Change the Systems
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Jason Chen, the CEO at JustKitchen. JustKitchen operates a network of delivery-only commercial kitchens using a unique 'hub and spoke' model and markets a portfolio of both proprietary and partnered food brands.
Some of the topics Jason and I covered:
- Being born in Taiwan, growing up in Canada, and moving back to Taiwan as an adult
- Originally trained as a lawyer in Vancouver then got into investment banking
- Got involved in the Food and Beverage business in Taiwan in 2014
- The logistics behind bringing US brands to Taiwan
- The wide acceptance of different kinds of food in Taiwan
- The importance of brick and mortar experience for running a ghost kitchen
- The growth of food delivery in the past seven years
- The evolution of ghost kitchens and operating multiple brands out of one location
- Data analytics are key to running ghost kitchens
- How technology truly helps create economies of scale
- The importance of having a robust supply chain
- Just how big the market for ghost kitchens could get
- The global competitive landscape
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I've Always Been a Big Fan of Food
- Taiwan Has Emerged As a Culinary Hub
- It Really Does Turn Into a SaaS Model
- It Enables Scalability
- You’re Running a Hardware Store
- We All Have Our Hands Full
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Anshu Agrawal, a co-Founder at Flint. Flint says that "Crypto is the best thing to happen to money since money. Flint leverages the power of crypto to deliver incredibly high returns on your stable coins."
Some of the topics that Anshu and I covered:
- The impact of being born in a small village in India
- The inherent kindness that develops and persists from growing up in that village
- Not losing the innocence from being raised in a small town
- Web 3 and building communities around common interests and not physical borders
- Consumers care about the value you are creating, not about the underlying technology
- Decentralized finance as a way to change the world
- Humans should ideally only be bound by their capabilities and their ambitions
- Building scalable systems
- Passive investment vehicles are the on-ramp to the financial system
- Being a cross-chain platform
- Three pillars of any blockchain - security, speed, and the level of decentralization
- How communities will start forming around every blockchain
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It Is In the Best Interest of Everyone To Stay Healthy
- Let’s Bring Scalability To It
- They Are Bounty Hunters
- You Need To Have Sophisticated Customers
- Building Simple Products Is the Hardest
- Investment Opportunities Built On Top of Crypto
- The Third Layer Is the User Experience
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Dylan Ng, the CEO of LionsBot International. LionsBot grew out of the realization that there was a need for better and more powerful cleaning robots.
Some of the topics that Dyland and I discussed:
- Founding his first company, SuperSteam Asia Pacific with his wife, Michelle Seow
- Snowballed into the largest cleaning equipment distributor in Singapore
- As time passed, fewer people wanted to do cleaning work
- Was initially against using robots to clean
- How he and Michelle changed their minds about robots
- Traveled all over the world looking for the best robots to import
- Being underwhelmed with what he found - too big and too expensive
- Getting a call from Professor Rajesh Elara Mohan from Singapore University of Technology and Design
- Professor Mohan had already taken one of their cleaning machines and added robotics to it
- Quickly decided to start a robotics company together and build cleaning robots
- Started with 5 engineers and will likely have almost 300 by year-end 2022
- The reaction to the robots from the human cleaners was surprising
- Who is the competition
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- What If This Could Be Automated?
- You Have So Many Tomorrows
- All Roads Led To the Same Destination, Robots
- The First Reaction Is Exhaustion
- Humans Are Best for Creative Tasks
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Ewan Davis, a Partner at Quadria Capital. If you are in the Healthcare space in South and Southeast Asia, you should get to know the team at Quadria. Quadria Capital has more than $2BN of assets under management and focuses on partnering with promising healthcare companies to help them grow into regional leaders.
Some of the topics that Ewan covered:
- Studying Engineering at Oxford as part of a larger plan
- Joining the investment banking ranks for 10 years
- Leaving his job without much of a plan
- Joining Quadria Capital and investing in healthcare companies across Southeast Asia
- The importance of mentors and mentoring
- Investing in growth while also managing through the growth of Quadria
- Having empathy for Quadria's portfolio companies
- Healthcare Services, Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences, Medical Devices and Technology, and Associated Healthcare Services
- Being large investors in hospitals and having a front-row view on the impact of COVID
- The acceleration of telemedicine
- Solving the problem of healthcare accessibility across the region
- Quadria's investment into Con Cung in Vietnam
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Wouldn’t Go Back
- At Best I’ve Considered One of Those Three
- The Grey-Haired Wizards
- HealthCare Is a Vast Sector
- The Easy Part Is Spending the Money
The Asia Tech Podcast hosted William Li, the CEO of Akulaku, which recently announced a $100MM investment from Thailand's Siam Commercial Bank. Akulaku is a digital finance platform that includes credit and e-commerce, wealth management, and digital banking (via Bank Neo Commerce).
Some of the topics that William covered:
- The founding of Akulaku as an outgrowth of a remittance business in Hong Kong
- Built the remittance business for the overseas workers of the Philippines, Indonesia, and Bangladesh
- Training as a lawyer
- Getting a Master's Degree at Washington and Lee
- Getting exposure to many businesses as part of the investment team at Ping An
- Entrepreneurship was not a natural path
- The vision of Akulaku and how it evolved
- The realization that affordable and accessible financial services can help a lot of people
- Pivoting from a remittance business to a lending business when they had very little cash left
- Acquiring a bank in Indonesia and completely restructuring it
- Lebron James or Steph Curry as a model for business
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It's Really a Giant Leap
- Go Deep Also Means Go Big
- People Who Believe In Data and Machine Learning Finally Win
The Asia Tech Podcast really appreciated the conversation we had with Jakob Angele, the CEO APAC at foodpanda. Jakob has been with foodpanda since its earliest days and his insights reflect a deeply embedded knowledge of the company. You can tell in his voice that he really cares about this company and its mission.
Some of the topics Jakob discussed:
- Studying physics at university
- Working at McKinsey & Company and what it taught him about management
- Decision Making, Stakeholder Management, Conceptual Frameworks, Perfectionism, and Clean Communication
- The pros and cons of moving to a startup from a consulting company
- Joining foodpanda during its earliest days (when no investor wanted to invest)
- How the foodpanda business model is very technology-intensive
- Business growth was slow at the beginning as consumers and restaurants did not see the value
- Getting purchased by Delivery Hero in 2016
- Managing through hyper-growth
- Southeast Asia's regional diversity and market inconsistencies
- Hyper-localization in Asia and hyper-decentralized management
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It's Like a Very Fragile System
- The First Thing You Always Do Is Prioritize
- You Have a Fire In the Opposite Corner of the Room
- We Can Still Run Lightning Fast
- The Willingness To Make Decisions Fast
- How Can We Help Develop the Ecosystem?
- Everybody Consumes Food 120 Times Per Month
Denise Kee seems to look at life through a very positive lens. The conversation Asia Tech Podcast had with her was no different. We smiled a lot during our chat...and I got the sense that her positive attitude also spills over into the culture that has been built at Xtremax, where Denise is the CEO.
Some of the topics that Denise discussed:
- Worked as a journalist for Reuters and Bloomberg
- Earned a Master's Degree in Journalism from Northwestern University
- Xtremax was founded by her now-husband, James Leong, in 2003
- Innovative ways to solve tech-talent hiring in Singapore
- Finally joining James at Xtremax as Creative Director
- Initially focused on usability and user experience
- Her sales philosophy
- The team's first experience with AWS - a playground to build things in the cloud
- Solving a large and complicated problem for the Government of Singapore
- Throwing away their own servers and moving everything to the cloud
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- We Like to Fact-check
- Life Is Really About Experience
- What Is the Core Problem They Are Trying to Solve?
- I Know How to Ask Questions
- Everyone's Going to the Cloud
- Feeling the Vibrations Before Everyone Else
- The Whole Cloud Is API-Driven
- When It’s API-Driven, Magic Can Happen
- Rainy Days Are My Favorite
Wouter Delbaere, a co-Founder and the CEO at Mangtas, was such a great guest. With a world of experience and a very unique background, it was a pleasure to have him as a guest on the Asia Tech Podcast. As a business services platform, Mangtas aims to make business outsourcing available for all.
Some of the topics that Wouter and I discussed:
- Being born in Congo and growing up in 10 different countries
- Witnessing genocide in Rwanda
- How playing team sports can help one integrate into almost any geography
- His most formative years were on Negros Island in the Philippines
- Being fluent in Cebuano
- Starting Mangtas in the middle of the pandemic
- Making Mangtas an equal-opportunity platform and why this is important
- The necessity of having reviews linked to specific project deliverables
- Outsourcing via strategic partnerships for the long-term
- Gathering data to help service providers and clients make better decisions
Some things I got wrong or could not remember during this episode:
- Shenzen's population growth statistics
- The league in which the New York Cosmos played
Some other titles we considered:
- It's a Universal Language
- There Are Several Layers To This
- A Lot of Projects Fail Because the Clients Are Not Ready
- We Set Ourselves Up as an Ecosystem
- We Love Nothing More Than Third-Party Integration
The Asia Tech Podcast really appreciated having Geir Windsvoll sit with us in the studio at True Digital Park. Geir is a Founding Partner of Santora Nakama and a co-Founder and the CEO of Panya Studios. Panya Studios is a Web 3.0 studio building P2P Games, Live Shopping for the metaverse, and other projects leveraging unique assets. Geir is also one of the most thoughtful entrepreneurs that I have met.
Some of the topics that we covered:
- Raising funds while in an apartment and then from the beach during the early part of the pandemic
- Actually going back to the same island where he originally lived in Thailand 14 years ago
- Finally moving back to Koh Pha Ngan
- The island has become very international with a big blockchain emphasis
- Why he believes there is a huge opportunity for Thailand to build remote ecosystems
- ICOs, CryptoKitties and the birth of NFTs
- The rise and fall of Panya's original trivia show
- Using gamification to pivot to live shopping
- Diving deeper into Non-Fungible Tokens and how they change the game for Web 3.0
- Cultural literacy and cultural inclusion
- Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs)
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Fast and Painful Years
- You Don’t Need to Have That On Your Bucket List
- I Feel Like I Am Home Again
- We Thought It Would Be Easy
- Am I Really That Bad At Explaining Things?
- Content Is Still King
- Can We Just Change the Strategy?
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Christina Sok, the Founder, and CEO of ClassBubs. ClassBubs helps parents to discover, book and review kids' extracurricular classes.
Some of the topics that Christina discussed:
- Born in South Korea but growing up all over the world
- Finished her secondary schooling at UWC in Singapore
- Knowing as a teenager that she was not built to work for anybody else
- What she learned from her art gallery internship
- Always wanted to challenge the status quo
- How her parents were non-traditional in their approach to her education
- Learning as something enjoyable and fun
- The discipline she developed while being self-employed helped in the startup world
- Was searching for activities for her daughter and realized just how fragmented that market was
- The opportunity to talk about the holistic development of kids
- The development of ClassBubs and the potential for creating in-house content and programs
- The kind of role model she wants to be for her daughter
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Tuesday to Thursday Was Just a Blur
- It’s About Building a Life
- You Don’t Just Land at the Top
- Dots Do Connect Looking Back
- North or South Korea?
- How Do You Get the “Me Time” Without the “Mom Guilt”?
The Asia Tech Podcast had so much fun talking to Upasna Dash, the Founder, and CEO of Jajabor Brand Consultancy and the VP of Startup India Advisory Services.
Some of the topics that Upasna covered:
- Bringing out stories and having an impact
- Employing stories and storytelling to help founders meet their business needs
- Great ideas and innovations are not epiphanies
- The name of her company was inspired by her grandfather's favorite song
- Born into a non-English speaking city, struggled to keep up at school
- Her grandfather inspired her to learn English by reading her Shakespeare
- Remembers specifically the day she fell in love with startups
- Following the audience and story wherever it takes you
- Why authenticity matters
- From idea to execution, so much can change
- The similarities between great founders and great athletes
- Understanding the value of great teams
- The intensely competitive nature of the Indian startup space
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Am a Storyteller at Heart
- I Sang About It and Transported You There
- I Grew Up with the Startup Ecosystem in India
- You Can’t Put India In a Box
- The Journey Is as Enjoyable as the Destination
- Small Micro-habits Actually Make a Huge Difference
- We Should Meet In Immigration Lines More Often
The Asia Tech Podcast was visited by Jostein Aksnes, the CEO of Seven Peaks Software and the CEO of Property Flow. Like a lot of my expatriate friends, Jostein agreed to a one-year assignment and shows no signs of leaving Thailand.
Some of the topics Jostein covered:
- Studied computer engineering
- Got his first job as a software developer at a broadcast technology company
- Managed and built real-time graphics and production systems
- Getting promoted and expatriated to Thailand
- Has now lived in Thailand since 2010
- Building and managing remote or extension teams
- Some of the challenges and solutions when the head office is on another continent
- Building FindYourSpace which morphed into Property Flow
- Diving deep into Seven Peaks
- The evolution of software development
- Microservices and the Cloud
- The validated learning loop
- Building great user experiences
- Selling solutions to problems
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Want to Build a Website
- Trying to Build What They Need, Not What They Want
- The Commercial Model Is Not Agile
- Don’t Spend Two Years Building a Product
- Nobody Buys a Product
The Asia Tech Podcast had a blast talking to Adam Simon, the US Head of Innovation at UM Worldwide. UM Worldwide is a strategic media planning agency that operates in more than 100 countries. Adam is focused on the intersection of emerging technology and changing consumer behavior.
Some of the topics that Adam discussed:
- Originally working in the theatre
- Yet was always interested in technology
- Attended an innovative graduate program at NYU focused on creative technology
- How technology and media are disrupting existing businesses
- The speed at which platform technology changes and helping clients adapt
- The expansion of content creation beyond those who think of themselves as creators
- Global culture and global distribution
- Content localization
- The impact of streaming services on content creators
- Media and the evolving metaverse
- Turning anything into shoppable media
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Sometimes You Just End Up In It
- Constant, Accelerating Change
- They Don't Have to Be Mutually Exclusive
- I Think About It as Presence
- There Are Probably 7 Year Olds On Roblox Making More Money Than Me
In the context of PayPal launching the results of a 2021 survey of 210 online small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Singapore, to learn about their experience and how they survived and thrived through the pandemic, Asia Tech Podcast had a super conversation with Kasia Leyden, the VP of Marketing for PayPal International. Kasia covered a lot of ground and gave her insights on the results of this survey.
We also discussed:
- Kasia being a true global citizen and how it has made her more resilient and empathetic
- Growing up all over the world was great 'training' for her current role
- The trend of digital transformation reaching SMBs in Singapore and around the region
- Not just in the B2C space but in the B2B space as well
- Social media and social selling as the focus and entry point for going online for SMBs
- The importance of 'brand' as a connection to customers
- Market expansion and cross-border trade
- How increased payment options build trust and enhance conversions
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- A Very Specific Market-level Nuance
- The World Has Gone Online
- Meet the Customer Where They Are
- Is That Your Primary Channel?
- It’s Not Just about a Storefront
- Dynamic, Intimate and Connected
- A Beacon of Trust
- I Have an Instant Global Business
- Feeling Really Optimistic and Excited
The Asia Tech Podcast thoroughly enjoyed speaking with James Lewis, a co-Founder and the CEO of learnreel. learnreel is short-form learning in a simple video-based app.
Some of the topics that James and I discussed:
- The experience of graduating from University months before Lehman Brothers collapsed
- How his job offer from Citigroup got rescinded
- Realizing that if he wanted to learn something he could do it himself
- Online, desktop platforms had made learning on one's own easier
- When he graduated he did not know the 'startup' career path was a thing
- Those original online learning platforms were built for long-form learning
- How learning outcomes are delivered and the time in which they are delivered
- Completion rates for traditional online learning
- The growth of short video platforms and their impact on learning
- Connection-based social media vs. interest-based
- The creator economy and the redefinition of 'expertise'
- Survivor bias
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Simon Webb, a co-Founder of Tarot Analytics. Tarot Analytics is a logistics SaaS startup. Their platform, Tarot Routing, is a Route Optimisation and Delivery Management tool for businesses that manage fleets of vehicles that visit multiple destinations daily.
Some of the topics that Simon and I discussed:
- His brothers are doctors
- From an early age was always interested in business
- Jesse Treharne's rose delivery story
- The beginnings of Tarot Analytics
- Going to Paris for the TechStars Accelerator
- Understanding logistics' territories and driver preferences
- The importance of right-sizing vehicles
- Microfulfillment
- How logistics efficiency helps sustainability
- The importance of the final delivery experience
- The current paradox of electric delivery vehicles
- Network effects
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- This Sounds Insane
- Someone's Prepared to Pay Us
- We Had Half a Platform and No Customers
- If We Weren’t In the Right Space, We Weren’t Far Off It
- What Can I Do to Solve That?
- Why Is IT Forcing These Changes Upon Me?
Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Robin Teurlings, a co-Founder and CEO of The Startup Buddy and a Managing Partner in the Zero Emissions Fund. The Startup Buddy aims to provide startups with the essential support they need, whenever they need it while providing investors with quality investment opportunities.
Some of the topics that Robin and I covered:
- Made his first money when he was 6 years old
- Years later played his recorder on the street to earn money
- Working for Accenture and what that taught him
- First time in Asia was a trip to China in 1997
- That trip inspired him to move to Asia
- Convincing his wife to support his dream to live in Asia and then moving to Singapore together as an adventure
- Following his entrepreneurial spirit in Singapore
- Both this brother and his father were running their own businesses
- Went to Startup Weekend in Singapore and won third prize
- Worked on a company for two years that ultimately failed
- The Startup Buddy
- The Zero Emissions Fund
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Had the Ambition to Become Prime Minister of the Netherlands
- I Deal Really Badly With Hot Weather
- For a Six-Year-Old, That Was a Lot of Money
- Try Googling for Something that You Don’t Know You Should Do
- A Practical Framework of How To Work With Customers
- At This Point, We Don’t, But We Will
Asia Tech Podcast had Daniel Nguyen on the show. Daniel is the CEO at WriterZen, which creates traffic and revenue-generating content.
Some of the topics that Daniel discussed:
- How he decided to go to Vermont for high school
- The feeling that he had to start his own company when he was 25
- Moving to Malaysia to open a chain of Vietnamese restaurants
- Realizing he was not cut out for the restaurant business
- Sold the business and returned to Vietnam to build a more scalable business
- The beginnings of WriterZen and what it strives to accomplish
- Understanding what Google wants
- Functionality versus Design
- How character is more important than skills
- The power of compounding and the 'horizon of no return'
- Building to scale
- Being team-centric
Some other titles we considered:
- I Only Love Eating, I Don’t Love Cooking
- Where’s Vermont?
- Maybe I Am Not Very Fit With Corporate Life
- Design Is Actually What Makes Them Stay
- Every Product Requires a Really Good Design
- The Tradeoff for Great Things Is Time
Hsu Ken Ooi and I had such a great conversation, we had to cut it short. Otherwise, it felt like we could have gone on for hours. Hsu Ken is a co-Founder and Managing Partner at Iterative. Iterative's vision is to "Increase the GDP of Southeast Asia through entrepreneurship" with a mission "to build the most vibrant, supportive, and intellectually honest community of founders".
Some of the topics that Hsu Ken and I discussed:
- Born in Penang, Malaysia and traveling back and forth between the United States and Penang as a child
- His father was Intel's fixer and reported to Andy Grove
- Moving around as a child and the importance of adaptability
- Working for a small consultancy right out of college for only 9 months
- Coding during his free time, loving it, and realizing he wanted to do it full-time
- Meeting Brian Ma
- Working with his friends to build a new product every week
- The building of Decide.com
- Working with Oren Etzioni, a well-known entrepreneur who had built and sold several ventures including Farecast
- Thinking about the world probabilistically
- Translating that company building experience into the way they invest
- Silicon Valley cardinal sins - Stealth Mode and NDAs
- How to apply technology and crypto to set incentives in the VC space
Some of the other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Was Making PowerPoints All Day
- This Thing Is Fun, How Do I Spend All My Time Doing This?
- I Missed the Boom of My Generation
- Startups Just Seemed Fun
- Can My Brother Come?
- We Thought There Was a Bug
- Do You Guys Have Any Money Left?
- The Only Thing You Have to Be OK With Is Looking Silly
Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Kastytis Kemezys - CEO of WhatNot StartUp Studio for a really great face-to-face chat. Kas is a co-Founder and the CEO of WhatNot, turning it into an idea powerhouse with a commercial interest in big, scalable ideas.
Some of the topics that Kas and I discussed:
- The belief that there is NOT a 10 step process to building a successful startup
- The rebranding of WhatNot from a corporate venture builder into a startup studio
- Some of the difficulties of building startups with corporates
- Trying to formulate a new mission and vision during a trip back to Lithuania
- Having the courage to admit that you are not what society wants you to be
- Creating his own empire as a child and having the paperwork to prove it
- The throughline from his childhood empire to building startups
- Designers versus artists and imagining how the world should be
- Caring about the output of your effort
- Building the 'House of Yes'
- The three things that Grandpa says matter the most (Spoiler Alert - Adventures, Love, and Being Proud of Your Work)
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Did Road Trips With My Grandpa
- Let's Just Do a Leap of Faith
- They Read Too Much
- This Was Harder Than We Expected
- I Can Tolerate a Lot of Risk
- The Child In Me Always Loved Playing with Different Ideas
- I Can't Have Shallow Conversations
- Building Startups for Nature and Culture
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Ming Jie Chua, the CEO at EVYD Technology, to the show. EVYD optimizes health outcomes at scale, through data intelligence with the goal of making healthcare safer, better, and more accessible.
Some of the topics that Ming Jie covered:
- The genesis of EVYD and its relationship to Yidu Tech
- The impact of COVID and the need to strengthen regional healthcare systems
- Role of research and digitalization in shaping public health surveillance: Benefits of using Big Data and Artificial Intelligence in improving policymaking and workflows
- The pivotal role of collaboration and education amongst key stakeholders in transforming healthcare systems
- Focusing on regional collaboration, cross-learning, research, and digitalization in empowering scientific policymaking in healthcare
- Spearhead discussions and strategize viable solutions to build resilient public health systems that can withstand future challenges
- What is value-based healthcare and how is it safer and more accessible?
- What is the accessibility problem now?
- What is the EVYD Knowledge Hub…does health care literacy matter?
In July of 2021, I had Dr. Elias Willemse, a co-Founder and the CTO of Waste Labs on my DataDriven show to talk specifically about how Waste Labs was using data and technology to help waste management companies make better decisions. I was waiting for the right time to have the other co-Founder on the show and an announced capital raise did the trick.
I was joined by Vladimir Chuchkin, the CEO and co-Founder of Waste Labs to dig deeper into the progress Waste Labs has made on the business side and to learn more about its recently announced funding.
