Her first business failure sent her soul-searching abroad

This article is an excerpt from an episode of Startup Snapshot, a Tech in Asia podcast that features the leaders and innovators in the Asian startup scene, and discusses the highs and lows of their founder journeys. It is heavily revised from the original transcript. Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts.

When Caecilia Chu was growing up in Hong Kong, her father – who was 40 years old at the time – decided to leave his job as a postman to start his own business. Despite being rejected for a loan by multiple banks, the risk he took sparked her entrepreneurial dream. Years later, she would launch her own startup: an ecommerce business that sold clothing, toys, and other products for children 6 years old and under.

But Chu had to shut down her first venture after two years, and that decision sent her on a path of self-discovery in Silicon Valley and China as she tried to figure out what went wrong.

That journey ended in 2018, when she launched travel wallet app YouTrip in Singapore. Within 10 months of its launch, the startup had logged over a million transactions. Its US$25.5 million pre-series A was also one of Southeast Asia’s largest early-stage startup investments.

On this episode of Startup Snapshot, Chu looks back on her “painful failure” and shares what she learned from that experience.

What happened with your first business?

It was really a painful failure. I think I was 20 years too late, maybe, in starting an ecommerce business.

The business started off quite OK, but [the industry] was very competitive; the entry barrier was very low. Once you get any traction, people can quickly copy your business in a matter of two to three weeks. Therefore, it was also really hard to find the most talented people to build a really strong team.

I ran it for two years, but I never had the traction we needed for fundraising. Even making one dollar from a paying customer was not that easy. It wasn’t something I’d done before, when I was in professional services. My life was simple and comfortable. I would fly business class and [stay] in five-star hotels all the time. It’s very different.

It was mentally painful [to decide to close the business]. I felt at the time that my own reputation was on the line: Everyone knows I’m doing this, my finances are on the line, I’ve lost money from investing in my own business. So I chose to leave Hong Kong and went to Silicon Valley. I flew over there, found a friend who had an apartment in Mountainview, and looked for a job.

At the time, I was soul-searching. I would have loved to say, “I am so determined, nothing can stop me – I’m going to be a founder for life.,” But the truth is, I was really trying to figure out whether startups were really for me and why I was so bad.

I think challenges in terms of putting in all the effort without returns are not the biggest challenges. The biggest demon is in your mind, it’s [in] how you perceive yourself and what you’re able to do. Even today, that’s still the biggest challenge I have to go through every day.

Did you eventually find a job in Silicon Valley?

I found this company in Silicon Valley. It was a series A company at the time and it had 22 team members. I was there early enough to work very closely with the founder himself, and he really took me under his wing. I remember there was a meeting where he brought me to Sand Hill Road, the Sequoia office, where I got to meet Douglas Leone, who is really great in the software-as-a-service business.

He gave us a download of the playbook on how to build a sales organization, and at that moment I realized that investors have so much value to add when you work with them closely as business partners.

Where did you go after that?

Why did you eventually leave QFPay?

So where did you go from there?