Asia Startup Lessons

  “Scale” is perhaps the most overused word in the startup lexicon. It is splashed across tech media and ushered across every incubator, accelerator and plush venture capital office from Silicon Valley to Singapore. When I began my startup journey I admit that I had to look it up on Wikipedia. I had to make sure I was using “scale” in the correct context as I had splattered it across 99 pages of my 100-page pitch deck (90 pages longer than it should have been by the way). Scalability is fundamentally important to any startup. Your systems, operations, and sales need to be scalable to grow a healthy technology business. However, does your market give you unlimited potential to scale your users? If you are an ambitious startup founder in the Asia Pacific, you do not have to look further than China and Japan. With over $15 trillion in GDP, $13 trillion in domestic market capitalization and over $50 trillion in consumer wealth, these two geographies dwarf every other market in the Asia...

  Having spent over a decade building companies in Asia, I can testify that it is f**king hard. In the beginning, ignorance is bliss. You allow your sexy PowerPoint slides to seduce you into believing your big idea is flawless. Your projections are up and to the right and you feel invincible. You sleep great at night and have the energy and ego to believe you will change the world. It's not until you quit your job, realize you have no health insurance, absorb the fact that VCs don't respond to your emails, and that you only have $2,000 left in the bank when reality sets in. You have been totally unaware of how misguided and flawed your plan really is. You are not sleeping quite so well… but you are resilient. You put your head down and execute. There is nothing glamorous about losing track of day and night, writing code, structuring a company, lawyers, tax law, or fundraising. But you persevere. To this point, I could be describing the challenging journey of any startup entrepr...

  I have been ghosted by more venture capitalists than I care to count. At this point, ‘we’ll circle back’ has an infinite vesting schedule Over 10 years of building my startup, I estimate that roughly 70% of all meaningful investor interactions ended in radio silence. Not a no. Not a maybe. Just… nothing. Radio silence, distilled down to its purest, uncut form. I’m not talking about the cold outbound email that goes unanswered. I’m talking about investors who requested a meeting, sat through a pitch, asked for data, received it, and then vanished from the face of the earth like they entered witness protection. Let me be clear. I don’t need or expect every VC to say yes. I’ve heard no plenty of times, and I respect it. A clear no is a gift. It lets me move on, refine the pitch, and spend my time on investors who are actually interested. What I cannot respect is cowardice dressed up as being busy. You asked for the meeting Meetings were had, partners and associates were introduced, ...

  A lot of factors will determine your startup’s success. Product innovation, consumer adoption, and competition are of course critical factors but get too much ink in the startup press. What is often only given lip service, but is in my opinion the most fundamental determinant of success, is the people you hire today. I have been very vocal in conveying the challenges that startups in Asia face, particularly in building teams beyond the founding members. People, not your product, will be your greatest long-term asset. As you build your team my plea is that you build your startup for what you want it to be and not for what it is today . When you are a small team of founding members you are full of enthusiasm for your product and the opportunity ahead of you (as you should be). Hopefully your idea will gain traction and you will be in a position to raise money or reinvest positive cash flow to drive growth. One of your first investments will likely be in hiring your first non-found...