Asia Tech Podcast

Bangladesh is the 8th largest country in the world by population and its capital city, Dhaka, is one of the world's most densely populated. The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by an incredible founder from Bangladesh, Reyasat Chowdhury, a co-Founder and the CEO of Shuttle. Shuttle is a mass-transit startup based in Bangladesh that serves both B2B and B2C customers. Some of the topics that Reyasat discussed: His and his brother's entrepreneurial motivations The importance and significance of population density in the building of Shuttle Why Dhaka's bus companies were not interested and why Shuttle switched to minivans Initially launching a service only for women Moving into the B2B segment and building a subscription service Creating other value-added services for Shuttle’s riders Some other cool titles we considered for this episode: Someone Who Leads, Someone Who Conquers We Are Able to Use the Population Density to Our Advantage We See a Huge Opportunity on the Supply Side We Could Just Focus on Doing Something Impactful Last Year Was All About Growth

Asia Tech Podcast learned a lot from our conversation with Matthew Oostveen, the CTO and VP Asia Pacific and Japan at Pure Storage. Some of the topics that Matt covered include: Starting a company called CyberLabs and building bespoke rigs for gamers Public cloud versus private cloud The notion that organizations should be taking control of their systems and data Cybersecurity, data protection, and homomorphic encryption Material Science and the Future of storage technology Other titles we considered for this episode: At That Point, I Knew Tech Had Me The Integration of the Software Layer and the Hardware Layer I Was Interested In Making Things Go Fast Storage In the Cloud Is Like a Fisher-Price Toy Latency Is Always a Challenge Matt noted that this ("The Tyranny of Distance') was an interesting book.

Paul Meyers, the Head Coach at Asia Founder Coaching, needs no introduction. We were honored to speak with him. The title of the episode says pretty much everything about Paul. He definitely has superpowers...:-) Some of the topics that Paul covered in detail: Doing crazy things in the 1990s Helping ADB set up their impact venture fund Identifying the need for founder coaching in Southeast Asia Having similar experiences as a founder himself and wanting to give back Founder mental health, particularly when starting a high-expectation business Some other pithy titles we considered for this episode (Paul says a lot of quotable things!): We Have 873 People in Common All I Can Do Is Take Care of My Side of the Street I Was a Merchant Marine.  I Was a Dry Cleaner.  I Was a Kosher Caterer. There Is a High Expectation of Success It’s Pretty Fun.  It’s Pretty Magic.

Nobody in Thailand may understand the eCommerce market more than Axel Winter, a co-founder and the CEO of Pivot Digital. ATP was fortunate to have an in-depth conversation with Axel about his background, experiences, and learnings. Some of the topics Axel covered: The benefits and drawbacks of different eCommerce business models Building omnichannel retail at Central Group JD and Central Group’s eCommerce partnership and strategy What went wrong, what went right, and what was learned Deep insights into the eCommerce market in Thailand Finding the right balance between product selection and ease of discovery Other titles we considered for this episode: Let’s Try to Shake the Tree I Always Had a Hang for Open Source In Life, We Tend to Gravitate to What We Actually Want I Think You Need Different Models Doing Good Things Is Always a Bit Hard It Never Stops. It Never Slows Down.

The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Maaike Doyer back for some follow-up. Maaike was first on the show in June of 2022 with another Founding Partner of Epic Angels, Hester Spiegel-vdSteenhoven. Epic Angels recently published a very useful Angel Investor Glossary and I wanted to dig into this with Maaike. Some of the topics we covered included: Breaking the glossary down into three categories -> Investor's Toolkit, Due Diligence & Financial Metrics, and Instruments Jargon Epic Angels' inspiration for making this glossary A deeper dive into a couple of the terms in each category The role of AI in building this list (Did someone say 'Chat-GPT 4'?) A call out to the listeners for other terms or concepts that you would like defined! Other titles we considered for this episode: The Importance of Understanding Startup Jargon Navigating the Data Room Why Terminology Should Not Distract from the Core Message What Are the Terms YOU Would Like to Know?