Some of the topics Vladimir discussed included:
- His early experiences in the power generation business
- Dealing with all manner of energy from nuclear to renewables to waste to energy
- How renewable and green energy has caught up to traditional energy sources in terms of profitability
- Developing the artificial intelligence platform for waste management companies and sustainable supply chains
- How Waste Labs' platform is differentiated
- The sheer complexity around waste collection and its optimization
- Waste collection companies are becoming more digital, particularly in commercially competitive markets
- The idea that consumers are willing to pay a premium for sustainable products
- Supply chains and how their role is changing in the circular economy
- The potential for vertical integration
- How the co-Founders prioritized revenue to determine if they were on the right track
- ESG and Sustainability was not top-of-mind for VCs in Asia
I was more than impressed by Prerna Jhunjhunwala's commitment to making education accessible to the masses. Prerna is the Founder of Little Paddington – a highly acclaimed preschool in Singapore and Creative Galileo - a new-age Ed-Tech start-up transforming early learning globally for children from three to ten years. Creative Galileo aims to accelerate a child's development of early literacy through narrative videos, gamification, and personalised learning journeys.
Some of the topics that Prerna discussed:
- Most of Prerna's childhood was spent in third-tier cities and small villages
- She was in the factory every day as a 10 to 12-year-old and the workers would ask her to teach their children English and Math
- How and why educating others became so important to her
- Realizing at a young age that access to education was a privilege
- Starting Little Paddington Preschool when she was 24
- The reason for founding Creative Galileo
- Understanding the importance of the teacher for 3 to 10-year-olds
- Licensing the most popular characters in India and how those characters keep the students engaged
- The six learning domains
- Creative Galileo's recently announced capital raise and how she expects to deploy it
- The CXXO Program at Kalaari Capital
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It Was Foolish Courage
- I Enjoy the Execution Bit of It
- When You See the Things You Imagined Happen
- Screen Time Is Inevitable Today
Asia Tech Podcast had an interesting conversation with Liat Beng Neo, a co-Founder at Arrow. Arrow is fundamentally trying to simplify the checkout experience to just one tap.
Some of the topics we covered with Neo included:
- How he initially got involved in the payments space before it was 'a thing'
- Cash on delivery used to dominate online transactions
- Working at some of Asia's most iconic startups and tech companies
- Some of the interesting cultural differences between LAzada, AliBaba, TenCent, and Grab
- The evolution of the payments space and the increased number of options today
- The complexity that all of these options create for online commerce
- The difficulty and beauty of being a first-time founder
- The genesis of Arrow and what it is trying to accomplish
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- Payment Paralysis
- The Whole Concept of Checkout Is Becoming More Complicated
It was back to the studio to welcome Darshan Mehta, the founder of iResearch.com. iResearch was designed to empower companies to easily, quickly, and affordably conduct insight sessions anytime and in any language.
Some of the topics that Darshan covered:
- Growing up in an entrepreneurial household
- Loved case studies and that led to management consulting
- The realization that he was more interested in branding and marketing strategy
- Building iResearch to be Easy, Affordable, and Powerful
- The importance of insights
- The underlying 'why' is what makes people do things
- The difference between focus groups and surveys
- The benefits of building startups in Thailand for foreigners
- Fake genies
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Don't Mind Problems, I Just Love Solutions
- The Best Tool for Anyone is Experience
- There Is a Real Difference Between Surviving and Striving
Yan Lee, the Founder and Managing Partner at Hive Ventures joined the Asia Tech Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about the startup ecosystem in Taiwan and Southeast Asia.
Some of the topics that Yan and I discussed:
- The listing of ICLK in Nasdaq and all of its associated issues
- Taiwan and Hong Kong's first home-grown software startup to be listed on Nasdaq
- The importance of having a strong management team
- How every startup is different
- Making the move into venture capital
- Similarities between parenting and early-stage VC investing
- How the structure of Taiwan's economy impacts its VC landscape
- Data, Artificial Intelligence, Enterprise Software, and Automation
- How Taiwan's startups create their edge
- How to combat investment myopia
- Working with a lot of other funds
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Almost Going Bankrupt 18 Times
- You Don't Learn This Stuff in MBA
- That's the Fire You Wanna Light
- There Are Probably a Million One Ways to Fail
- Everyone Is Looking to Plug Something Into Their Ecosystem
- It's So Culturally Nuanced
- We no Longer Live In a Silo
We have wanted to speak to Derek Handley for a while now. Derek is a Founding Partner at Aera VC and one of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking investors I have encountered.
Some of the topics that Derek and I covered included:
- Picking something and going deep
- Building things in response to what becomes possible
- The intersection of technology and sustainability
- The art and science of living
- Innovation in food technology and its impact on climate
- The fear of losing a company one has built and doing something more impactful
- The feelings that founders have when they exit
- Wiser Conversations - How do you design and live life?
- Portfolio construction and being a climate-focused venture fund
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Architecture Is Really Just a Concept
- You Can Build Something to Respond to That
- You Have to Build Things You Are Committed to Building
- Is This the Contribution I am Meant to Be Making
- I Didn't Not Do It
- The World Was Still
The Asia Tech Podcast went back to Vietnam to talk to Quan Nguyen (https://www.linkedin.com/in/quannguyen89/), a co-Founder and the CEO of GIMO (https://gimo.vn/en), a fintech startup in Vietnam offering on-demand pay for blue-collar workers.
Some of the topics we covered:
- His experience as a finance professional
- How corporate life demotivated him
- Getting an MBA and how it changed his mindset
- Amidst good success at work, Quan decided he needed to do something more meaningful and quit his job
- Meeting the co-Founder of GIMO and pivoting the business
- Early Wage Access and why GIMO focused on this product
- Many Vietnamese are left out of traditional financial services
- The overall state of financial services in Vietnam
- Financial literacy and its impact on service accessibility
- Partnerships and building an ecosystem
- Raising capital and family support (https://gimo.vn/en/insights/fintech-startup-gimo-bags-19m-in-seed-round-led-by-integra-partners-)
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Enjoying the Relaxing Lifestyle
- Parents...They Always Worry
- Is It Going to Die?
We had Ronen Mense on the show...wow! More of a wow was that we recorded this episode face-to-face in the Michael Waitze Media studio at True Digital Park. What a great experience...
Ronen is the President and Managing Director, APAC at AppsFlyer based in Bangkok, and the story leading up to how he got there was quite interesting.
Some of the topics we covered:
- Ronen is the third generation of his family to be born in China
- Going to the University of Oregon
- Returning to Asia via Hong Kong after graduation
- One of his first jobs was selling industrial-sized milk powder in China
- What he learned working with the Chairman of a Chinese company
- Started his own mobile marketing company in 2005
- Struggling to figure out app download attribution
- Developers had no idea where app installs came from
- How he found and was ultimately hired by AppsFlyer
- How different tech giants define privacy differently
- Metta World Peace and predicting Facebook's name change
- How marketers need to move to an aggregated world
- Privacy and data security as a core company principle
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Forgot To Ride the Milk Expansion Wave
- The Auditor of the Mobile Industry
- Self-Imposed Exile
We went back to the ADDX well about 6 months after our thoroughly enjoyable conversation with ADDX's Chief Commercial Officer, Oi-Yee Choo. This time we were excited to welcome Darius Liu, a co-Founder and the Chief Operating Officer of ADDX. The ADDX team is world-class and Darius is no exception...his career prior to founding ADDX can only be described as start-studded. As for ADDX, a lot has changed since we published the initial episode in May and we really wanted to catch up.
Some of the topics that Darius covered:
- What it was like working at GIC and having a 20-year investment horizon
- Worked for the establishment including the Ministry of Finance
- His deep domain knowledge in asset management
- The name change from iSTOX to ADDX
- The launch of structured products on the ADDX platform
- The excitement of building a company from scratch
- The next leap of competitiveness will have to be driven by tech and innovation in the regulatory space
- How Singapore is already laying the foundation for the next generation
- The Sembcorp sustainability bond as a seminal moment
- Fractional ownership
Some of the other titles we considered:
- That Level of Trust Has Been Built
- The Amazon or AliBaba of Private Markets
- Really, It's About Execution
- There Are So Many Unknowns
- In the Future, We See Everything as Being Digitized
- So Many Stars Have to Align for All of This Stuff to Work
- Fractionalization Is Securitization
It was very interesting to converse with Barbara Ex, the Founder, and CEO of WhiteSpace. WhiteSpace provides an O2O platform that provides flexible and affordable co-meeting spaces on-demand.
Some of the topics that Barbara and I covered:
- Being expatriates to London early in her career
- Moving to China and starting the Asia office of JMJ
- Working on a huge project in Korea
- Having a BS and an MS in Chemical Engineering from MIT gave her the credibility needed to cross-cultural barriers
- Jumping into the world of entrepreneurs
- Why WhiteSpace was started as an on-demand collaboration space
- How COVID catalyzed flexible working
- WhiteSpace's operations, services, and technology
- Meeting rooms as a service
- The importance of listening to your customers
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It's Always Nominally a Two-Year Contract
- I Am Laughing at the Word 'Strategy'
- How About in 2006?
- Off-Balance Is a Great Place to Start When You Are Doing Culture Change
- The Queen of the Korean Shipyards
- The Couple that PowerPoints Together Stays Together
- It Would Still Be Better Face-to-Face
We could not have been happier to have Smita Aggarwal, Global Investment Advisor at Flourish Ventures, join us on the show. Smita is an investor that seeks new business models across South Asia and Southeast Asia in the FinTech innovation space, that drives value creation for all stakeholders.
Flourish Ventures is a venture firm investing in entrepreneurs whose innovations help people achieve financial health and prosperity. As an evergreen fund, Flourish deploys patient capital with a long-term perspective. Flourish's team is growing the portfolio built within Omidyar Network over the last decade.
Some of the topics we discussed with Smita:
- Her early career in project finance for large corporates
- The excitement of being part of the new consumer banking innovations in India
- Setting up a rural lending business from scratch
- Working at the Reserve Bank of India and getting a peek into the policymaking process
- The hotbed of innovative business models in South and Southeast Asia
- The importance of financial inclusion
- Flourish Ventures
- Embedded finance
- The excitement and challenges of operating in frontier markets
- Taking learnings from one market and applying them to another
- So much more...
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Am an Accidental VC
- You Might Need to Get Into Many Adjacencies Yourself
- There Are Some Building Blocks Essential for Every Country to Have
- Huge Respect for Anyone Who’s an Entrepreneur
- The World Around You Changed
- They Pivoted, Adapted…Changed
Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Ethan Lou. Ethan is a journalist and author, whose most recent book, "Once a Bitcoin Miner: Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West", was published on October 19.
According to the book's summary on Amazon, "Ethan Lou goes on an epic quest through the proverbial cryptocurrency Wild West, through riches, absurdity, wonder, and woe. From investing in Bitcoin in university to his time writing for Reuters, and then mining the digital asset ― Lou meets a co-founder of Ethereum and Gerald Cotten of QuadrigaCX (before he was reported dead) and hangs out in North Korea with Virgil Griffith, the man later arrested for allegedly teaching blockchain to the totalitarian state."
Ethan and I talked about his trip to North Korea that ultimately led to Virgil Griffith's recent guilty plea to "to conspiring to violating U.S. law by traveling to North Korea to give a presentation on how to use blockchain technology to launder money and evade sanctions."
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Millennial Gold
- Money Is a Collective Delusion
ATP was delighted to have Wen Shaw, a co-Founder and the CEO of Cooby, on the show. Cooby enables businesses to take control of their WhatsApp and supercharge it for work.
Some of the topics Wen covered:
- Going to California and starting his first company right after grad school
- Working at Facebook and Dropbox
- The cultural differences between Facebook and Dropbox start with their products
- The culture at Facebook encourages moving really fast
- Messenger apps versus eMail
- Cooby's value proposition
- The idea that enterprises will all adopt messaging apps
- Data usage and sales intelligence
- A look back at a massive Facebook outage
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It Was Not a Surprise to Anybody
- Messaging Is Replacing eMails
- Companies Want to Close Deals
- They Lose a Lot of Fidelity
- Fill In the Gaps, Wherever There’s a Gap
- It’s Either the Bank or My Parents
Even though we had just met, I felt like I had known Andy Tian for years. Andy is the CEO and a co-Founder of Asia Innovations Group, which was built to become the largest global social entertainment platform.
Some of the topics that Andy and I discussed:
- Being born in China and raised in Queens, New York
- Growing up in Queens reinforced Andy's multicultural views that still resonate with him today
- How the excitement of being in a new place outweighs the difficulties of adjusting
- Joining Google in 2005 as one of China's earlier team members
- Running Google's mobile business in China and helping Andy Rubin bring Android to China
- Starting one of the first social gaming companies in 2008 and then selling it to Zynga in 2010
- Asia Innovations Group was built to bring the most innovative products to a global audience
- Why Google really left China
- The importance of company culture which is simply the default mode of operation
- Being execution-oriented
- Be CEO - Be Pirate - Be Hero
- What is live social?
- Are financial services an opportunity?
Other titles we considered:
- The Domain Was Available
- We're Doing Live Social Right Now
- We Are Just In the First Phase of Being Live Social
- As a Proper Husband, I Can Not Make a Shopping Decision Alone
- The Social Element Gives It Fun
Taku Tanaka has a plan. In a way, it seems like he has always had a plan. Taku is a co-Founder and the CEO of Kamereo. This should not surprise anyone that knows him. Whether it was the challenge of going to the University of Washington as an exchange student or joining Credit Suisse to learn more about Finance and improve his English, Taku has always taken action with purpose.
Some of the topics Taku and I discussed:
- A strong belief in yourself is important for success
- His family was involved in Food and Beverage (F&B) supply chain business
- Always wanting to open his own restaurant
- Studied a lot of Japan's listed F&B businesses while at Credit Suisse
- Researched developing countries' F&B businesses
- Determined that emerging markets were a more interesting place to build
- Sent a cold e-mail to the founders of Vietnam's Pizza 4 Peace to try to get a job
- At Pizza 4P, Taku became the COO and Pizza 4P grew from 1 shop to 12
- In Vietnam, the F&B supply chain is highly fragmented
- The founding of Kamereo - Vietnam's one-stop-shop for F&B supply chain
- Kamereo's potential FinTech opportunities
- Raising money during the COVID-19 pandemic
If you still thought that blockchain and distributed ledger technology were not ready for enterprise prime time, listening to this conversation with Brendon Howe, VP, GM Blockchain at VMware will change your mind. Brendon spent most of his career with early-stage companies in the infrastructure and software services space, in a way, preparing for this role at VMware.
Some of the topics that Brendon discussed:
- Developing a new product inside a large company that already has great products
- Understanding when the right time is to scale opportunities
- How DLT fits perfectly into VMware's core business as an application platform for the enterprise
- The importance of non-functional requirements when building any enterprise-level software
- Building a high-performance team in a new technology space
- Asset tokenization and digitization
- Co-innovating as a trusted business partner
- The interest in DLT products in Asia
- Some real-world examples of VMware's blockchain implementations in Australia and Malaysia
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It’s Not for the Faint of Heart
- These Are Digital Transformation Initiatives
- We Are Very Active Participants in our Customers’ Use Case Definition
It was good fun to talk to Ed Barker, a Senior Associate at Square Peg in Singapore. Square Peg has invested in some of the region's seminal startups, including Canva, Doctor Anywhere, Pluang, and many others.
Some of the topics Ed discussed:
- As a youngster, Ed loved to tear down tech and put it back together
- His first job was repairing computers at ANZ Bank
- How he realized he loved technology but did not like IT
- Was fortunate to have his consulting roles take him to Europe, the US, Asia, and Australia
- Getting stuff done in a big organization is tough…need to have a 10X solution
- The joy of going deep on things when he gets excited about them
- Learning every single day
- Some of the things you can not know about Southeast Asia unless you are on the ground
- The employment of data to make better investment decisions
- How to provide greater access to new services
- Value creation versus value capture - finding the balance
- How to effectively use talent globally
Some of the other titles we considered for this episode:
- Taking Things Apart and Putting them Back Together
- We’re Very Early in the Capital Journey
- The Opportunity to Fundamentally Improve People’s Lives Through the Use of Better Technology
- How Do We Reduce Friction?
It was really enlightening to talk to Oussama Labib, the CEO and Founder at aeqlia, an all-in-one team development platform. Oussama found his calling early in life and it is obvious that he is in the right place from his super positive attitude.
Some of the topics that we covered:
- Oussama was born to French-Moroccan parents who had migrated to France for their education
- As a teenager, he knew he wanted to work in the Human Resources field
- Spent a year in Bora Bora working in the hospitality business while at University
- Commuting with turtles versus commuting on the Paris metro
- Upon graduation from business school, bought a plane ticket to Singapore with a friend and started looking for a job
- Rose quickly to a leadership position at Ikea
- The reason he left his job to start his own business
- Why aeqlia was founded and why Oussama focused on EdTech
- aeqlia is an Arabic word that means mindset
- Companies are organized by teams, but most learning is focused on individuals
- Experiential learning increases retention
- Game-based learning is NOT Gamification
- Building highly personalized team development journeys
- Did Oussama coin the term "Instant Learnification"?
- The four stages of becoming a high-performance team
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Point Was to Travel
- I Don't Look at My Choice as Weird
- It Makes My Life a Little Bit More Purpose-Driven
- Hit Repeat Every Single Day
- It Was the Best Year of My Life
- I Knew I Was No longer Going to Close Doors Myself
- It Sets the Bar Quite High
- Ideally, This Is a Never-Ending Process
"The Irony Was Not Lost On Me" (a potential title for this episode...) was something Victor J. Chow, the Founder, and CEO of 3 Square, said to me when we were discussing his return to Taiwan. Victor's parents emigrated to the United States from Taiwan, settled in Connecticut, and built a successful, if not sprawling, food and beverage business. Like many children of successful immigrants, Victor wanted to carve his own path and made his way to Wall St...
Some of the topics we covered in more depth:
- The expectations for the eldest son in a traditional Asian family
- His lack of interest in his family's business and his path to Wall St.
- His desire to head back to Taiwan was announced to his family more than it was discussed with them
- Victor's desire to have a concrete plan for something to do in Taiwan led him to a scholarship to study Mandarin
- After graduating from an intensive Mandarin course, starting a Montessori-style cram school
- Created two branches of the school and sold the business 5 or so years later
- Had been conceptualizing a 'digital food court' network for years
- Launched 3 Square - An optimized and upgraded version of a cloud kitchen
- Each kitchen is built to handle multiple brands and food styles
- With one shopping cart, you can order from all the brands at one location
- Uses data and data analysis to determine the optimal restaurant locations
- Raised $1.2MM seed round to get started and is now raising more to expand in Taiwan and North and Southeast Asia
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Am Going to Go Back to Taiwan and Check It Out
- It’s Foreign, But Not Totally Foreign
- All of a Sudden, I Am Teacher Victor
- The Irony Is Definitely Not Lost On Me
- I Will Humbly Say That I Am Not That Surprised
I had so much fun recording this conversation with Rosina Mazumder and Yawar Mehboob, two of the four co-Founders of Arogga, Bangladesh's online pharmacy. You may hear us joking about Rosina's 'audio technician' at the beginning of the episode...that is actually Yawar, her husband and Arogga's CFO. Rosina is the CEO of Arogga. The other co-Founders are Shamim Hasan, the CTO and Fahad Hossain, the COO...quite an unbelievable team.
Some of the topics that were covered:
- Both originally worked at investment banks in London
- Left that life to become entrepreneurs in the world of cake and publishing
- Rosina worked with Facebook on “She Means Business”
- When COVID hit, took some time to reassess what they wanted to do
- Got introduced to the world of startups in their native Bangladesh
- This wife and husband team really work together well and have complementary skillsets
- Arogga - a service that delivers medicine directly to your door
- In Bangladesh, the pharmacy market is quite fragmented and disorganized
- Complicating the customer journey is the fact that 20% of medicine in Bangladesh's pharmacies are counterfeit
- Building a strong company culture
- Managing through 40% month over month growth
- Word of mouth matters, so service has to be key
- What it means to be role models and also learning from the younger generation of founders
Other episode titles we also considered:
- It Was Really Interesting Going from Corporate to Creative
- Authentic, Less Expensive, and Convenient
- There's Just Enormous Opportunity Right Now
- What Has Been Amazing for Us Has Been the Word of Mouth
- I Have Five Stents in My Heart
- There Is a Definite Sense of Pride
Paul Salnikow, the Chairman and CEO of The Executive Centre joined the Asia Tech Podcast to discuss flexible work and what started as a niche product has grown into the centerpiece of not only the future of work but how we work today.
Some of the topics that Paul covered included:
- Why he decided to attend Sophia University in Tokyo and the impact it had on his career
- Working for a Japanese real estate company and getting sent to London to help open the office there
- How the real estate market microstructure in London sparked the idea of a 'hotel for companies'
- Moving to Hong Kong and setting up the office there
- The founding of The Executive Centre after the Japanese real estate company decided to pull back from its foreign businesses
- The evolution of The Executive Centre and the role that technology played
- How the clientele has changed over time
- The launch of the iPhone and the impact on office space usage
- WeWork became the largest tenant in London and Manhattan!
- The demise of WeWork, the hubris of its founders and investors, and why it ultimately failed
- The future of work and flexible working spaces
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Desks Shrank
- Your Entire Office Existence Is In Your Telephone
- I Had to Make Hong Kong Work or I Had to Pack My Bags
- Technology Has Been the Most Important Driver of the Emergence of Flexible Office Space
Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Greg Krasnov. Greg is the Founder & CEO of Tonik, the first neobank in the Philippines. Tonik is backed by major international Venture Capital investors, including Sequoia Capital and Point72.
Prior to Tonik, Greg co-founded many other successful Asian FinTech companies (FORUM, Credolab, and Solarhome) and a consumer bank in Emerging Europe (Platinum Bank). An entrepreneur at heart, Greg launched his first business at the age of 18, earning his way through college through coding and PC repair.
Some of the topics Greg discussed:
- Greg was born in Ukraine and moved to the United States when he was 16 years old
- Most of his early career was in finance and private equity
- FORUM was set up as an investment vehicle for Southeast Asia after watching what occurred in emerging Europe
- Reviewed GDP per capita comparisons of the penetration of unsecured consumer finance in Southeast Asia
- What he found was that in emerging markets at about USD 3K to 5K GDP per capita, you start to get exponential growth in the penetration of consumer finance
- Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines are all at that cusp of the GDP per capital inflection point
- Why the team decided to launch in the Philippines
- Putting your cash in a stash
- One of Tonik's corporate values is having a sense of humor
- Data and predictive analytics
- Financial literacy and why it matters
Other episode titles we considered:
- We’re the Opposite of That
- A Fundamental Reshaping of the Value Chain
Asia Tech Podcast thoroughly enjoyed speaking with Bianca Ho, a co-founder, and COO of ClareAI and WATI. Bianca is an ex J.P. Morgan Banker turned tech entrepreneur. ClareAI helps companies to have personalized conversations at scale by building customer engagement software based on WhatsApp Business API.
