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- [00:01]
A
Golden Gate Ventures is one of Southeast Asia's most established early stage venture firms. Having backed companies across the region since 2011. They have invested in companies that are now household names in the region. Examples include Gojek, which started as a motorcycle taxi service in Indonesia and grew into a super app spanning payments, food delivery and logistics, and Grab, which began as a ride hailing service in Singapore and similarly expanded across Southeast Asia into food delivery and financial services. Jeffrey Payne is a co founder and partner at Golden Gate Ventures. In this episode, Jeffrey joins Gregor Van to discuss how the Southeast Asia startup ecosystem has evolved, why the regional copycat model is giving way to globally ambitious technical founders, what companies like Manus and Supabase reveal about Singapore's emerging role in the global tech landscape, and what advice Jeffrey gives founders today who want to build something that matters beyond their home market. Gregor Vand is a security focused technologist, having previously been a CTO across cybersecurity, cyber insurance and general software engineering companies. He is based in Singapore and can be found via his profile at Van HK or on LinkedIn.
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B
Hello and welcome to Software Engineering Daily. My guest today is Geoffrey Payne from Golden Gate Ventures. Nice to have you here today, Jeffrey.
- [01:44]
C
Thank you so much for inviting me.
- [01:46]
B
Yeah, of course. So this is a slightly different one. We've done a couple of these in the past on SE Daily, where we actually get to hear more from the venture capital side of the industry. And today I would say is like extra special. We get to hear from venture capital from Southeast Asia, which is a whole different ballgame in some respects. And as we'll probably discuss, maybe is trending more to a similar game as the us who knows? So that's kind of what we're here to discuss today and hear about as usual. Just love to understand your background, Jeffrey. I believe you grew up in Singapore and studied in the us but what was the connection? I guess us back to Singapore and then getting into vc.
- [02:29]
C
So after working in California for a while, I came back to Singapore and then helped, I guess a public listed company set up their first corporate venture fund. So that was how I stumbled into this and I originally wanted to do this. It just, this came on my lap and okay, this is something I can do from scratch, which is quite cool. Yeah. And then we ended up looking at deals globally, investing in a few, and then after maybe three and a half years I moved on to do some private equity work in Shanghai. But the gist of where everything started was I brought the program called the Founder Institute to Singapore back in 2010. So as you may know, FI started in 2009 in the Bay Area and Singapore was the first chapter in Asia. So that's how I got back into the super early stage. I mean FI traditionally is the ideal stage incubator. So that was a pretty interesting stage to be mentoring and advising founders on. So FY was actually the main push and we launched chapters in Southeast Asia and then we flew mentors around from the region and from the US to Southeast Asia. So that was, I would say the timing was just nice. It gave us an excuse and leverage to meet as many of the ecosystem leaders as possible and really, really quickly. And that got me to meet Vinny, my co founder of GoldenGate Ventures. He was backpacking in Asia. After he sold his company, I met him for coffee. I was like, oh, since you are bouncing around, so maybe I can get a chapter to fly you around. So that's how he was moving around, mentoring founders in the region. And then we came together and said, oh, there is something here. And we started the fund shortly after, probably in late 2012.
- [04:17]
B
Nice. And I mean I'm quite familiar if I look at some of the names that you've invested in over the years through GoldenGate Ventures two I guess that stick out Gojek is one, which is an Uber like company for those in the us and then actually we've got Red Mart as well, which is an Amazon company or that's a supermarket delivery company. I think just talk us through especially back then and what were the kinds of companies that were evolving and I guess you would deem the successful ones from that era.
- [04:51]
C
Sure. So to be clear, we did not invest in gojek. We invested in a payments company in Indonesia that was acquired by Gojek and it became GoPay. So that's how we ended up being shareholders of Gojek because there were some cash and share swap. I would say back then it was still very consumer fintech marketplace ideas. If you look back, it has almost always been copycats. I think the top, in fact the top 100 companies in South Asia for the last 12, 15 years has been copycats. And that's perfectly fine because in emerging countries where things are kind of new, kind of raw, the problems still exist. It's just in a different timeline, in a different adoption rate cycle. And back then many founders are not very, very technical. So it's not unusual to see a lot of copycats. So back then it was mostly consumer issues, consumer problems. How do I pay online? How do I pay for a Game, that kind of thing. Yeah, so marketplaces, logistics that surrounds marketplaces, payments that surround marketplaces. All these stuff things that are needed because it's very silo here and every country is different. So back then there has been consumer and fintech for a long time.
