Work in progress.

Some things are broken round here.

  • Don't Work With Assholes

    Published on Invalid DateTime

    There's a wealth of literature out there about this, but it can never be said enough. Too many people work with assholes.

    You see them everywhere.

    The cafe owner that takes a shortcut by hiring an asshole barista? The barista plays shit music at your cafe and nobody wants to go there.

    The startup founder who values talent over attitude? The asshole co-founder or top exec, no matter how good they are at their jobs, is going to screw you over.

    Eventually you realize that you're losing money and that nobody wants to talk to you at industry events anymore. Or perhaps investors or future team members take you aside to say they want to be a part of your dream team, but… that guy is an asshole.

    Assholes don't inspire trust.

    Assholes can sometimes be nice, too.

    People often make the mistake of assuming that the opposite of an asshole is a push-over. It is not. The opposite of an asshole is a decent business-person or partner who brings net positives to the table. An asshole, no matter how occasionally nice, perhaps to certain people, or to most people, has certain characteristics which breed mistrust and disdain.

    At my first startup, I worked with a guy who was a really nice person, and very good at his job-to me.

    I was new to the scene. I had no idea.

    He had ideas, he got things done, he was a good person-to me.

    But he was not a good person to people who could not give him something.

    There will always be people like that.

    I'm talking to a handful of investors at the moment and what I do for each one is to see who has worked with said people before. I call them, no matter how tenuous the link, and say: "What do you think of ____?"

    You don't really have to get more specific than that.

    You can, of course, to clarify some of the assumptions that people might have made, or to get more details on deals gone sour, etc, so that you can make up your own mind.

    But I've found most often that if I am going to be met with silence or awkwardness or worse, with hemming and hawing which can seem unjustified, it's a red flag for me.

    This applies to people I hire and to people I date, too.

    You need to be sure that this person doesn't kick old ladies or torture pets when you're not looking. A good way is to see how they treat waiters and how they respond to the homeless or the poor.

    I don't need you to be a bleeding heart old lady hugger (please don't), but life's too short for anything that isn't "fuck yes, yes and yes".

    No amount of money is ever worth it. That's not idealistic-it's the most practical advice I was ever given.

  • Stress Balls.

    Published on Invalid DateTime

    Some time ago, some people (read: entrepreneurs) I follow on Twitter posed a seemingly innocuous question. What drives us, as so-called entrepreneurs, to do what we do? Is it hubris? Ego? Is it an out-sized and unrealistic view of one's abilities? For most of us, choosing this life also means the opportunity cost we left behind, often reluctantly: decently-paid jobs with career growth at startups, VC firms, tech companies, banks, even… bars. There has been no better time to be a tech exec. My friends, and I am sometimes envious of them, clearly smash through the income and lifestyle brackets in the top 1% of the cities they live in, even the world-what we do is such a upwardly mobile trajectory. The lifestyle, with the stock options in soon-to-IPO companies, global travel as part of international "launch teams" in the most successful tech startups, fuelled by the globalizing of venture capital and focus of said capital in my part of the world, is certainly tantalizing. No longer do you need to work in finance, it seems to say, with each job offer and recruitment mail, in order to eke out a nice life for yourself and your family. The stock options certainly don't hurt.

    So what can it possibly be that some of us choose to do this? Even though it's easier than ever before to raise money and do your thing, the fact is no matter where in the world you do this, building a business is just terrible. It's fun, otherwise we wouldn't be drawn to it. It can also be rewarding, otherwise we wouldn't try. But. It's hard.

    I'm torn:

    Between the deluge of entrepreneur porn articles and this shit is hard articles (like this, but 10x more pity): I'm torn.

    On the one hand, having the ability and the opportunity to start and run your own business, even to try, is a damn privilege. It really is.

    On the other, there are so many moving parts. Skill sets you need to suddenly and abruptly become a ninja at. As a founder, from HR (super important) to project development to technical skills to payroll to accounting to taxes to… whatever challenges it throws at you, really.

    The last couple of weeks have super hard.

    Stressful.

    Energizing.

    Insane.

    Gut-wrenching.

    Incredibly amazing.

    Many startup founders come across founder depression at some point, and I think it's a real risk you expose yourself to when you put so much of yourself on the line. No matter how well-adjusted you think you are, you need all the help you can get.

    This is my second company. My first, right out of school, was a dev house that specialized in creating innovative marketing projects for advertising and FCMG companies through the then-new mobile and social platforms.

    Pushing 30 this year, doing this at 30 is a world apart from how it was like to do this at 22. I'm sure there are many young startup founders who learn and grow on the job, or perhaps possess a certain self-awareness and ability which I did not have. But. I find myself, this week, making dozens of decisions daily-on the sorts of things which would have caused me a lot of grief, time, money or existential angst, back in the day.

    I have the opportunity, the right teams, and the business partnerships to push through with the sort of tech business I have always want to do: tech, finance and social good.

    Now?

    Now, we ship. And learn. And ship again. And learn again.

