Popagandhi

One of the things I've been happiest about, for 2017 / 2018, is that I've rediscovered my love for video games.

It used to be such a big part of my life, and then not, just as suddenly.

In the past year or so, I've been more actively on the lookout for games that would amuse me or make me happy. So far, it's been:

1. Overcooked, for people with real life friends and / or who remember life before online multiplayers. Some days, I'm tired of shouting into my headset at teenage boys in Russia to please shoot that enemy in front of us, or to heal me. Mostly though, I just have such fond memories of 2P games that are so rare these days we call them "couch co-ops". Overcooked is a fabulous couch co-op. It has very little to do with cooking games like Diner Dash. Instead, it emphasizes teamwork, communication, and makes sure everyone ends up having a good time. Up to 4P. 2P is perfect, 4P is chaotic — but fun chaos, I think, is the point of this game.

2. Persona 5 — I haven't been one for JRPG (Japanese RPGs) traditionally. Something about the art or the story just hasn't been for me. But in Persona 5, it was refreshing to see a story unfold in modern day Tokyo in a manner that draws you into the landscape. No details are lost in illustrating this ultra modern Japanese city, and the inner lives of the teenager you play in it. Ultimately, while fun and never losing the momentum of fun, the story can be too linear and the details sometimes old-fashioned. Since things occur from the perspective of the Japanese teenage boy you play, there are allusions to soft misogyny that make you go, hang on — did they really say that? But may be the strict gender norms provide authenticity. I'm just no longer used to such blatant "girls do this, boys are like that" ideas in any media, anymore.

3. Cities: Skylines — If you grew up in the 90s, like I did, SimCity2000 was probably the defining game of your childhood. I spent many hours building my cities, preparing for disasters; they were beautiful moments that I still think of, very fondly. Lately, though, the SimCity series have been a let down. All modern reboots of that franchise have been somewhat lacklustre. The only SimCity game I still actively play is an emulator version of SimCity2000. Nothing surpasses it. Except, perhaps, Cities: Skylines. It's a different beast borne of the same roots. To start with, the Finnish developers of Cities: Skylines did well first on their traffic sim, Cities in Motion. The level of detail they've been able to build into Cities: Skylines, as a result of that prior work, is astounding. Real life city and traffic planners have been hoooked on this game, providing many mods and a lot of great real life advice to wannabe planners like us who play games like these. The public transit aspect is phenomenal; the level of detail — being able to zoom down into individual Skylines citizens, find out their names, follow them as they go about their day; receive live commentary of your work as the mayor / Dear Leader in the in-game Twitter, just like you would as a real life politician — all of this builds layers upon layers into this game. Before long, you become obsessed with making sure every detail of your city is going the way you planned. The one shortcoming of the game, however, is that the UX isn't super intuitive when it comes to what went wrong. Sometimes, you don't even know something's going wrong, until it's too late. I wish it would be more prompt in letting you know that something is going down a slippery slope, or something else is quite literally going to shit. It nags you to death when it happens, but it doesn't warn you or give you many opportunities to pre-empt them, before it happens. Which can really take away from the momentum of the game.

4. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus — This was the game that made my partner go, am I ever going to see you again? Alternate history plots usually fascinate me, but can also go so wrong (such as, the terrible Amazon Prime Video riff on "The Man In The High Castle", ugh). Here, even if you've never played the legacy Wolfenstein games (or even 2014's excellent Wolfenstein: The New Order) — you can dive right in and BJ Blazkowicz your way through the Nazis. Mow them all down, machines and all; kill Hitler himself if you want to (note: it's instant-death, but oh is it sweet and happy fuzzy). The cut scenes, though numerous, layer on many additional moments in-between. The presence of PoC folks in the cutscenes, even if maybe not super historically accurate, is much-needed in these times. Yes, I care about the role feisty black women play in resistance movements in alterate history timelines. I love the tech, the attention to detail with the weapons. I love the writing and great dialogue, even if cheesy at times. I loved — and feared — being introduced to a city that seemed so normal and so like current day America, yet so utterly craven in its Nazi roots: the chapters set in Roswell were bone-chilling. Just have a look and see how hate becomes normalized. My time spent in the in-game Papa Joe's was devastating. The hiding, the stealth, the normalcy of it all (before you have to bash a Nazi in the face). This game is a superb shooter, and an even better story-teller.

5. XCOM 2 — various expansion packs. I'm a huge fan of the XCOM franchise. The past year has been great for XCOM fans. The handful of expansion packs have extended XCOM 2 in ways that make the base game feel fresh and new, almost like a brand new game. Yet, they're so complex every time you play them that I'm still playing through the recent expansion packs. The base game was a little basic, but the expansion packs add depth and many more hours of intense strategizing. As always, great for gamers who love to wait before pouncing.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about work. Even longer since I’ve gotten on a bicycle.

In so many ways, running a startup is like a race. Some people like to do sprints. Some people like lycra.