- [06:04]
B
Yeah, I guess I moved to Hong Kong from the U.S. i was in the U.S. for about three years and then I moved to Hong Kong about 2014 and that was the kind of. I was usually sitting in co working spaces in Hong Kong. Yeah, that was exactly the kind of companies I was seeing. I noticed I think trade Gecko is another one that you guys invested in. So that was definitely on my radar back then of a player. I think that's an interesting one. They were a bit more global though in the sense that that just happened to be a platform that was based out of Hong Kong or somewhere. But is that right?
- [06:34]
C
Yeah, I mean they have a Hong Kong office but headquartered in Singapore. They were started by Kiwi founders. It's basically an order management software for people who start online businesses which is literally the growth of marketplaces and Shopify and that kind of thing.
- [06:48]
B
Yeah. So I guess if we maybe fast forward to today. I think that's what I'm most interested today in a bit on if we take Grab as an example. So Grab for those that aren't aware is Singapore's Uber effectively and they have reached into other geographic markets but still Southeast Asia generally. So if I fly to Malaysia or to Thailand or something like that, I can usually open up Grab and there is now a service operating, especially the ride share model. But then seeing where they're going. For example they're into flexi loans now and I think the number of almost like 1.2 billion I think sing dollar maybe or if it is US but like a loan book of that size that to me says there's not a problem. But what's going on there in terms of how are these companies supposed to grow? To me that just feels like the wrong direction for a company of what it's doing otherwise. But I guess from the investment side. Yeah, I don't know. How do you look at that?
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C
I would say you can kind of compare Grab and Uber but then you can also kind of Compare Grab and WeChat. So Grab is a little bit more multi featured and they have different services and obviously once you're in many countries in the region you I think they probably have over 40, 45 million consumers from merchants to drivers to passengers and they've been operating for a while. So they have a ton of data. So from Right. Activity to payment industry. So this technically, if you want to actually build a credit bureau based on that, you probably can because most people have used scrap at least once by now. So this is something I would say it is inevitable if that's your strategy to provide more value to your consumers and not only passengers, it could be the drivers if they needed something, if they needed some loans quickly or even your merchants. So this is something I would say not every ride sharing company would do or try. But yeah, this is something they obviously did and they are doing very well.
- [08:50]
B
Yeah, that makes sense. Analogizing it slightly more to a WeChat if we look at again, just to take a comparison for a second, if we do take Uber, Uber technically I guess could have gone that way, having that touchpoint with so many people in the US but instead I think they are focusing much more predominantly on transport, especially driverless now, and are trying to play that game. Where is the divergence? I don't know. Where in your mind is it like that's why a US market player goes and doubles down on their core thing. And here we see them actually spreading tentacles into many other things which we see especially that influence from say the Chinese super apps.
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C
I think it's part of.
- [09:28]
B
Is it like Southeast Asia and the geography?
- [09:30]
C
I think it's partly strategy, partly cultural and then partly regulatory. Right. So if they go into fintech, there's another ton of regulatory requirements they have to do and there are incumbent competition as well. So potentially it is a strategy kind of thing. So it's like asking how come like Facebook messenger did not become WeChat. Right. So it's kind of the same thing. I would say it's probably more strategy than anything, but at the same time I'm sure they know what's happening around the world. So it's either they chose not to do this or they have plans, but not now.