Some of the topics covered in this great conversation:
- Business processes matter
- Where can AI technology serve enterprises better
- The impact of the NOW economy on the B2B landscape
- Expectations for small businesses are very different than large enterprises
- Walked through an example of how WATI can be used for a small business
- The emergence of a no-code, low-code movement
- The necessity to communicate and be close to your customers
- Sequoia Surge
- The importance of taking time out to think
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Shiyan Koh, a Managing Partner at Hustle Fund. Watch the video...it will all make sense. So many great nuggets came out of this conversation. One of my favorites was, "Great execution meeting high velocity."
Some of the other great topics we covered:
- Built a financial services marketplace while living in San Francisco called Nerd Wallet
- Prior to founding Nerd Wallet, did a tour of the financial services industry including a year working at Bridgewater Associates in Connecticut
- Getting the right dev team in place and learning how to communicate the customer insight and customer problems effectively
- Leaving the United States after living there for almost 20 years
- Joining the Hustle Fund after being an LP in the first fund
- Traveling around Southeast Asia talking to founders and realizing there was definitely a need for investors that had operating experience
- The thing you are trying to optimize for in the early stage is learning and the faster you learn the better
- The Angel Squad and the importance of angel investing
- One of the goals is to get more women and minorities on cap tables
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Was the Trains-On-Time Person
- The World Is Incredibly Connected In Ways That You Could Never Expect
- We Were Figuring Things Out as We Went Along
- Survival Is a Prerequisite for Success
The Asia Tech Podcast hosted Ee Ling Lim, Head of APAC Business Development at 500 Startups. I first met Ee Ling when we recorded her first ATP episode about Smarter Me. As the startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia continues to mature, we wanted to bring her back on the show to talk about the importance of entrepreneurship and ecosystem building.
Some of the topics covered include:
- The sheer amount of change that has occurred since her last appearance on ATP
- The continuing inspiration Ee Ling gets from young (even teenage!) founders
- The synergies between 500 Startups and Smarter Me
- Customer centricity is not just a buzzword
- Creating value and delivering impact
- Empathy for Founders and startup stakeholders
- Maintaining an emphasis on team culture
- How 500 Startups works with governments that want to build and nurture startup ecosystems
- Corporate innovation and facilitating internal startups
- What will the next five years look like?
- Digitalization, Virtualization, Health and Wealth Security, Education, and Sustainability
The Asia Tech Podcast switched gears a bit and welcomed Bryan Falchuk to the show. Bryan is the Founder and Managing Partner of Insurance Evolution Partners. Bryan is an extremely talented and experienced advisor to the Insurance industry and a former C-level Property and Casualty Insurance and InsurTech executive.
Bryan is the best-selling author of "The Future of Insurance: From Disruption to Evolution: Volume I. The Incumbents" and "The Future of Insurance: From Disruption to Evolution: Volume II. The Startups"
Some of the topics covered in our discussion included:
- Moving from the carrier side to the InsurTech side
- The subtle differences between mutuals and reciprocals
- Selling technology to incumbent insurers
- Capacity needs to be treated strategically
- Communication between re-insurers, insurers, and InsurTechs is paramount
- Capacity, Underwriting, Reinsurance and what these terms mean
- Some of the incredible stories in his most recent book
- Purpose - The idea that you can not imagine NOT doing it
- Do incumbents worry about Amazon
- The future is about partnerships and collaboration
- Parametric insurance
Some of the other candidates for this episode's title:
- I Like Fixing Things
- Taking the Risk Out of the Equation
- The Grass Is Not Green Anywhere Unless You Garden
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Florian Reichert, a Partner at Picus Capital. Picus invests in early-stage technology ventures and follows a very long-term investment approach investing significant amounts throughout the lifecycle of a company.
Some of the topics that were covered included:
- Florian has been brainstorming FinTech ideas for as long as he can remember
- Picus is the perfect combination of investing and entrepreneurship
- Why Picus focuses on early-stage investing
- Leveraging the network and having a great sparring partner
- Viewing sustainability as having a positive impact on society
- A growing focus on India and Southeast Asia
- How Asia is not one monolithic market
- Government support is good but ecosystems can evolve without it
- Already making some investments in Africa
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Weerada Sucharitkul, the CEO of FilmDoo to the show for a truly inspiring conversation. The mission of FilmDoo has always been to connect to the world through film. While the method for making these connections continues to expand and evolve, the mission remains the same.
Some of the topics that Weerada and I covered included:
- Being the daughter of a Diplomat and the impact of being a third-culture kid on cultural understanding
- Her role models for entrepreneurship included her Mom and Christoph Schmidt
- The influence media has on real life and vice versa
- The role of media and film in inspiring change
- How FilmDoo helps people discover international films
- The different pressures on male and female founders
- Getting accepted in 500 Startups Global Launch Singapore program
- 80% of FilmDoo's traffic was coming from language-related searches
- Leveraging the power of film to help with language learning and diversity and inclusion training
- FilmDoo Academy and the future of learning
- FilmDoo's fundraising status
- Southeast Asian School Competition at FilmDoo Academy
The Asia Tech Podcast finally had the chance to catch up with Christian Mischler, a co-Founder of Deskimo. Christian is really so much more than that...
Christian grew up in a family of educators, with no substantive business experience, yet he was always interested in business. He started his first business in high school, building websites for Swiss-based SMEs. While at university, Christian started his second company - making flashcards and writing summaries to help students get into university and rolled this out across Switzerland.
Some of the other topics Christian and I discussed:
- The Swiss Army and joining Credit Suisse after graduation
- Worked at CS for two years and enjoyed the work, but made more money from his ventures
- Came to Asia with Rocket Internet to help build FoodPanda, his bosses at CS thought he was a bit crazy
- The great story behind the founding of HotelQuickly
- The birth of the Swiss Founders Fund
- Not living paycheck to paycheck, but not living a luxurious lifestyle
- How entrepreneurs see the world through the lens of opportunity, not problems
- The excitement of building things and working with a cool team on something new
- How the pandemic has changed the way people collaborate and work
- The evolution of Central Business Districts and the repurposing of office buildings
- Deskimo - an asset-light extension of a corporate office
The Asia Tech Podcast had a killer conversation with Kiran Mysore, a Principal at The University of Tokyo Edge Capital (UTEC). UTEC is a seed/early-stage technology-focused venture capital firm associated with Japan's University of Tokyo.
Some of the many topics that Kiran and I covered:
- Kiran comes from a 'small' city in India that helped shaped many of his views
- He studied engineering at university and noted that a lot of people do that in India and then graduate and figure out what they really want to do
- He started studying entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial models when he was 21 including Indian pioneers like Tata, Americans like Carnegie and Rockefeller (ruthless capitalism), and Shibusawa Eiichi from Japan
- His inspiration from Indian Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan
- An explanation of stakeholder capitalism
- What is University of Tokyo Edge Capital
- Deep tech is anything that is Intellectual Property led and difficult to replicate
- Building long-term relationships in Japan matters
- Operational excellences matters
- It is never too early to talk to your customers
- Portfolio companies Bugworks and OPALai
- The concept of adjacent possible
The Asia Tech Podcast was honored to have Helle Priess as a guest. Helle is currently the Founder and CEO of DoersCircle.com. Originally from Denmark, Helle has spent more than half of her life in Asia (I know how that feels!).
Helle launched DoersCircle in March of 2019. With more than 23 years of experience establishing and scaling businesses internationally, Helle is well-positioned to empower the global community of independent workers. She is motivated by reshaping the world to support this huge and ever-growing group of independent people - the future of work.
Some of the topics that Helle and I discussed:
- Moving to Beijing to study at university as an 18-year-old
- Most of her peers were more likely to go to the United States or London
- Always moving out of her comfort zone
- The biggest challenge in her career was her age...was always quite young for her position
- Always acted like an entrepreneur, even inside a larger organization
- Making the leap to self-employment
- The idea that being an entrepreneur is not stability driven
- The poor treatment of independent workers and the genesis of DoersCircle
- Close to 50% of the global workforce are independent doers
- It should be just as easy for an independent doer to get a credit card, obtain insurance, and purchase other products and services as it is for a corporate employee
The Asia Tech Podcast was excited to be joined by the rising stars Weilyn Chong and Alexandra Debow, the co-Founders of The Entreprenuers Network (No. That is not spelled incorrectly.). The Network started with a podcast that is focused on female entrepre女ers from around the world.
Weilyn and Alexandra met while they were students at HKIS (Hong Kong International School) and have continued their friendship after moving on to university. Weilyn is a rising sophomore (I can not believe I wrote that...) at Princeton University and Ali is the same at NYU in Shanghai.
Some of the topics we discussed included:
- Getting into Princeton and NYU Shanghai and the impact of the pandemic on freshman year
- Weilyn and Ali's separate paths to entrepreneurship
- The intersection of entrepreneurship and service
- Thankful Thursdays
- Social Innovation and leading with change and habits of gratitude
- The birth of The Entreprenuers Network
- Why don't more people know the name of the Spanx founder?
- Women are not taught to value themselves - Know Your Value
- Balancing university studies and business building
The Asia Tech Podcast learned a lot from Mary Jo Schrade, Assistant General Counsel, Regional Lead, Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit Asia. Mary Jo oversees the initiatives, programs, and strategies related to Microsoft Asia’s efforts to prevent or disrupt organized cybercrime and online tech support scams through public-private partnerships, coordinated enforcement, and customer engagements relating to cybersecurity and Microsoft's digital trust commitment to its customers.
Some of the topics that Mary Jo and I discussed included:
- The digital security landscape and the trends in Asia
- Statistics on the sophistication and complexity of recent cyberattacks
- The nature of tech support scams and the impact on individuals and companies
- The impact of COVID-19 on the number and scope of cyberattacks in the past 12 months
- What consumers can do to protect themselves from any kind of cyber attack, digital security breach, and scams in general
- Microsoft's strategy to combat scams
- The role that governments play in this space
- The importance of collaboration between companies and governments to tackle such scams
Read more about such scams from Mary Jo's blogpost and check out the full Microsoft 2021 Global Tech Support Scams Research Report
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Lorenzo Peracchione, a co-Founder and COO at Bukukas, a financial bookkeeping application and potentially so much more for Indonesia's MSMEs and Warungs. You may notice in the recording the moment in which Lorenzo and I realize we had met each other in person, years earlier, in Singapore.
Some of the things that Lorenzo and I covered in our conversation:
- Most of Lorenzo's professional life has been in Southeast Asia
- The early days of building Lazada in Indonesia
- Moving to Thailand to launch Luxola until it was acquired by Sephora
- The founding of BukuKas and Lorenzo's friendship and professional relationship with his co-Founder Krishnan Menon
- What makes a great founding team
- The massive gap of available digital services for 60 million MSMEs and Warungs in Indonesia tailored to their needs
- The power of the entrepreneurial culture in Indonesia
- The simplicity of use and understanding for BukuKas' first product
- Tokko and the integration of Social and Conversational Commerce
- The importance of data and data analysis
- The mantra that states, "If BukuKas can help make the merchants successful, then BukuKas can be successful."
The Asia Tech Podcast had an enjoyable and interesting conversation with Claudia Kolonas, a Founder of Pluang, an all-in-one investment app that is meant to promote financial inclusion in Indonesia.
Some of the topics Claudia and I covered:
- Financial literacy on the road to financial inclusion
- Many Indonesians are introduced to finance on Facebook and Instagram
- The impact of ‘influencers’
- Making an investment should have low monetary barriers to entry and should be frictionless
- How her background help shaped her views on financial inclusion
- The importance of portfolio diversification across varied asset classes and currencies
- Both commodities and crypto have a proper place in a portfolio
- Harvard Business School and Business at the “Base of the Pyramid”
- The importance of liquidity and compounding
- Building a company culture of experimentation
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
Tanya Rolfe, a Managing Partner at Her Capital, joined the Asia Tech Podcast for an across the board awesome discussion about women in tech and venture capital. Her Capital is a female-led seed fund in Singapore investing in female-founded, scalable businesses operating in Southeast Asia.
Some of the topics Tanya and I covered included:
- The founding of the Ladies Investment Club (LIC)
- Investing in transformative technologies
- The buying power of female consumers
- Sustainable solutions for the world’s most pressing social challenges
- The importance of women becoming investors
- How to enable organizations to be diverse from the outset and beyond
- Do female-founded companies outperform? Are the ROIs better?
Follow Michael Waitze and the Asia Tech Podcast here:
Facebook – Michael Waitze
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LinkedIn – Michael Waitze
Twitter – Michael Waitze
Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Paul Meinshausen, a co-founder of Aampe. Aampe uses automated, rapid learning to personalize notifications. Paul’s career started doing statistical analysis for the U.S. Department of Defense – which included a deployment to Afghanistan. His role was to try to understand why people do things and get them to do some things less and some things more. It was here that Paul learned a lot about the limits of behavioral science in complex environments.
Some of the topics that Paul and I discussed included:
- Building a startup in India and exiting
- What are the real reasons apps get developed?
- With low barriers to entry and almost unlimited competition, user engagement design needs to evolve
- The era of spending large sums of money on Facebook ads to acquire ads is over
- Continuous, automated experimentation is just as important as machine learning on raw data
- Not understanding the subtle differences can cause investment in the wrong level of data science
- Companies like Facebook and Google have succeeded as much due to massive experimentation as to traditional machine learning
- The implication of the scarcity of time and attention
- What personalization means for media companies
- The state of tech and startups in Southeast Asia
Follow Michael Waitze and the Asia Tech Podcast here:
Facebook – Michael Waitze
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LinkedIn – Michael Waitze
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Dr. Ayesha Khanna, a co-Founder and the CEO of ADDO AI. ADDO AI leverages data asa strategic asset to help companies become more competitive.
Some of the topics we discussed:
- Growing up in an open-minded family that always encouraged her
- Always feeling accepted in male-dominated fields throughout her education
- Entrepreneurialism and building your own things from scratch
- Supporting female entrepreneurs through HSBC Jade and #SupportEntrepreneHER
- Being a role model for other entrepreneurs
- Some common challenges faced by female Entrepreneurs
Follow Michael Waitze and the Asia Tech Podcast here:
Facebook – Michael Waitze
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LinkedIn – Michael Waitze
Twitter – Michael Waitze
Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast ventured (virtually) Down Under to James Fyfe and Blake Lockley, the co-Founders of Portant. Portant is an automated reporting platform that empowers you to create stunning reports with less effort...but the goal is to be much more than that. These two guys were great and they took the recording so seriously that they actually went to a studio and used some super microphones and even had a green screen with the Sydney Harbour Bridge displayed behind them.
They were also quite serious about building Portant into something large and influential.
Some of the topics we discussed included:
- The founding of Portant and the belief that people are wasting their potential on monotonous tasks at work
- James and Blake (sounds like a duo in a buddy cop movie) want people to have a better work-life balance
- The understanding that people enjoy the creative parts of their jobs the most and do not want to get bogged down in repetition
- The work that can be automated should be automated so that humans can do the creative work that only humans can do
- They take their company seriously, but their titles...no so much
The Asia Tech Podcast enjoyed speaking with Xania Wong, a co-founder and the CEO of JOBDOH. JOBDOH is an AI-based HR and Fintech solution offering end-to-end services from job search to payroll stretching for employers and employees.
Some of the topics that Xania and I discussed:
- The difficulty in hiring in this environment, particularly for part-time workers
- Digital transformation across the job hiring and payments spectrum
- Canadian born and raised in Hong Kong
- Building multiple businesses, including a wine business
- How she can be quite nerdy, but that may not be immediately obvious
- How her CFA is super handy now that JOBDOH is also building financial products
- What it means to be part of the ‘Slash’ generation
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was excited to be joined by Gokul Ganapathi and Vikas Anand from botminds.ai. Gokul is the co-founder and the CEO while Vikas is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing. The Botminds platform contains all of the intelligent modular building blocks to combine and create no-code intelligent automation.
Some of the fascinating topics we discussed included:
- What is Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and why is it important?
- How is IDP different from what most enterprises are doing now?
- How does IDP work in a no-code environment?
- What are some of the challenges to getting document capture correct?
- Can seemingly unrelated documents be recognized as related by IDP?
- How can Artificial Intelligence be applied to Robotic Process Automation to create scalable Intelligent Process Automation (IPA)?
- Are enterprises ready for a no-code environment?
- How has the exponential increase in compute power, the decrease in storage costs, and the ubiquity of cloud computing changed the way enterprises can take advantage of both Intelligent Document Processing and Intelligent Process Automation?
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had a lot of fun talking to Hayden Hughes, a co-founder and the CEO of Alpha Impact. Alpha Impact is a social trading platform for cryptocurrencies that lets users keep funds in their own accounts. Built by two banking veterans with experience in the crypto and traditional financial services industries, the founders’ philosophy is that investing in cryptocurrencies needs to become safer and better understood in order to gain mass adoption.
Some of the topics that Hayden and I covered:
- Participating in the Antler program in Singapore
- Dropping out of the University of British Columbia and building his first business
- Social trading and copying the trading strategies of verified and vetted top crypto traders
- Non-custodial trading and why it is better to keep your money in your own account
- The benefits of being in Singapore and its progressive regulatory and funding environment
- The non-traditional way in which Alpha Impact raised funds for business expansion
- Finding an investment and trading strategy that works best for you
- It is still early days in the crypto trading markets
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast hosted Rosalind Quek, the GM of Modern Work, Asia at Microsoft. Rosalind and I had an insightful and wide-ranging conversation. We took a detailed look at Microsoft’s ‘Work Trend Index’ and a report entitled, “The Next Great Disruption is Hybrid Work – Are We Ready?“
Some of the topics we covered included:
- 2020 was a year like no other and had a profound impact on the way people work
- Hybrid Work – What it is, what it means, and why it is not going away
- How Hybrid Work has fundamentally changed the talent landscape and the idea of what an office should look like and provide
- What are some of the emotional and mental challenges faced by employees as a result of remote work?
- How employee expectations have evolved due to flexible work
- How, in many cases, employees feel much more productive in hybrid work environments
- Have different generations reacted and adapted differently to this new and developing environment?
- How remote work has changed the way employees interact? What drives new, serendipitous meetings?
- Has remote work shrunk employees’ networks and what is the impact on collaboration?
- Has a new authenticity emerged between colleagues and is this important?
- What is the ‘Democratization of Opportunity”?
- What are the recommendations that can be given to business leaders as this new work environment continues to evolve?
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had a chat with Atul Monga, a Founder of Basic Home Loan. Founded in 2020, BASIC Home Loan is a fintech company, developing an automated platform for home lending in India. It aims to provide consumers with end-to-end fulfillment, through technology for faster loan disbursements. The company’s vision is to change the way Bharat (India) finances its affordable homes.
Some of the topics that Atul and I discussed:
- The drastic change in India's socio-demographic structure
- Extended families are becoming more nuclear
- The impact these socio-demographic changes have on the housing sector, especially in tier-2 and tier-3 cities
- How 'Phygital' (blending an offline, physical approach with an online one) is becoming the backbone of home lending in non-urban India
- How the pandemic has and continues to rewrite the housing preferences of low and middle-income India
- The standardization of housing properties and how this is rewriting the lending rules in India
- Paperless documentation and faster disbursals are becoming the norm
- Is there an insurance play as well
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Oi Yee Choo, the Chief Commercial Officer at iSTOX, which leverages blockchain technology to bring previously out-of-reach opportunities to more investors. Oi Yee Choo has more than two decades of experience in financial services at some of the world’s most well-known banks and investment banks.
Some of the topics that Oi Yee and I discussed:
- iSTOX’ recently closed $50MM Series A
- Small investors’ lack of access to private market investments
- Existing processes for issuance, custody, and post-sale management of securities are very inefficient
- The current environment favors Institutions and Ultra High Net Worth Individuals
- Blockchain and smart contract technology allows iSTOX to digitize or tokenize securities
- New technologies allow iSTOX to serve a large number of small investors
- How this enables small investors to earn higher returns
- Expands the universe of financial products that can be offered to smaller investors
- This also helps issuers, giving them larger pools of potential investors
- This process of digitizing the securities markets will not happen overnight, but it will happen
- Which countries and regions are moving faster than others.
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had a great conversation with Krishnan Subramanian and Sangeetha Phalgunan. Kris is a co-founder and President and Sangeetha is the VP of Sales & Alliances in APAC at Jiffy.ai. “JIFFY.ai’s revolutionary app-based intelligent automation platform turbo-charges productivity, transforms complex processes, and helps your teams unleash their creativity and innovation.”
Sangeetha is an exceptionally experienced and accomplished sales leader building her craft over a two-decade career in enterprise sales. Kris is also an extremely accomplished startup founder who believes that automation has to be an enabler to true digitalization.
Some of the topics we covered during our conversation included:
- Making coding easier through no-code/low code implementations
- Simplifying Business Process Automation (BPA)
- Employing artificial intelligence, natural language processing (NLP), machine learning and advanced analytics
- Why the cloud matters and how it helps enterprises automate even the most complex business processes
- What is a HyperApp and how is one developed
- How does Jiffy.ai’s ‘Innovate’ product changes the way software is developed and who is its target audience
- Some pretty interesting use cases
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had an in-depth and very insightful conversation with Vaibhav Dabhade, the Founder and CEO of Anchanto. Anchanto’s cutting-edge technology simplifies backend operations and helps e-Commerce providers achieve unprecedented productivity through automated selling management. Anchanto’s platform enables businesses to manage their ‘end-to-end’ e-Commerce operations across multiple channels, helping them bypass complexities & fragmentation.
Some of the topics that Vaibhav and I discussed:
- The emerging trends in e-Commerce
- His family’s background in logistics and how that prepared him for building Anchanto
- His wife’s encouragement to venture out and start his own business
- Social commerce and its growing impact in Southeast Asia
- What actually enhances product discovery in crowded marketplaces
- How AR and VR could impact online shopping experiences
- The future of e-Commerce and the growing role of complex logistics solutions
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was pleased to welcome Jingjin Liu, the CEO, and co-Founder of Zazazu. ZaZaZu has been founded to be the game changer to normalize sexual wellness and to empower women to own their sexual pleasure and intimacy moments with confidence. This is our story – based on personal experiences and through interaction with other women.
Some of the topics that Jingjin and I discussed:
- Born in China but moved to Germany as a teenager
- Grew up with low self-confidence and society perceived her as ugly
- Went to Germany as she felt more comfortable in the Western world
- Studied Industrial Engineering
- Believed she could have a good career as she checked come good diversity boxes - Female, Asian, speaks German, English, and Mandarin, and was an engineer
- How sexual education is terrible globally, but particularly bad in Asia
- How sexual pleasure is closely linked to confidence
- The important role that Facebook and Instagram play in allowing or disallowing advertising for sexual pleasure products
- The thin line between courage and madness in establishing a startup in a controversial space
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Marc Ruffet, an Entrepreneur In Residence at AI and Robotics Ventures (ARV). ARV is the venture building arm of PTTEP, set up to innovate and develop new technologies to scale up new S-Curve businesses.