On this special edition of the Asia Tech Podcast, we were very fortunate to be able to spend some time with Lee Wan Sie, a Director at IMDA Singapore. IMDA leads Singapore's digitalization journey by developing a vibrant digital economy and an inclusive digital society. Some of the topics Wan Sie covered: Her dedication to public service and her desire to make a difference in Singapore’s society and economy The importance of creating more responsible AI and its already pervasive existence in our day-to-day lives Encouraging and supporting women to pursue careers in technology The powerful impact of accessible female role models in Singapore Working with the Singapore Computer Society on The 100 Women in Tech List Some other titles we considered for this episode: I  Want to Make Sure that What I Do Makes a Difference Thinking Beyond Singapore's Physical Limitations It’s Really About Building Trust "Celebrate the Achievements of Women and Girls in Tech" and make your nominations now!

Asia Tech Podcast was fascinated by its conversation with Eugene Fitzgerald, PhD, the CEO and Director at MIT Research Enterprise Singapore. The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) is a major research enterprise established by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in partnership with the National Research Foundation of Singapore (NRF) in 2007. SMART is the first entity in the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) developed by NRF. Some of the topics Gene covered: Working at Bell Labs Innovation and the commercialization of Strained Silicon His earliest introduction to Singapore Somehow Gene’s interests and Singapore’s interests seemed to be in sync Managing uncertainty while also managing risk How the path of research to market was more complicated than expected Finding the balance between research and commercialization Other titles we considered for this episode, but ultimately rejected: I Was Stunned, Actually…Stunned Every Faculty Member Is Essentially Running Their Own Business I Had No Idea of the Scale Required I Had More of a View of the Future We’re Doing Caricatures of Everything Increasing Man-Machine Interface It’s a Search for Value

Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Dennis Keller, the CEO of Seaplane Asia, back to the Michael Waitze Media platform, to talk about the exciting developments in his business. Some of the topics that Dennis covered: How COVID actually helped the business in the long-run The excitement and significance of having their first aircraft delivered Working together with resort partners to really understand what guests want Building Seaplane Asia into a scalable business How to use capital efficiently, even in a business that owns hard assets Other titles we considered for this episode, but ultimately rejected: The Intersection of Aviation and Hospitality It’s Only Concrete If You Have the Aircraft It Should Be Seamless; It Should Be Premium It’s Premium, It’s Innovative, It’s New It’s a Memory Maker

Asia Tech Podcast was excited to have Gene Yu back on the platform.  Gene is the Founder of BlackPanda, Asia's premier digital forensics and cyber incident response firm.  BlackPanda recently announced a $15 mm Series A raise. I wanted to have Gene on to talk about the significance of the raise for BlackPanda, particularly amid a difficult fundraising environment. Some of the topics that Gene discussed: Experiencing the fundraising winter firsthand Currently, nobody to call for digital incident response though we already enjoy physical incident response services The Great Fire of London (1666) Do we need a Cyber 9/11 The combination of cyber incident response with insurance Data collection and modeling patterns of risk A couple of other titles we considered for this episode but ultimately rejected: What Is the Activation Rate? The Forensics Is the Most Important Data

Asia Tech Podcast welcomed David Gritz, a co-Founder and Managing Director of InsurTech NY to the show to do an emergency pod about the situation surrounding Silicon Valley Bank. Some of the topics that David covered: Silicon Valley was not a traditional bank and built services specifically for startups and VCs SVB's asset and liability duration mismatch and why it mattered Largely repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999 was one of the worst regulatory choices of the last 30 years Were some venture capitalists hypocritical in their reaction to SVB's liquidity issues? Did VCs have personal money at SVB as well? How the lack of finance knowledge of many startup founders contributed to SVB's demise Other titles we considered for this episode but ultimately rejected: Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Reveals Fundamental Issues in Tech Silicon Valley Bank - Implications for Startups and Investors Silicon Valley Bank - Lessons Learned and What's Next? David was also on a recent episode of AIP News RoundUp.