Analyse Asia With Bernard Leong

"To me. The role of a board should be a sounding board to founders. It's very hard for us to assume that founders know everything which is why the company's directors should be a voice of reason in everything that happened. The board isn't just made up by a single person, basically various people with different line of thoughts. So why has nobody bring this up at all? I have no idea. In fact, that is what every investor that I've spoken to for this story questioned this." - Ka Kay Lum   Fresh out of the studio, Lum Ka Kay, deputy editor of The Ken joined us in a conversation to discuss the recent debacle for the Southeast Asia company, Zilingo and the fallout between the board and the former CEO, Ankiti Bose. Ka Kay shared the chronology of events that led to the firing of the CEO and the public fallout and examined what the endgame would look like for Zilingo.   Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credi

"From an evolution standpoint, I feel strongly about the fact that more participants, more diversity and more evolution is always a good thing. I am looking forward to like what comes next. Because if we are to be the most dynamic Internet ecosystem in the world, we need to now start to create opportunities for younger folks to participate in angel investing for certain communities that have historically been left out of angel investing and to bring them in as well. If we get there, I think we will be one of the healthiest ecosystems in the world." - Alap Bharadwaj   Fresh out of the studio, Belinda Ong, Alap Bharadwaj and Tony Zameczkoski joined us to discuss the XA network and their role in angel investor landscape for Southeast Asia, and how the angel investing scene has evolved over the decade. We dived deep into why angels are crucial to the ecosystem and help startups to reach escape velocity before the entry of venture capital. Last but not least, they share the process in how XA network onboards their

"We teach people about all things crypto,  like we do a lot of stuff like how to do an uniswap, how to get your first NFT, which exchange is the cheapest for you? We're in a business of education and a resource and people do what they will with the information that we provide them. That's the inspiration behind changing people." - Jacky Yap   Fresh out of the studio, Jacky Yap, founder of Chain Debrief, joined us to discuss the inspiration, the mission and vision of the crypto media company. We dived into how Chain Debrief focus on crypto education moving towards a learn to earn model, their NFT products with the first collection of Enlightened Rats and the recent major NFT event in Singapore: Metajam. Last but not least, Jacky offered his perspectives on the crypto crash instigated by the UST/Luna/Terra collapse. Disclosure: BL is currently an investor to Chain Debrief through a syndicate via Sharon Paul. Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Car

"If you look at the tech universe revolves around the U S and China, I spent a lot time almost 10 years in the [Silicon] valley ecosystem. But I haven't really seen the China technology ecosystem. So I was really curious on how it works, how is it like, how is it different? There was like a great opportunity for me to learn and see how it worked from the inside." - Yaw Yeo Fresh out of the studio, Yaw Yeo, an angel investor joined us to discuss his experiences on working in two high growth technology companies from the US and China covering the Asia Pacific region. He shared the similarities and differences between technology companies from the US and China and how they perceived the Southeast Asia market. Last but not least, Yaw shared his perspectives as an angel investor in Southeast Asia and reflected on the changing landscape of angel investing in the last decade. Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). S

"We have an intuition that at like a hundred million users with self custody signing their own transactions every day at those numbers, a hundred million and a billion, those are where there's going to be big unlocks and unexpected use cases that pop up in the way that people coordinate their resources together may make shared decisions together and align interest again, and participate in new forms of global capital markets together." - Raj Gokal   Fresh out of the studio, Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana joined us in a conversation to share the backstory behind how the blockchain emerged and is currently one of the leading blockchains in the market. Raj dived deep into the mechanisms behind the protocol and explained why the speed of transactions generated new decentralized applications on the blockchain. He also addressed on the outages and cybersecurity challenges for Solana, and offered his perspectives in what great looks like for Solana in the future.   Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produce

"As a seed fund, we will always be small. ... and that's done with the intent of building towards product market fit. we talk a lot about product market fit in startup land. We don't really talk about it enough and in venture land, It's really hard to deploy a billion dollars in capital if you're focusing on seed. Intentionally is a feature. It's not a bug. And if we're doing our job right, we'll continue to raise the same fund size, relatively small speaking, and just be great at pattern recognition at seed pre product market fit and staying really focused that way to be the best in our niche is the way we think about it. " - Tiang Lim Foo   Fresh out of the studio, Tiang Lim Foo, co-founder and partner of Forge Ventures shares the story of how he started the seed stage venture firm and his perspectives on early stage investing in Southeast Asia. He dived into a deeper discussion of the rise of early stage investors within the key countries in the region and how the whole venture investing space is transform

"I have lots of different people that I go to and I think that board of directors is really important. It's not the only social capital, but that's social capital primarily outside of your work, out of your specific job, that's important for you to build over time so that you get outside perspectives. If nothing else, sometimes in your workplace, you get very locked into a certain way of thinking or a certain style. And it's important to get perspective from." - Aliza Knox   Fresh out of the studio, Aliza Knox joined us to discuss the inspiration and key themes behind her new book "Don't Quit Your Day Job". We began the conversation on Aliza's observations on how the technology business and startup ecosystem have shifted in the last decade within Asia Pacific, during her stints with Google, Twitter and Cloudflare. Last but not least, we discuss how her book can help people out there to think about career growth and progression in the midst of the pandemic and the Great resignation.   Podcast Information:The s