Some of the topics Marc and I discussed:
- His introduction to Asia as a teenager and his parents’ influence
- His first trip to Myanmar when he was 17 and how that changed his life
- The importance of learning the local culture and understanding that foreigners have as much or more to learn from locals than vice versa
- The pure potential of the Thai startup ecosystem and Thai people in general
- The beginning of Marc’s entrepreneurial life with iZZi guide
- The challenges of starting a TravelTech company in the midst of COVID
- The excitement and challenge of working at AI and Robotics Ventures
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had a wide-ranging conversation with Dave Malhotra, the CEO & Lead Hustler at SoldOutt, Founder at ShakeSphere. SoldOutt is a sales-focused, white-labeled ticketing platform startup that helps event businesses like TechSauce, StartmeupHK, and Startup Launchpad hack ticket and booth sales. ShakeSphere is a digital business consulting agency that builds tech and startups for clients like Central Group.
Some of the topics that Dave and I discussed were:
- His family has run the Pattaya Mail Media Group for almost 30 years
- Worked in the digital space at/with ThaiTicketMajor, Major Cineplex, Minor Food Group
- How he founded an e-commerce startup and ran for 3 years but shut it down after Alibaba invested in Lazada
- The idea behind SoldOutt and how the white-label ticketing platform can drive 90% conversion rates
- Some real-life examples of SoldOutts prowess including TechSauce Global Summit, TechFest 2020 Malaysia, and others
- How ShakeSphere is different than other venture builders
- Building a complete food delivery platform for the Central Group in 2019 in just 3.5 weeks
- How COVID has impacted venture building
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had the pleasure of speaking with Tareef Jafferi, the Founder of Happily.ai. Happily’s mission is to create a happier workplace using behavioral science, technology, and fun. Happily.ai helps companies engage employees, drive a culture of feedback & recognition, create positive habits, manage talent, and more.
With people analytics and artificial intelligence, Happily.ai helps managers, people ops, and leaders make better people decisions using real-time personalized insights and nudges.
Some of the topics Tareef and I discussed:
- Startup failure and the power of resilience and persistence
- How continuous innovation and learnings make success more likely
- Happily.ai’s mission to make workplaces happier
- The impact of COVID on Happily’s mission
- Approaching problems with optimism and believing that anything can be solved
- People systems are outdated and why he does not mean the software
- Modern organizational management is fundamentally flawed
- The fact that workplaces are impacting mental health is unacceptable
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had an enlightening conversation with Amit Kumar.
Amit Kumar is an entrepreneur, a business leader, and a speaker. He is currently the CEO of OLX Autos in India. Amit has built multiple internet e-commerce ventures in Asia, Africa, and Europe. He is a regular contributor on topics related to leadership, entrepreneurship, and economics. He is a graduate of IIT Bombay and ISB Hyderabad. He is passionate about human evolution and is a psychology geek.
Some of the topics we covered:
- How being a person of integrity and having a passion for helping others is most important to him
- The importance of educating others about the power of entrepreneurship
- Being inspired by J. R. D. Tata, who contributed to building some of India’s most important institutions
- Amit’s own journey to entrepreneurship started with a job at an FMCG company selling affordable biscuits
- His excitement about the multiplier effect of technology and his experiences at Rocket Internet
- Many more amazing things he learned along his fascinating career arc
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Brennan Campbell, the CEO at FazWaz Property. FazWaz operates in the hotly contested real estate technology market in Thailand. FazWaz’s goal is to use cutting-edge technology and sophisticated data analytics to provide both its agents and their customers a better, smarter real estate experience.
Some of the topics that Brennan and I discussed:
- How his early work experience as a door-to-door HVAC salesman taught him about persistence and selling
- Brennan’s journey to Thailand included teaching English, which for him was unsustainable
- His introduction to the traditional, local real estate market in Phuket
- How learning the business from the ground up informed his desire and confidence to start FazWaz
- Empowering real digital transformation in the real estate business
- Rebuilding the entire real estate technology and service stack
- Employing dynamic valuation models and mimicking some e-commerce strategies like flash sales
- Planned expansion in Southeast Asia and beyond (United Arab Emirates)
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was excited to have Hanno Stegmann as our guest this week. Hanno is Managing Director & Partner at BCG Digital Ventures, the venture incubation unit of the Boston Consulting Group. He is based in Singapore and part of the leadership team of BCGDV’s new South East Asia Incubation Center. At BCGDV he is dedicated to inventing, building, investing in, and launching category-changing businesses at start-up speed for the world’s most influential corporates.
Hanno is incredibly experienced and comes with some very interesting insights.
Some of the topics we discussed were:
- His time at Rocket Internet
- How innovation can happen inside of established corporates
- Digital transformation is great, but growth is more important
- How Innovation at scale is important to Singapore and why they have been so good at it
- How the Singaporean government works closely with the private sector to foster innovation
- Wher BCG Digital Ventures fits into the ecosystem and its role
- How BCG Digital Ventures is uniquely positioned and the benefits of synergies with BCG Consulting
- BCG’s report on “Boosting Women In Technology In Southeast Asia”
- The role investors can play in promoting diversity
- Digital Banking and Challenger Banks in Southeast Asia
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had a great conversation with Oswald Yeo, a co-founder and the CEO of Glints. Glints is a Southeast Asia-based recruitment platform that helps companies build successful teams with young talent. Its mission to help companies hire the right, young talent effectively and for young people to discover and develop careers they love.
Some of the topics that Oswald and I covered:
- The biggest trend in HR Tech is remote hiring and remote working
- COVID did not initiate this trend, but definitely accelerated it
- Online learning and the rise of Glints Academy
- How the team of co-founders initially tried to balance university and their startup and both suffered
- The reactions of their families and friends to leaving Wharton, Stanford and Berkeley
- After coming home to a lot of fanfare, three years of near-death experiences
- The difficulty of finding the right business model and product-market fit
- The significant impact of COVID on the Glints business
- Learning about managing through a crisis
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had a superior conversation (a bit of a catch-up) with Miguel (Mikko) Perez, the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Ayannah. “Ayannah is a leading provider of digital financial services to the world’s emerging middle class, most of whom are migrants or unbanked coming from the base of the pyramid.” Not only is Mikko deeply insightful about the state of FinTech in the Philippines and the rest of the region, but he also cares deeply about Ayannah’s clients that use its payments, commerce, and analytics tools.
Mikko and I covered a wide range of topics as we caught up from our previous recording back in May 2019.
In this episode we discussed:
- The impact of COVID on the growth and business of Ayannah
- The role remittances play in the life of people in the Philippines countryside
- How payments facilitate not just e-commerce but offline commerce as well
- Ayannah’s business grew by 8X from 2019 to 2020
- The impact of Android devices getting into the hands of millions of people in Southeast Asia
- Contingency planning and remote working…some employees slept in the office
- How the Ayannah network actually functions
- Payments to InsurTech to Lending
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had the pleasure of catching up with Mat Ward, the Founder, and CEO at Workmate. I have now known Mat for almost a decade and first had him on the show back in February 2019. I had him on the show again almost a year ago, literally just before lockdowns due to COVID-19 began in his home city of Singapore and my home city of Bangkok. That episode was filled with optimism (Mat is an optimistic guy, but a realist as well.) and you could not hear a tinge of doom or worry in either of our voices. Neither one of us could have predicted how difficult 2020 would become.
I wanted to catch up with Mat because he has always been a voice of reason in a world filled with unnecessary noise and bluster. After the tumult of 2020, I wanted a real opinion from someone I trusted about the impact of COVID-19 on a well-funded and growing business.
Topics we covered in this episode:
- We jumped right into a discussion on COVID
- Who benefitted, who did not
- Workmate grew a lot (doubled!) but not in the verticals that the team initially expected
- How COVID impacted staff and management from an emotional standpoint
- Face to face management versus remote work and management
- How culture gets maintained
- Managing through his first crisis
- The impact on funding
- Rolling out a significant new product
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was honored to have Vivek Vipul, a co-Founder and the CEO of Abzooba. Vivek received his undergraduate degree in Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology and his MBA from the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business.
Vivek and I had an incredible discussion about:
- Building a sophisticated technology company in Silicon Valley
- Data Science and Data Engineering
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
- MLOps and how it can be essential to accelerate the use of Data Science
- How Abzooba can help SMEs employ Machine Learning efficiently
Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Jessica Camus, the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Diginex Solutions, which provides blockchain-enabled tools for tracking environmental, social, and governance data.
Jessica is quite experienced in helping organizations strategically address social and sustainability risks and opportunities for value creation through the lens of blockchain technology, impact investments, and sustainable supply chains.
Jessica and I discussed:
- Companies are being challenged to address how their business operations impact their external environment.
- Companies are also being challenged to understand how changes in their ESG policies are impacting their business operations.
- How SMEs were impacted by COVID-19 and how that drove their approach to ESG.
- Non-financial concerns have become important to shareholders, business partners, and customers.
- Companies are now expected to report both qualitative and quantitative ESG data to show progress against specific targets.
- How transparency and accountability around ESG reporting will continue to become increasingly important.
- How sustainable finance may impact future funding and credit availability.
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Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by the co-Founders of Credify, Makoto Tominaga (CEO) and Shuichi Nagao (Director of Engineering). Credify is creating the future of embedded finance through a suite of award-winning self-sovereign identity and secure data passporting technologies and a powerful privacy-first financial services cross-offering platform. Both founders have extensive experience in the startup and technology space and combined, they have been through multiple acquisitions and exits.
From their home base in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, these two Japanese founders aspire to build a global company.
Topics covered in this episode:
- Their Experiences with Successful Startup Companies Across Multiple Verticals
- Building a Stock Trading Community
- Fingerprint Sensor Innovation and a Sale To Apple
- Service Marketplaces in Japan and Reputation Modules
- Traditional Review Systems are Gamed and Skewed
- Distributed Ledger Technologies
- Smart Contracts and Loyalty Programs
- Network Effects
- Self-Sovereign Identity
Other companies mentioned in this episode:
- Authentec
- Validity Sensors
- Synaptics
- EOS
Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Daniel Callaghan, the Chief Executive officer at Veremark and a Managing Director of the Workplace Accelerator. Daniel is extremely experienced in the HR-Tech and Digital Innovation space, having founded a Global VC-backed freelance market place in Europe and the former Head of Digital Innovation and Investment for Adecco Group in Singapore.
Veremark is an automated and scalable background checking platform that transforms the way businesses onboard candidates, with a blockchain twist.
The Workplace Accelerator is South East Asia’s premier accelerator exclusively focused on the Future of Work.
Daniel and I had a great discussion about:
- Human Resources Technology
- How Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast
- Checking for Integrity is More Important than Checking for Grades
- Blockchain-Based Career Passports
- How Can Veremark Make the Experience Better for the Candidate
- Why a Workplace Accelerator Is Important for Southeast Asia
Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast caught up with Alan Jones, a self-proclaimed Startup Founder Coach (and a very good one at that!) and one of the earliest supporters of the startup ecosystem in Australia. I always enjoy talking to Alan because he is so thoughtful and filled with insights gained over years of experience.
We had a wide-ranging discussion about life, experience, growth, tech, startups and how the pandemic changed the way we both looked at the world and the future. We mixed in a bit of politics, because we simply can not discount the impact that it was having across the board.
We also discussed how 2020 was a year like no other and how Alan had to make the difficult but sensible decision to put M8 Ventures on pause.
Links from the show:
Alan Jones on the “A Lot to Say” podcast hosted by Garry Williams.
catalysr – An award-winning pre-accelerator for early stage startups.
Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke with Helen McGuire and Hayley Bakker co-founders and the CEO and CPO respectively of Diversely.io. These two amazing founders are building Diversely to be the bias-free hiring platform that helps you to find the best, not just the most obvious talent – quickly and easily, working with businesses to reduce biases in their hiring processes – with scale and impact.
Helen has been a champion of underrepresented groups her whole career. She is a two-time founder with a background in Digital, Communications and Diversion and Inclusion.
Hayley is a leader striving to make an impact on pressing challenges in the APAC region through technology, user-centric design, and good old-fashioned community and organisation. She has a track record in financial engineering, management consulting and entrepreneurship.
We talked about:
How the founders’ career journeys led them to a deep understanding of the Diversity and Inclusion space.
Why a lack of workplace diversity is not always the problem Diversely.io is trying to solve.
How these incredible founders have raised money and gained traction pre-product during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Case Engelen, the CEO of Titoma, an electronic design, and manufacturing company. As a company, they are dedicated to cultivating successful electronic devices with expertise, avoiding delays and quality issues that are often experienced during the design and manufacturing processes.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had an inspiring conversation with Arash Tayebi, the CEO at Kara Technologies. Kara Technologies is committed to using innovative technologies to make all digital content accessible to users of sign language. As with many great entrepreneurs, Arash is motivated by his own personal experience. One of the first questions I asked him was, “Why are you so interested in this issue although you are not deaf?”
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by David Abraham, a co-Founder, and the CEO at Outpost. Outpost is a network of coliving, coworking, and social spaces for location independent entrepreneurs, creatives, and professionals. Outpost is a home base for a fast-growing community of global citizens seeking to design life on their own terms in idyllic destinations. From vibrant and comfortable coliving spaces to modern coworking spaces with active communities, each Outpost neighborhood has been created to help you feel connected and productive from the moment you arrive.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast had the pleasure of speaking with Hardesh Singh the CEO and co-Founder of RADICALi and Shubhankar Srivastava, a co-Founder and RADICALi’s CTO. RADICALi is building a platform of intelligent solutions that makes it easier to get regulations right in a world where this is becoming more and more important. Shubhankar is a very talented computer scientist who has extensive experience with both artificial intelligence and machine learning. Hardesh is a qualified solicitor who has always been interested in the intersection of law and business. After working as a compliance professional for almost a decade, he ventured out with his partners to build RADICALi.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke with Beverly Chen, the Marketing Director, APAC at AppsFlyer. You have to read the transcript below and listen to this episode to get a real sense of the birth of an accidental entrepreneur and her continuing journey of growth and discovery.
Read more about this episode and its the transcription at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
Hi, this is Michael Waitze. Welcome back to the Asia Tech Podcast. Today, I’m joined by Samir Bhatia, the founder and CEO at SME Corner.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Luke Watson, the CEO and co-Founder of Home Live and Honed Digital. Honed Digital is a Sydney based digital agency that creates world-class digital strategies, then builds them into world-class products. Honed Digital was really founded to do the research and development that could come up with viable business ideas and then employ the capital that was gained from Honed to fund them. That was partially the genesis of Home Live. Home Live is building a platform for residential property discovery that allows agents to stream live viewings of homes from anywhere to anywhere.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Kla Tangsuwan, the CEO of Wisesight. Kla has a really interesting background and in some senses was well ahead of his time in the social media space. After obtaining a B.Sc. in Information Technology and an M.Sc. in Internet System Development, Kla put his knowledge to work in the Financial Services data world at Thomson Reuters. Working as a programmer in Financial Services led Kla to the realization that similar to news about war in the previous generation, financial data could also be sold. Large and growing computational power allowed this data could to have real-time analytics applied to it and hence enhance its value.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke with Bijon Islam, the CEO at LightCastle Partners in Dhaka, Bangladesh. LightCastle Partners focuses on creating data-driven opportunities for growth and impact for Development Partners, Corporates, SMEs, and Startups. Since its founding, LightCastle has engaged across 130+ businesses/development partners, 400+ SMEs/Startups, and 30+ accelerator programs in multiple industries including Technology, Agriculture, Health, Energy, and Manufacturing. LightCastle has also helped to launch a Smart Capital Investment Program which facilitates growth capital for SMEs/Startups. This is an incredibly knowledgeable and experienced team.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Andreas Sigurdsson, a Swedish media professional, consultant, and entrepreneur who has built two interesting businesses in Myanmar – Lychee Ventures, a Myanmar Venture builder; and the Myanmore Media Group, a modern media company dedicated to creating great content and great experiences.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Mario Peng, the Founder, and CEO of Flexstay Rentals. Flexstay aims to build Southeast Asia’s leading AI-enabled, end-to-end PropTech platform to make long-term residential rentals simple and transparent for tenants, owners, and brokers by digitizing and automating 90% of the processes.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Michael Sayre, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Cognicept, a company delivering innovative Human-in-the-loop solutions for error handling. As a company dedicated to helping robots and humans work together to cultivate a better future, Cognicept’s solutions aim to make unpredictable applications more reliable, expand the capabilities of technology, and more.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Nirjhor Rahman, the CEO of Bangladesh Angels, the first angel investment network to help innovative startups connect with and gain smart capital. As the country’s first investment network, Bangladesh Angels’ mission is to nurture and foster innovation and entrepreneurship in Bangladesh.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Leanne Melnyk, the Head of Human and Labour Rights Governance at Diginex Solutions, an ESG Data Infrastructure Company.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Isaac Khazi, a Technologist, Entrepreneur, and Musician. As a successful Entrepreneur, Isaac has become the Founder of both Zylon Technologies Co. Ltd, a software development company offering a variety of digital products and services, and BlockchainLabs.ai., a high-quality tech agency specializing in UX design and digital product development in Bangkok.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Paul Raschky, a Co-founder and Director of KASPR Datahaus, a Melbourne based alternative data company. Specialising in alternative data, data analytics, and spatial analysis, KASPR Datahaus is dedicated to developing products and gaining insights on human behaviour along with economic activity. Founded in 2018, they have now grown to be a company providing services for every location around the world through their technology.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Alexa Huth, a content creator, storyteller, and an overall creative communicator working for Tymeshift, an omnichannel workforce management tool helping customer support teams manage their workforce more efficiently and effectively. As a content creator, she is dedicated to writing impactful stories, developing a business’s organisational voice, strengthening brands, and more.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by René Papesch, a co-Founder and CTO at Riskwolf, the platform that insures the digital economy. They provide a variety of integrated solutions from design to operating data-driven digital products, helping partners innovate, grow, and succeed.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Nattariya Wittayatanaseth, an investment manager at Beacon Ventures, a Thai-based corporate venture capital fund of Kasikornbank, investing in technology startups.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Vivian Ke Story, the Founder, and CEO of Soul Story Seoul, a skincare company that proudly offers high-quality products from ingredients sourced from Korea and Europe, with an emphasis on using the power of natural and healthy ingredients. They pride themselves on conducting no animal testing and having products that are one-hundred percent toxin-free and free from harsh or abrasive chemicals.
Read more about this episode at asiatechpodcast.com
This podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Rick Nahm, the COO, and Co-Founder of GTR Accelerator, an interactive accelerator program dedicated to supporting studios from all over the world.
The program aims to accelerate the development of early-stage game studios through assisting with building equity structures, improving game development, matching publishers and partners to studios, and more.
They discussed Rick’s past experience, his transition from strategy consulting to becoming an entrepreneur, as well as his insights on the growing gaming industry.
Leaving Your Comfort Zone
When it comes to your career, there is no success-guaranteed option waiting for you if you decide to leave. Jobs that once seemed stable and foolproof can often end up not existing at all due to factors such as economic crisis’ - or especially during a pandemic.
Leaving a job can be intimidating and at times scary due to the risks involved, but leaving a job you’re comfortable in adds another layer of stress and difficulty into the equation.
When Rick decided to leave his previous job to carve out his own path, he said that it was very hard to let go because he was in such a comfortable position. But, although his comfort zone was a beautiful place to stay, he knew that staying there wouldn’t produce any growth, and thus decided to finally let everything go.
Rick detailed the rollercoaster of emotions as he went back and forth between the options presented in front of him, and what finally gave him the motivation to start his own business.
Getting Your Head in the Game
In the world of entrepreneurship and foundership, doing everything and anything at any given time, and being constantly overwhelmed and exhausted seemed to be a badge of honour.
Rick had always wanted to “stick around for the execution” of anything he was working on, and even admitted that he thought “consulting is a scam because the consultants don’t stick around.” However, there is only so much someone can handle at one time and Rick understood that.
He then went on to share some valuable insights about working in the fintech and gaming industry, how GTR Accelerator picked and chose studios from around the globe and how he defined success.
High Risks but Higher Rewards
In life, uncertainty is certain, Rick contemplated. Although the gaming industry is hugely successful and rising in popularity each year, making it one of the most unique industries to work in, it is still one of the most uncertain.
They discussed the reasons why game studios find it so tough when trying to acquire investments and funding. Rick discussed how the traditional investment community is still unfamiliar with the gaming industry and what success could come out of it, thus they feel a reluctance to contribute to their growth.
He then went on to explain how GTR Accelerators try to solve this issue, and a myriad of other services they provide, including building equity structure, acquiring funding, creating business decks and pitches, as well as how to get publishers and partners.
To learn more about Rick Nahm and his transition from corporate to a smaller business, the rising gaming industry, and more, listen to this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast today.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Mathew Badalucco, the Co-founder and CFO of Milu Labs, a diagnostic platform used to detect major health conditions. Committed to meeting the clinical health needs of women’s health, Milu Labs is dedicated to increasing the quality of women’s health worldwide. They discussed Mathew’s background and how that led him to the genesis of Milu, the crucial lessons he’s learnt, and his investment experience in corporate versus biotech.
Genesis of Milu Labs
Before getting into the biotech industry, Mathew’s experience was in institutional finance. He had spent time in investment banking then private equity before moving to South East Asia to explore early-stage venture capital.
He explained that he reconnected with Dr. Daniel Chai, who was doing healthcare investing when Mathew met him during his grad school days. Mathew explained how although Dr. Chai was interested and loved working through the secondary markets and longshore equity, he wanted to make an impact.
They both decided to create a startup in the healthcare industry and the biotech industry, but before that, they conducted immense research. Mathew explained what he learned and uncovered during his research, and how they used an exosome-based approach in creating a diagnostic platform.
Selling Investment Through Storytelling
It appears that storytelling and the use of narrative techniques have increasingly become an essential tool in every industry, whether it’s tech, e-commerce, or finance.
Mathew discussed the important lessons he’s learnt from his experience of working in both Catcha and Citadel. He highlighted the importance of storytelling in both crafting a strategy, painting a vision, and unifying them. The use of storytelling is one of the greatest ways to communicate an authentic and consistent message.
He shared tips and tricks into the most effective ways to articulate a vision, and how to make investors believe in what you were going to build before it was even built.
Corporate vs Clinic
They then discussed the nuances or special aspects and dynamics of investing in healthcare, as opposed to e-commerce.
Mathew shared his experience in switching from two very different industries, and the similarities and differences between them that he had uncovered. He revealed how although the theoretical underplan was the same, as they manifested in the real world they start to look very different.
To learn more about Mathew Badalucco and how he emerged and succeeded in the world of biotechnology and healthcare, listen to this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast today. Subscribe and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts.
The audio on this episode was expertly edited and produced by the talented Alanis Braun. You can see her portfolio here and her LinkedIn profile here.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Stephanie Chai, the CEO and founder of The Luxe Nomad, Asia Pacific’s leading luxury booking platform with an exclusive collection of over 85 villas in both Thailand and Indonesia. They discussed Stephanie’s interest in travel and how that led her down the path of foundership, her experience of being a sole founder of a company, and the impact of COVID-19 on the travel industry.
From the Screen to Foundership
Almost a decade ago when she founded the Luxe Nomad, Stephanie was still a TV presenter in Malaysia and Singapore, doing shoots for TV commercials as well as modeling. She explained that she always had an interest in drama and theatre during her time at school, so becoming a TV presenter seemed to come naturally to her.
