Southeast Asia 16 Years Later with Michael Smith Jr & Daniel Cerventus Lim

Reuniting after more than a decade since their days in This Week in Asia Podcast from 2009, Michael Smith Jr., co-host of The Generalist podcast, and Daniel Cerventus Lim, semi-retired entrepreneur and community builder in Malaysia, join us for a candid assessment of Southeast Asia's tech ecosystem evolution. In this raw conversation, Michael offers his unflinching perspective on what he calls the 'broken windows era' of Southeast Asian tech, arguing that recent alleged fraud cases like E-Fishery and Tanihub require serious consequences to restore investor confidence, while questioning whether the region was ever correctly modelled for Silicon Valley-style outcomes. Daniel shares his pivot from startup founder to search fund advocate, explaining his bullish view on acquiring profitable traditional businesses and reflects on whether the region's potential was genuinely unrealized or simply impossible to achieve. Together, they explore the shift from venture-backed unicorn dreams to bootstrap realities, debate work ethic of Southeast Asia founders in comparison with Chinese and Indian founders, and discuss why the future of Southeast Asian tech may lie in smaller, profitable exits rather than the massive IPOs once envisioned.

"I think wealth creation here is very SME-focused." - Daniel Cerventus Lim

"Basically whether, it's SME or startup, to me now it's just: can you build a profitable business?" - Bernard Leong

"I have this philosophy that I think people don't agree with me, but we're in a broken Windows era of Southeast Asia and the only way in my opinion, the windows get fixed is if some of these people are behind bars." - Michael Smith Jr.

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Daniel Cerventus, Bernard Leong & Michael Smith JR
[00:59] Introduction: Daniel Cerventus and Michael Smith Jr. from the Generalists Podcast
[06:00] Multiple alleged frauds in Southeast Asia: E-Fishery, Tanihub
[09:57] Southeast Asia in "broken windows era"
[11:26] Only exits from seed to Series A
[11:47] B rounds virtually gone, A rounds endangered.
[14:00] 50-100 million exits still viable
[16:30] Malaysian crypto companies globally focused
[19:25] Country expansion model in ASEAN doesn't work
[23:02] Israel model: never think local market
[24:15] Razer story: HP Mafia network backing
[25:07] Supabase: not really Singapore capital, but globally successful
[30:18] Chinese founders arriving with speed
[31:19] Work ethic comparisons with India
[32:34] Search funds emerging in Singapore
[37:25] Mainstream media ignores bootstrap success
[39:50] Search fund model targeting aging operators
[41:21] SME vs startup distinction blurring
[46:20] Hedge funds questioning regional companies
[49:32] Unrealized vs impossible potential debate
[51:07] Bangladesh ecosystem showing promise
[53:20] Structural exit issues remain unsolved
[54:31] Reset creating better founder discipline
[55:40] Optimistic on Southeast Asia's startup ecosystem
[57:21] Closing

Profile:

Michael Smith Jr., Tech Evangelist from Oracle & Co-Host, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smittysgp/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGeneralistsPodcast

 

Daniel Cerventus Lim, semi-retired entrepreneur, Community Builder in Malaysia and TEDxKL founder. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cerventus/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/80164351656

 

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I think the wealth creation hereis very SME focused basically.
Whether it's SME startup, I don't see a distinction anymore.
To me now it's just can you build a profitable business?
Yeah, You know, I have this philosophy that I think people
don't agree with me, but if we're in a broken Windows era of
Southeast Asia and the only way in my opinion, the Windows get
fixed is some of these people are behind bars.

(00:24):
Welcome to analyse Asia, the premier podcast dedicated to
dissecting the pulse of business, technology and media
in Asia I'm Bernard Liang and this reunion is a long time
coming with me today two very old friends and I think it's
started all before analyse Asia has even been started we.
Have a date well. We started somewhere around
2009. I mean, can we say that like we
started before podcasting was even a thing?

(00:46):
Yes. About the.
Other thing I would say is Can you imagine if we had just kept
going? We even own the whole Asia
ecosystem, but because no one was doing it then.
Right. It's a weekly show.
Man, it was so tired. We can always restart it back
now. These people like retro anyway.
I know. I'm just saying like if you had
those years in arrears, as in wehad kept going.

(01:10):
Well, now we have nice setups here like in Portsmouth when.
Did you pick up and do analyse Asia?
That was 2014, second of September, so.
You about a five year in betweenwhen we stopped.
No, we, we stopped somewhere around 2012.
That's. What I'm saying, we were so
early, it's crazy. I mean, it's all.
It was like manual files, you'd upload the files.
Oh my God, do you remember there's no zoom?

(01:32):
There was Skype, remember we hada Skype recording plugin that
uses it. Yeah.
I, I want to first introduce youall.
Why don't you introduce yourself?
Maybe I start with Daniel 1st and then it becomes media was
now. So podcaster, you're coming into
the game. He's the guest.
I'm the guest. I'm the guest.
Hi, I'm Daniel from Malaysia. I I run a community of
entrepreneurs semi retired back in a.

(01:53):
Can you explain the retired thing?
Yeah. Yeah.
I, I think about six years back,I, I fell, I'll, I told my
partner to buy me out and so we had cash like OK, sure.
And I just decided to focus on my health, focus a lot of my
health, travel. Then I end up building a

(02:15):
community. I think we have now 230 or 1000
members now. Wow.
Yeah. So, but it's just for fun,
pretty much. Malaysia community.
Malaysia community. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And you come to Singapore more
often these days, right? Yes.
Yes, yes, I'm in Singapore for personal and business reasons
too. Good reasons, Smitty.
I'll leave. I'll leave that.

(02:36):
I'm. Going to get it.
Come on Smitty, you should introduce yourself now.
Now you have a podcaster as well.
It's not so much that. So yeah, Smitty or Michael,
we're here in Podster, which I'minvolved in.
So I, I think this has been pretty amazing for the Singapore
ecosystem in general. Yes, not just for podcasting,
but just like creators and the community events and stuff.

(02:58):
So yeah, it's cool. So I work at Oracle, I should
disclose that so I don't get in trouble.
And then, yes, I'm trying to podcast.
I've been at about a year, me and Raz.
It's hard, you know it. Yes, I know it.
It's been harder than I thought,actually.
It's called the generalist, right?
The generalist Yes, you'll. Put it in the show notes.
But it's fun. We're learning and we do it all

(03:20):
ourselves. And yeah, I'm going to keep at
it and keep kind of evolving. Because 14 years later.
Yeah, yeah, I do wish I had justkept going with you guys or
myself or something. But you know you can.
You know. Maybe.
It's 2020, right? So.
Maybe nowadays people like retro, maybe we can get.
This maybe we have back, you know, do this monthly or

(03:42):
something. Daniel's in town more often for
some reason. That's something we can do so.
Well, you understand that mean to talking about this some of
the topics. I think the good news for us is
that we have seen the entire. Yeah.
Should we say that's kind of what we used to because this is
different than your show, right?Yeah, We just kind of disclose
what we what we used to do. I think it predated Google Docs
too. I can't remember.

(04:02):
No, we were using Google Docs right?
Gosh, yeah, I think it was just the Google Sheet.
Google's Google's that old, huh?Yes, yeah, they are with us all
the while. But we used to, just like we did
this week, put a bunch of topical items in the sheet.
And we're not copying all in, bythe way, because we were around
before all in the and we just chat about it, right?

