What I’ve learned after one year at Tech in Asia

Dear Readers,

I just hit my first anniversary as Tech in Asia’s chief operating officer, and I thought I’d use this occasion to make my debut on our weekly commentary, sharing some reflections about my journey so far. 🎉

This last year has been intense: I dropped into a leadership position at a startup that was recovering from a rough patch. In my role as COO, I had to orient myself within the company, industry and the region. Our founder and CEO Willis Wee did a great job sharing his experience on our Startup Snapshot podcast a few weeks ago.

As background, I joined TIA after nearly four years at Apple – first in Silicon Valley, then Singapore. Being new to Southeast Asia, I wanted to learn more about the local tech scene. So I found myself attending the TIA Conference, reading news from TIA, and eventually using the TIA Jobs platform to search for new roles. When an opportunity from TIA popped up in my feed, I decided to apply because I believed in the company’s mission to build and serve Asia’s tech and startup ecosystem.

Then things went haywire. I originally signed up to lead a new business unit for TIA. During the first meeting on my first day at work, I was told that our former COO was resigning and I needed to step up. The team was still recovering from a round of layoffs in 2018, and employee morale was worryingly low. Also, our financial forecast consisted of a slim revenue pipeline and tons of burn. I had to figure out how to turn things around quickly to build a profitable company, against the background of the media industry in turmoil.

I was looking for the adventure of startup when I left Apple, but this was WAY more than I bargained for.

But I’ll cut to the chase: We did it! We rebuilt 40% of the team, doubled down on core competencies, reworked our business model, and challenged ourselves to upgrade internally and externally. We ended 2019 as our best year to date – not only did we have significant revenue growth, but it was also the first profitable year in the company’s history. Other big firsts included providing our employees with medical insurance, a company-wide retreat to Bandung, and year-end employee bonuses.

My first year with TIA stretched me in every way possible. And even though we still have a long way to go to achieve our ambitions, here are some lessons I’ve learned so far:

1. Emotions matter. I came in right after the layoffs, which dampened company morale and left many people shaken up. In the beginning, I spent a lot of time just listening and talking to people to understand how they felt. Willis, in particular, was processing a lot of emotions about his own leadership and the future of the company. We spent hours dissecting what happened and how to move forward.

Taking on this emotional load upfront was critical. It jump-started the healing process so the team could grow and move on. Although it might have seemed easier to just focus on the day-to-day work across sales, finances, and operations, we weren’t going to get very far if the team kept holding onto the past.

2. Build trust. This may sound odd, but I’ll be forever grateful for my first argument with Willis. We both have tempers, and one day, we found ourselves in a yelling match about something mundane. It took a painful few days to work through it, but it was all worth it because we learned that even though we could push each other to the limits, we could still bounce back and move forward. Looking back, that episode deepened our relationship.

I’m actually lucky that I joined at such a low point for the company. The circumstances forced us to waste no time in building trust because there was no room to hold anything back. It was like a weird startup trust fall for the team and myself.

3. Just try. At first, I often felt overwhelmed in the face of all the challenges in front of us. Everywhere you looked, media outlets were bleeding money. It didn’t seem possible that we would be the ones to break the mold and set up a sustainable, profitable media company.