But there was something else brewing. As both a model and TV presenter, Stephanie traveled a lot. At the time, flash sales and last-minute deals were rising in popularity, but she noticed that the travel industry wasn’t interested in integrating it into their business.
After realizing there was a gap in the market, with her love for traveling and luxury always packed and ready to go, she decided she was just going to do it. Stephanie went on to explain the various learning curves she had on her journey, how she expanded into villa management, along with integrating international villas, too.
Founder vs Co-Founder
“It’s better to do it yourself than to wait around for the right person,” said Stephanie.
During the early days of foundership, the weight on your shoulders can often get tiring, and it may be harder to grow because it feels as though you’re trying to do everything at once – and that’s when having a co-founder could be helpful.
Similarly to Michael, Stephanie had seen and searched through every department to find the right co-founder, but sometimes, you just don’t find them.
They discussed the highs and lows that come with foundership along with Stephanie’s own personal experience. Despite knowing that having a co-founder may make some aspects of running a business easier, they both agreed it’s better to work alone than to settle with someone who doesn’t match your drive, passion, and expertise.
Future of the Travel Industry
As with a lot of industries, the future of the travel industry – especially in Thailand – still remains uncertain.
Stephanie discussed the impacts that the recent pandemic has had over her business, as well as the travel and tourism industry, and how where the future of The Luxe Nomad lies.
She said that despite all the uncertainty in the world, she is dedicated to making The Luxe Nomad an agile and adaptive business and won’t sacrifice service in doing so.
To learn more about Stephanie Chai and her experience in becoming a founder and the inspiration and work that went into her business, listen to this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast today.
The audio on this episode was expertly edited and produced by the talented Alanis Braun. You can see her portfolio here and her LinkedIn profile here.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Changseong Ho, the former Co-Founder, and Partner of Viki, a premier destination providing multicultural entertainment to millions of viewers on a variety of TV series, movies and more. They discussed the creation and conception of Viki, Changseong’s English phobia, and the secret to building a sustainable community.
The Phobia of English
Being born and raised in South Korea meant that the language Changseong Ho and his wife and co-Founder JiWon Moon predominantly spoke wasn’t English. So when it came to moving abroad to study for their Masters degrees in the United States, Changseong and jiWon struggled to feel comfortable and confident enough in their ability to speak and understand English like their peers.
That’s when the concept and creation of ViKi began. This fear and anxiety that they experienced sparked JiWon’s inspiration to make a product that would help ease people into learning a different language while enjoying video content they loved.
Changseong talked about the insight he gained on his journey to finding the best way to learn English, and it turns out that it was through watching movies and TV shows with English subtitles.
The Creation and Concept of ViKi
Just like Netflix and Hulu, the concept of ViKi was to stream premium licensed content, with the main difference being that the subtitles could be added by community volunteers similarly to YouTube.
Changseong explained the way they have employed gamification within their product, providing credits to those who contribute to providing translated content.
They discuss the advantages of having a software that inserts translated subtitles to videos in real-time, and how giving users the ability to collaborate created a successfully integrated platform that was community-based.
Building a Sustainable Community
Changseong then went on to explain in further detail how the process of gamifying the product or service could eventually lead to building incentive systems that yield monetary benefits.
They discussed the endless possibilities or the potential of using cryptocurrency and micropayments and the secret to building a community that is not only strong, diverse, and engaged, but also sustainable.
To learn more about Changseong Ho and how he overcame his phobia of English, and instead, conquered it whilst also building a community, listen to this episode of the Asia Tech podcast today.
The audio on this episode was expertly edited and produced by the talented Alanis Braun. You can see her portfolio here and her LinkedIn profile here.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Jayden Kang, the Chief Operating Officer, ASEAN at Kakao Page, a global content business company from South Korea. Dedicated to providing innovative content for consumption across various forms of media, leading in globalising South Korean content. They discussed how Jayden journeyed from management consulting to working with Line Thailand, the digital marketplace, and factors driving OTT growth in Southeast Asia.
To Create and Grow Together
The digital marketplace has changed the way content is delivered over the internet and other application platforms – and Kakao has been no stranger to that.
Both Kakao and Line were once just instant messaging applications, providing connectivity through communication on mobile devices. Today, Kakao and Line consider themselves as a mobile social platform, creating and growing with their users.
In this episode, Jayden gives Michael an insight into the world of OOT, the digital marketplace, and how Kakao and Line have leveraged their brand to gain immense success.
Rise of Gamification in Communication
In this age of digital transformation, the use of technology via smartphones are integrated into our daily lives, and they are redefining the way we communicate with one another. There has been a steady increase in games being integrated into mobile communication, from design elements to implementing a reward system for users to unlock various things, such as stickers, videos, and more.
Jayden details the different methods of gamification designs within applications, and the various types of charging models they have implemented within Kakao’s application in areas such as their video streaming.
Factors Pushing the Growth of OTTs in Asia
Michael and Jayden then go on to discuss the different factors that are pushing the growth of OTTs in Asia. They both highlighted the immense value and advantages of creating your own original content, such as how it cannot be suddenly stripped away. Jayden then mentioned examples of businesses creating original content such as Netflix, who have found significant success and growth through it.
Jayden highlights how the way people consume digital services are changing, and to leverage your brand, you need to do a combination of two things: firstly, to recognise and seek out high-tech talent, and secondly, to ensure collaborations with startups.
To learn more about media creation in the digital marketplace and unique insights into the OTT world, listen to this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast today.
The audio on this episode was expertly edited and produced by the talented Alanis Braun.
Listen to this rendition at Bangkok’s NIST Graduation 2020 of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger‘.
I added a bonus track as well…
For their high school graduation ceremony, Kyla, Doogi, and Christopher recorded this song.
Thank you to everybody at NIST and all of the people that made this possible. You know who you are…
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Krystal Choo, Executive Director and Founder of Thrive Hours – a professional training and coaching company dedicated to driving success by leveraging well-being.
Michael and Krystal dug deeper into the psyche of a startup founder and discussed the impacts of loneliness and isolation, the reasons contributing to that feeling, and different ways to mitigate that.
Connecting In a Disconnected World
In a world where we are more connected than we’ve ever been, so many are still struggling with what is considered the next big public health crisis – loneliness and isolation.
Krystal Choo, an expert in applied neuropsychology, reflected on this issue of loneliness and isolation, saying that these experiences aren’t unique and that there’s a lot more “suffering and pain in foundership” than we may think.
This struggle isn’t uncommon and it certainly isn’t rare in the world of founders. The combination of working in a high-intensity and fast-paced environment, and keeping up the happy-go-lucky facade, can often be tough.
Loneliness and isolation have evidently become a global phenomenon, affecting people of all backgrounds and ages. Krystal shared how feeling lonely, unsupported, and isolated can affect your performance and highlighted the importance of creating reciprocal relationships.
Warning Signals of Isolation
People were not made to be solitary creatures, so the absence of social interactions and meaningful relationships ultimately leads us down an avalanche of mental health issues.
From impaired physical immunity, impaired executive functions, and an accelerated cognitive decline, Krystal discussed how isolation and loneliness can heighten a variety of health risks as much as smoking does, and can even increase premature death.
Krystal then shared her struggle during her deteriorating mental, emotional and physical health, and the consequences of trying to ‘biohack’ your way to success with drugs.
The Emotional Traffic Lights
In this fast-paced world, people can be scared to slow down because they fear they’ll get left behind in the dust. But just like a car, without proper repairs and maintenance, you’ll eventually have to pay the consequences.
While risk assessments are important in any project, being self-aware of your mental health is just as significant. Krystal introduced the Traffic Light framework to monitor emotions, and explains how this traffic light framework can provide insights to the different stages of your emotions; like what do you do when you’re happy or when you’re sad. This plan helps you focus on how to move forward from the traffic light color you are on.
To learn more about the importance of feeling understood and heard in the isolating world of startup founders, as well as the different methods of regulating your emotions for your well-being, listen to this episode of the Asia Tech podcast today.
Quote: “If we’re really going to make this move from finance into tech, we should really be doing what we think has the most net present value opportunity.”
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Kevin Lepsoe, Founder and CEO of Chinafy, a service dedicated to optimising a website’s speed and display in China and accelerating success for businesses. They discussed Kevin’s transition from the financial world to the tech industry, working in a pressure cooker environment and navigating The Great Firewall.
To learn more about how to optimise your website’s performance and how Chinafy is eliminating barriers for foreign businesses, check out this episode of the Asia Tech podcast today.
Quote: “Distribution is completely changing.”
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Mikael Abdulla, Co-founder, and CEO of 8 Securities and now SVP for SoFi International – an online financial service that helps people achieve financial independence. They discussed the shift to online investing, the importance of building trust as a startup, and the future of distribution.
Although both Mikael and Michael have faced tremendous success on their own paths, separating themselves from their old identity at their previous workplace was a challenge.
They discussed job transitions, Mikael’s experience with business acquisition and what it was like to let go of a part of their company.
To learn more about Mikael Abdulla’s journey to success and his insights on a variety of aspects within the financial services industry, check out this episode of the Asia Tech podcast today.
Quote: “Every once in a while your demons will get you, that’s their full-time job.”
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Krystal Choo, Executive Director and Founder of Thrive Hour – a professional training and coaching company dedicated to building strong foundations for success. They discussed the mental and emotional burdens that come with entrepreneurship and Krystal’s own journey to recovery.
To learn more about the different methods of regulating and mastering your emotions for your mental well-being, listen to this episode of Asia Tech today.
Quote: “I see Angel Investing as a way to channel capital towards productive use.”
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Jed Ng, a Tech Investor, Advisor and Business Head of Rakuten Rapid API – the world’s largest API marketplace. They discussed how Jed got started in angel investing, key pieces of advice on doing so and some insight on the best business practices through his own experience.
For many entrepreneurs, acquiring an abundance of angels has become almost like trophy collecting. However, this is a chase that may come with some risks.
To learn more about Jed Ng and his Angel Investing journey and his buildout of the world’s largest API marketplace, listen to this episode of Asia Tech Podcast today.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Jennifer Ho, a Principal at Dymon Asia Ventures. They take a deep dive into how the COVID-19 outbreak will digitise business practices in Asia’s financial and healthcare sectors.
The healthcare industry can be very conservative. There is always a worry that adopting the wrong technology can be detrimental to the hospital.
However, the outbreak has changed this attitude, lowering the barrier of adoption for many healthcare technologies.
But how will this change the way healthcare services are provided? To find out more about the aftermath of this global pandemic, check out this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast today.
In this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, Michael Waitze is joined by Sumit Khemani, CEO of SmartFuture, Singapore-based HealthTech Platform whose aim is to improve health literacy and allow individuals the option to own their own health data. SmartFuture is transforming traditional medical inefficiencies through the use of IoT and AI while streamlining the most effective solutions for its users – the healthcare providers, health insurers, employers and most importantly, individuals. They talked about how Sumit became interested in providing healthcare technology to people, the value that Smart Future offers, COVID-19’s impact on the company, and more.
The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Dima Djani, the CEO of ALAMI in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. At university, Dima majored in Entrepreneurship because he was confident that one day he was going to start and run his own business. During his university years, he also went on an exchange program to the University of North Carolin at Greensboro which was kind of a cool introduction to college hoops. Dima graduated in 2008, just after the collapse of Lehman Brothers which made finding work back in Asia harder than it needed to be. By the time he arrived in Singapore, the initial consulting job he was offered was gone, but Dima is a survivor. He was fortunate to find a job back in Jakarta at Citigroup and spent the next seven years working there.
After a fruitful career in traditional finance, including three more years at Societe Generale in Jakarta during which Dima enrolled in the Executive MBA Program at INSEAD in Singapore. It was during this time that his entrepreneurial juices started flowing again and he turned to something that was very personal for him and an idea about which he was quite passionate. He left his job at SocGen and founder ALAMI, which he dubs, ‘The Marketplace for Sharia Financing.’
I learned some new terms from Dima that I wanted to share:
Mushraka and Mudharaba – These are both terms that describe a financial partnership in which profits are shared. See a more detailed definition here.
Murabahah – This is akin to cost-plus financing. See a more detailed definition here.
Wakalah Bil Ujrah – This is akin to a paid agency model. See a more detailed definition here.
In August of 2019, I had a super conversation with Chitransh Sahai, one of the co-Founders of GoComet. When that conversation was over, I was sure I would want to catch up with the team and I was lucky to be able to do that recently. I had the pleasure of talking to Gautam Prem Jain, another graduate of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and the CEO of GoComet, an enterprise software company that helps manage freight shipments in a way that is easier, smarter and less expensive.
Remember, for context, that Gautam was part of the team that built and sold Plat to Housing.com while they were still at university. The entire team, with Gautam as the CEO, wanted to change the world and build something with real impact. Depending on how one measures, the global Logistics Industry is somewhere between $8 to $12 trillion. Yet, in relative terms, very little technology has been applied to the industry in the form of digital transformation. GoComet is filling that gap by building all of the necessary components for freight shipments to be modernized.
It was good to catch up after more than 6 months since the last time we spoke with the team. We discussed in detail some of the advancements GoComet has made, but also how the markets have changed and the things that customers are requesting. We talked about global expansion, sales cycles and the challenges of hiring only the best people.
I had the opportunity to speak to Rachel Lau, a co-Founder and Managing Partner of RHL Ventures. RHL started out as a self-described hobby amongst three friends…investing their own money in transformational, early-stage companies. At some point, it started making sense to institutionalize the processes and structure and a GP/LP fund was born. There is also a private equity component to the fund that leverages off the same team and invests in the same Southeast Asia geography, but at a slightly larger size.
Rachel has a great sense of humor. When I asked her what she loved about investing, she noted, “That’s the only thing I know how to do…I only know how to make money.” To be fair, while we both chuckled, she was being serious. As you listen to this episode, you will hear some very well-developed thoughts and insights on a wide range of topics. I worked in the global investment business for almost 25 years and Rachel definitely impressed me. As she noted, her personality, including her natural curiosity and her ability to analyze new information, is perfectly suited to her chosen profession.
Rachel and I covered a lot of ground. We talked about the intersection of Venture Investing and Private Equity. We discussed the need to train the next generation of investment professionals, something about which Rachel sounds quite passionate. We touched on how the market for VC/PE investment has changed over the last five years. We also covered the ideas about what real returns should be and how to create a sustainable business.
Just over a year after our first episode with the co-Founder and CEO of Workmate, Mathew Ward joined me again for another insightful and information-packed conversation. In the year since we last spoke, Mat notes that so much has changed it is hard to determine if it was only a year ago…or just yesterday! We talked about a lot of things, but the focus was on the results of Workmate’s Series A raise, the company’s re-branding and how they think about expansion.
The company originally started as Helpster, but about 18 months in, the business model pivoted to on-demand staffing and at that point, the name remained the same. As management and the sales teams went around the market, they realized that when people heard the company’s name, it was no longer clear what business they were in. Often, the first impression was that it was service for maids and cleaners…but this was simply not true. In essence, the name of the company was not telling the story really well.
There was a sense that in Southeast Asia, it is often the case that the name of a company distills its product and or services. A decision was made that a re-branding would help tell the story of what the company does and the team settled on Workmate…’providing people with work and providing businesses with high-quality workers.’
Mat also pointed out that they have spent a lot of time and effort into using technology to make the business smarter. When we last spoke, a lot of the intelligence around matching workers with jobs was good but quite rudimentary. Since then, Workmate has focused a lot on understanding all of the data it gathers. This helps it manage the entire workflow through technology. From the moment a worker gets on-boarded to all of their activities during any particular workday…even down to when they clock-in and clock-out.
This data goes both ways, though. It also means that Workmate can have a much better idea about the types of employees the companies prefer and see which workers they are rating higher. In the end, this provides Workmate with a granular level of detail that makes it difficult for other companies to compete. There are so many other ways to use this data to help the workers as well, including providing previously unattainable micro-loans and insurance.
There is so much more here…and if you really want to know how much things have changed, go back and listen to our original episode with Mat here.
I have wanted to have Arvin Singh come on to the show for a while, and with all of the news around Hoolah, now was a perfect time. Arvin is a co-Founder and the Chief Operating Officer of hoolah. On the occasion of announcing a significant Series A funding round, we had an interesting conversation about what has changed since we had another hoolah co-Founder, Stuart Thornton, on the show a bit more than a year ago.
hoolah essentially allows consumers to buy the things they want now and pay for them in three installments with no interest payments. It also helps merchants drive conversion, both online and offline and hoolah helps drive traffic to its partners websites. By making this process transparent it makes it easier for consumers to purchase the items they want. One of the fundamental ideas of hoolah is to allow consumers to purchase these items via ‘responsible affordability’.
Interestingly, the results of a merchant joining hoolah’s network are pretty consistent across verticals. On average, merchants are seeing anywhere from 25-35% increase in conversion rates and in the basket size as well. Let’s be clear as well, that with 90% of retail still occurring offline, hoolah is an omnichannel solution, working with both online and offline merchants.
Arvin and I discussed in more detail about their Series A raise. This was a double-digit million dollar raise, that included some of hoolah’s existing investors and some new, strategic investors as well. Some of these include Genting Ventures, Allectus Capital out of Australia, Max Bitner (Former Group CEO of Lazada) and Tim Neville (CEO – APAC, FNZ Group).
The significance of this raise is about funding growth which also means bringing on talent, but also business expansion starting with officially announcing a move into Malaysia. It also means building and creating hoolah into an omnichannel solution for merchants across the board.
The Asia Tech Podcast had the opportunity to speak with Rishi Ramchandani, the Founder of Cafe Cash Flow and its Chief Financial Coach. Rishi was born and raised in Hong Kong, was educated at the university level in the United States and got a job at Merrill Lynch upon graduation in 2007…right before the explosion of the Global Financial Crisis. I was at Citigroup in Tokyo at the time, so I know exactly what that must have felt like. Rishi was on the Portfolio Sales Trading team…which sounded eerily familiar to me as I also did that kind of job for over a decade. When one does that job, you end up dealing with some of the largest institutional investors in the world, including GIC, Temasek, Blackrock, and SSGA. We ended up realizing we knew a lot of the same people as well. This was a great way to start our conversation.
Eventually, Rishi and his wife moved to Singapore in 2018. Rishi got an Entrepreneur Visa and started taking a bottom-up approach to figure out what kind of company he wanted to start. He started participating in hackathons, meeting Venture Capitalists and some of the accelerator programs and generally became part of the startup ecosystem in Singapore. He met a co-Founder and together they started a company called PinAlpha, which essentially employs artificial intelligence and natural language processing to generate fully automated financial analysis. Fundamentally, PinAlpha is a B2B business and Rishi realized that he was more interested in helping individuals learn how to more effectively manage their money that gives a trading edge to hedge funds and other large institutional investors.
Even though PinAlpha was about to get funded, Rishi decided to leave and started working on the platform that would become Cafe Cash Flow. Rishi likens Cafe Cash Flow to a personal trainer for your financial well-being. Rishi believes that money and trust have a complicated relationship. The Cafe idea was built on the premise that the first conversation with a prospective client should be in a relaxed place. Rishi notes that financial coaching is different than financial advising in that a coach is there to enable you to make better financial decisions, not profit from them. There is no conflict of interest because as a coach, one is not restricted to any particular set of products…but is empowered to continuously educate his clients about what is available in the overall market.
I was interested in how this type of business uses technology to scale and Rishi has thought this through as well. think about other platforms that offer either tangible or intangible assets or services at scale and you can begin to get the idea of what Cafe Cash Flow can become.
Michael Waitze spoke to Matas Danielevicius, a co-Founder of Gaorai, a Partner at WhatNot Innovation Studio, and a marketing manager at the KX Knowledge Exchange. Matas has a very interesting background, part of the high caliber Lithuanian team that founded and runs WhatNot. (There is a good story in the first third of this episode as to how they came up with the name…Matas tells the story better than I ever could.) After high school Matas took a traditional path, studying business development and management in Lithuania, but he soon realized that he longed for more.
He picked himself up, went to the UK and studied acting, graduating with a degree in drama…something I wish I had done. I forgot to mention that in his spare time (How could he possibly have spare time?!), Matas is also an actor. He is currently working with the Culture Collective Studio on a production of “A Streetcar Named Desire”. We had a fascinating conversation on how show production, acting and getting in and out of character is more related to startup and venture building than one might imagine.
Matas combines these things rather seamlessly. I was curious to find out why three Lithuanian venture building partners ended up in Thailand…and frankly, it was really straightforward. They were traveling through Bangkok on their way to Sri Lanka (Just imagine what might have been.) and intended to stay for only a couple of days. A big project on which they were working became more urgent and they had to stay in Bangkok to finish it. The rest, as they say, is history.
Finally, we talked about Gaorai, “Gaorai is an agri-tech platform connecting farmers to freelance agri-drone pilots. We are improving precision application and sustainability of crop protection products in Thailand and the region. Our goal is to turn Gaorai to a day-to-day farm service, e-commerce, distribution and intelligence platform.”
I have yet to meet Colin Hodge in person, but after a few conversations spanning the globe, I feel like I have. I think it says more about him than it does about me. He was very generous with his time and thoughts and we had a really interesting conversation. Colin has learned a ton since founding a dating app that ended up being called Down. There were plenty of controversies when the app launched, but frankly, this is not the part of the story that interests me.
Here is what I do find interesting. A computer science graduate from Cornell University left what must have been a great job at Microsoft to strike out on his own and build a company from scratch. He apparently did most of the actual coding himself and, if my math serves me correctly, he was barely 26 years old. Let’s not forget to mention that the app that he created was downloaded a million times, faster than any other app in the last decade. Through all of the ups and downs, including getting kicked out of the Apple app store for a time, Colin remained calm beyond his years and created an insane amount of learnings, all of which could not be covered in a 30-minute recording.
One of the things that Colin definitely discussed with me was the necessity to have a strong support system around you both internally at your startup and also externally. A lot of his experience was quite unanticipated and having the right support system around you can help relieve some of the stress that arises when things inevitably go awry.
We also discussed how he became the Global Growth Expert. After selling Down to Paktor in 2017, Colin worked his growth magic across the Paktor product platform, building out Paktor Labs and traveling the region to teach the Paktor portfolio companies how to grow.
The Asia Tech Podcast recently had the pleasure to speak with Damien Kerneis in the studio at True Digital Park. Damien is the Founder and CEO of SiamCarDeal. Damien is decidedly not new to Thailand. He was originally sent to Bangkok 15 years ago by the company that employed him in Paris. His job when he arrived in Thailand was to provide supply chain and logistics services to clients in the automotive space. Damien was helping his clients make and take deliveries to the auto dealers and this ended up being a proper segue into his new business.
Damien was always on the lookout for an avenue to start his own business. While still working at the logistics and supply-chain company, Damien needed to buy a car. He noted that the experience of trying to buy a car was horrible. He started doing some research on what the car buying process was like in more mature markets like France, the United States, and Australia. What he found during his research was that in the more mature markets, there were robust and sophisticated platforms that made the process so much easier for both consumers and the dealerships that sold them. So…in his words, “I just decided to launch it.” This was the beginning of SiamCarDeal, back at the end of 2015.