(04:23):
And kind of take contrarian views and enjoy ourselves for an
hour and then somehow figure outhow to edit it and upload it and
all that crap. Yeah, and we have five guys.
Remember there was also Mike, Phone and John who unfortunately
couldn't join us for today, but you know, because we just last
minute. Where are they?
Where are these people these days?
John is John is doing a lot of whiskey stuff actually.

(04:44):
OK, yeah, he's an alcoholic. He's in a whiskey ecosystem
basically. Got it.
He's going to start podcasting on whiskey too.
I. Think, I think they do, but I'm
not too sure. But we also used to have like
the folks from the various tech sites all around the region,
basically. Yeah, we used to invite people
the. Drama like John Russell.

(05:05):
Yes. Quite a number of random folks,
actually. I keep trying to get John on,
but he never leaves Bangkok. So yeah, Hey John, if you're
listening, you can't cheer your butt over to.
Someone might be in get a partner in Thailand.
Yeah, there are studios I believe.
Yeah, there's, there's one there, I think.
Yeah, last I saw John was at thewedding.

(05:25):
Yeah, no. So let let's get in.
So like, and it's not just this area having a problem.
I just heard on one of the showswhere I was listening in my car
where it's like eight. Oh yeah, tech tech ride home,
right. We're like 18% of the latest
rounds for like the non AI related stuff have all been down
rounds in the states, which is apretty big number.

(05:48):
Now you see it happening here. Sorry, we'll name names.
It's no offense to people. What ninja van what cut in half?
Arguably probably always overvalued.
Now it's just coming into reality.
I hear there's more coming alongthose lines because there's a
cycle. These guys that all need to
raise because they haven't in a couple years, there's no way
it's going to be done on normal.And a couple of frauds as well.

(06:11):
Does it lingo? More than a couple.
Fraud E Fishery fraud. There's a lot.
There's a lot of. And I can't think it's just
Indonesia, right? But it's getting.
It's probably worse there. I mean there's one in
Philippines, right? The first Unicorn was
preformatted revolution as well.It was broke.
All the stories were broke by New Street Asia and a couple of
the other outlets as well. I.

(06:31):
Have a story of meeting that guy?
Tell me. Yeah, it was like I can't, it
was for the VC stuff. And yeah, I was wondering, I was
at C plus, right And they wantedto meet.
There was something in Singaporebecause they were here and I've
obviously here and they like, wanted to meet.
And it was this really weird, like, oh, it has to be exactly
this time at this cafe or something.
And I was like, look, like, here's my schedule.

(06:54):
Like I can't make that time. And then it was based like, oh,
then we don't want to meet you. It's like, OK, fine.
Glad it went well. Like, yeah, you always, to me,
like there's always these opticsof when people are a little too
weird and demanding, it kind of tells you something like, yeah,
that was a big one. I think E Fisheries is epic.
Now you have Tanihub, which is finally what actually grabbed

(07:17):
one of the VCs. I'll leave that one alone
because I know that person too. But yeah, but you could imagine
where there's smoke, there's fire.
There must be many more of them.The the.
E fishery thing is getting actually pretty scary because
it's kind of like it's pretty sophisticated because it was
round tripping and people didn'tsee coming.

(07:38):
Tanihub appears to be round. Trips also the same same.
With the finance are being involved and that's the one
thing I wonder with E fisheries like there's probably a
financier involved it. Seems to be.
There's been a few people that I'm, again, I'm not going to
name names, There's a few peoplehave now gone dark on LinkedIn
in the Indonesian ecosystem thatare part of that circle of
financiers. You can't ampersand them anymore

(08:01):
and they don't post. So one wonders what's going on.
But I don't see how you do something at the scale of a
fishery where there wasn't the capital stack somewhat involved
is a guess. Definitely involved in Tanihub,
right? But yeah, where else is this
stuff? Right.
You know, it's kind of surprisedto me that Bloomberg painted
such a sympathetic picture to the Father E Fishery.

(08:24):
Comically bad. Yeah, I was very, very
surprised. Usually if this would be in the
US, the guy would have been skewered to that by now.
To help people. No, but I guess that's always
the optics about this region. It's like there's so much
growth, there's so much potential, and you don't do
like, poison the well. I don't know.
It's yeah. They're supposed to be, you

(08:45):
know, this is the Bloomberg. I think what where Gruber, every
time he writes about Bloomberg, he writes this is the thing that
did the thing about the chips that turned out to be fake and
they've never recounted it. Right.
Yeah. So something like that, They're
just people. Too, let's be honest.
But yeah, that was a comically bad like, let's make this guy
like a hometown hero who happened to make a mistake.
Yeah, but you know, like I, I see Jeremy in his podcast keep

(09:08):
telling talking about this. I think a lot of the local
community are really frustrated about what had just happened.
With that article or just in general?
With in general. Well, I think it's, you know, if
you talk to anybody, the funds are having a hard time raising
money. The startups are having a hard
time raising money. I know a few fairly good friends

(09:29):
in the Indonesian ecosystem and they're basically like, we're
screwed. Like even if we're legit, we're
having a hard time raising money.
And I, you know, I have this philosophy that I think people
don't agree with me, But if, if I think it's, I have to look
this up, I think it's in the 70sor something.
And it was Mayor Giuliani, I think, who's kind of a nut job

(09:50):
himself, but he had this philosophy that if you have
broken windows, and it's called the whole broken windows, that
you got to go fix them up to make the place look better.
Otherwise people won't. And I, I think personally, and
I'm and I'm definitely a curmudgeon at this point, we're
in a broken windows era of Southeast Asia.
And the only way in my opinion, the windows get fixed is some of

(10:10):
these people are behind bars. And until some of the countries
go all the way and there's people doing time, I suspect
there's not a good bounce back from that because we've
basically been painted into this.
It's not a very trustworthy. Now we can all say, oh, if you
have a Singapore top coat and OK, fine.
But generally speaking, we're all being painted with a fairly

(10:31):
wide brush that's making it hardfor funds.
It's, it's, it's, it's definitely going to impact the
exit market. And I think you know the returns
have not been great anyway. So the UPI is very bad, right?
Is there any? Is there is.
I think if I'm not wrong, one ofthe VC firms was behind Grab
and. Yeah, I think look, they're.

(10:53):
A small that's for tax basic. They're a return.
Yeah, they have returns. They return capital and, but is
the. Region in an aggregate return
no. I think the.
Region is very bad, yeah. I mean, I heard from somebody
when I was at the E 27 show where someone joked that
seriously, they said that in 1/4the only DPI came out to be
fisheries and secondaries. And of course, that's all you

(11:15):
know, and that's the other thingthat makes me mad, you know,
some people have made money frombeing able to sell their
inflated shares. But yeah, there's there's
actually a a stat that one of our partners pull up.
I think the paper is not out yetin probably September.
A lot of the exits that where people make money is like during
the seat to Series A, Yeah, basically, yeah.

(11:37):
And anything beyond that is likeyou're just like sitting waiting
for. Go to strike, but it's going to
be difficult, right? Because there's some seed funds
still available, but now there'sno more AB rounds.
I think B rounds are virtually gone.
AI think is in danger of disappearing because the VC
funds, even they get to the third fund, they cannot proceed

(11:57):
because the DPI is so freaking low.
I think their first fund are in trouble as well.
Then where are we going to go? No, and it's about time for them
to actually return the fund anyway, so.
Well, Dersheen like is one of the because again, I don't I get
painted with this. I'm just so negative but I'm
still here. Brush Dersheen is pretty good
and. Yeah, and.