More and more, I find myself preferring endurance sports and comfortable clothing — perhaps because that’s the closest sporting analogy I can find for the kind of work that I do.

In 2014, I moved to Indonesia to work on ‘financial inclusion for women’.

In 2015, I completed the ideabox accelerator, worked with no salary for a year and a bit, and worked on finding product / market fit.

In 2016, I finally raised my first tranche of funding. At that time, ‘Indonesia’ / ‘emerging markets’ and ‘social impact’ were three things that didn’t go together.

In 2017, I lost both of my cofounders for personal reasons, and struggled to not burn out myself. I did not succeed.

In 2018, I am still going at it. Wobe is growing everyday. We have great investors. I am supported by a team of hardworking people who are not only great at what they do, but they also believe that we can use tech to bring financial inclusion to emerging markets.

Grit and resilience don’t come naturally to me. I understand them as concepts and I live, to the fullest extent that is possible, with as much as I can muster. I’m also painfully autistic; I simply don’t see risk. Risk is not a discrete concept, nor is it something I can grasp. Therefore, it does not exist.

Early stage startups are hard.

You risk: running out of money, running out of steam, running out of time, running out of energy. Everything needs to be in perfect alignment and timing. You have to fashion a product and a company into existence, and do both really well, in a remarkably short period of time.

All of your flaws are amplified.

Everything needed to be done — yesterday.

Everything is broken. Everything is great.

Like so many startup folks, I decided to work it off. Triathlons are especially popular with us. I suppose if you do what we do for work, weekend competitions that are physically and mentally demanding are just yet another challenge. Another hill to climb. Another bendy road. Another slope to descend.

I did a bit of that, and I’m pretty good at it. But I realised my taste in sports is the same as my taste for business. I need gravel and mud. I need to fly face first into wet muddy terrain. I need to find a hill I’ve never climbed, with the equipment I have, and just pedal furiously.

I feel like I do that everyday at work, and everyday at play.

I’m at home in places where conditions are rough.

I like unpaved roads.

Maybe that’s why I’ve chosen to build a business in a space I care very much about (increasing access to financial services for the unbanked), in a country I love with all of the opportunities and challenges (Indonesia).

The road ahead is bumpy, wet and rocky. That’s when I know it’s time to hit the gravel.

Thank you, friends, family, investors, Wobe team members and our customers, for coming along on this ride. You push me to do better, be better, learn everyday, and do my best. Burn out is not fun. You lose so much time and focus. Growing is so much more fun! I want to share more stories from the trenches, growth, warts and all.

I was asked to speak at a local university's Young Entrepreneur Network event. Sometimes, I say yes to these things.

For anyone interested, here are the slides.

I wanted to share, mostly, my personal journey — how I got here. I also wanted to share some strategies for thinking about creating a startup if you're starting from the absolute beginning, like I was.

Click through to see the notes, which contain slightly more info than what's on the deck.

Happy to receive any feedback or answer any questions. Email address on the last slide.

I've been on the internet for a very long time, but my online self really only found its home when I got this domain in 2003. 14 years: enough to see blogs decline into the mushy wasteland that is Medium articles, video in every website we now load, and a million apps to help me connect with everything that we love. I've led a hectic online life outside of this blog, but at the end I keep wanting to come back to see what I can do with it.

Lately, I've had circumstances that forced some introspection, such as the following:

I want to talk about the unglamorous bits of being a startup founder. 1/many

— Adrianna Tan (@skinnylatte) August 2, 2017

Everything worth doing, to me, are still the difficult ones. Sometimes it's hard to hear through the noise.

Munduk.

Two people, suspended between heartbreak and fury, met on Hong Kong Street after almost 2 years without each other.

Their hearts, recently broken by others, found each other agreeable — even safe.

They made a plan. The universe attempted to foil it. To no avail.

Through long public holidays, expensive flights, an expiring passport and the logistics of homes, broken and renewed, no unfortunate event stood in the way.

I stood behind the multitudes to wait for you: the many sweaty, smelly men waving flags awaiting their Chinese tourists. Me, in my shorts with holes, a top that's much too big and my hair that's floppy and flat after an hour on a motorbike to come to see you.

Even on arrival, the universe was determined to place one last obstacle before us: the long amble, actually scramble, along the railing, past the sweaty tour guides, into some tourists, around the ATMs, and then you, there in the flesh.

As with the start of new things, my pulse sped up mostly in not knowing how close I could be. It had just been a few days since I had been with you, and here I was furiously making plans to cancel all of my plans.

There's a curse on this island for couples who come here together, they say.

What they didn't say: come as a not-couple, leave as a couple, uncursed?

I hoped.

In the most improbable places, we found fireplaces and each other.

Before long, you would say, coming to Munduk to see me was one of the biggest gambles you had ever taken. Next to Bosnia.

In the first week we travelled many towns, lakes, forests and hills; sat in many cars and planes together, discovered how a plane aisle was much too jauh, so soon.

The odds were long, but our odds are good. And I don't even like Bali, not one bit. I love us in it.