- [10:07]
B
Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. And I guess now thinking about founders here, I became aware of you going through another accelerator here in Singapore, Por, and you kindly came and gave an hour long pep talk to us as we were navigating things. And that was just at the cusp of the AI boom. ChatGPT was out. But I don't think any of us even then fully got where AI was going. And we were still being kind of encouraged, not necessarily by you, I just mean we were encouraged in that cohort to really still look at the copycat model effectively. Think of these B2B ideas. Copycat and I would say no more than three months later, I felt a seismic shift between that kind of approach and actually, you can't really sit here and create something competitive unless you're basically competing with the US because everything is global now. And don't create AI. It's specialized on Indonesia, for example. You just create the best AI. Yeah. How are you now seeing that in terms of any investments you are making these days or just advice you're giving to people, especially in the region? Can you maybe just walk through what you saw? Because that was me as a founder watching from the outside a little bit or trying to understand what I was being advised to do, but as somebody who didn't particularly want to go and sit back in the US again, for example. But how would you look at it now?
- [11:33]
C
Yeah. So let me rewind back. I think back then when I was speaking, there is a period where maybe about a year where everybody don't really know what's happening. They're enjoying the products being released, they're astounded by the amount of money being spent, but then they don't know what's happening. But at the same time, there are people already shouting, what's happening? They're shouting, this is going to change everything. They're Shouting, this is 10 times bigger than the Internet. But people are kind of not listening back then. And actually that's pretty normal, right? Because generally you should not be jumping in and believing whatever people are saying right off the bat. You have to be a bit skeptical and trying to figure out what does it mean to you. But on the hindsight, what is actually happening is the people shouting are the top 1% of influencers and they actually know more things than everybody else in the world. So if they are shouting, that means you should be leaning in a little bit more. The problem is people do not know that they are the most important people in our current generation of AI. And then like you say fast forward three, six, nine months, then you're like, okay, this is getting real. You can see maybe the shift of venture capital, right? Went over to vc, it moved away from probably climate tech, right? That kind of thing. And it completely swung over. And it's like 70, 80% of the money went there. And because of that vacuum, which is Silicon Valley, most of the money went to the us it didn't go anywhere else. So then we started realizing, okay, there's something here. And then after one more quarter, we're like, it's still the same way. More money is just flying there. Then we realized okay, this is real, right? And then what you normally see is you see the ideas start changing. You see startups having AI everywhere. The top accelerators, most of the pictures are AI. So then you start the entire global. The way people understand this is definitely important. Started changing really fast. And then we start joking. Every startup has an AI. My grandmother knows what ChatGPT is, that kind of thing. Now, as of today, it is still going on. It's probably not stopping. Is there a bubble? There is a bubble, but it depends. So what I can explain to people maybe outside of the Bay Area, is if you're not in the US, you're probably about six to 12 months behind what's happening. And I say that a lot here in Singapore. So the only way to really understand what you should be building, you need to close the knowledge gap a little bit more. You need to be traveling a little bit, attending conferences a little bit. You need to be reading research papers a little bit. I think technical guys don't normally read research papers unless you were a grad student before. So it comes naturally to you. I can almost say most investors don't read research papers. So everybody needs to catch up. Now, most things are in English, most things you can find on podcasts like yours and others and YouTube channels. So you definitely can catch up. It just takes effort and a little bit of inquisitiveness and just keep asking questions. So at the moment, what we are seeing is obviously a lot more B2B, a lot more deep tech, a lot more founders who are highly technical. You can tell just by looking at YC's graduate pools. I hardly ever see MBA students anymore. Most of them are highly, highly technical. Or there were dropouts of MIT and Stanford. So things have shifted. Even the batches at YC can give you a signal. In the past, there's copycats from every country that will go to YC. Now you don't see that very much. Maybe 1 or 2%. The rest of them are global from day one. And it doesn't matter where you're from. There's a bunch of founders from Europe, but they are global from day one. Most of them will move to the Bay Area. So things have changed. It's pretty drastic change, actually. Probably it's been one and a half years. It's been like this, and I think it will continue to be like this for a bit of time. So I think here, I would say if our mode of operation has always been copycats, then founders here should be copycatting what's in The US which is actually happening. But to copycat this kind of stuff, it takes a different kind of founder. Right? So you need to be slightly highly technical. So we will see less startups being form, which is true. And then the teams are a little bit more technical than before, which is true. Then lies the problem. The problem is the region is probably too early for what you're copying. That's one problem. The second problem, the region might not be as big as you think. So I would say the AI copycats will still raise money if they focus on one country or the region. But how big they can be, that's a separate topic, which is exactly what we went through in back in the day, which is consumer and fintech. Now consumer and fintech, we are definitely big enough depending on where you go and timing. But not every idea is big enough. Even in consumer and fintech, not every idea is big enough.