(12:18):
And, you know, sold his start up, No, no capital.
And he talks a lot about that. Like there's kind of a reckoning
that has to happen, right? And and he even wrote like ninja
vans, one of the pieces of it, it had to be cut in half.
And, and his view is a lot of things that's coming and funds
and maybe some people getting introuble.
And then on the other side of this, maybe there's a reset

(12:41):
around B to B because remember, this also has this like B to C
era that didn't really work, notenough B to B thinking Southeast
Asia is this autonomous addressable market and it's not
right. We know that.
And then also probably not enough B to the world type of
startups that, you know, it's all got to have a reset.

(13:01):
And I, and I know from talking to people like Tiang and Jeremy
Tan, of course they're believersand they'll say the most
positive things they can becauseit's the business they're in.
But I think generally every feels like it needs to get
cleaned up, right? Yeah.
But then you also see bootstrap companies do well and I want to
be very clear here and I've beensaying which.

(13:23):
Category are you in with your? My current category I'm
currently in the AI space and I'm trying to just see strap
one. Round No.
Do you raise? Do you?
I did. I did.
You did. Family.
Family and friends. Right, angels and angels.
OK, Angels. But they're not not.
VCs, Yeah, yeah. No, no, no.
There is AVC involved, so. As an Angel or as AVC?

(13:43):
As an Angel, I think, or those VCs, yeah, there's a part of it,
yeah, yeah. No, I think there's a big move
towards that and I'm encouraged by it.
I think they won't create the size of companies though that
are venture back for the ones that can do well.
But maybe that's OK, maybe that's.
No, it's the new reality of it, basically.
I had Mohan on the show and he was talking about that you don't

(14:05):
need that kind of what billion dollar outcomes.
If you can get to say, somewherebetween 50 to 100 million exit
RAM, it's still possible, even if it's a dividend, even it's
to, you know, return by maybe 18to 20 X.
Yeah, I think founders can do quite well.
Like there's the one listing that's happening in SGX, It's HR
tech. Yeah, and it's not a lot of

(14:27):
funds raised. They own a lot of it.
And you know, a few $100 millionbills going to put more money in
their pocket than probably a couple percentage ownership of
something that's 100. You know, it's actually AHR
software, surprisingly, it's old, right?
Yeah. And you would be surprised if I
tell you Airbus, Rolls Royce, a lot of the European companies

(14:47):
are customers of this particular.
Software. Classic enterprise software.
Yes, it's a classic enterprise software.
If the interface is not great, it's like a 1990s type of
software. But it works for them.
It works for them, it makes money.
But I, but I think what you're describing though, what people
need to realize is this is not going to look like Silicon
Valley or India or maybe London or something from a European

(15:10):
market like Southeast Asia is going to be smaller.
The outcomes are going to be smaller than the and, and I
don't, but that wasn't what was intended or what people thought
could happen or you wouldn't have seen a $40 billion back in
our backyard of people were thinking in terms of hundreds of
millions of dollars, right. So for some people, I don't know
if that, you know, like I, I my hypothesis for a lot of people

(15:34):
when I talk to them and you're in the start up land and your B
to B is like get on a plane, move to America.
You, you could have a bigger business if you want.
Now what you want is this lifestyle and live here.
You're probably going to need toreset the bar a little bit.
It's not going to look like the Valley.
Yeah, it's, it's not going to look like the Valley.
And even the way I'm thinking about my business now is
actually outside of Singapore inthe more developed cities of

(15:58):
Asia Pacific. When I'm not talking about the
likes of going to KL or Thailandin Southeast Asia, I'm going to
the likes of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, or maybe
the top tier cities of say, mainland Asia.
Yeah, not Southeast Asia, right.Even Taiwan is considered a
pretty reasonable market sometimes for for that.
So it's changed a lot in terms of perception wise.

(16:21):
But I also did want to point outsomething Malaysia has the most
interesting crypto companies andyeah, pretty.
Pretty successful once you're coin the.
Cool you have. Peter Scan.
Peter scan. We have the one.
Virtual, yeah, which I happily advised.
Yeah, no, Malaysia has. Malaysia is always weird with

(16:41):
crypto. It's not something that.
Jupiter. Jupiter is there.
Yeah, yeah, Jupiter is there as well.
Sorry, Seong Solana. Yeah, there's a, there's a
whole, there's a whole series ofthem, and they're all very
clustered out together. I think the the triangle of the
coin geckos and Jupiter and and also ethers can tend to seem to

(17:04):
fund a lot of them and I think there's a good network and
ecosystem over. There, yeah.
And then they funded some of thebreakout companies in Singapore,
like Nansen AI, which was fundedby Anderson Horowitz.
So what are we talking about? We do have some good companies
running around. Oh, no, I, I yeah, that's why I
said there's not like there's none.
And I but what I'm saying the general where there's a

(17:24):
suspicion that there's a lot of them and that it's going to be
able to support as many funds aswe see.
That's kind of what I'm calling and that's now remember that
started to happen, right. You have what's the one
Indonesia just sold out the PE firm.
Trying to remember. Blanking on this man.

(17:47):
The one that was, yeah, I'll getit.
Keep talking. Yeah, well, I was going to say
that the crypto companies are not like their market is not
Malaysia, not Singapore, not Southeast Asia.
No, it's global. Yeah, it's global.
Yeah. So it's global since day one
mostly. So that's, that's the, that's
the reality of that's the reality.
But you know, what I like about the Malaysian crypto companies
is that they are also the enjoy investors to some of the most

(18:07):
interesting crypto companies, whether it's in the region as
well. And they have all been, yeah.
I think it's, I think it's the culture for them.
They take bets basically like whenever there's a new project
or something like that, the stick bets, stick bets, stick
bets. Yeah.
And that seems to be something that is it keeps snowballing in
terms of what they're doing. Right.
It is a bit strange because I deal with some of them when I

(18:29):
was investing in crypto and it'slike.
North Star. North Star.
Yeah, North Star is about that, right?
So it's like when I was dealing with the crypto investors from
Malaysia and because we're looking at some of the seed
deals like HQ dot SYZ, which recently got acquired by Gnosis
as well, even though I don't know them, but because Sharon

(18:49):
have who's who I've found that happens to know them.
It's like it seems to be like once there's a very interesting
crypto company within the region.
They they are definitely there within there.
So I think crypto wise is probably the only but I.
Think that's one like I, you know, some of these people like
coin get like target particular countries because of the
regulations, the way they launch.
But I think a lot of them just build a product and anybody can

(19:11):
use it. And I think that's one of the
things that allows them to have a market.
But if you look at most products, even your, you can't
just open it to the world now maybe you can get there.
So I think that's one of the problems that, you know, most of
the playbook in Southeast Asia was I'm going to open in
Thailand, I'm going to open in. Vietnam, but that's, that's the
thing they're always looking at like we're looking in different

(19:31):
cities. We're looking at like, oh, we
have a country manager here and it's, I don't think that that
structure actually works in thispart.
Basically if you go on the scale.
It's tough, right? It's tough, yeah, but what's the
road? Ahead going to be right, the DPI
is down, so you're going to see more bootstrap business, you're
going to be see less VC business, but maybe better
piece. On the business, I'm a I'm a big
believer of the solo Unicorn, so.

