2015 has come to an end and what a year it has been. There have been a bunch of super cool startups emerged across the region and the on-demand battles between companies like Uber, Grabtaxi, Redmart and HappyFresh look to be kicking into another level come the new year.
For me, it has been a super year where I have gone from an employee to a founder and learnt a hell of a lot about business, myself and the startup community in Asia.
Let’s rewind to the start of the year where I was working as an employee on a startup, things were great but I always had my baby in the corner which was consuming my weekends and nights. A side project was just that, but it continued to grow and continued to make money.
It was a one-man operation and a way to make some money on the side. Who knew that this thing would be the thing that I ended the year working on full time with employees in multiple countries working towards a clearer goal.
Of course, there were some pivotal moments along the way.
Pivotal Moment 1
The Tech in Asia tour for startups to go to their Singapore main conference was a pivotal moment for us. I pitched my side project at this event and got some valuable feedback from the judges. It was a super strange moment when you go from something being purely a side project to announcing it to the world. Alas, I didn’t win the competition but made some good connections out of the event. Networking comes hard to me but making 1 or 2 valuable connections never seems too hard.
Pivotal Moment 2
The Arena pitch battle in Singapore was a chance to go to a massive conference and pitch in front of a room of investors and people from the startup community.
Applying for this, I didn’t hold out much hope of getting chosen to present but I got the green light and planned a trip to Singapore for the whole conference. This was a great experience to have a booth and speak with a bunch of different people. If I knew that some of the connections that I made at this conference would become mentors, investors and friends to me back then I wouldn’t of believed you.
The Arena competition happened and again it was exciting to see the other startups and tell the world what I was about although still running a side project. At this time, I very much had the impetus to quit the job and go all in but still was a little anxious about taking the final steps.
Well, final steps are hard to take and it took a few more months before I found myself CEO of my own tech startup, running it, making things up and trying new stuff as I go along.
Pivotal Moment 3
After the cool off from the conference, I was back in Bangkok doing the day to day when a connection from the event messaged me that they were in town, I agreed to meet them and had been looking at joining an accelerator on the side. I asked for advice and thoughts of going down this route and the general thoughts were that I should go for it.
Joining an accelerator was more about getting a cash injection and giving me the confidence to go all in on a startup which I had been building steadily alone for the past 18 months. I completed the application and sent it in. Got accepted and quit the job. Things were about to get serious and into unchartered territory for me personally as a CEO.
Pivotal Moment 4
Moving to Singapore in August was the next step on the journey. Obviously, an accelerator is more than the cash injection and there were a bunch of different sessions we were invited to join.
How did this happen?
What’s next?
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