The original idea was to build a marketplace that was essentially a business to consumer platform…e-commerce for cars. The SiamCarDeal team quickly realized that there was also a need for the manufacturers and dealers to manage the prospects and leads from the marketplace platforms that SiamCarDeal and others had built. They, therefore, started building a suite of software tools that could help the dealers do just that. This was the beginning of their B2B business. Building these tools ends up being a quite complex endeavor. This move into the enterprise space took a lot of time and created a whole host of new learnings for the team. Integration issues, understanding the proper user experience at a myriad of dealerships and selling to businesses that were not used to the digital marketing arena created its own challenges as well.
I had the complete pleasure of sitting down with Kastytis Kemezys at the recording studio at True Digital Park. Kas, originally from Lithuania, is a Principal and co-Founder at Whatnot Innovation Studio. Whatnot is a Startup Studio that provides corporate venturing tools to organizations across Southeast Asia to enable innovation. Together with these large organizations, Whatnot invests in and builds the next generation of startups.
Kas has always been an entrepreneur and venture builder. He tried ‘corporate life’ for a very short period of time, but realized when he was 19 years old that he just had to build something for himself. Frankly, he was not even sure at first what that was going to be, but he knew he wanted to build his own businesses. So he and a friend started a business called ‘My Drink Beverages’ which they ran for 6 years. It was an incredible learning experience across the board, including learning how to manage teams and how to get an idea to reality. This was venture building for the food space. When I asked Kas if he had any experience in the food business prior to starting this he said, “Well, I used to eat…”. Clearly a guy with a great sense of humor. You have to listen to Kas tell his story about importing a drink into Lithuania from Las Vegas called ‘Cocaine Energy Drink‘. You can only begin to imagine the hilarity of trying to import this and get it through customs…
We had a very interesting conversation about the culture of innovation and the stress that surrounds it. Kas was never good at dealing with authority. He always wanted to do things his way first and then learn. Operating this way made it really necessary to get used to the stress of failure, which more often than not is the outcome of trying to build something from scratch. We both agreed that you have to be a bit weird and crazy to enter the world of innovation because you are constantly submitting yourself to failure.
There is so much more in this episode. Listen and enjoy!
This was a special episode of the Asia Tech Podcast. We brought together three gentlemen that have decades of combined experience living and working in Japan. Specifically, I was joined by Maurizio Raffone – Founder and CEO at Finetiq Limited, Jeff Wentworth – co-Founder of Curvegrid, and Lars Schouw – Chief Data Officer at SBI Security Solutions.
We were fortunate to be able to cover a wide range of topics…including finance, cybersecurity, blockchain, venture capital and the FinTech Association of Japan. Japan passed amended open banking regulations in 2018 which mandates that Japanese bansk provide API connectivity to account information services with other services to come by 2020. There is also a very active Japan FinTech Association based in Tokyo. The Japan FinTech Association was created to develop strong relationships with new FinTechs and the establihsed financial system. Maurizio mentioned that the Association also promotes cooperation and coordination with the associations in Singapore and Hong Kong, among others. It also promotes cross border FinTech business building on both an inbound and outbound basis.
Jeff Wentworth and I dug deeper into the Blockchain space in Japan and what made Tokyo a great place to start a business. This fact actually surprised Jeff a bit, but there were a few contributing factors that he noted. While the Japanese economy is currently growing nicely, it had been stagnating for decades. This stagnation created a resource supply / demand mismatch and means that if you are developing for a global audience, but are based in Japan, you may actually have lower relative costs. Commutes are super easy and commercial space continues to lag price increases in places like Singapore and Silicon Valley.
There was so much more in this episode…I am sure we will do more of these country-focused roundtables.
I caught up with Akemi Tsunagawa, the Founder and CEO of Bespoke, a real-time engagement platform for tourists and the tourism industry. When we last spoke in September 2018, the team had no intention of expanding to the United States. However, after being introduced to Gabe Klein, now an advisor to Bespoke, all of that changed. Notably, Gabe has been the Director of the District of Columbia Department of Transportation and the Commissioner of Transportation for the City of Chicago. These roles, along with myriad other experiences, give him connectivity to United States based clients that would not have been possible previously.
Making further progress and seeing strong interest from US potentials, led Bespoke to open an office in San Francisco and set up a proper entity to operate in the United States. Akemi had been following the career of Tobias Wessels for a while. She noted jokingly that she had been ‘cyber-stalking’ him since they met at a conference almost three years ago…and when the timing was finally right, she offered him the role of running Bespoke’s international business and Akemi was happy when he accepted. Tobias also came with a great client list which is helping to accelerate the growth of Bespoke’s business.
Akemi noted that even just a year ago, it was difficult to explain what a chatbot was. Fast forward a year and the world has caught up to the notion of what a chatbot is and how they can be useful. One of the places where the Japanese government is working with Bespoke is during crisis management. This is a place where this type of engagement platform can be super useful.
Bespoke’s growth has clearly entered a new phase, which means that the staff make-up has to change as well. Akemi and I talked about how this growth requires a different mindset and skillset from her management team. This is one of the new challenges that Akemi is encountering.
Michael Waitze had a much-needed catch-up conversation with the CEO and Founder of Playbasis, Robert Zepeda. The last time we spoke with Rob was more than a year and a half ago and a lot has changed since then. One of the interesting things that Rob noted was that no two years are the same. This means that last year’s revenues and growth may bear little resemblance to next year…and extrapolating forward is always hard to do.
Rob founded Playbasis at the end of 2012 and back then it was a uniquely B2C business. Back then, as well, the whole concept of gamification was essentially unknown in Southeast Asia. I went back to one of Playbasis’ old pitch deck’s and found this, PlayBasis was a “gamification company that endeavored to ‘help large companies increase user engagement, retention and loyalty through data-driven game mechanics and behavioral triggers.” I asked him about this and his answer was insightful and filled with useful details, including connecting brands to gamers through meaningful rewards and turbo-charging the platform as a Games as a Service offering.
Rob believes that business models must always be evolving. While the core of the company is still gamification, his recent experience as a cohort in Plug and Play’s Batch 5 in Jakarta, Indonesia was eye-opening. He was invited to participate because some of the Indonesian corporates were interested in learning more about Playbasis and potentially using gamification for employee engagement as well. The entire experience, even for a guy that has been running his own company for more than six years, was more than worth it. There was so much to unpack from this conversation about the Indonesian tech landscape, how corporates interact with startups there and the speed with which digitalization is occurring.
I spoke with Jed Ng, the Founder and Business Head of Rakuten RapidAPI. Jed has had a very interesting career. He has built a philosophy and methodology for effecting corporate entrepreneurship. This essentially means figuring out how to build and grow a significant new business line inside a well-resourced organization. This not just zero to one stuff. It requires a very interesting set of skills. There are internal politics involved, storytelling to senior executives and Jed points out that selling to internal management can be very different than selling to external investors. He had some very interesting insights on this topic.
The meat of our conversation was on the development of the API ecosystem and the marketplace that is getting built around it. Jed went back and discussed the founding of Twilio and added SendGrid and Stripe as other relevant data points. Based on the cumulative valuation of these companies alone, one can make the case that the API ecosystem is huge. Jed noted that a company called ProgrammableWeb had already created a phone book for APIs.
The idea behind creating an API marketplace was multilayered. Through our discussion, Jed established that APIs are valuable but that mere aggregation was not good enough. Jed posits that potential purchasers of APIs need a place to test the services prior to buying and a central place to manage all of the associated admin.
Listen to this entire episode to get a much better understanding of what is happening in the API market space.
I had a fascinating conversation with Samiran Ghosh, a Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Company and an astute follower of the startup ecosystem in India. Samiran’s background in technology spans more than 25 years, including time as Microsoft’s Chief Digital Advisor in Mumbai and other senior positions at IBM, and Dun & Bradstreet.
We began our conversation with a discussion on some of the biggest current trends in the India technology space. One of the interesting insights that Samiran shared was that more and more, incumbent corporates and reaching out and working with startups…a trend we are also seeing in Southeast Asia. It remains difficult for established corporates to innovate internally and working with tech startups on specific problems is becoming a more efficient way to take advantage of new technology developments.
Samiran also noted that while the domestic Indian market is huge, another aspect of the ecosystem is the move away from solely the domestic consumption mode and into other markets, notably Southeast Asia. A company like Oyo is a very good example of this. Note this story on Oyo’s recent funding and how it will use that to continue to expand aggressively outside of India’s borders. While international expansion is trending, it is not always smooth sailing. Read this story on Ola Cab, another Indian unicorn.
I was also interested to know more about the angel investment layer in India. Samiran said that if he was asked this question three or so years ago, his answer would have been very different. Back then it was marked more by ‘fashion investing’. However, today he would categorize the full scope of investment stages as reasonably healthy, including angel and seed stage. There are also plenty of forums for startups to go pitch their ideas.
We covered a lot more ground as well. We spent some time discussing Aadhaar, an Indian government project to create a national ID system. Its mission is stated as empowering “residents of India with a unique identity and digital platform to authenticate anytime, anywhere.”
I had the pleasure of speaking with Deniz Tekerek, a co-Founder of Portier Technologies. Deniz’s background alone is fascinating. His ancestry is both Turkish and Mongolian, but he grew up in Germany. Still not interested? Deniz began his career as a professional footballer in Germany but was drawn to the world of business. After working briefly for others, he headed straight into the world of e-commerce and started his own company in the U.K.
Deniz subsequently moved to Hong Kong and became one of the earliest employees in Tink Labs, The idea behind Tink Labs was to create a communication platform for tourists that supported by the hotels in which they were staying. It was not a bad idea…but there were gaps in the execution strategy. Those gaps created the opportunity for Deniz and his co-Founder, Mark Pope, to found Portier Technologies.
Deniz, Mark and the team set out to build a business that was an extension to services in the hotel that allows them to better understand their guests. The critical part is to ensure that the entire operation is data-driven. This focus on using data to better understand the guests allows the hotels to create actionable insights. This is the secret sauce.
Another key change from Tink Labs is that Portier has built a cloud-based device management system and they do not own any of the phones. By building a close relationship with Samsung they have also created an entirely new model for phone distribution to the hotels, utilizing the Samsung connection to get introduced to Samsung’s best local telco partners and striking deals with them that allows them to efficiently get phones to Portier’s hotel clients.
They are also creating an internal communication mechanism for the hotels that includes a data collection layer. Things get really interesting here as well as the data that gets collected helps manage the business side of the hotels more effectively and efficiently as well.
If you liked this episode, you may also like the Thailand GameChanger episode featuring Michael Cluzel, the CEO and co-Founder of eatigo.
I had a great conversation with Ling Ling Tai in August. Ling Ling is the Founder and Director of Spark Learning Solutions, the Chief Podcast Educator at Meavox, and the host of the Apple-featured podcast, Leaders of Learning.
I was interested to find out what it would be like to do a podcast with another podcaster. Would it get too meta? Would the tables turn and Ling Ling starts asking me questions? Either way, I was particularly excited to do this.
Ling Ling did not disappoint. Spark Learning Solutions was the first thing we discussed. This place where Ling Ling uses her skills as an InterCultural Strategist and her own personal experiences to help others build better cross-cultural collaboration and relationships. We quickly realized through our discussion that even though we were born in completely parts of the world, we had quite a bit in common. Not the least of which was that we moved around a lot as kids.
We covered a lot of ground, including how her roots as a corporate trainer prepared her to synthesize her engineering and psychology experiences to power Spark, Meavox and her Podcast. Finally, we talked about the excitement around the Asia Podcast Awards…nominate your favorite podcast and look for the event on November 9 and 10.
Also, check out the story about the Asia Podcast Summit on Podnews.net.
I had the pleasure of catching up with Keir Veskivali after an almost 18-month hiatus. When I had first spoken to Keir, it was still relatively early days in the FinTech startup space. In his own words, back then Keir was, “super passionate, raising funds and going full steam on”. But the market has changed a lot in the past 18 months. Smartly, where Keir was a Founder and CEO, was one of the first companies to foray in the Robo-advisor arena More players have come into the market, making it naturally more competitive. It was becoming an arms race of marketing and expensive customer acquisition…and it did not seem sustainable to Keir and his partners.
However, the competition was not the only issue. One of the things that a lot of the FinTech Robo-advisors figured out was that surviving and thriving as a stand-alone business was going to be close to impossible. This realization came to Smartly earlier than most. What this meant was that instead of continuing to raise investment capital for growth, the Smartly team started focusing on finding a partner to acquire the business. After a look at the entire market of potential acquirers, Smartly decided to sell itself to one of its existing investors, VinaCapital.
Building startups is hard…and while not often discussed, selling them can be emotionally hard as well. Keir and I spent some time going over the process of being acquired and the toll the entire process can take on the founders. It can be difficult to explain the sacrifices that founders make…dedicating 100% of their time to building something from nothing.
There is a lot to learn from Kier on multiple levels. Listen to this entire episode and you will learn something for sure.
Chitransh Sahai is shockingly insightful and mature beyond his years. If you speak to him for just a few minutes, it all starts to make sense. A Director and co-Founder of GoComet, Chitransh is also a graduate of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi…as are the other GoComet co-Founders. Most of them have known each other since their university days, which makes them all well-educated, intelligent and comfortable with one another. The GoComet team is formidable, indeed.
GoComet is also not the first company they founded. While they were still at university, they noticed some anomalies in the way proptech companies dealt with the hyper-localness of real-estate agents. The team built a company called Plat, which was quickly noticed by Housing.com and was acquired soon thereafter. Not a bad outcome for a bunch of kids…They made some money (not enough to retire, according to Chitransh), took a bit of a break and started thinking about the next company to build. He reflected to me that, “Building companies is like a bug…”
Not surprisingly, Chitransh and his co-Founding friends leaned on the experience and learning they got from building Plat and went back to building something new. Initially, they started an import-export company to learn about the inner-workings of e-commerce. They were buying products in China and selling them in the United States on Amazon’s platform. This lead them to the challenges of the international freight market. With the knowledge that technology companies are fundamentally about building transparency and information symmetry, they set out to attack the international freight market for the following reasons:
- The market is huge and offers a clear revenue model from day one.
- The space is extremely opaque and was not using a lot of technology.
The international freight market mechanism is also very complex and provided them with some very difficult problems to solve. If they could create the proper solutions for these problems, the resulting company could be huge.
This was an incredible conversation.
This episode is a bit different. We recorded this at True Digital Park with Leigh Kelson at an event called Startup Nation. We sat with Chokwan (Kitty) Chopaka and had a frank and frankly enlightening conversation about cannabis and the potential for its legalisation in Thailand.
Kitty is the Founder & CEO of Elevated Estate, Thailand’s industry-leading Cannabis focussed expo, incubator, fund and consulting firm. Elevated Estate, is an authoritative source of information and a vital community hub for the cannabis industry in Thailand and beyond.
Kitty’s background in corporate law, digital strategy and technology has enabled her to be a unique voice for Cannabis Advocacy. She is also part of Highland Network core team, an organisation that has been dedicated to the goal of the legalisation of cannabis in Thailand.
Kitty also told us that she is working with Expara to build an investment fund for the startup cannabis industry in Thailand.
I had the honor of speaking to Dana Badeen and Marijn Beije, the Founders of Lines Designworks. Design is subtle. It is always there. If it is done well, it is almost impossible to notice. If it is done poorly, it can not be unnoticed.
The Lines Designworks team, from top to bottom, is pretty incredible. But do not take my word for it, take the fact that Lines Designworks has received 16 international design awards. That is a lot of awards.
The conversation I had with Dana and Marijn was so much fun and so informative at the same time. These are not just impressive designers, but super nice people as well.
Marijn is one of the most talented industrial designers of his generation. (And he’s not afraid to tell you.) After attending the prestigious Design Academy Eindhoven he trained directly under renowned designer Jacob Jensen.
Dana is part designer, part organizer, part over-thinker. After trying her hand at engineering and working at Microsoft, she went on to design school in America. Dana is a rare all-around designer who can realize 3D and 2D as well as overall strategy. She is quite amazing, indeed.
Listen to this entire episode…you will not be disappointed.
We did an episode at the end of April with Anna Ratala of Zvook which was really at the founding of the company. Even just a few months ago, Zvook was not a fully formed thought. We knew at the end of that episode that we wanted to catch up with both of the co-Founders, particularly after they finished the Antler Startup Generator program and participated in its standing room only demo day. In this episode, we asked Malik Alimoekhamedov to join us as well. Anna describes Malik as a tech wizard and the thinking brain behind the technology of Zvook.
One of the tenets of the Antler program is that you should go where your market is. Anna and Malik went to New York for more than a month and got connected to agencies and the podcast ecosystem there. The expectation was that it would be difficult to get people’s attention there, but the opposite was true. They actually found it easier to get meetings with influential players in New York than it is in Southeast Asia. Anna felt that part of the reason was that there is more of a sense of FOMO there of the next big thing…they even scored a meeting with the team from VaynerMedia.
One of the best stories the two Founders told to me was when they stepped away to talk about potentially become partners and they got stuck in the elevator they were riding for almost 20 minutes. Is there a better way to understnad how someone will react to the stress and pressure of building something from scratch than getting stuck in an elevator with them? The twenty minutes in that elevator solidified the partnership and also creates one of the best origin stories I have heard.
This is a bit meta, but podcasting is exploding at the moment and the products and services that Zvook is building are key to the success of both the creators and the brands that support them. Listen to the rest of the conversation and you will understand why these two decided to work together AND why their partnership engenders a great chance for success.
I was joined on this week’s show by Steve Monaghan, the General Partner at FinMirai. Steve is also a Limited Partner and investment committee member in True Global Ventures, Vice Chairman of Borderless Healthcare Mobile China, Vice Chairman of the HK Israel Trade Association, a Board Member of Pulse Global and a private investor in Artificial Intelligence, Life Sciences, Healthtech and FinTech.
Originally a commercial pilot, Steve has held senior corporate and banking roles in product, marketing, operations, innovation and general management. He has worked for leading corporations and financial institutions including Dell, Compaq, Citigroup, OCBC, Shinsei, DBS Bank and AIA. Throughout his career, Steve has specialized in introducing new business models, businesses and products in all major markets in Asia and has filed 6 patents in FinTech.
Steve has many interesting theories, but most interesting to me is his application of the laws of physics to building organizations and organizational change, or innovation. In summary, it goes something like this:
1) For every action, there is going to be an equal and opposite reaction. (This basically means that change is going to be opposed.) AND everybody knows this but it is never stated as an expectation.
2) The Law of Inertia – An object will continue in the same trajectory with the same velocity unless an external force is applied. This informs how much force is necessary to change how big organizations can be changed…with the understanding that most successful innovations usually occur externally to the main organization.
3) Force = Mass * Acceleration. In the corporate context, force is capital and people. Mass is the size and complexity of your organization, your partners and stakeholders. Acceleration is growth or alpha.
Listen to this and the rest of our amazing conversation.
This week I finally recorded a conversation with Lily Bruns. We connected through Leigh Kelson of BeachCity Media with whom we have both been working to develop entrepreneurship content. Recently we have been enjoying many long, geeky conversations about marketing and why Thailand is the place to be these days for startups and digital nomads.
A startup storyteller and content strategist, Lily is the owner of StartupChiangMai.com, lead presenter for BeachCity Media, and a founder of the Chiang Mai Entrepreneurship Association.
During our chat, Lily spins the tale of her entrepreneurial journey which begins in her hometown of Chiang Mai, Thailand, wanders through business school in London, nine burnout-inducing months in New York, a stint running her family’s 150-year-old bed & breakfast in rural Virginia and more before returning to the place where it all began, Chiang Mai.
This seemingly sleepy city in northern Thailand has become known as one of the world’s top destinations for digital nomads and – if Lily has anything to do about it – it’s soon going to gain a reputation for startups and digital ventures.
We had a lot of fun on this chat and get through a lot of topics from what it’s like to grow up on the outside of a culture, whether entrepreneurs are just wired differently, the soft-skills they don’t teach you in business school, the power of mindset, and why you can’t wait for permission to start something.
I had an incredible conversation with Priyanka Jain, the Founder of Roaming Clan. The origin of this episode is actually quite interesting, and maybe even a proof of concept. Earlier in the year, I did an episode with Vikram Bharati that started off as two friends catching up and ended up having a long discussion about his new and rapidly growing business called Draper Startup House, then called Tribe Theory. This is a must-listen.
It turned out that I had to go to Singapore during May for some business and I decided to try staying at the flagship Tribe Theory (now Draper Startup House) hostel in Singapore. I was more than pleasantly surprised. It was a pretty awesome place. It was there that I had the chance to meet Priyanka’s sister Prerna Jain. She and I had a great conversation and after telling her what I did, she said that I had to talk to her sister. The loop was closed.
Priyanka tells a great story about how Roaming Clan was started. She had been working corporate jobs, doing well and just decided that she wanted to take a 3-month trip to recharge. That trip turned into a year-long adventure and the things that she learned and experienced during that year inspired her to start and build Roaming Clan.
Priyanka and I had a true conversation. She asked me if during my travels I had ever run into a solo Indian female traveller…and I had to admit that I had not. That was part of her point. There are plenty of individuals who would benefit from having others with whom to travel. Essentially, Roaming Clan is a community of trustworthy travelers. ‘Roamers’ can join group trips, post their plans in travel clubs & look for like-minded travel-mates.
I caught up with Michael Smith, Jr., a Partner at SeedPlus. SeedPlus is a seed-stage venture firm based in Singapore that invests in teams based in the Southeast Asian region that want to build global, transformative businesses. It has been about a year since the last time Michael was on the podcast. A lot has changed in that year and we also talked in-depth about what has changed during the more than three years since the fund was founded. There have been many changes in that time, not the least of which has been the structural change in the amount of funding available for founders in Southeast Asia, from Southeast Asian funds. In many ways, it is a great time to be a founder in this region’s major technology and startup hubs.
While this IS true, launching a startup is still a difficult and arduous process. SeedPlus’ Project Alpha, in conjunction with AWS, aims to make that process a little bit easier. Part of the premise of Project Alpha, according to the conversation we had, is that it is prohibitive to set up accelerators in every major Southeast Asia city. So, why not travel to those cities and create a targeted event to help educate and inspire the next generation of founders. After building the program in four cities last year (Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok, and Singapore), the team is adding two new cities this year…Ho Chi Minh and Manila.
This year’s event in Bangkok is taking place at True Digital Park…which we discussed in our conversation as well. I am frequently recording at TDPK and I can say without hesitation that this is an incredibly ambitious project. Dovetailing nicely with the recently launched Thailand GameChanger podcast, Michael and I also spent some time discussing some of the aspects of the Thai Startup ecosystem that need to be improved to make Thailand even more competitive than it already is. Michael never disappoints with his insights and straightforward opinions.
