EP 293: In Southeast Asia, there is a lot of future to be built

What was covered

A wide-ranging interview on building companies, being acquired, and moving into venture capital in Southeast Asia. Jeremy shares what he learned as a founder, how the founder-to-VC shift works, why the region needs patience, and the success and failure patterns he sees, especially around unit economics.

Key points

• Early-stage building is harder than it looks, mostly because you don’t know which direction to take
• Co-founder fit matters; advice is useful but has to be tested against your own situation
• Selling a company brings both relief and a sense of loss, including an identity shift from founder to employee
• Coaching carries over from founding into VC, where it is the main way to support founders
• Southeast Asia’s VC ecosystem is about a decade old and is several distinct markets, not one
• Jeremy is more optimistic on a 50-year view than on the 10-year horizon of a typical fund
• A key success pattern: explain a local problem clearly enough that outside investors see why it matters
• A common failure point is unit economics, where low willingness to pay squeezes margins and unclear margin definitions mislead teams
• Profitability and exits need discipline from founders, VCs and boards; rushing growth can hurt

Outline

• —Background: Singapore, Berkeley, Bain, a social enterprise, Harvard MBA, an edtech exit
• —Lessons from a childcare startup and going from zero to one
• —Being acquired and the founder-to-employee shift
• —Returning to Singapore and moving into VC
• —The Southeast Asian VC landscape, success and failure patterns
• —Profitability, exits and long-term optimism