(19:53):
Oh, solo Unicorn. Not yet.
Not yet I. Mean it was just like we're
aging to that. I think the solo premier thing's
real, yes, but again, these are not going to create.
Monster companies now that's OK,right I'm not saying it so I
still think it's it's a different ecosystem and it's but
I I agree that with AI and with what some people are doing, you

(20:15):
know smaller companies with lesscapital are going to be able to
build businesses and if they choose to be here, we could say
their companies here. I still don't see a lot of them
here though. To be honest with you, no.
No, the AI builder. Or they're not talking about
themselves. No, no, no.
The AI builder ecosystem is relatively small.
I think a lot of it are still inwhat I call the product market

(20:36):
fits stage. That includes myself too.
I think at this stage, yeah, well, I have customers who want
the product, but what the the point?
What I'm saying is before I could even think about scaling,
I think a lot of the effort now is trying to make the AI work.
But of course, every every six months now I'm seems to be
getting an upgrade in AI, right.So I find that they tend to be

(21:00):
more focused on getting revenues.
I, I spoke to a couple of Silicon Valley founders based
here and flies back to Bay Area every six months.
It's as if like they just treat here as some development centre
and then they just move back like.
Yeah. And I think the only contrary to
a lot of this is Fintech and Suretech.

(21:20):
Things like that seem to be doing better than most.
That's true. You have aspire probably.
Boltech, Boltech, there's Koala in Indonesia.
There's plenty of you know, thathave raised decently, still
raise have good and I put that in like what I kind of think of
as the finance stack. Yeah, you know whether and I

(21:40):
think that has worked in the region and that's built some
pretty big companies. What's the one in Australia, the
payments 1 Alex yes, so but that's kind of like a small
portion of the overall startup thing.
But I think if you still look atthe funding charts, they get the
majority of the money. You see, you know, I always find
it very weird when people say Australia is like barren, but

(22:03):
they have Canva Atlanta. I don't know why people actually
say that to be. Honest, seriously, I yeah, I
agree with you, right? There's some some people just
tell me Australia and nothing, no, this one of those guys.
Down there, have you been hearing about main code?
Yeah, David Lempers, then Lempers.
He's he actually he came from AWS and then did a crypto thing
and that's funded this I believe.
So this thing called main code, what they're building is they

(22:25):
want to build sovereign made in Australia AI stack.
The whole thing basically says like ChatGPT book for Australia,
where the data, what it does andeverything is made by them like
hand rolled. So I do think you see a lot of
innovation in Australia, but their markets are not big enough
in themselves to support, you know, like a Canva could ever be
big in Australia alone. But I think that's why it works.

(22:49):
You know, it's no different thanwhen you talk to Raz about
Israel. No start up in Israel thinks
about the Israeli market. That's right.
They immediately are and that's it.
And that's the thing, like he always been baffled by this
place, right? He's been here about 2 1/2 years
now and he's always been kind ofbaffled where he's like, he says
you should just be more like Israel, you know?

(23:10):
But you, you know, that's, that's The funny thing, Like
we've been talking about this, what, 14 years back.
Yeah, yeah, we're still talking about the same.
Thing I want. To say because because nothing
ever because there was a different narrative, right?
And May and and we have to admitwe were all part of that
different narrative. Let's be clear.
I don't want to say that I'm perfect and said we should all
do B to B, whatever, but it was a different narrative.

(23:31):
But, you know, they're literallytold or thought when they want
that they'd have no market there.
They go to US very quickly, theyget funds quite quickly.
He's baffled at the risk aversion of easy NVCS and the
lack of big concentrated bets. And but, but what would you bet

(23:54):
on? Because a lot of things are not
trying. You know, that's why I've always
been impressed by Razor, where it's truly is a global company.
I probably don't know enough about all the.
Origins, the story is a little bit different because the, the
Angels, the Super Angels that back him, one of them was the
it's called the HP Mafia, HP alumni, they call it In fact,

(24:14):
most of today's MD's of maybe the different things like the
Oracle, most of them retired recently, but they are all part
of the Angel network and they funded Razor.
And what they did was to get Razor into Silicon Valley.
And essentially it's sold to US,but built in Singapore.
I think Super Base is a very interesting company.
Yeah, doesn't get talked about enough.
You're actually not, you know I.Yeah, in the US now, right.

(24:37):
Well. They're not Singapore and
they're built. No, no, I wouldn't even actually
like they're not really here, right?
Like they're, I think the BD guys here and the.
It was a COVID project. Yeah, yeah.
So that's why. So they were stuck here, but the
one founders back in New Zealandand the other ones in the US and
one's here and then and they're 100% remote anyway.

(25:00):
I and I don't know even know if they're actually a Singapore top
Co anymore. I'd have to ask.
I believe they're a US top coast.
But now they have become a US top coast.
I believe they maybe always were, they were just stuck here.
I can double check on this. But yes, great example.
But you know what it's a great example of?
There's no Singapore capital in that company until peak later.

(25:25):
I differ because I know one of the angels who's involved in the
deal in Singapore. Yeah.
No, no, no, not VC. Fine.
Correct. You're no, you're right.
You're right. Yeah, correct.
The Angel meeting means nothing to me because you could get an
Angel check from California and I can invest in a That's not
what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the Singapore
capital stack is not in super base.
Only peak I believe is in one ofthe later rounds.

(25:47):
It's like how to and you know, so it's not a good point out who
missed out. I suspect they didn't even
bother. It's it's, it's like notify also
basically notify became big, butnotify none of none of the
Malaysian investors are in basically.
In what thing? Yeah.

(26:08):
In what? Notify is this what they do?
They do Oh I really do not know how to describe notify every
time but they they are big with like front end designers.
But how much did they raise? Like oh, Netlify, Netlif, how
much have they raised? I cannot recall, yeah.
I'm just saying that like Superbase is this, it's not
really a Singapore story right there.

(26:29):
Some of the people are here, some of their senior execs are
here, the rest are 100% wrong. And it's not even a Singapore
capital story, which kind of shows you the problem if you ask
me. I'm guessing people look and say
oh, databases infrastructure runfor the hills.
You have the same thing with is it Hasera that object where they
like tried to raise here and I think they raised all.
Community, I have a anecdote that I want to tell you that is

(26:51):
actually very illustrative of Singapore tech companies in
Singapore not getting local traction.
So you probably now see this thing called Lion's bought in
now in Changi airport. So one day the guy who runs the
Changi Airport was in Norway. They actually originally the
company was based here. The three founders, one of them
was a tech guy. The two founders is in the

(27:12):
cleaning business and he createdthis board and then Singapore
didn't want it. They then one day the VP went to
the Nordic airports and suddenlysee these robots and he asked
like where do you get these robots from?
From China? He said no, it's from your home
country. And then they were like what?
You know, this is the kind of thing I always see it happen.
But you know this, I mean, there's a candidate saying,

(27:35):
which I'm going to paraphrase like basically, you soak the
salt water, come back. Yeah, correct.
And The thing is like, we only appreciate things that are.
From other places. Yeah, other places.
I was like, the founder told me this story.
I was like, yeah, that was how we became big.
It was like, because all the European airports started using
it. Somebody from Changi Soy and

(27:56):
then Opes. But I think the problem too is,
and I'll be careful here, the world is heading towards that in
some sense. If you take Super Bass, they
have no office, I believe. And like, let's pretend it's a
Singapore topco and Riddle me this and that there's no benefit

(28:16):
to Singapore other than the topcoat thing.
I don't. And like my future vision of the
world. This is going to be a problem
for Singapore because it's not going to be that the employees
are here. It's not going to be that
they're going to get much money from the operations of it, but
the financial machineries here and everything like that.