Nikhil Kapur and I had a fantastic and insightful conversation that ran a gamut of topics around the venture capital and investment space in Southeast Asia, Japan and India. Nikhil is Head of Investments for Southeast Asia and India at STRIVE. He is an accomplished computer engineer and a successful startup founder. He built a profitable B2B media-tech venture in India called TommyJams.
Recently, STRIVE (the former GREE Ventures) has been in the news as it has completely re-branded and has also announced the first close of its third fund and expect to announce a final close by year-end 2019. Among other things, we discussed both the rebranding and the new fund. We also spoke about the firm’s commitment to sit in the same boat as the founders into which it invests. This exemplifies STRIVE’s passion towards building big businesses along with the founders.
Nikhil noted that each successive fund of STRIVE’s moves more and more into the B2B sector, believing that enterprises in Asia still maintain a technology stack (or lack thereof) that has yet to be fully disrupted. We moved into a discussion of SuperApps, Grab, Alibaba and TenCent and why chat was really important to their growth.
I had a pretty amazing conversation with Jussi Salovaara, a co-Founder and the Managing Partner of Antler in Asia. Jussi, who is originally from Finland, has over a decade of experience in areas of investment and strategy across different industries including engineering and IoT. Before founding Antler, he was the Vice President at Nokia’s headquarters in Helsinki, running Product, Strategy, Sales and Commercial functions. He has also had his experiences built working with prominent international companies such as McKinsey, Deloitte and Morgan Stanley. It was actually at McKinsey where he met his co-Founder, Magnus Grimeland.
Antler was partially born out of Jussi’s passion to help entrepreneurs and Founders and a desire to start something on his own. He struggled with the issue of how to actually find a co-Founder…and his quality bar was quite high. Frankly, it should be high when trying to find someone with whom you will have to work very closely. This was when he reconnected to Magnus who was just starting to think about Antler and the concept of sustainably supporting talented individuals and becoming founders of companies. At Antler, Jussi focuses on running the overall strategy and operations in Asia.
Antler is not a typical accelerator program. This is a people-centric platform, believing deeply that teams matter more than ideas and getting the right team in place is key to building a big business. In fact, if you ask the Antler team, they will say that they are a startup generator and early-stage venture capital platform.
They do not take this word ‘platform’ lightly. They already have 8 locations globally and aim to have 30 locations and programs within a few years. This looks like venture capital and venture building on steroids. They take their own advice as well, building with speed and velocity that most VCs would not recognize. A growth company building growth companies…nice.
I was talking to Pavel Zaslavsky, the Head of Israel for LisutoAI and it could not have been more interesting. Pavel has almost two decades of experience in the intersection of e-commerce, data analysis, algorithms, product discovery and product cataloging…Pavel has had an insane amount of experience at companies like shopping.com and e-Bay. He was actually responsible for building out e-Bay’s Catalog team in Israel. When Pavel talks about e-commerce, product discoverability and search, people listen. Pavel not only has two degrees from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, but he also lectures there as well.
Pavel and I had a fascinating conversation about data and product discoverability and its impact on both Sellers and Buyers on big digital marketplaces. We touched on structured versus unstructured data, how different marketplaces implement and use their data structures and how navigation comes into play.
We initially discussed searching via a text box, something that most online shoppers understand. We also move to video search, image searching and audio searching at scale. Few people, if any, understand the difficulty and nuances of this as well as Pavel.
Finally, we discussed how he is attacking all of these complex issues in his current role at LisutoAI.
Lisuto is a leading provider of AI solutions for e-commerce, dramatically reducing time to create, augment, translate and insert listings into marketplaces while significantly improving exposure and conversion to sale on global platforms like Amazon, Ebay and Rakuten in Japan.
Lisuto’s proprietary technology is based on human-like linguistic understanding combined with deep analysis of structured product data and capabilities of AI processing of big data efficiently and cost-effectively.
Well…This had to happen.
I was originally introduced to String (Suzanne) Nguyen by Ben Bickford and Zac Jacobs what must have been 5 years ago…but who is counting? We finally caught up on the podcast and had a super conversation.
I say at the beginning of the pod that Suzie is one of the most talented people I know and the hardest working woman in Australia. Watch her videos…she is filled with energy, gall, and moxie. When you meet her, you will notice that it is hard to keep up.
String started her “String Story” brand about 10 years ago. She started off as an artist and realized it wasn’t sustainable. She is now paving her path in video and startups. It has only been in the last four years that String helped pioneer video on social media.
She leveraged various social video platforms to interview and “geek out” with over 500 startup founders and entrepreneurs. She geek’d out with Gary Vaynerchuck, Holly Liu (Kabam) and Hugh Forrest (SXSW). In 2017, she produced an award-winning channel on Snapchat called “Women In Tech”.
String is now writing her first book, String’s Fried Chicken Story. She is also focusing on building an engine to help influencers monetize their knowledge and community.
Follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
On this episode of the Asia Tech Podcast, I was joined by Leigh Kelson the Founder and CEO of BeachCity Media. Leigh was born in Melbourne, Australia. His father was in the mining business which took the family to Christmas Island, a small island off the coast of Indonesia. Interestingly, there was no television, no media, no nothing there. The family lived there for 6 years and then moved to Kununurra in Western Australia…a pretty remote place as well.
This was the beginning of Leigh’s entrepreneurial journey. There were a little news agency and book store up there which he ended up buying. With his business fire lit, he started bringing bands up through the Kimberly…and started a motor vehicle dealership as well.
At the dawn of the web in the early ’90s, Leigh started building web sites for others and got into online and web media production…back when nobody else even knew what to do. Having been involved in almost the entire evolution of web-based media, Leigh can understand not just where the medium is today and how it got here, but also that it will continue to rapidly evolve and change as we move forward.
Leigh notes that originally the media business got built around celebrities creating content and the minions below consuming that media. Now it is much more peer to peer. We spoke a bit about Chris Anderson’s long tail…the democratization of production and distribution. Seeing the democratization of video changed the game for Leigh. Peer to peer matters at large because it is less about journalists to consumers and more about teasing out shared experiences and learning something from your true peers.
Leigh believes that the entrepreneurial mind is a collision of different spaces of thinking that come together and converge. The fascination lies with what is the interplay of the five or six biggest trends are and what they mean and portend.
When we talked about how BeachCity Media convinces entrepreneurs to tell their story, Leigh notes that strategically, they just go to where the stories already are…global or regional conferences. In some cases going 80 to 100 5 minute videos over a three-day conference. When he is there, he is still amazed at the way these events are covered by mainstream media…with traditional camera crews, lighting, etc. We can do this with an iPhone or two and some software and it makes for a much better and more authentic experience. Agile producers can also turn around production much faster…volume and velocity are important in the age of social media. “Last minute’s content is the next minute’s fish and chip wrapper…”
We continue our conversation talking about curation, quality and how to sift through the all of the noise. Curation becomes important because of the ease of content creation and the sheer amount of things that get posted every moment of every day. How does one curate at scale? Leigh posits that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are the pillars upon which new media will be built. Frankly, Leigh and I agree on this wholeheartedly.
We end on True Digital Park…and how buildings are great, but TDPK is much more than just a physical location. Some of the best ecosystems are borne out the programs and the people that exist inside of and help build those ecosystems.
I spoke to Daniel Maggs, the CEO, and Founder of Bisu. Bisu is a Health and Wellness startup…that helps people capture data and understand what their body needs.
Bisu was founded to help you understand and meet the needs of your unique body, so you can live a healthier, happier life. Daniel was moved to start Bisu after his father’s early death from prostate cancer. Bisu’s CTO, Wojciech Bula, joined the team to bring medical-grade sensing to an affordable product anyone can use.
When most of us think of IoT, they think broadly about the ‘Internet of Things’. Daniel and his globally distributed team think more precisely about the ‘Internet of Toilets.’ The idea is that every day, humans are literally flushing extremely valuable data about their personal health and well-being down the toilet. There are in fact many biomarkers for which urine, not blood, is the gold standard – including for instance electrolytes, dietary acid load, and hormone production levels. Capturing this data and enabling its analysis is important to understand your personal health.
Daniel and I also discussed the benefits of going through SOSV’s HAX Accelerator program. I have been following Bisu’s development for most of its existence and I can confirm what Daniel told me. The impact on so many facets of Bisu has been positively affected by its ongoing relationship with HAX.
Daniel, originally trained as a lawyer, has worked super hard to understand the details around the health and wellness space. You will be surprised by his depth of knowledge and expertise, particularly as it relates to biomarker testing. He has built a pretty incredible team and works with some amazing advisors as well.
I spoke to Anna Ratala, a co-Founder of Zvook and the former Founder of Slush in Singapore. Anna’s journey into the tech startup world was not pre-determined nor was it a straight line. After working at a SaaS company in Singapore and figuring out that tech was a tool to be utilized, Anna worked to build the Slush events in Singapore to great success.
She also realized that entrepreneurship was her calling and joined the second cohort of the Antler Startup Generator in Singapore. The 3 month Antler program is a good example of what entrepreneurial life is like. The program is hard and challenges participants to work together, learn new things and tests their ability to succeed under pressure. It is a cool filtering mechanism. If you can not put up with the intensity of the program, you are likely not cut out to be an entrepreneur, Anna believes.
As part of the program, Anna met a co-Founder (Malik Alimoekhamedov) and they are building a platform that helps match brands with podcasts. Essentially the platform is being built to help podcasts monetize and to help brands find and better target their desired audience. Anna and her team realized that podcasts and the entire audio content space was exploding rapidly…the number of listeners. Listeners are much more engaged than any other medium. Their observations show that the podcast medium is much more intimate than others and that listeners feel very close to the podcast hosts. Zvook’s research also shows that most people listen to the podcast throughout and rarely skip over anything.
Zvook’s aim is to build a sophisticated, tech-enabled platform to tightly match brands with podcasts based on the podcast’s tone of voice, word clouds, sentiment analysis, and other indicators. It is more than just the monetization. There has to be a good, fundamental fit and alignment. Unlike traditional radio which can easily be played in the background, podcasts are actively chosen by the listeners and this enhances the intimacy and helps build that relationship between the host and the listener. It is this intimacy that means that traditional advertising won’t work. There has to be a real fit and partnership between the show and the sponsor. This is vital to the success of both parties.
Podcasting is not a ‘reach’ media, it is an ‘engagement’ media. Brands are realizing this and are starting to think that “audio is the next video…”
I was joined by Maurizio Raffone on the podcast and it felt like I was catching up with an old friend. Sometimes, you can have a conversation with someone and you just don’t want it to end…and this was one of this times.
Maurizio and I reminisced a bit about our times woking in the traditional space of global finance, working at firms like Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities and Bear Stearns. It was the reading of Michael Lewis’ “Liar’s Poker” that inspired Maurizio to go into the business after getting his Masters degree at the University of Cambridge.
After a successful first career that spanned London, Tokyo and Milan, Maurizio is now back in Tokyo as the Founder and CEO of Finetiq, a FinTech Consulting and Advisory firm.
We delved in detail into the FinTech landscape in Japan and the challenges startups face from a funding, regulatory and general banking perspective. The sector is being pushed by the unbundling of financial services as a whole and regulators in Japan are taking a top down approach to improving the environment for startups.
We also talked about the Crypto and Blockchain space, noting that Liquid recently raised a round that valued it as a another Japan-based Unicorn.
Many challenges remain in the Japanese market, not the least of which is the ticking time bomb of the aging population, but this also creates opportunities for new, innovative FinTech companies to address the related issues.
I think interesting people come from interesting backgrounds…and Vikram Bharati falls deeply into this category.
Vikram was born in a part of India most people have not heard of…Nagaland. Vikram’s father was from Delhi and his mother is of Burmese descent, from the Naga Tribe in Northern Burma. Vikram’s father was part of an elite group of Indian Bureaucrats called the Indian Administrative Services. He was sent to Nagaland from New Delhi, which is more than 2,300 kilometers away, to help integrate that part of India to NewDelhi economically, culturally and socially. This was during the early 1960’s when that part of the world was so disconnected from mainstream India…and, frankly, the rest of the world.
We forget sometimes how connected we are today. Vikram explains that there were not even phone lines readily available for communication between New Delhi and Nagaland. Vikram’s dad used to have to send letters (real, physical mail) back to Delhi to get anything done. Today, Vikram feels like most of the work he does to build his business he can do on his phone…the mini-computer in his pocket. In a way, it feels like magic.
Vikram started his career in the Banking business. He worked at JP Morgan for the better part of decade and enjoyed the big company experience and learned a lot. After getting the most out of it that he could, Vikram decided to take 6 months off and travel. That turned into a two year trip around the world and the genesis of his idea for Draper Startup House, rebranded from Tribe Theory.
Tribe Theory, in its own words, is “a new category of hostels for startups, a community curated, business friendly hostel accommodation, designed to cater to the travelling startups, creative and entrepreneurial community.” This is more than just a group of physical spaces scattered across the globe.
Vikram is fascinated by the idea of people banding together to build a culture. Each Tribe Theory location is meant to be a node of a global network and an aggregator of people, ideas and skills. The big goal is to aggregate people in small spaces all across the globe, thus creating a massive network and then building multiple businesses on top of the network.
This is not only a bold idea, but a very new one as well. The competing business model is to aggregate inventory and then resell that inventory at a margin. Tribe Theory’s business model is not to be interested in aggregating as much physical inventory as possible, but in aggregating people.
I spoke with Pariwat Wongsamran, the Director of StartUp Thailand, at an event at KX Knowledge Exchange in conjunction with WhatNot Innovation Studio. Mr. Pariwat has deep technology knowledge and his working experiences at Infosys and Nok Air were great preparation for his role at Thailand’s National Innovation Agency (NIA).
According its website, “Startup Thailand operates under the Ministry of Science and Technology in collaboration with related organizations, helping startups to utilize local resources for their product and service development, and local employment and revenue distribution, leading to new target industries in driving the country forward.”
The Thai government has made a strong commitment to develop the startup ecosystem in Thailand in particular and also attempt to become the global startup hub in Southeast Asia. Inside the NIA, StartUp Thailand has become one of the most important government initiatives, connecting all of the important and relevant players.
StartUp Thailand excels at providing support and services for startup companies across the board. While the system in Thailand is made of many robust sectors, StartUp Thailand has partnered with 35 universities, more than 1,000 vocational schools and a full scope of Thai corporates.
Going forward, the sector focus for Thai startups will move towards AgTech / FoodTech, HealthTech and Travel and Tourism related technology companies. These have been identified as sectors where Thailand has very strong advantages.
We talked about how the ecosystem developed, who the key players are and how Thailand positions itself in the startup ecosystem both regionally and globally.
I was joined by Dr. Julie Albright, Digital Sociologist and author of, “Left to Their Own Devices: How Digital Natives Are Reshaping the American Dream” to talk about digital transformation from a social and behavioral perspective. From her position as a Lecturer on Electrical Engineering and the Psychology of Interactive Media, Dr. Albright is a ‘thought leader on the intersection of society, behavior, and technology.’
We had an interesting conversation on the impact that hyper connectivity has on a generation that is never without its mobile device(s). Dr. Albright “looks at the many ways in which younger people, facilitated by technology, are coming “untethered” from traditional aspirations and ideals, and asks: What are the effects of being disconnected from traditional, stabilizing social structures like churches, marriage, political parties, and long-term employment? What does it mean to be human when one’s ties to people, places, jobs, and societal institutions are weakened or broken, displaced by digital hyper-connectivity?”
Quanda Ong studied Economics and Marketing at Singapore Management University…which feels like a far cry from fashion and leather goods. Yet, he is also the founder and CEO of Gnome & Bow, the world’s first storytelling bags and wallets. The idea is that the Gnome & Bow bags can become a new medium for storytelling. The Gnome represents ‘fantasy’ and ‘storytelling’ and the bow (tie) represents classic design. There is a bit of a whimsical feel to the brand that guides the design philosophy.
The journey to founding Gnome & Bow was not a straight line…it never is. Quanda’s first job out of school was a marketing role at a Private Bank. While he remained there for two and a half years, Quanda knew this was not for him…and a year into it, he started thinking about what his real passion was.
He had been considering for a while to start his own fashion brand…and bags began to be something he obsessed about. He noticed the stitching, the lining and all of the little details. At some point, his father encouraged him to start his own business. In the true sense of an entrepreneur, he noticed while he was working at the bank that when he wanted to buy a bag for himself, he could not find one that jumped out at him. He decided it was time to solve his own problem and turn it into a business.
Quanda did not want to start just any bag company. He wanted to build something that was unique and scalable at the same time. Besides the extreme attention to detail, he created a design philosophy that uses classic stories with an added twist to create unique products. Gnome & Bow now operates in 8 countries. Listen to Quanda tell the story of the storytelling bag company and how he uses innovative technology to scale and create a frictionless experience for his clients both offline and online.
Jamie Skella and I caught up again and both of us felt like the conversation had come full circle…back to GG EZ Bar and Esports. Jamie’s involvement in the space goes back almost 20 years…some parts of your life are just that…a part of your life and they never go away. Jamie’s return to the esports scene is a true return to his roots…and this re-entry has only just begun. His timing could not be better. Esports is booming and is on pace to get even bigger.
With all of our discussion about Esports Mogul, we had to step back a bit and recap the incredible growth engine that Jamie helped build at Horizon State. The ability to change lives and improve the quality of political discourse while making it easier and safer to vote was paramount to its success.
Jamie is now full on as the Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer at Esports Mogul…and we had a ton of things to talk about as he settles into his new role.
It is still early days in the development of the competitive gaming industry. Infrastructure still needs to get built. Tools for organizing tournaments, finding talent and paying future stars are still in their infancy. Jamie and I discussed all of this and more. We also talked about broadcasting rights and the balance between building your own distribution and partnering with the best of breed.
The Mogul business is multifaceted. One of the key components is providing up and coming gamers a dynamic platform on which they can hone their skills and practice in true, competitive environment while earning prize money at the same time. Up until now, most gamers have been ‘practicing for free’ and this hinders their ability to train. Mogul also helps tournament organizers more easily find high quality participants and players.
The Mogul Foundation will also be a key part of the organization. The Foundations’s premise is to create the structure where gamers can thrive post their competitive careers. It is here where they can get up-skilled and trained to be coaches, trainers, managers and help fill other necessary roles inside the esports industry as it continues to mature.
Ee Ling is the CEO of Smarter Me, an education platform which equips children with the skillset, mindset and heartset to define their own success and happiness in the future. Based on a unique framework that combines tech skills (coding, robotics) with 21st century skills (entrepreneurship, design thinking), Smarter Me aims to empower kids and teens not only with the tools of today and the future, but with a deeper sense of self-understanding that will help them overcome any changes in the future.
Prior to starting up Smarter Me, Ee Ling spent almost a decade as an Investment Banker, executing billion-dollar transactions in M&A, equity and debt capital markets. She also specialized in Consumer, Retail and Technology.
We talked about the transition from Investment Banking to startup life and her move into EdTech. Ee Ling was always planning to retire and start a school for small children, but after 10 years as a banker decided it was time to accelerate her ‘retirement plan’.
She has gained quite incredible insights into the mindsets of children, particularly as they move into full young adulthood and how their perception of themselves changes.
Using start of the art technology and employing integrated online to offline strategies, Smarter Me is on its way equip kids with the skillset, mindset and heartset for the future.
Eric Monteil is originally from France and has lived in Bangkok, Thailand for precisely eight years. He is the founder of Art Consulting Thailand through which he is developing his newest and most ambitious venture called Silapix. Eric studied Chemistry and Physics at University and thought that what he was building was far away from his studies…but we both realized that Silapix was like a marriage of Math, Science and Art.
His first job was working in a lab for L’Oreal. However, his real passion was for hang gliding, para-gliding and micro-lites.
After 8 years at L’Oreal, he decided to venture out on his own and he set up an air sports school…I thought it was interesting that his first attempt at business freedom including flying…something directly associated with being and feeling free.
He did that for 5 years, got an MBA and then started another company with friends…dealing with and aggregating media and press online. When I find out someone has started multiple companies, I always want to know if entrepreneurship was something they grew up with or if they broke a mold and released something that had been brewing inside them. In Eric’s case it was the latter. None of his family was ‘in business’, but he created outlets for himself by finding market gaps and creating businesses to serve them.
Eric sold his second company in 2010 and when I asked him how he ended up in Thailand…he sighed. He then started telling me one of the most interesting company founding stories I have heard in a while. In a way, I think it is emblematic of most founders. They are burned out and want to take some time off and get away. Yet, they find that soon after they start their extended vacation, the can not stop their brains from analyzing their new surroundings and seeing more market gaps. They simply can not turn off…
Every journey has a definitive start…planned or not. The real beginning of Eric’s trip started with the purchase of a motor bike in Hanoi. He travelled through Cambodia, Laos. Indonesia and Thailand…and after a month of ‘testing’ decided to stay in Thailand. He explains that Thailand is geographically central with easy access to two airports, convenient to get to other countries and source art and a great place to do business. I wholeheartedly agree…:-)
Eric’s idea resonated with me…he wanted to give artists an opportunity to tell their stories and give them exposure to the rest of the world. The concept was based on the idea that if you wanted to buy art, you have to have a specific relationship with the artist. This was the beginnings of the idea for Silapix. The large ambition is to create a platform that directly connects artists worldwide to organizations that need art to enhance their environments.
I had an interesting conversation with Andee Chua, the Head of Community at Found in Singapore. Andee says that he was a bit rebellious as a teenager. Thinking that he did not want to go right to ‘work’ after school, he decided to break into the world of international modeling. Frankly, this sounds like a much harder path to me!
Andee rocked up to Fashion Week in Milan and through sheer perseverance and talent secured a position in the biggest show of the week, with Giorgio Armani. Even after winning a spot in the show, the other models told him that there was no celebrating until you have actually ‘walked the show’. There are actually instances in which the designer decides at the last minute that your ‘look’ is no longer necessary and you are out. Sounds like capital raising with a venture capitalist to me! Lots of lessons to be learned in unexpected places.
Found is a co-working community, founding in Singapore back in 2012, previously known as ImpactHub Singapore. It is a network of innovation campuses where ambitious entrepreneurs and corporates find coaching, expertise, and partners to create future-ready solutions.
As the Head of Community, Andee’s goal is to optimize how to make the three Found locations cohesive and bring the members closer together. How can he find synergistic opportunities for them and make them more productive and grow even faster.
Finally, we talked about personal branding, a topic that Andee recently wrote about which you can read here…
I spoke to Sebastien Gaudin from Shanghai, a self categorized ‘pure healthcare person’, with over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and a Doctor of Pharmacy from the University d’Angers. He is the co-Founder and CEO of The CareVoice.
Sebastien worked with Sanofi across the globe in many impactful roles from Finance and Marketing to helping launch new products and running their diabetes business in China. Sebastien knows the healthcare space. He has been at the forefront of the digital healthcare revolution in China and has worked closely with the government to train the next generation of leaders in this space.
Sebastien makes the case that the Chinese government is very smart and openminded when it comes to facilitating public / private cooperation.
