Wake up, check Slack, meditate. A day in the life of Funding Societies’ product head

Day in the Life is a series where personalities in the Asian tech community recount what they do on a typical day. Read more from the series here.

I work at Funding Societies (aka Modalku in Indonesia) as their chief product officer (CPO). Together with our CTO, I lead product, data, engineering, mobile, security, and quality assurance (we refer to these collectively as PDEMSQ internally).

Prior to Funding Societies, I worked in technology teams at Barclays Investment Bank, developed tools at a home rental startup, helped build a cryptocurrency brokerage, and launched a social enterprise. I graduated from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Here’s a day in my life now.

6 am

My alarm rings. I hit snooze and sleep for five more minutes. Best part of my day unlocked. 🙂

6:05 am: Wake up. Check Slack. Meditate.

At this time, the “owls” in our team would usually ask me to read or follow up on something. This happens because we manage by output, not input. So, folks are free to work whenever they like.

I spend 30 minutes responding to and earmarking tasks for follow up and prioritizing my day. When I’m done, I dedicate the next half hour to meditation to simply clear my mind and center my energy.

This period helps me identify key areas that are nagging at my attention.

Sharing the benefits of meditation with the local team during one of our weekly Monday morning check-ins / Photo credit: Funding Societies

8 am: Calls. Hiring. Alignment.

Fresh funds from our recent raise and a roadmap of deliverables mean we need more good talent to be part of our vision. A fair portion of my time is dedicated to building our team of engineers, product managers, and designers. This directly translates to technical or informational sessions with potential candidates.

I try to schedule conversations early in the day when possible. If not, I spend time in the mornings to determine areas where team members may need stronger alignment and schedule conversations correspondingly.

As a growing startup, we need to scale our communications to reach those who are joining us across three countries. This may mean repeating key messages or, as Go-Jek CTO Ajey Gore puts it, to CRY (continuously repeat yourself). I CRY quite a bit these days.

10 am: Checklists and focus

1 pm: Team lunch or ‘go camel’

2 pm: After action reviews

3 pm: Finding solutions

5 pm: Meet the user

7 pm: Going to the gym

8 to 10:30 pm: Family and personal time

10:30 pm: Strategic review