(28:38):
But if you look at all the stuffthey want, they want that.
You have bodies here that you employ people.
All the incentives are for that.And that's in a world of where
we're headed. It's a problem right for
Singapore because there's no incentive for the Super bases of
the world to make everything. Here, Yeah, even that regional
HQ thing is not going to work out.
Now you can see most of the techcompanies are moving out to the

(29:00):
regions. But that's like, you know, you
want to talk about why, yes. Definitely.
It's not because they don't wantit to be.
They're basically saying my people can't afford the type of
lifestyle that when we used to pay them, they could have or
that it's actually cost savings for them and they're just, and
they're shipping them to Bangkokand Malaysia and other people.

(29:22):
That's also not great, right? Our good friend moved to Johor,
by the way. You know, right?
So it's like that. She's should not reveal her
name, but she basically, she basically, well, just like, oh,
when she needs to be in Singapore, she comes out in
Singapore. There's a lot of people doing
that. Yeah, actually, to be quite
honest, you know, like the best health check I got was actually

(29:43):
from Johor, which I got it at 1/3 of the price in the best
hospital in Singapore. That's good enough for me.
But it's good enough. You know what?
Every friend, friend of mine who's experts are asking me, do
you have the, do you have the contact number?
I'll just say here's the number of the person in charge.
Just call. They even arrange a vehicle for
you to go there and have your full body checked out with MRI,

(30:05):
blood test, everything. Same.
You go to Bangkok and like. Yeah, same with Bangkok, right?
But you know, but I guess what I'm saying is what does the
future hold for all this? If you're saying like if we kind
of bring this back to the startup ecosystem?
I, I just want to add one more variable into the mix.
It's actually one of the things that has been happening in the
region is also Chinese founders.I, I know we don't, we don't

(30:28):
meet them often. I do meet some of them, I think
coming here. Yeah, yeah.
I have met like the largest equivalent of CVET in China and
they're doing 4 times larger than what CVET is doing in the
US and the founder has just set up here, very quiet, started
building relationships. You don't want to do it in

(30:49):
China, yes, right. Like that's and that's a
testament to Singapore, don't get me wrong.
And maybe those are some of the inevitable.
Consequences. Yeah, which is, but I think
that's a good thing. Yeah, you're getting the 996
founders showing up here. I'm more worried about them than
thinking about US founder comingto Singapore.
I'm not worried about US founder.
Yeah, I'm worried about China's speed.

(31:10):
More than to be your competitor.Yeah, yeah, yeah, it can happen.
Don't be so so you. See it in the FB industry right
people are talking a lot about. And I shall not restaurants, I
shall not name VCs, but I know avery well known VC from China
who moved here and she only looks for China Chinese founders
in Southeast Asia. Yeah, because of the what she

(31:31):
believes is the work ethic. Yes, because she has seen the
best of the alleys, the Baidus, of course.
You know for her everybody is you need to be in the bar,
right? China speed.
You, you and I spend a bit time in China on and off, and then,
you know, it's like crazy. Like it's one of those things
that I'm like, OK, I'm not goingto even touch.

(31:52):
Well, I know like some Indian kind of super angels that
they're literally like, we won'ttouch S these days because
frankly, we think no one's actually working hard enough
because they're all too comfortable already.
And I think it's probably a fairstatement.
I. I think it's a fair statement,
yeah, Because I feel like working 007.
But if my surroundings nobody's working, why should I care?

(32:14):
Yeah, yeah. Like I'm not saying people
should work that way, but what I'm trying to say is this
vision, that of the size and velocity and, and let's say
exits that would get created. It's all going to come down.
Or let's say it never got up towards a a huge notch because
there's none of the pieces to make it so right.

(32:36):
That's that's my general. And I always tell people, if you
really have the talent, you should go to the US and you'll
or you know. Go to your market.
Yeah, where your market is. Well, but the, but the, your
market's wherever you want to create it.
Do math. How big is the market here for X
or Y or Z? It's not big enough for most
things right now. Again, if your ambitions are a

(32:58):
little bit more reasonable in that I don't need a lot of
capital and I can build and I can still sell something for 40
or $50 million where I'm pocketing 25 or 30 and there's
no capital gains tag, that's a pretty good outcome.
And I, and I don't know why morepeople don't see that and
celebrate it and get into it. You're starting to see that

(33:19):
because of the search funds. So the the search fund thing is
happening now in. Single concept because I think a
lot of people don't. Is basically.
You look for something. Yeah, it's a mini PE business.
Yeah, OK. Think about it as a mini PE.
Basically what you do is you have a, you do a search fund,
you say OK, I want to raise 40 million, OK, I have found this

(33:41):
business to acquire and these are not sexy business.
These are things like maybe a company that used to do ball
bearings, but they are ball bearing supplier to say Bosch or
something like that. And what I can do is I can turn
the everything, the capital properly and then I make it very
efficient and run it as more than the big PE.
And then usually about probably 6 to 12 years, they will just

(34:04):
flip it out. And this is your kind of what
you talk about, right, The 4050 million business.
But in the search front context,because they raised from a group
of LP's like AVC business, the founders typically only get up
to the management usually gets up to somewhere around 10 to 20
percent, 20% if you're really lucky, but most of them 10
percent, 10% on on there. So, so that's that's the.
No, I and I think there's a bunch of alternative models

(34:26):
that, you know, if, if I didn't have mouths to feed and school
bills and stuff, I'd probably bea little bit more aggressive,
you know, something I talk about.
But I think there's to distress things to buy in Southeast Asia
that have been over funded and over valued.
And I've been involved in one ofthese deals personally.
And you know, you're, you're telling people to say, do you

(34:46):
want 0? Because if it doesn't raise any
more money and goes out of business, it's zero.
Or would you like to take a haircut that maybe half or more
And we will keep operating this thing.
And by the way, a lot of your high paid employees are going to
have to go along outside of the deal because that's one of the
reasons the places make money. And then you turn around and

(35:08):
make these things work. I think this can be done
multiple of them, kind of like roll ups of the thing.
And I know people that are looking into this.
There's, I think there's with AIand what you're talking about,
there's a different way of even doing venture studio work or
solopreneur work. But multiple of them, you know,

(35:29):
you still see John Banner Bear as somebody I always love to
talk to because he's doing this.I think he's on his third
company now, lives in Bali and never raised a dime.
And you know, he used to do his open startup thing and he was
approaching five, 600,000 USD inrevenue on Company 1.
And I think he's on Company 3 now, right?

(35:50):
Like this can be done, but I would still say as an ecosystem,
we don't talk about it that much.
We, it's not that we because it's not as interesting, right?
No, no, no. Let's be clear.
We talk about it, except the mainstream media not talking
about it. I guess it's not that it's not
interesting, but it's like you don't have the you don't.
It's like, OK, this is consistent revenue.

(36:11):
Where is the? Oh where is the exit maybe?
It's much to. Ride.
About. But there also probably hasn't
been enough sales of these things because I don't need
people. Well, some don't, but I don't
need to. Sell no, you don't need to
because you think about that what the AI revolution and
brought about. I mean, for me now I'm, I'm just
going to the PE funds or the search funds and say, hey, I
know you're rolling up this thistarget market.