- [16:18]
B
Yeah, I mean to take an example of just trying to think like when we talk about copycat, I can't imagine easily, literally just to go to one extreme, like an anthropic copycat coming out of Singapore in the next year, for example. But I could imagine like a Harvey Legal copycat coming. Is that more the level?
- [16:36]
C
Oh yeah, you can see it already. I think every country probably have three to five of these. And then at some point what will normally happen is lawyers are hardest to sell to and then they'll push back. And then sometimes the top down, right. Sometimes the law societies will ask the legal firms to try it out and they may give some incentives or grants. So there's a little bit of hustle and push from the industry. And then some of us will say there are three of you in one country and how many law firms are there? So how can I make my 20x return? It's impossible. Right? And then by the time you go to another jurisdiction, there's another five competitors, which is exactly what happened back in the day. Right. So every E commerce company has 20 copycats around the region. So it's the same thing. So you will repeat again. So then the question is, what do they do? So that is the challenge that most founders are facing now. Now, over the years, what has changed? We have a little bit more experienced founders in the region, we have a little bit more technical people in the region and their level is getting better and better, higher and higher because there are more R and D centers in Asia, including Australia and New Zealand and Taiwan, that kind of thing. So there are founders who maybe I don't do this Maybe I do something bigger, for example, maybe I do a Harvey, but for construction law. And I'm number one in the world, right? I just do something small, but then I'm number one in the world at something small as opposed to do something horizontal for one country, right? This is something the founders have to go through to quickly realize, okay, this is not big enough. This is harder than I thought. I am probably two years too early because the lawyers just don't understand. They don't want to use me. They don't believe in what I do, whatever reason. Or they might want to still charge that rate. And they don't want to perceive to a customer that they're cutting corners and still charging that rate. And then they don't want to fire half the team. So there's many, many political reasons. But this is what the founders have to slowly, slowly realize once they're out there in the market. And sometimes they realize that the market is actually too small and it takes too long. Sometimes the investors tell them, you should think bigger, and then some of them will change, some of them won't change. But that's the way it is.
- [18:51]
D
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- [21:01]
B
Thinking about Singapore specifically for a while there was an entrepreneur first cohorts used to be here and they dried up and left Singapore I think three or four years ago at least. If I looked at the one that I went through, I got the feeling there were probably less and less, especially international people maybe coming here for that. They would rather try and do the same one in a different jurisdiction. And the one that I went through not that long ago opened up a US version of what they're doing. So I'm trying to think when people hear that I live in Singapore, they say, oh, that's the tech hub of Asia. And I say, well actually I think it's got a bit of an identity crisis right now because it can be quite conservative in how it looks at investing in things generally from both, if you want to call it a government standpoint as well as private investment or VC investments. To me it's still looking for the safe investments, which is to me the ante of vc. So yeah, is it just, I don't know from what you're saying, are founders actually just saying, well, I don't need to come to Singapore to start a company if I want to start it from Southeast Asia and have a lower cost base somewhere else, to me that's never been a draw. I'm someone who's drawn to cities that I feel the networks are in that city and so on and so forth. I've never been drawn to find the lowest cost base and operate from there. But yeah, I'm trying to think and I'll just bring in Sweden for a second here. Sweden has shown that you can generate some really exceptional companies from quite a small population base and that does rely a lot on, if we think of lovable. For example, a lot of lovable team now is international, but they do relocate to Stockholm and they're working from there. So I'm curious why Singapore can't do that or where else in the region is doing that. I don't know.