"So literally we have this planned out, we have a ten-year plan and in ten-year plan, we want to be able to deploy about $2 billion in AUM. We think it's possible to fund a lot of companies in the early stages for all emerging markets. All those emerging markets have the same problem, which is there in this phase of rapid economic development, tons of founders wants to come out. So we want quite a lot of capital into seed stage companies." - Brian Ma   Fresh out of the studio, Brian Ma, partner at Iterative Capital and founder at Divvy Homes, joined us in a conversation on the current venture fund in Southeast Asia and shares his perspectives on how the fund is building their entrepreneurial community in Southeast Asia. We dived deep into the beginnings of Brian's career and how both his co-founder, Hsu Ken Ooi and he set up the venture firm and accelerator in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last but not least, Brian shared his perspectives on the Southeast Asia landscape and what great means for Iterati

"First, I think happy employee and employer partners, for us, great customer experience is important. Secondly, technology driven products that improve the lives of the workers across the region. That's great tech. And happy and motivated gajiGesa team with a lot of career growth opportunities. That's a great team. So I've put great under these three buckets." - Vidit Agrawal   Fresh out of the studio, Vidit Agrawal, CEO and co-founder of GajiGesa discuss the backstory of the fintech company focusing on developing financial services for the unbanked across Southeast Asia, starting from Indonesia. The conversation with Vidit's background with high growth tech companies: Uber and Stripe and he shared his perspectives on he invests as an angel investor. Vidit dived deeper into the unbanked market and how GajiGesa aims to solve that challenge, and offered his mental model in how one should think about geographical expansion across Southeast Asia as an entrepreneur.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and pr

"... One of our mantra is we don't build good companies. We build great companies. I think the beauty is that we have seen enough companies to realize what great looks like. For us, we have a high bar. So one of the metrics that we mention a lot is how many founders with the means to do so that we back will invest again in Insignia?" - Tan Yinglan   Fresh out of the studio, Tan Yinglan, founding managing partner from Insignia Ventures Partners joined us in a conversation to share the backstory, vision and mission of his venture firm and offered his insights on the Southeast Asia entrepreneurial ecosystem. He started with the inspiration behind the venture firm and discuss how he indexes founders and startup teams to fund. Last but not least, he discuss where venture capital is heading towards in Southeast Asia.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Sn

"But what I would want everyone to take away from this is that you have the geopolitics, the geoeconomics and the geo technology as a triangle, three corners of this triangle. A successful society, a power, a great power is going to be one that is fluent in all three of those languages that focuses on building capacity in all three of those areas and looking for the linkages and synergies between their technological innovation or economic power and their military power and state capacity." - Parag Khanna   Fresh out of the studio, Parag Khanna, CEO of Climate Alpha & celebrated author of "Move" joined us in a discussion to explain why the 21st century belongs to the Internet and not to any great power nations out there. We discussed his recent popular article "Great Protocol Politics" that he co-authored with Balajis Srinisavan and we dived deep into the weeds how technology such as web3 and cryptocurrencies will be important in reshaping society and monetary systems and what it means globally in the next

"As well as in terms of profitability, we've been able to grow the brands as well as make them more profitable. So having a track record really matters because as part of our purchase consideration, we also share the upside with sellers. So with us, the investor, we are able to extract the maximum of sight from the brand and via the right stewards of the brand. That's something which we spend a lot of time building. Those capabilities and having that reputation, which then sets us apart and helps us win many deals in competitive situations." - Kiren Tanna

"The key theme is you can be incredibly successful with the community, but you have to be intentional. Oftentimes what happened in my experience of observing other communities is that people would get really excited at the beginning. They would do a whole lot of work. And then after hosting, maybe three events, the enthusiasm would die and they wouldn't do anything else. So it was actually easy for people to start. It's not very easy to grow and scale, and that's why I talk a lot about intentionality" - Mark Birch   Fresh out of the studio, Mark Birch, global startup advocate from Amazon Web Services (AWS) joined us in a conversation to discuss his new book "Community in a Box" and the key initiatives to engage startups and developer communities globally from New York to Asia Pacific through AWS. We start from Mark's background and discuss the inspiration, key themes and main takeaways on how to build event-driven professional communities. Last but not least, he discuss how to build the community flywheel and

"I believe that we have made great change. I think five years is going to be the same, I think in five years when we look back, even if it doesn't look that way, as we build piece by piece, we will be a technically advanced, user-first global news organization that is sustained by a diversified revenue model." - Gary Liu   Fresh out of the studio, Gary Liu, chief executive officer of South China Morning Post (SCMP) joined us in a conversation on the digital transformation journey and where it is heading in a web3 world. We began the conversation with Gary reiterating the important role that SCMP plays as a bridge between China and the rest of the world. From there, he shared the early days and reflected on the key lessons from the first phase of their digital transformation with a focused video strategy. Continuing on, Gary shared SCMP's move into the Web3 world with the ARTIFACTS NFT project and how it jumpstarts the next phase of the digital transformation. Last but not least, he shared what great looks lik