(36:32):
I happen to be the one doing thedigital transformation for these
guys and these PE guys are yo where you can help us to improve
efficiency. We'll give you the whole
customer. You just come and build for us.
That is actually a great business to do.
But I don't see, I don't see a lot of founders in in the tax
base thinking like that. They are like they will tell me,
but but you know, it's so dirty.What's so dirty about doing

(36:53):
that? But this, this is the this is
the lagging indicator of this region basically because yeah,
correct. And I have people who in the
startup world, they got into a garlic business basically.
Yeah, 10 mil PAT, you ring it, of course.
But hey, that's really, really good.
Yeah, just like the ball bearings business.
I'm I'm not joking. There's.
A friend of mine rolling up mom and pop laundry shops.

(37:15):
Oh yeah, no, that seems that seems to be the such fun joke
actually. All the time, no.
So there's other things to do, right?
And I, it's just like that's a different ecosystem from the
traditional raise capital, have funds, invest in things.
And, and again, you know, I havealways said I, I, I felt what's
broken is there's no exits still.

(37:38):
Is I I feel so there's there's another problem.
I find this is my current feeling with a lot of founders
because of the 2021-2022. I find that everyone, every
founder I met, is always wanted to fundraise for the next stage
and I keep telling them you can make a profitable business just
without that and. They yeah, that's a Dirch.

(37:58):
He talks a lot about that. They've raised way ahead of what
they need. That's right.
So I actually don't understand why would you want to raise like
I actually like getting some distress calls sometimes and and
I'm trying to talk the founder out and just tell them who are
your customers? Like I start asking those kind
of questions. Well, I.
Think there's a whole cohort of these that remember they haven't
become profitable with that money anyway.

(38:19):
There's a whole. Cohort of these that need to
raise correct that are either going to take the haircut or go
out of business or become profitable because there's
there's no checks for most of them.
I don't think the VCs are funding or.
Fixing it. That's why I told my team when
we when I did my first race, right?
I just say, guys, this is all the money we're going to have.

(38:40):
Yeah, good luck. If we are dead, we're dead.
Very SIA of you. Why?
Oh, that's what that's the mandate for SIA.
This is the amount of money, yeah, you're going to get any
extra. Yeah.
But my team was harder than that.
And they just say, OK, we are going to try to get ourselves
revenue positive first to break even, then think about
profitability. But at least there is a kind of

(39:01):
mindset being put from the day one to say we're not going to
get anything more than this. So you're biased towards search
funds? Yeah, yeah.
Because you're involved in them or what?
I'm semi involved in them so. He knows one of the search fund
guys I'm working with. Explain the bias just so.
So basically I started off I think last year, basically a

(39:21):
whole bunch of people have been asking me about buying some
business. So we end up setting a brokerage
outfit and from the brokerage outfit we're like, OK, let's
let's build some, let's build some deals around that and say
Oh my God, this business are really profitable.
I think one of the key things that I'm really looking towards
is basically there is a ageing population of some of the

(39:42):
operators. So 2030 is where Malaysia is
officially ageing population andtalking to them is like, OK and
and the other question for us isalways like this is like, OK,
that's AI. That's this whole question of
AI. Like can AI disrupt garlic, a
garlic business and do we still need garlic with AI?
Yeah. So This is why I'm very

(40:04):
optimistic about it. So not so we're raising
partially for some of the funds,so more SPV focused, so very
specific either to do roll ups and stuff like that, but.
Specifically, specifically, we're working with a couple of
partners, including some of the partners that Bernard mentioned.
I think we can do a shout out toGencap basically.
Yeah, Gencap Eric is running it.He used to be an ex startup

(40:27):
founder and he has now gone to the search fund site and he's
looking to basically acquire profitable business, roll them
up and really make it up into a big business.
And I think that is a very sustainable.
Model and I and I. There's nothing sexy.
That's the. That's the fun.
Part but like, is there something sexy about heavily
funded money losing startups with no exits?

(40:49):
Why did we find that attraction?I think there's drama for that.
I think it's just because the way we write about it and talk
about it, I don't actually think, again, like until you
show me more people with Ferraris in the parking lots in
Singapore because those are expensive that have come from
startup. Well, I don't understand where
the sexiness thing has come from.

(41:11):
Again, that's because it's modeled after another region or
two where that creates large wealth.
We've had all components of it, but the wealth creation, that's
right. Well then it isn't that
attractive. I think the wealth creation here
is very SME focused basically. I find that actually now where
there is SME start up I don't see a distinction anymore.

(41:32):
To me now it's just can you build a profitable business?
Yeah, I agree. But remember, you're still going
to have dynamics like a super base that truly is.
Correct, right? Venture back phenomenally
ridiculous growth. OK those will exist and if they
exist great for them because they have good venture backed
business and venture capital shouldn't be funding every
business. Like wait I remember you wrote

(41:53):
this article about you know, just because I rolled the dice
and say that the other 5 is should be out, I shouldn't be
funding the other 5 right? Exactly, I agree with you.
I agree with you on that. I think that was the correct
mindset to tell someone of thesefounders who keep one thing to
raise the next round. What is the next round?
The round is now. Get profitable, get fit, get
lean, get lean right. So I and your revenue is

(42:16):
funding, right? And I and I think Alex, there's
a guy like Alex Dweck is the COONas IO, right?
He's based here and he was at Grab.
He was a growth guy, Grab and everything.
And one of the things that his view on this is, is we don't
have a hero around here or very outspoken person who's run this

(42:37):
playbook and has created wealth in multiple business talking
about it. Now.
They may be here, don't get me wrong, but you don't see them
anywhere. So take like in the stakes, Alex
for Mosey, I mean, there's like 10 I can think about the one
that does all the storage facilities.
You have a bunch of people in the US ecosystem that are also
popular on YouTube or podcast that espouse this playbook only

(43:01):
not raising funds, multiple businesses, very wealthy.
You know Alex from Mosey's, like, ridiculously wealthy.
And it was from. Gym.
Yeah, right. And then he's done other things.
Cody Sanchez. Yeah, Cody Sanchez, you know
what I'm saying and what Alex says.
There is no Cody Chan, says Alexfrom Mosey for Southeast Asia.
And that's actually, I think if you get back to where you model

(43:23):
things, we've been modeling something that doesn't work in
Southeast Asia, but we have no other model that we are modeling
where it works and there's an A personality attached to it.
But do you really need a personality?
Yeah, so. So someone.
I think so, I think. Inspired the next generation,
yes, but I think a lot of the business I'm.
Not saying you can't do it without a personality, but I'm

(43:44):
saying is you're not going to have it.
The excitement and the volume and the, in my opinion, the like
activity around it because there's, there's, you know, you
have nobody to kind of say they've done that.
So, so just just like you, when I was on my way, I was listening
to a podcast about talking aboutChina and, and the one thing it

(44:05):
was I think was Lex Freeman asking this Chinese economist,
now a professor in London Schooleconomics.
And she said, and Lex Freeman asked the same question.
Why is there not not like any other entrepreneur like Jagma,
you know, And then she's like, well, if you are a Chinese
entrepreneur and you're really worried about that one day
everything is taken away from you, you shouldn't, you
shouldn't speak out. But that's a different problem,

(44:26):
right? Because.
But I also think that there is some.
I think that's the case here, right?
Like because you have other are things that are.
Yeah, but. Celebrated.
I'm just saying I don't think there's like a, a training camp
of this type of information because if you go and talk to
people, what they think they should do is do a start up,
raise money. They they think that's the model

(44:47):
and you have so many people doing it.
We all know there's so much posers in the ecosystem and
there was plenty of capital to hand those money.
It would be nice to have a different role model, right?
And I think some of the way someof the other funds are talking
about B to B and like Jeremy Tanwould like, I think it's the
rhino thing. And so like, you see some
elements of this and I think it's improving, but you still

(45:08):
don't have the more of like whatI think of as the portfolio
builder who is in tech, who is in Southeast Asia crushing it,
multiple businesses, never raised a dime from anybody.
There's and you OK, you could say, you know, these people, I'd
love have some names. You don't see them.
No, now maybe they don't want tobe seen.