    I love it. I hate it. I love it.

  • A Tale of Two Cities

    Published on Invalid DateTime

    It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was a bit of both, really.

    I'm not one for the mumbo-jumbo of the Myers-Briggs test, but I suppose it was striking that when I did it before my startup I rated very strongly as INFP, and yet now I'm very much on the ENTJ spectrum. It appears that having to do shit in a prompt, aggressive way does bring out very different approaches.

    So, startups are hard. You already know that.

    In my case, every attempt to think that through inevitably ends up being a little self-pitying.

    How and why did I decide that leaving my family, and puppy, coming to a foreign place, to work on some problems involving the silos of payments, mobile, commerce and gender equity, was the best life and career decision of all?

    Yet… I wouldn't have it any other way.

    Yes, I know the rates of failure are high, in any startup. Not to mention one with foreign laws, language, culture, and way of life/business.

    Yes, I know that there's only so much hustle can bring you. There's also the regulations and expectations of archaic industries and economies in certain countries.

    But man, it's exhilarating. If shit hits the fan and nothing goes the way we intend despite the best laid plans of man (and woman), then at the least we can say that I now have very specific knowledge and connections in some fairly obscure Asian markets.

    It was a brutal week.

    I lost a kid in the community my foundation does a lot of work in. She was 14. She had dreams. She was vivacious. Perhaps, her undoing, in an unforgiving climate.

    I lost a key team member. To the same brew of inexperience and lack of discipline and foresight. But team before product, and it's never going to be easy.

    Also, some huge gains. Solved some massive business obstacles. Created some solid partnerships. Brought in many valuable individuals to build the team. Net-net, a good week, if a little brutal.

    There's shit to do and a world of problems to solve. A glut of solutions we can create and design, and hopefully do so beautifully, with elegance, sensitivity and impact.

    In late 2012 as I stood on a similar crossroad contemplating major life decisions, mostly relating to the geography and type of work I wanted to surround myself with, I found tremendous opportunities, but I also found my heart had already decided.

    My 30s are to be spent in my backyard. In Asia. In the emerging markets of Asia. Doing as much insane and crazy shit as I can possibly throw at it. I feel honoured to even have a single shot at it.

    I am.

    It was the best of times, and the worst of times. Ask me again some weeks from now. Months. Years.

    I think I will say that there's nothing else I would rather do, and nowhere else I would rather be, than here in the heart of Java, toiling for a dream.

  • Do You Know About Galau?

    Published on Invalid DateTime

    I was just telling someone tonight: I force myself to meet a different stranger in Jakarta every single day that I'm here.

    Even if I'm exhausted after work (which I usually am), I try to meet a new person, or eat a new food. Go to a new area.

    The first time I lived outside of Singapore was when I moved to Dubai in 2007 right out of university. Then, without the metro or a usable public transport system, I was lost, angry and disoriented (I don't drive). I hear it's different now, but I'll never know.

    Jakarta, despite the terrible traffic (and I don't think I'll ever stop saying that; I certainly haven't heard any locals stop complaining), works for me.

    Between the ojek (motorbike taxi) and plentiful and good taxis, I'm pretty much covered.

    I try to practise my Indonesian with total strangers, too.

    Tonight's conversation went a little bit like this.

    Cabbie: Why did you not get into the cab earlier! Is it because I am black?

    Me: No!

    Cabbie: Okay!

    Me: How long have you lived in Jakarta!

    Cabbie: 20 years! I'm from Timor! I play in a band! Check it out on YouTube! T-I-B-E-T B-A-N-D G-O-M-B-A-L

    Me: Tay- ee- bay- aa- tay… fuck, what's this G in Indonesian?

    Cabbie: Watch my videos! I'm singing! Let me put on some of my other music for you!

    Me: (recognizes words like… cintamu, denganmu… JIWANG ALERT GOES UP)

    Cabbie: Do you know about the galau?

    Moments like these.

    Rockstar cabbie in ridiculous YouTube video.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pekk11Kwsmc

    Nus Bany, is his name. He's the one in the insane costume. He also arranged and composed most of the music.

    Nus Bany is now my regular taxi driver contact.

    I intend to unleash him on all of my unsuspecting business visitors.

    Yes, I know about the galau.

    And it might be a sign that I'm moving further away from my Peninsular Southeast Asian roots when I now say galau over jiwang.

    I love galau music. What's your fave?

  • Some Updates

    Published on November 11, 2014

    1. I've moved to Jakarta to take part in Ideabox with my startup, WoBe

    2. I'm writing more on Medium these days. The blog format is unsatisfactory to me at the moment

    3. Over there, I've started two collections which may be interesting to some of you. In The Java Diaries, I obsessively track my time in Jakarta in the name of learning. In Myanmar's Second Wind, I write about my year in Yangon and the people I've met there, from the tech entrepreneur's point of view

    4. Know someone fun or interesting in Jakarta? I would love to meet them

    5. What does one do with a blog these days?

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