"I want GCR to build its brand verbally from the founders that we support. And we don't even ever have to promote ourselves at any point, it's that founders are able to recognize our value- add, or introduce us to projects and identify our unique position, that we can support them in ways that VCs or crypto investors cannot do. It's something that I think will really speak to the hard work that we do without ever having to promote ourselves." - Joyce Yang   Fresh out of the studio, Joyce Yang, Jin Kang and Daniel Kim from Global Coin Research discuss the Global Coin Research DAO and its investment focus in Web3. We start with the vision and mission of the GCR DAO and then move into an in-depth conversation on web3 discussing the varying valuations of web3 companies, the choice of blockchains by web3 startups and where this is all moving towards at this instant of time.     Author's Note: Bernard Leong is a supporter of the GCR DAO. BL might have taken positions in web3 DAOs and companies, hence this is not fi

"If the goal is to really democratize finance of businesses and consumers imagine that Mastercard and Visa has built an interchange network to facilitate payments across the globe. What if Pace can establish a similar global interchange network? For digital financing, covering a myriad of services to consumers, businesses, and even financial institutions, basically building the digital financing engine that lives on the cloud powered by blockchain on a web3 infrastructure and serving the needs of, you know, the future consumers, businesses, and even financial institutions down the road." - Turochas Fuad   Fresh out of the studio, Turochas "T" Fuad, CEO and co-founder of Pace Enterprise joined us in a conversation to discuss his latest venture, Pace Enterprise and dived deep into the weeds of the "Buy Now, Pay Later" (or BNPL) space. He shared his thoughts on why BNPL can lead to sustainable companies and not just being a feature of a fintech company. Last but not least, Turochas offered his perspectives on ho

But fundamentally the core of the business, at least the way we see it, is that, we need to be great operators of these brands as a start, in fact the best operators for these brands. For us here, it's about looking into ways to be differentiated around how to run those brands better than anyone else, and definitely better than the last owner. - JJ Chai   Fresh out of the studio, JJ Chai, CEO and co-founder of Rainforest, joined us in a discussion on his company, a leading eCommerce aggregator that focuses on brands and products for the modern mum and offered his perspectives on the rise of ecommerce aggregators in Asia Pacific region. We dived into how JJ shared the vision and mission of Rainforest and their customer focus for the ecommerce aggregator. From there, we broadened the conversation with JJ explaining how ecommerce aggregators work with platforms such as Amazon and their playbook in selecting the right brands to acquire, scale and distribute. Last but not least, JJ offered his perspectives on how

"So as of today, I think the choice between DAO and equity is how bullish you are in the project. So if you're thinking that companies launching its first or second project, there's still a highly likelihood that it's not gonna be hugely successful and you want to bet on the entire life cycle of the company, then right now, maybe equity is still a better tool. If you're really bullish on the project, but you're not as bullish on the company that maybe the DAO is a better way to go." - Jamie Lin Fresh out of the studio, Jamie Lin, chairman and partner of AppWorks, an accelerator and venture capital form shares the backstory of the company and how it started his investments across Taiwan and Southeast Asia and grew to its present state today. Jamie shares the investment thesis of the firm and the key traits of entrepreneurs and verticals which they can invest into. Last but not least, Jamie shares his perspectives in how venture capital will be transformed by web3 and offers his point of view on how AppWorks

"The important thing is, look, our mission hasn't changed. We're still focusing on helping people connect and finding communities and, and grow businesses. We've just very clearly put a stake in the ground around what we believe is the future. And more and more that's going to take place in the metaverse." - Dan Neary   Fresh out of the studio, Dan Neary, Vice President for Meta (formerly Facebook) APAC joined us for an interesting conversation on the company’s re-brand, vision for the metaverse and why this may the biggest opportunity for businesses in Asia Pacific. In the conversation, Dan describes how Meta is helping to build the metaverse & talks about how the current ecosystem of communities, creators, commerce will converge with the next computing platform and create a completely new generation of experiences. Last but not least, he also shares how Meta is working with small businesses  to support their digital transformation journey and get them future-ready.   Podcast Information: The show is hos

"There's definitely decoupling happening in terms of tech. And I actually was really skeptical of the coupling until this year. And I'm like, wow, you're really going to be seeing it. But on the other hand, the financial services sector is opening up much more this year than before." - Shai Oster   Fresh out of the studio, Shai Oster, the Asia Bureau Chief for The Information returns for the sixth year to discuss the state of China in 2021. Shai reviewed his predictions in 2021 and offered his perspectives on what surprised him the most on China tech from the regulatory tsunami from the Chinese government to dwindling funding of the startup ecosystem. We discuss how the Chinese economy is undergoing major transformation and whether we have a China tech ecosystem in 2022. Last but not least, Shai Oster provided glimpse of what is to come for 2022.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the int