(45:29):
Don't want to? Be they don't want to be seen I
I'm pretty sure because hanging out with family offices.
And then you get the ones that you'd I built, though.
You get these ones that talk about this on LinkedIn, have
lots of videos. Again, I'm not gonna names that
they don't have the business behind.
That's right, the philosophy. But that's what I like about a
Cody Sanchez and always like they're legit.

(45:50):
The personality. Yeah, and legit creating
ridiculous sums of wealth and writing books is like, I'm just
saying, I wish there was some ofthat in Southeastern.
I think a lot of them don't. So for example yen Zeus founder.
Basically Zeus was mostly he hadto exit earlier with his her MO.
Then he mostly bootstrap Zeus toa certain point it's profitable.

(46:12):
Zeus Coffee. Yeah, Zeus Coffee, they only
starting taking investment when they start to scale actually.
So it's not it's I love that. One business.
Yeah, that's that's. Yeah, that's.
Talking about the portfolio guy.I know.
So. So I mean, he has some other
stuff, but it's nothing as big as it was.
Basically, yeah. Well, when we talk about this,
do you see now like for example Grab, I know they just had a

(46:34):
pretty good quarter? Yeah, they're coming into their
own, but I forget what the market cap is.
Anybody know? Oh no, it's still very.
It's still below the. Price.
Of this of this background. Proves the point though of like
they were only really meant to be the size that they are and
they're going to do great and start throwing a lot of cash.
But they also been buying a lot of traditional business.
And they're going to get expensive and you won't use them

(46:55):
as much, right? But become a conglomerate like
everyone else, right? They've been buying a lot of
supermarkets in the region. Just one group I.
Think I think Jaya and then the ever rice.
Yeah, because it's the DoorDash model.
They want to be able to supply the item to you.
No, I have a bad respect for what they've turned into.
I'm just saying it's a good example that you know, come on,

(47:16):
you remember when, when, what's his name goes on the all in and
talking about the $40 billion SPAC.
And. You know, and I remember, I
still always remember this because this was during COVID.
It was the guy from yeah, Gerstner.
And like, you know, that he couldn't come here because it
was COVID, right? And I don't even know if Anthony
was maybe going to the US and probably have permission to come
back. I have no idea because that was

(47:37):
when the deal was getting done. And I remember listening to all
of them with Brad on it. And he said that like.
And I just like choked on, I think the coffee in the car
because he goes, you know, there's not a day goes by where
the average Singaporean is like booking their ride, buying their
insurance and getting their noodles and and have their
wallet all for me. And I'm like, I want to like is
where you wish you could pick upthe phone and they would have to
answer you go, dude, are you smoking crack?

(48:00):
It's like I try all three ride things.
I hardly buy the food from them because it's expensive.
I'm definitely not putting my money into their wallet.
And like, no, I don't buy my insurance through them either.
So however you model this 40 billion, if it's based on what
you just said, no wonder why thethe numbers were just.
Ridiculous. Let me give you another

(48:21):
antidote. Because of Analyze Asia, I get
hedge funds from the US calling me asking me is Lazada real?
Is Grant real look? At those are the questions they
ask me about isn't shoppy back to record evaluation?
Yes, and I actually had a lot ofshoppy made some money and then
it just cratered. Yes, but shoppy's now SEA.
Sorry, SEA. Yeah, C Group.

(48:43):
Did a good job. No, but they're back to record
valuation I think. Chinese founders remember the
996 mentality. But they're here, though.
Yeah, they're here. So it's it's like that's what
I'm saying, right. Maybe we need those ministry
from Chinese. But you literally have just a
handful of these things, right? Like a very small number of
these type of things that have hit this kind of success.
Well, you know half the By DanceCC team is living here, right?

(49:05):
Yeah, in Santos. Yeah, I know.
But it's still a handful, basically.
True, true. Not enough critical mass.
Yeah, no, so I'm just saying like it's a different ecosystem
that I think a lot of people, you know, if you go back 10
years, what what everybody thought it would become.

(49:25):
And again, it's just a thought anyway.
It's, it's looking much different than that.
I'm not saying it's good or bad or indifferent.
I'm just saying it's looking much different.
Maybe. Maybe I.
Have a question? Yeah.
I have a question. Yeah.
So basically 10 years ago, 14 years ago, basically is this
unrealized potential or it's a potential we can never mental

(49:46):
heat? Oh, that's a very good question.
Again, I think it was modeled incorrectly and then we it was
never going to get hit especially with the fact that no
one thought about the fact therewas no good exit market and
that. No, we talked about that, I
remember. We no good stock exchanges, no
regional Stock Exchange. You know, I, I, I'm continually

(50:06):
baffled. We need to like look through
like. No, no, I'm willing to issue a
bad you, me, we have always saidthe exit RAM was bad.
Yeah, not enough stock, the Stock Exchange.
I mean SJS doesn't allow the world share structure and all
the I mean. Inexpensive to live?
Yeah. And and.
I mean, I've always been baffledwhy there still isn't, even to
this day, some thought about a regional startup.

(50:27):
Boris in ASEAN Now. It's because everybody doesn't
want to set their ego aside and work together.
I get it. But you could imagine it
working, right? I could at.
Least yeah, I could imagine it working.
Or you could do these fifty, $100 million things and the
Thais can buy and the Malaysianscan buy it, and then they like
it could be done. And you would think SGX and MAS
would have to lead that charge. But I know these other countries

(50:49):
are going to put their ego down because they're going to say
their exchanges are bigger than ours, but whatever.
Like, yeah, but I always thoughtin lieu of that not happening
and the other problems, it was never gonna do these things.
And then only a few of them would reach that what I call
like escape velocity to be able to list in the US But we

(51:09):
literally only have a couple examples of these.
You don't. Remember just now you asked me,
you were saying that nobody evertalks about conglomerate.
Actually, I have an example. You probably went to Cambaro
Bakery. I know the owner.
He actually have multiple businesses now.
He has a hydrophonics farm. I, I met him and he's a great
guy, right? And even, like when I hear the
way he talks about like the exitRAM, he's thinking about, you

(51:31):
know, thinking about not this thing in Singapore.
Yeah. So I think that is actually a
very good signal. Where he's like totally a
Singaporean. Yeah, Singaporean business, but
like, why should I be listing here?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.
And I've always been like someone enamoured with the
Bangladeshi ecosystem, right? Because now again, the the proof

(51:55):
is not in the pudding yet, but if shop up, which combined with
that Dubai entity and Peter Theofunded it goes public, it's
going to be a quicker road and more value than almost anything
that's come out of Southeast except for a grab and a few

(52:15):
things all completely from Bangladesh start to finish again
with, I don't think a lot of it ASEAN VCs in it, even though the
accelerators are in it. And then you got multiple of
these. You got prio shop.
You got one in the insurance thing.
And then if you want to see 996,it's that crew, right?

(52:36):
Like straight up it's it's Bangladeshi founders lived
overseas, learned how things work, got help from Singapore go
into Bangladesh and very, very strong worth that could working
towards profitability for a lot of these companies raised good
funds with an eye towards going public.