- [22:53]
C
Yeah, yeah, good question. So I was speaking to someone from New Zealand yesterday. So I think I've said this before a while back where if you launch a company in Singapore, regardless of your background, right? So you can be local, you can be a foreign expert, been working in APEC offices space in Singapore, generally you are a little bit confused where you should expand to. So for example, because we are distracted very easily now partly because where we are from, partly because how we are as a country. So for example, we speak English, but Americans don't understand what I'm talking about because I speak too fast. I speak Chinese, but the Chinese have no idea what I'm talking about because I'm not Chinese. So founders back in the day, they think they can attack China. Then after a while they're like, okay, even the Taiwanese gave up, so I probably should give up too. Then they tried the US Then obviously back then the skill set, everything's not as good. And then we'll definitely do Southeast Asia, which is predominantly most companies I would say. So here is a little bit tricky where you either go China and then they shut it down or you go develop Asia which is like Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, maybe kl, maybe Bangkok, right? And then after that you're like, okay, this is actually way too small. Then you may try to go to Middle east, you may try to go to Europe, you may try to go to New York, right? Generally Bay Area is usually not like something people think about actually. And then Australia is one, Japan is one. So we are kind of like a little bit lost because we are being poked by different places. And then we assume we can do different places, right? So part and parcel of knowing maybe two or three languages, then we realize, oh, Indonesia is different from Malaysia. Vietnam is extremely difficult if I'm not local. Thailand and Philippines is quite unique by itself, right? Then you realize, okay, Southeast Asia is really, really hard. And then the only similar country is probably Malaysia. Even then when I add everything together, it's still too small. So after all this ding donging, then we realize, oh, we waste a lot of time. That's why I think Singapore is a bit. Sometimes they're spinning around a little bit. But Sweden and New Zealand, by now they should know that our home country is too small. Nordics is still the same. Europe is weird and doesn't make sense and if I want to dominate, I should go to the U.S. right. So in the same. It's the same thing. New Zealand will say New Zealand is too small. Adding Australia doesn't mean anything. Still too small. Asia is not New Zealand and Australia, China is not any of that. Right. So they know straight away they have to be either in the UK or in the US so they are less distracted. So that's why I would say by now, right, probably 2014 onwards, most investments, most founders, they know for a fact I have to think bigger, otherwise it's going to be tough now. Sometimes it's not I have to think bigger, sometimes it's I can think bigger, right? I am much more educated, I am much more experienced, I can do better, I can think bigger, I can be the company that go public in the us. I don't have to be the company that someone in the US will buy. I buy them, they don't buy me. So I would say over time confidence levels go up, which is good. That needs to continue.
- [26:14]
B
Yeah, I think that's interesting. If I think back to when Spotify was released, I was living in the UK back then. I think UK must have been one of the first markets they kind of targeted, I guess and it obviously seems natural that the US was another one. But yeah, I assume they didn't think to release it in Singapore at the same time as the UK for example. That just isn't a thing. So taking a slightly different example of late is this company Manus AI, which some of our listeners will heard about probably more recently because it was acquired by meta for about 2 billion at least reportedly. But this is a really interesting case. We have a monthly news slot. We did cover some of this in that. So apologies to anyone who listened and this is a bit of a repeat. But this is a company that did start in China and then re domiciled itself from a corporate perspective in Singapore and it's got American investors like Benchmark Global User Base. There's another example I'll give in a second where I work now that's a slightly different case. But Manus is. Let's stick on Manus for a second. Do you think this is more what Singapore is going to be helpful for? Kind of being that neutralizing ground for anyone that needs that?
- [27:30]
C
I guess I think that there is a trend, not because of Manus, but there is a trend before Manus for Chinese founders that wants to do global business to move out. Probably started somewhere in 2018, 2019, that's the first batch. We call them Zhuhai. Right. They're leaving the sea. And then with the geopolitics issues, I think if they can ever set up in the US and just move to the us, they would have done that. Singapore is probably a slightly easier way to do it. You know, the rule of law, IP protection, setting up companies, getting your visas done, you know, moving your family, that's actually easier in Singapore than in the us. So I would say that there will be more people doing this. Now, is Singapore a launchpad or a like a place of convenience? I would say is both. Right. Because Singapore is set up that way for many, many years. So. But do you forget the world? Do you forget not to go to the us? No. Right. Singapore is just a place where you have your apartment, but then you're just going to bring your luggage everywhere. So those teams will still be flying and then trying to figure out ways to set up, trying to figure out another visa for me to stay longer in the US whatnot. So that's probably what they will be doing. But the difference is probably they are doing a bit more consumer AI type product. Right. Which is what the Chinese is very good at doing. You look at the top games in the world, mobile games, most of them are Chinese. They don't need to set up an office anywhere. So maybe certain models, this works very well. But imagine if this was a company selling drones to defense in the us. I can guarantee you they will not do that well. So it all depends what they do.