There is also a burgeoning demand from Chinese care receivers for better health care service and better information. While there used to be a strong concentration of care at only the biggest public hospitals, now more than 50% of Chinese hospitals are private.
Sebastien talks about the shift from Business to Consumer only to B2B2C and how the privatization of healthcare drove this to his current SaaS model.
Most recently, CareVoice launched StartUpCare…healthcare insurance for startup companies, co-designed with PingAn Health.
Angeline Tham was born and raised in Singapore…and did her university studies at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.
Going to school in New York was very different than growing up in Singapore and opened her eyes to a lot of things…noting that if she had not gone overseas, she may not have joined the startup world at all.
After graduation, she joined J.P. Morgan. It was a great experience but lacked some fulfillment, particularly as some of her clients were building and running their own businesses. After a decent stint at J. P. Morgan, she left banking to start a company with one of her closest friends, Qiuyan Tian.
Leaving banking was never going to be easy, but venturing out with a her close friend, someone she trusted completely made the transition that much easier.
Angeline moved to the Philippines and took a role with Softbank that gave her a good introduction to the venture capital side of the business…helping them look for investments in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Later she join Grab via her work at Softbank and started the ‘two wheel’ business’ for them in the Philippines, including transportation and delivery.
All of this prepared Angeline to start her own business again. Angkas, which is a local word for pillion riding, is both a transportation and delivery business on motorbikes. The Angkas app has been downloaded over 1MM times and the company has on-boarded 20,000 biker partners.
The post Episode 25 – Scott Thomas – co-Founder, Creatively Squared – Styled and a Sense of Emotion appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Scott Thomas is the co-Founder of Creatively Squared. Scott is originally a scientist and was advising government and corporates on how to behave more like a startup, prior to starting this venture. While in that role, he found that sometimes the individuals were all in on this, but the institutional inertia made it harder. One of the first things he tried to do was separate the teams he was working with from their day job to really start having impact.
Interestingly, now that Scott is building his own business, he finds that these people are perfect hires as they get the latitude and freedom to innovate in a way that many not have been possible at a larger institution
The inspiration for Creatively Squared grew out Ruth Stephensen’s search for a creative outlet and started with an Instagram community she built. She would hold thematic weekly contests and asked people to post their photo to her Instagram group. The quality of the content was so good and the community grew very quickly.
He and Ruth determined that there were a lot of people out there that had the time to do some really creative work and there were brands that could not keep up with the amount of content that needed to be created. Creatively Squared decided to try to match them. They have now built up to 20,000 content creators on the platform.
The post Episode 24 – Akemi Tsunagawa – CEO BESPOKE – The Closest Thing I Found Was Tinder appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
I have known Akemi Tsunagawa for almost a decade. I was always impressed with her ability to just get stuff done, even in an environment that was not conducive to doing so. She is intensely persistent, works extremely hard and is immune to obstacles that may get placed in her way. Akemi is also a persuasive leader…people naturally want to work with her and are inspired by her ideas.
Graduating in 2009 and wanting a job in Investment Banking…at the tail end of the financial crisis, Akemi came back to Japan.
We discussed the big 2011 Tohoku earthquake and how it was indicative of just how surreal the market was back then.
After her first job at Macquarie Securities, she moved on to Fidelity where she ironically explains that the biggest skill she learned was how to make slides…Powerpoint slides.
After leaving Fidelity in the summer of 2015, she travelled in Asia and while the trip was good, it was not as authentically local as she would have liked. Upon reflection after her trip, she realized this was a common problem while traveling that had no good solution.
Bespoke was born…and is now a company that develops AI Chatbots for Airports, Hotels and Train Stations. It already has access to over 50% of the tourists coming to Japan and is expecting to expand internationally by the end of the year.
The post Episode 23 – Alan Jones – GP M8 Ventures – A Smooth, Beautifully Balanced V12 Engine appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Alan Jones takes a unique and non-conventional approach to his investing. As a much sought after investor and mentor, Alan remains incredibly down to earth and humble.
However, do not let his quiet nature fool you. Inside is a burning desire to build big things and impart years of acquired knowledge to those that are smart enough to listen to him.
Alan was there at the beginning of the internet boom, not just in Australia, but globally. Initially a tech journalist, Alan flew around the world to interview the likes of Bill Gates. Wanting to get more directly involved in the growth of the tech ecosystem, Alan and a partner somehow convinced Yahoo! to give them the rights to build its first international launch.
It was a pretty wild ride and has allowed Alan to continue to leave his fingerprints across a wide swath of the Australian tech startup ecosystem.
The post Episode 22 – Mark Gustowski – CEO QUT Creative Enterprise Australia – The Speed at Which You Need to Move appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Mark Gustowski has been involved in startups for longer than you have known about them…particularly in Australia. As the CEO of QUT Creative Enterprise Australia, QUT CEA is a unique hybrid business that includes an incubator, accelerator, c co-working space and an investment fund. This is a very well integrated investment and business building entity.
This puts Mark in the perfect position to take advantage of almost two decades of working with “innovative, fast-growth and creative businesses”.
Back in the late 1990’s, Mark started working with both the national and state governments and built one of the earliest accelerator programs for startups. At the time, the word ‘entrepreneur’ in Australia still carried some negative connotations, due to some negative press that financial entrepreneurs had received in the previous decade.
However, a competitive environment between the Australian states and a national government that recognized the need for a structural change to the economy created the first $20MM allocation to fund startups.
Mark tells so many great stories and shares some amazing insights in this episode…
The post Episode 21 – Ken Lau – CEO & Founder, Adventoro – Mass Travel Just Doesn’t Cut It appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Ken Lau was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and went to Melbourne to study Computer Science at University. While he did not necessarily intend to be a lifelong programmer, he knew that combining this knowledge with business acumen would give him a significant edge. As it stands today in Southeast Asia, that is still a rare combination.
Prior to his entry into the startup world, Ken worked in marketing research and sales transformation roles at companies like Hennessy and Accenture. Also, during the South African World Cup, Ken and his friends started a cafe and bistro. At that time, group buying sites were all the rage and he was constantly being approached by them to list on their platforms. He joined a few of these sites and saw traffic at his cafe grow quickly…signaling to him and his partners the real power of the online world.
Ken was now hooked into joining the startup world!
He sold his cafe, joined MaGIC as a mentor and noticed that while startups were enthusiastic and optimistic, many did not understand the real risks associated with starting and building a business from scratch.
While acting as an entrepreneur in residence at 123RF, he was given time to develop his own business that grew out of his passion for travel and outdoor activities…Adventoro was born.
Adventoro is an adventure travel platform that includes unique packages in everything from hiking and caving to culinary tours. The global adventure travel industry is over $250BN in size and is still growing rapidly. Adventoro is already the largest player in Malaysia and intends to be the largest in Southeast Asia over the next 18 months.
The post Episode 20 – Dr. Aubrey de Grey – SENS Research Foundation – Bridging the Valley of Death appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Dr. Aubrey de Grey and I had an amazing conversation…which, frankly, can mostly be attributed to his brilliance and me listening to it.
Dr. de Grey is a pioneer in BioGerontology. It is not the case that this field did not exist prior to his involvement.
It did.
However, through his dogged persistence, his innovative perspective and his unrelenting vision, he has slowly, but surely, convinced others that there was a better way.
We spoke at length about life, longevity, suffering and aging. We also discussed the role of medicine and its overall approach to solving the aging process. There seems to be an inherent belief, developed and augmented throughout history, that aging is accompanied by senescence at both the organism and cell level and that there is nothing that can be done about it.
Dr. de Grey and the sens research foundation work tirelessly to fund and support research that uses regenerative medicine to repair the damage of aging. With a stated goal of building the industry that results from this research, this is truly groundbreaking in its scope.
The results of these efforts are already starting to bear fruit. You can see some recent funding news here and get more information by subscribing to their newsletter here.
The post Episode 19 – Shaun Rein – Founder CMR – A Reordering of Economic and Political Power appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Shaun Rein has maintained an insane travel schedule over the past three months, but it has been well worth it. Traveling the world and speaking to opinion leaders and large audiences alike, gives Shaun a unique perspective on the ever-changing perceptions of China’s growing power and how it exerts that power.
We talked about Trump’s trade war with China and whether it was calculated policy, an ideological response or some combination of both. Regardless, a lot of unease remains around the instability of Trump’s policies and the unpredictability of its results.
Ecosystems in general, but political ecosystems in particular, do not like uncertainty and Trump’s behavior is potentially driving traditional allies closer to China both politically and economically.
Shaun’s tenure in China continues to give him insights that other China commentators simply can not get. While he has mused about entering the political ring in the United States, for now Shaun is extremely busy managing a booming business at China Market Research Group.
The post Episode 18 – Greg Nance – CEO at Dyad.com – Push the Frontier of What I View As Possible appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Greg Nance is from Bainbridge Island in Washington State and he loves the outdoors. Greg is an ultra marathon runner and an entrepreneur. Neither of these is easy to do, much less do well.
Greg also passionately believes that Education = Opportunity and he works tirelessly to expand access to top tier education.
Greg maintains a real sense of being fortunate, in that he “had supportive parents, teachers that believed in me, and mentors, coaches and pastors that invested so much in me.” With such luck on his side, Greg wondered if he could engineer that luck so that others can get the expert insight and mentoring that he received.
In this spirit, Dyad.com was built to encourage and support those less fortunate to get the education of their dreams and help them unlock the necessary scholarships to pay for it.
Finally, Greg is running 7 Marathons in 7 Days on 7 Continents to help students overcome the financial barriers to a college education. Support him by clicking on the image below.
The post Episode 17 – Chris Rawlings – CEO Judolaunch – Shameless With the Cards I’m Dealt appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Chris Rawlings is not your average tech startup founder…then again, maybe he is. Chris was raised in an off the grid, solar house in a small town in New Jersey. His father had been given a government grant to test and develop solar power, which meant that there was a constant flow of people to his house to see how the solar thing was going. He also loved mathematics and physics and watched Nova as a child…
Chris grew up with a real sense of being different, which actually comes in quite handy later in life. To be truly successful, one has to be comfortable feeling different and doing things that others will not attempt…
After graduating with a degree in Engineering and Applied Physics, he was working at his father’s solar business when he essentially life-hacked his way into spinning out and running a successful subsidiary of the parent company. Pretty impressive for someone under 25 years old…
Chris was learning that he preferred to figure out how to engineer human organizations rather than simply being an engineer. He wanted to understand the first principles around human motivation and what makes them want to build things and just do things. To do this, he had to venture out on his own and build his own business.
Listen as Chris talks about the story of Judolaunch…
The post Episode 16 – Eric Fear – co-Founder Inspace XR – It Takes the Guesswork Out appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
The business feels so compelling and the support for it is so widespread, I went back for more. In this episode, I spoke to Eric Fear, the co-Founder and XR Product Manager at Inspace XR.
Eric comes out of a gaming background and was a professor at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment in Sydney, when the other co-Founder of Inspace, Justin Liang, rocked up for a hackathon that Eric had organized.
Eric essentially made himself the champion of VR at the college and at the time was not looking to start a business. He was simply trying to get the technology into the hands of more local developers, as there was simply not enough VR content being created.
After meeting Justin and workshopping the Inspace XR idea, the opportunity to co-found was too good and Eric made the leap. He believed then that the intersection of games and architectural design provided a powerful and large opportunity.
Eric explained, “Sometimes you want to be able to grab someone’s attention and steal it away…sometimes you want to let them discover things on their own and sometimes it should not be on their plate at all…” Implementing those gaming paradigms inside of a B2B tool are both challenging and rewarding. Part of the idea is to build tools that seamlessly bleed into the background to create design magic.
The post Episode 15 – Mathew Ward – Helpster – Curated, Validated and Substantiated appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Mat Ward is the co-Founder and CEO of Helpster. Understanding how he came to start Helpster and where he learned some of the skills necessary to succeed as an entrepreneur, one must go all the way back to the year he graduated from high school.
Mat turned down a chance to go to university and instead decided to hone his sales skills by slogging products door to door in New Zealand.
Go forward less than 10 years and Mat was Head of Sales at AdMax, a pioneer in the AdTech space in Southeast Asia and on his way to being its CEO and managing its trade sale to Komli Media.
Mat has learned so much during his time in Southeast Asia and is one of the best entrepreneurs in the region at building teams and scaling businesses. He shares some pretty amazing insights with me as we discuss the development and growth of Helpster.
The post Episode 14 – Shlomo Freund – Free Financial Self – There Were Real Birds in the Background appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Shlomo Freund lives in a town between Haifa and Tel Aviv…sometimes. He, his wife and his daughter (OK, she is only 2 years old, but work with me.) are perfecting the ‘slomad’ lifestyle. They are location independent and when they do choose to live outside of Israel, it is generally for a month or more…
When they travel, they like to live the life of the locals and they like to assimilate slowly…hence the term slomad. No bus tours and no tourist traps…
Shlomo runs a few businesses and this dovetails nicely with his primary focus, which he calls ‘Free Financial Self’. This is a business that teaches freelancers and solopreneurs how to plan for, create and maintain financial freedom. This is a noble goal as it is something most budding entrepreneurs ignore.
Shlomo openly blogs about the growth and decline of his own net worth. He also advises people about investing, the benefits of diversification and how to avoid correlated assets.
The post Episode 13 – Sebastian Roervig – Grab Financial – People Freaked Out, You Survived appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Sebastian Roervig left Denmark when he was only 19 years old. He decided to opt out of University at home and decided, instead, to try to get into school in California. This ended up being a lot harder than he had expected…
He discussed the challenges and obstacles of trying to exist on his own in a place he had only visited with his family prior. He encountered obstacles both systemic and some he basically created for himself.
While the word ‘journey’ tends to be a slightly over-used, this is not true in the case of Sebastian Roervig. From feeling uncertain, isolated and alone in California, his journey to stability has taken him to Boston, the Philippines, Pakistan, Paris and Singapore…all the while freaking out his parents and friends back home.
Objectively, he has not only survived…he has thrived!
The post Episode 12 – Justin Liang – CEO, Inspace XR appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
I spoke with Justin Liang about the vision and goals for Inspace XR. Justin is a passionate and compelling speaker and deeply interested in how virtual reality, augmented reality and XR technologies change people’s lives for the better.
Justin is the CEO and Founder at Inspace XR, where the vision is to change the way buildings are designed, constructed and maintained, employing cutting edge XR technologies and improve people’s lives.
The Inspace XR team is working with the world’s leading architecture, engineering and construction companies in developing Augmented and Virtual Reality applications. They also work closely with Universities to educate students that XR technologies are not only useful for games, but also for design.
In April 2018, Inspace XR released River Fox, software that allows Architects and Interior Designers to create photo-realistic, interactive VR from CAD in 1 click.
The post Episode 11 – Nathanael Noiraud – Founder, CEO N-Strategy Consulting Services appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Nathanael Noiraud is an entrepreneur at heart…consumed with building businesses and helping others do the same. One of his earliest forays was being recruited to build out the Gameloft business in Southeast Asia. It was an experience that would change his life.
Firmly ensconced in the Asian business world and learning the specifics of each market microstructure lead directly to Nathanael starting his own business, N-Strategy Consulting Services.
Nathanael and I had an in depth discussion about the challenges of expanding even the most successful business into Asia. What is localization? Why does diversity matter at all levels of an organization? Do colors really matter? (Yes, they do!)
Having a strategic vision is not enough…one needs to have a deep and broad level of experience to truly help others expand into Asia AND the operational expertise to make it happen.
The post Episode 10 – Anson Bailey – Head of Consumer and Retail, KPMG ASPAC appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Anson Bailey has spent the last twenty years working in both industry and professional services covering strategic consulting across a number of countries in the Asia Pacific region including Australia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand across a number of different sectors.
Anson joined KPMG in Hong Kong in 1999 and is currently a Partner based in the Hong Kong office supporting the business development efforts across the KPMG China Practice. He is part of the Regional Consumer Markets Practice Leadership team and the High Growth Tech & Innovation Group based in Hong Kong as well as being a member of the Global Technology Innovation Centre.
Anson has been active in driving a number of thought leadership and executive briefings for senior executives covering the consumer markets arena with recent reports released including Global Mobile Payments, Luxury experiences in China, Consumer Currents, Global Reach of China Luxury, Product Sourcing in Asia Pacific, The Consumer Executive Top of Mind Survey and MNCs in China.
The post Episode 09 – Till Carlos and Eva Louise Dressel – 80% of Success Is What You Choose To Work On appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Till Carlos and Eva Louise Dressel work together, but rarely see each other. They have been doing this for three years, or so…and it all seems kind of normal.
Interestingly, while they were raised very close to each other in Germany, they first met in Rio de Janeiro. Eva Louise was working in Rio and Till was traveling there to see a client. A mutual friend suggested they meet, which they did do, but they only started working together later.
Till has chosen Vietnam as his base, while Eva Louise basically uses Germany…but she travels frequently to New York and other parts of the world. They both love exploring…
Fortunately, for me, they were together for a few days in Krabi, Thailand for a face to face work session. We had a truly superior conversation and focused a lot on a new product and business they are developing called Englishletics.
The post Episode 08 – Christina Hsiang – Startups Greater Asia – Asian Expansion and Why Asia Matters appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Christina Hsiang was born in Taiwan, but moved to Toronto when she was 7 years old. Christina and her family moved back to Taiwan a half-decade later, where she attended high school and started applying for university in the United States.
Always interested in both technology and international business, Christina decided to study law to develop a specialized set of skills and knowledge. This allowed her to tie together all of her interests and set her up nicely to found and develop StartUps Greater Asia.
Our discussion led us to some of the following topics:
1) Asia is expanding, rapidly. Most people in the West can not conceptualize the speed and acceleration of this expansion.
2) Some companies (both startups and corporates) are beginning to realize that to continue to grow and maintain relevance they need to expand to Asia, but have no idea how to do that.
3) Companies started, developed and domiciled in Asia will expand regionally and globally, increasing their footprints, relevance and dominance.
The post Episode 07 – Benoit Meneau – CEO & Co-Founder, Plizz appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Benoit Meneau’s introduction to Asia was in Hong Kong during SARS. He was doing an internship in Hong Kong from his university back in France.
Benoit studied Management with a specialization in Finance. His thought process was that companies will always need someone to understand and organize their finances. He also believed that analyzing a company’s finances was (and is) the best way to understand its business.
After more than a decade of organizing the finances of other companies, Benoit wanted to take all of the things he had learned and put them work building his own business.
In the end, there was always an entrepreneur inside of him trying to come out. Solving the finance and accounting problems for SMEs was his platform and it manifests itself in Plizz.co.
The post Episode 06 – Thorsten Neumann – Chief Technical Officer, SmartPesa appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Thorsten Neumann grew up in South Africa and started his first company when he was 17 years old. With a deep understanding and interest in Computer Science and Mathematics, Thorsten naturally gravitated to Finance…where his skill set is uniquely powerful.
He helped build ‘Global Trader’ into a business and platform that launched innovative financial products and equity derivatives in 23 markets and 19 currencies. His knowledge of the way the financial world intersects with technology is quite unique.
Currently the Chief Technology Officer of SmartPesa, we had an amazing discussion about a wide array of financial and technology topics.
The post Episode 05 – Qiuyan Tian – Founder Hive-Up – Eliminating Tunnel Vision appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Qiuyan Tian was born in Singapore and spent her formative years (Do people still say that?) in Toronto, Canada. Her father was hired as a professor at the University of British Columbia, so off the family went to Canada.
At the University of Toronto, Qiuyan studied Actuarial Science and Economics and headed back to Singapore as a fresh graduate. She took a role at Goldman Sachs and after almost four years, gave in to her entrepreneurial tendencies.
She learned a lot from her first venture, including almost an entire lifecycle of a business in a relatively short period of time. She also learned the value of having “fresh pairs of eyes” around and she filled that need (among others) with the interns from Next Step Connections.
The post Episode 04 – Keir Veskiväli – Founder at Smartly appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Keir Veskivali is a very interesting guy and he is building an interesting business that is called Smartly.SG. Smartly is based on the premise that investing should be easier for everybody and that “Anyone can be an investor.”
Keir comes from Estonia, like a lot of transformational tech. He wrote his academic thesis based on research he performed on how teams of early stage startups get formed…and the mistakes that are made over and over again.
After working on a couple of startups in Estonia, he decided to move to Singapore and join the FinTech revolution. He wanted to build something that would help his Mom and Dad invest better, while including investment education in the process.
The post Episode 03 – Alan Gregerman – Chief Innovation Officer, Venture Works Inc., Author “The Necessity of Strangers” appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Alan Gregerman believes that business is about listening to other people’s needs and filling those needs. He also believes that while winning is good, winning by being different in a way that matters is better. You only have to speak to Alan for a moment to realize that he has a real passion for helping leaders and organizations unlock the genius in themselves, their colleagues, and the world around them. This passion has helped him work with some of the world’d most respected organizations, including Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, The World Bank / International Finance Corporation, Mercedes Benz, Discovery Communications, Omnicom, and the National Civil Rights Museum.
Alan Gregerman operates with four fundamental principles:
- Be Humble (You don’t know everything.)
- Be Curious
- Be Respectful
- Understand Your Purpose and Know Where You are Adding Value
If you want to learn more about Alan Gregerman, you can find him here…
The post Episode 02 – Shaun Rein – Catching Up / Following Up on “The War for China’s Wallet” appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
I spoke to Shaun Rein in December 2017, just after his book, “The War for China’s Wallet” was published. I wanted to follow up with him about the book’s initial reception both globally and domestically. Does Silicon Valley now believe that China can, in fact, innovate? Do governments globally understand China’s use of economic and political power?
I also asked Shaun to discuss Western arrogance and the potential loss of market influence insie of China for Western brands that just ‘do not get it’. The result of this arrogance is a growing list of prominent Chinese companies that better serve their domestic market, have a better relationship with Chinese consumers and are years ahead of their Western counterparts in taking advantage of mobile technology to serve their clients. All in all another insightful conversation with Shaun, one of the most knowledgeable and insightful commentators currently living in China.
Shaun Rein is the Founder of the China Market Research Group.
The post Episode 01 – Ken Ratri Iswari – Founder & CEO GeekHunter – It Is Like Barbie and Ken appeared first on Asia Tech Podcast.
Ken Ratri Iswari got her bachelors and MBA degree from the School of Business and Management ITB and graduated with distinction. Ken was the highest achiever for Business Leadership and Human Capital Management.
Ken started her professional career as an Account Manager at P&G and in Human Resources at Shell. Pursuing her entrepreneurial passion, she decided to leave corporate life and joined a start-up incubator, Contenga International (now Liv.it) as Human Capital Manager. In 2013, Ken officially established GeekHunter, an IT recruitment consultant together with her business partner, Yunita Anggraeni.
Ken is on the list of Cleo Magazine’s 30 Under 30 Young, Passionate and Successful Women; Recruiting Daily’s 300+ Women in HR Technology Worth Watching. Ken is also a mentor for ShellLiveWire Indonesia 2016, Gerakan 1000 Startup Digital, and The Greater Hub.
Ken serves as the director of Startup Grind Bandung.