(52:57):
That to me is is going to show some competition in Southeast
Asia because and again, they're pretty honest about it.
It's like it it's like 1 island.It's one it's a huge
demographic. It's all mostly the same
language. What's?
The demographic. There or the size of it yeah,
few 100 million people it's got,you know, fast Internet, but

(53:20):
it's also like doesn't have a bunch of things like the wallets
and the insurance and the and it's kind of got that like India
velocity to it was some of the Southeast Asian thinking for how
to build stuff. Right.
So just now when he asked that question, right, it's about
what's the same. And I think we all talk about
the same, the lack of exit and all that, right.

(53:40):
But maybe maybe just take a reflection back and I want to
ask the reverse question, what is different now because I I
think when we first started off that 14 years ago.
When we small white hair or. No, I guess.
Or just the ecosystem? Yeah.
Because yeah, the ecosystem. What I think like if you're
asking me because this is important to me because I've

(54:01):
gotten in some heavy stuff on the show with my stuff and I
don't we're going to be out of time soon.
I definitely don't want to, you know, a negative note because
that's. Not yeah, that's what I'm trying
to say. So and I and I get it.
So if I'm thinking from that, but I think there's been
somewhat of a reset, I think it's probably going to get even
a little bit harder before it gets better.
You know, you have start-ups that have, you know, 9.

(54:23):
I think I was talking to prefer guy nine months to raise funds
or something and like, but you also see coming out of it some
more interesting founders that are building more of a
personality for themselves, looking to use the new the way
podcasts were better. Be more careful about cash,

(54:44):
talking more about profitability, being very razor
sharp about their GTM and markets.
I feel like that's creating a vibe shift of shorts right of
sorts that's coming. And you know where it ends.
I don't know. And I think now you have VCs
that are talking this way that are focused on B to B.

(55:05):
Obviously people are the AI thing is real.
We all know that, even if other people think it's not.
Yeah, I think it it we'll see better days, right.
But I still think there's some structural issues to keep
working on for the exit thing. And that's starting to happen
with the new, you know, administration and some of the

(55:27):
work they're doing with Tomasic and SDX that I that to me those
are green shoots. I think if we keep heading in
that direction, I suspect it'll look a lot different than it
thought it could have looked like, and it'll look a lot
different today, but maybe it's a better thing.
But I'm not quite sure exactly what it's going to be.

(55:47):
But I feel more positive that the dialogue is happening around
this, right? I think people are quite quiet
about it for a long time and I think now people are just
openly. Openly.
Maybe we are, I think. I think people have been bruised
basically and it's a as a recovery period.
You have liquor wounds. And I'm honestly optimistic

(56:10):
basically both on the tech side and on the taking over
traditional business side. They owe it strangely more
optimistic than last time actually in terms of like a
smaller team, you can build it lower cost, you can get
distribution to, yeah, a lot of channels basically.
So yeah, that's that's my thought.
I I just think I'm always optimistic, so I always been

(56:33):
keeping optimistic. I've been in the game Spectrum.
You know I'm still. Getting into the game, No, no,
no, no. I appreciate, no.
I like what Smitty is saying. Sometimes I think he's saying
the things that a lot of us don't want to say it.
And I feel like, yeah, I, I don't, I like, yeah, you're
right. You know, even if like.
It's not so much a right thing, it's just, and I'm always have
to like, you know, put some preamples out there.

(56:54):
I'm not a founder. I did wear VC hat for enough
years to feel like I understand how it works and tried to give
it a shot. I'm not a founder.
I have helped people raise money.
I have not raised my own and I sit on some board.
So I, I feel like I'm enough of an insider.
But again, I'm not a founder andI, and I am always careful to

(57:14):
say that like what you do and some other people do, I have not
done and maybe don't know how todo.
And I know that you would have to be more positive than I am
because of the of the chair you sit in.
You'd have to be where I'm more of a pundit in a that's like
looking at it and having my that's.

(57:35):
The. But that's OK, yeah.
That's the thing we need. There's no right or wrong,
right? Yeah, I'm reflecting about
coming to this whole 1011 years.I'm just like, well, it's still
great to have you guys as friends having private coffees.
And when we think about it, probably we should do more of
this often, right? Yeah, let's see how this goes.
Let's see how the traffic is. But yeah, yeah, no.

(57:56):
And I think that there's not enough of this right in in, you
know, because like if you think of the shows, maybe you tune
into like I listen to yours. I don't know how many people
listen to mine. I but.
Let's I'm listening. I'm watching the video by the
way. But let's let's be honest, I
suspect the majority of your listening is US based content or

(58:17):
maybe China because you can listen in Chinese.
I don't know like how much of what you listen to and learn
from and model comes from Southeast Asia Creators 0.
Just be on. I just said about 3.
Yeah, and let's put them in the show notes because I think we

(58:37):
good, I'll put mine, but. Jeremy.
Okay, I'm saying I'm not, but there's just a handful of.
Jeremy, you are a 2 and I now listen to Christine you because
she's in UAE and she's covering the UAE scene.
So it's 3 already. So it's getting better and I
think Podster is also helping. But you know what I'm saying?
I would bet 80% of your consumption, just like with

(58:59):
movies is coming from. I won't say it's the US, but
let's say out of the secrets andbut I suspect a lot of you.
So so so so. I'm hoping to see that in.
OK, give me your recommendationsthen.
Any recommendations? I always have to close off, you
know? Like in general like like.
What inspired you recently? You know my my closing question.

(59:21):
I I feel very strongly that I need to help create content that
is meaningful and useful to people because I feel like
there's not enough of it emanating from this region.
And like I don't talk a lot about that from the, the notion

(59:41):
of the generalist because Razz and I kind of, but that's what I
feel like when I talked to Alan soon, like I, it gave me more of
almost like a burden on me that like, and I'm hoping people
learn from it and I'm hoping I'msurfacing people that people
haven't seen before because they're not the famous people.
And you know, that for me is what?
And I'm hoping it brings more discourse and dialogue and and

(01:00:01):
you know, I always say leaves the place better than.
Before. When before when we leave it
that. That's what I hope to do.
It's not easy and I'm not sayingit's even working, but that's
what I'm think about doing. Oh, this is a hot pick.
Maybe the coffee break, actually.
So it's a daily newsletter in Malaysia that.

(01:00:23):
E-mail. E-mail.
Yeah, e-mail newsletter, Daily stuff.
It's a summary of news happenings around Aaron.
That Aaron, the guy who curates it, basically will throw in a
lot of random startupy stuff. He's Full disclosure, is one of
my advisor, basically, yeah. Coffee talk You.

(01:00:45):
Know coffee break yeah yeah coffee break so cool stuff
actually it it seems like someone out the way I would
describe it is similar to someone who has ADD and decided
to these are the news that I need to read basically so yeah,
that would be mine. Just one last question, how did
the audience find you? Definitely.
Please plug your show. Yeah.
I mean, it's the generalist you put in the link that.

(01:01:05):
You just go to the general. But LinkedIn is, you know, where
I'm mostly been doing stuff. I'm not on social that much
outside of LinkedIn so. I've been very quiet so getting
trying to be more active on LinkedIn but Instagram will be
Bobby where I met. If not, you can find me in my
group basically. Yeah, OK.
And of course, you have all three of us here in many things,

(01:01:28):
guys, really that. Was fun, thanks.
For for. Having.
This episode and I think let's do more of this more.
Really missed this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's good. Thanks.
Awesome.