- [29:09]
B
Yeah. Because the other example different but where I work today, Supabase, people think it's a US company and actually did start as a Singapore company and yeah, founded by a Kiwi New Zealand person and a couple of British guys. But I think that has, at least to me that's what drove the culture there of being a bit different as a Singapore founded company and we have many Singaporeans in the company, but nowadays it's a fully remote company, it's a fully async company. But the team that is based here is not a team that I would normally have come across. If I can say it's an interesting mix of Singaporeans with a very global outlook, I would say. And then just other people from around the world like Australia and Germany and so forth living here. I say that the majority of our employees do now live in us, so they are American people. But yeah, I think it's a shame that not the only reason for any means, but one of the reasons I wanted to join Suitcase was because I struggled to find any other company that I thought fitted that culture model. Again, just curious to get your take, why weren't there more of those? Just seemed like this could have been such a great place for so many people to take that road.
- [30:17]
C
My feeling is it's just confidence, right? It's just the ability to I'm going to start this kind of business and then just going to go global and then we'll see what happens, right? So I think back in the day, because I didn't invest in them, but I would assume it is a problem. They are saying there was not many good options and they're technical enough to try to do this and sometimes it is actually that way, right? So for example, there are really, really good technical people in Singapore and many of them have told me before, I don't know how long this was, I think I was in Sydney, I think I visited one of them. He works for Atlassian as well. So back then, I don't know where he is now. But yeah, you were saying I want to build things for my people, right? So I want to build things for developers and then I want to build things that don't exist. And many of them who have been through multiple copycat startups, they're like, I don't want to build another copycat startup anymore, right? Because they don't need to anymore and they just want to build something that I want, then build something that my people want, right? And if it's a small business, so be it. I don't have to raise money, I can break even right away. If it's a big business, then so be it, right? So I think that's probably what's happening. As you can see, there's a lot of dev tools, a lot of highly technical guys building open source things purely because they are just solving their issue, right? So my feeling is probably started because of that.
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B
It's interesting because in both cases it is more about what the product is that enables somewhere like Singapore to actually be a vaguely suitable base, at least to begin with. Or as in the Manus case, come over here to springboard, be more attractive to a US acquirer investor, that kind of thing. But yeah, as you say, there are other industries like military, drones, that's going to be a tough one to bring out of here. So I guess you as an investor now, are you still making the same kind of numbers of investments you used to make or just what do you look for? I think at some point you Talked about the 700 million number, this was like a few years ago saying if you're not going to get to 700 million in valuation, then it's not even worth our time kind of thing, which makes a lot of sense. But where is that number now? Or where is your investment thesis now? I guess so.
- [32:31]
C
I think the investment pace, we are gradually starting to go up. I think this year it started going up last year. Many people don't know. We stopped investing in April 2021. I think maybe you might not even know. So we drastically stopped in 21 because it's too high. And then we predicted the crash in 22 and 23. So for a while we didn't invest very much. We only do small seed deals. Then we started coming back in 25 and then 26 seems okay. So at the moment what I'm seeing is a few things. One is there will be companies started for the region, for potentially one country only. Potentially a few countries in South Asia. That's never going to change. But then the way we do, deals have to change. It has to be capital efficient because it's impossible to raise five rounds and be worth 50 million. Right. You have to know what it will be worth after 10, 12 years. And then we have to make money, which means everything needs to be heavily calculated, which means valuations need to be correct, amount of money need to be correct. When you break even needs to be actually quicker than normal because you can't raise more money to dilute because there's no money. If you're worth 15 million in three years time, five years time, no one's going to give you 10 million, right? All these things need to be calibrated for Southeast Asia companies.
