Letter to readers: The Southeast Asian startup stack

Dear readers,

Southeast Asia is in a “selling shovels in a gold rush” moment, with giant consumer-centric companies digging into the pockets of customers.

But I’m more of a shovels guy. And I think I’m not the only one who’s alarmed by reckless and wasteful spending just to gain an inch of market share.

It’s better to be part of a “stack”, in tech-speak, and have recurring clients who’d pay you not because you’re cheaper, but because you’re offering something of value. It’s better to be low-key and sustainably successful than to be a flash in the pan.

Last week, we featured a number of shovel-selling startups.

There’s recruitment platform Glints, which raised $6.8m as its revenue grew six times. It’s looking to solve a key pain point for companies: hiring programming talent.

We also surveyed the logistics startups in Thailand that are feeding the growing appetite for online shopping, and checked out a company that aims to be Stripe for Southeast Asia.

Of course, the thing with selling shovels is that the returns are not as spectacular. Less risk means less rewards, after all. But here’s the thing: In a market where the biggest gold miners are entrenched, why compete against them?

(If you’d like us to continue tracking the region’s thriving startup scene, do subscribe.)

Anyway, here’s the rest of our premium content from the past week:

Chat apps

• Winimy AI wins Tech in Asia’s inaugural Pitch Night
• Meet the startup that wants to corner Southeast Asia’s tourism chatbot market

Startups galore

• Rising startups on Tech In Asia: queueing apps, on-demand logistics, and more
• Founder with two exits takes aim at Southeast Asia’s luxury fashion market
• How Chinese entrepreneurs think about layoffs
• Profitable Singaporean blockchain startup banks $2.5m from Walden
• A Singapore startup has a real shot at stamping out cancer deaths
• Binance-backed team pockets funding to get people into DApps

Evergreen lists

• These are the most active investors in Southeast Asia’s startups
• Meet the 20 top-funded startups and tech companies in Hong Kong

Old but gold

• With its ‘new retail’ approach, Fore Coffee is taking Jakarta by storm
• There’s too much cynicism about Grab and Go-Jek

Cheers,

Terence
Chief Editor