Welcome to Tech in Asia’s Sunday newsletter, your weekend brief on the biggest moves in Asia’s tech and startup world. Not on the mailing list? Register here. Got a story tip? Send it to editors@techinasia.com.
In focus
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- Peter Cowan on tearing up the playbook
- Why investors should digitalize, not disrupt
- When LLMs tell us sweet little lies
Hello reader,
The American football season has begun, which means I’ll be spending the next few months shouting clichés at my TV. Maybe at some point, I’ll be demanding the coach of my favorite team to rip up his playbook.
While that’s a terrible idea midway through a professional football season, our top stories this week show it can be the opposite in business.
Image credit: Ulla
Take this Insights piece by AI builder Aadhar Chhabra. He argues that rather than looking for the next shiny startup to disrupt industries, investors in Southeast Asia would be better off acquiring one of the region’s thousands of medium-sized businesses that are ripe for modernization, such as a successful restaurant group still running on Excel and WhatsApp chats.
He makes a compelling case for investors to change tack from funding startups building from zero to backing businesses that just need a push into the modern era.
Frederick Ng, another Insights writer, makes a similar point in this article. The CEO and co-founder of tech-enabled immigration platform Beyond Border reckons that many of Southeast Asia’s founders are using the wrong playbook for US expansion.
Rather than taking a series of two-week trips that seem safe but achieve little, Ng says founders have to commit deeply if they want to make it in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Read both, then ask yourself if you have any playbooks that need tearing up.
Peter Cowan, engagement editor
Editor’s picks
1️⃣ Forget startups. Buy the business running on Excel
Short cuts
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