- [33:49]
B
Also looking kind of relative to say five years ago or before that, as in when you were still investing pre 21. Can you just give some sense of difference there? When you say valuations have to be calculated and breakeven has to be sooner, what does that look like relatively? And what has changed? Not just in your mind, but what has changed?
- [34:09]
C
I guess not much have changed. I think in 2019 we started using more data and trying to figure out stuff. I mean, for example, Right. So like a simple analogy would be the US market is 30 times bigger than Southeast Asia. Right? But how come our startups in Southeast Asia is 30% lower in valuation? Like shouldn't it be 30 times lower? So this thing just doesn't make sense. And then we have one unicorn every five to six years. In the US it's probably 80 unicorns. Every year. This alone doesn't make sense. And then the number of trillion dollar companies in the last five, 10 years is heavily skilled to the U.S. it doesn't happen here. So if you look at law of large numbers, you look at power law distribution, you look at the amount of money being raised invested versus pricing, it doesn't make sense. The speed that revenue compounds also doesn't make sense, right? So over in the U.S. you know triple, triple, double, double is very normal here you're really good to get 2x every year. 2x is super, super hard to do. Sometimes even getting to a million ARR takes about four years. So things, things are very different here. So when you calculate that and then you calculate your fund size, then you realize if you really want to make money as a vc, everything needs to change. Now your fund size cannot be too big and we don't have a lot of money in series B and C. So it's actually harder to raise later stage rounds, right? Which means you need to do extremely well to raise money or you're profitable enough to raise money or you're big enough to raise money. So when you calculate all that, you need to work in the funding landscape who invests after you? Because I cannot invest four rounds myself, I probably can do one and a half rounds, right? So I need to factor in all these situations. Then it's very clear that there is a mathematical formula to do this, especially outside the U.S. and once you are slightly clear, then you kind of know, okay, if I'm going to do this deal, this is my expected return. I cannot dilute that much. The pricing cannot be more than this, otherwise there's no point. Right? And then that's the way it goes Right now the second group of investments would likely be the one we've been talking about so far, which is launch in Southeast Asia or Singapore, or can be kl, can be Bangkok and then go global from day one. Right. So that's probably more the trend at the moment. It doesn't, it is not a lopsided trend. It's not like 80% of startups are doing this, but it's much bigger than before. So you know, if you go to New York, you will see Southeast Asians coming through. If you go to San Francisco, you'll see some of them doing business, having clients, doing meetings. They may not be moving there, but they're there, right? So it could be trade shows, could be conferences. So people are moving around, people are traveling more, you can kind of tell. And it has changed. Is it A lot? Not really, but it has changed. The founders are thinking bigger, having more confidence. They are really asking questions and they're trying, they're doing their best, they're trying, right? Can I compete? Can I compete? Can I compete? So they're not self doubting, they're not having limiting beliefs and say, no, no, no, I'm not good enough. They're legit trying to figure out how can I be good enough.
- [37:26]
B
I think it was interesting, you very kindly gave a bunch of slots to founders a little while ago where you said 15 minutes or something and you would give advice. I was one of those, which I was very thankful for. And the advice you gave me at the time was go spend more time in the US And I think that was great advice and that was exactly what I needed to hear to decide I didn't want to pursue my startup.
- [37:48]
C
Did you go?
- [37:49]
B
I didn't go. And I think maybe for other people, founders listening today, they might say, well that's ridiculous. That's what being a founder is. And I would totally agree. I think the difference is I have been a founder in the past, run a company for 10 years, decided to leave the US at some point, move to Hong Kong, move to Singapore. And I thought going to the US a lot of that would probably mean at least have the open idea that you might move back to the U.S. obviously, administration notwithstanding. And I made a very conscious decision that was not where I wanted to move to. So it was really helpful. And I guess I'm curious, was there any broad brush advice you ended up giving to a lot of those chats? Was it the same kind of stuff or from what you remember?
- [38:34]
C
Yeah. For those of you who don't know the context, I think I did open call for office hours online and people can book 20 minute chats with me. I may do that again. I don't know. I had like 50 people reach out. I spoke to 20 something, 25 or something.
- [38:47]
B
Really, really amazing.
- [38:48]
C
Yeah, that was interesting for me. It's the first time I'm doing it and there's a reason for that. Right. So on the morn, if the investors are sitting there complaining, there's no deals, then that's not helpful. We should be actually talking to founders, trying to help them fix their ideas so that at least if you want to see something exist in the world, I can tell the founders, if you do this, I'll fund you. So that's probably the reason why I did it, is to make sure that at the ideation level, whoever needs help I can try to give some help, but whether it's talking to them or talking to other companies recently, maybe at some incubation programs or whatnot, I think the two things tends to keep coming up. Number one, understand the problem statement really, really well. And for some reason they don't understand what that is. And usually they try to do too many things right. They are a little bit unfocused, and then they're always, okay, where's my icp? I don't know. I have four industries talking to me, but I want to do all four industries, but I'm not good at all four industries. So they're kind of like spinning again. Kind of like spinning. So the first thing is, yeah, make sure the problem statement is really, really, really hard. And then make sure your solution is the best in the world. That's the one that is the trickier one. But how do I know it's the best in the world? Yeah, because you have not traveled, so you have no clue. You don't know means you don't know, right? So. Or rather you don't know what you don't know. So you need to collect as much information as possible. So sometimes it could be a European team doing something, but then I'm like, bro, there's like seven companies in the US doing this. They've probably been around longer than you. Can you at least benchmark yourself with them and do it better? I would say there's a bit more startup research that founders don't do enough of, which is exactly what 2021 is. The reason why we didn't invest is because the founders are not doing research, the investors are not doing research. The blind are leading the blind. So I think with the current AI bubble, that's probably going to happen this year and next year, you see all kinds of ideas being pitched and none of them have done enough research. So I would say your question, it will be mostly understanding the problem really, really well and then making sure you are the best in the world at doing this. Now, if the problem is niche and your eventual market size is small, it's fine, right? I haven't invested in you yet, so your data collection is for you to digest, right? And if you want to continue, then continue. And then maybe that means you raise a small round and break even. That's it, right? Then have a small team and that's it. So this is for the founders to realize, right? And then if you want to continue, carry on. If they want to think bigger, carry on. If they want to do More R and D and attack a larger industry, carry on, but at least they kind of know where they're heading. Similarly, competition is another thing. That's something they probably need to do a little bit more of. But I also recognize the stage. Right. Sometimes they are still early in the. In the ideation, so they haven't have had time to do more research. And sometimes they are not from the industry. They have to do a lot more work to try to understand what's happening. Yeah, but that's the typical stuff that we normally see.
- [41:48]
B
Yeah, that's really great advice. When I first moved to Singapore, I was the CTO at a company called Blackpanda, which is cyber security and cyber insurance. And our play was to do that, but very much in the region. But the CEO, one of the best things that he did was send me off to the US and say, all right, I've got you meetings with the CEO of Blar and CTO of Blah. And it was in an industry where the U.S. still, I would say, leads the way when it comes to commercial output of cybersecurity solutions. That was just so helpful to understand what was there right now. And these were companies that you just wouldn't hear about otherwise. You needed to be really embedded in the industry. And then you'd go talk to someone and they say, oh, well, now you need to go to see this other company, actually. And the interesting thing there, it didn't feel too. We were asking for any secrets because we were just saying we're doing the same thing, but in a totally different geography. Same thing holds true. Just Going and traveling and talking to people. And I mean, I get to do a bit of that, obviously, just through sedaily. I get to meet all sorts of companies. But I think it's fair to say, because listeners might just say, well, I can just listen to se daily. Then I say, no, actually, the companies here are still probably on the later side. We're not featuring companies that are three months old or six months old. They tend to be two years old or more. So it really is go especially to the U.S. talk to people, find people. I think that's great advice. Well, Geoffrey, thank you so much. It's been great to have you on. I've been really keen that we get to show a bit more from this region in tech on this podcast. So this is definitely hit the mark on that, and I'm really thankful you've been able to come on. So. So thanks.
- [43:30]
C
Thank you for having me. You're welcome.