The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Takahito Iguchi...you know who he is.  You remember his photos in those cool-looking glasses as the Japanese competitor to Google Glass.  He is back with a new product called CubeMint, an attempt at creating an offline to online audio metaverse. Some of the topics that Iguchi-san covered: His original product launch of Sekai Camera Moving to San Francisco from Japan to get better connected to the VC and startup world Raising $15MM for Sekai Camera at a Techcrunch event Leaving Sekai Camera to found Telepathy Eventually getting fired from Telepathy and losing everything Feeling depressed and considered leaving the startup community completely The realization that many people feel isolated and that audio is a great connector Creating the audio metaverse and CubeMint, currently using Polygon's Matic The merging of physical spaces and the CubeMint metaverse

The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Henry Motte-Muñoz, the Founder of Edukasyon, to the show.  Edukasyon is the go-to, online youth platform for making better-informed education, career, and life decisions. Some of the topics that Henry and I discussed: Growing up between Europe and the Philippines Listening to impact, courage, and 'giving back' conversations around the dinner table Working at Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital Getting a scholarship to attend Harvard Business School The benefits of Boston being a multi-campus city Always wanting to go back to the Philippines and build something with impact, at scale, using technology Education is the largest government expenditure in the Philippines The Philippines PISA ranking Moving from large, macro investments to real systemic changes The importance of basic, foundational academic skills, making the right education choices, and soft skills Scaling content in a way that is accessible Working with partners like AWS EdStart Other titles we considered for this episode: Everyone Was Giving Back In Some Form Or Another It Took Me a Solid Decade to Figure Out What To Do All Countries Go Through Stages What Are You Really Trying to Teach? Education Is a Multi-Stakeholder Industry What’s Your Vision for an Educated Child? How Does This All Feed Into a Career? It’s Not About Catching Up, It’s About Getting Ahead Our Role as Humans Is Not Just to Be a Production Unit for Some Company

I wanted to catch up with Phil Morle (I don't need to explain who Phil Morle is, do I?) and have a conversation with him about the relationship between early-stage investors and the founders in whose companies they invest.   Phil has been writing a lot lately, or maybe I just noticed...but either way, his writing is resonating with me and a recent 'article' he wrote prompted this recorded conversation. Listen as Phil, who is one of the most thoughtful investors I know, expounds (Yes. He presented and explained his ideas systematically and in detail...) on the fragility of the relationship between early-stage investors and founders. Phil discussed: Being 80 days into a 30-day writing challenge The immense difficulty of building something from scratch and trying to turn it into something meaningful How founders are obsessed with the ideas that underpin their companies The concept that founders are motivated more by impact than money The reality of being time-poor and the need for investors to respect their time Founders are all-in...Investors are not Founders are "bad at some things" but may have to do everything at the start The imperative for investors to "be there" for the founders Co-imagining the future with the founders Other titles we seriously considered for this episode: Drinking From the Firehose of Life Red Flags In Little Emoticons Funding Discovery, Not Growth Building Something While the World Doesn't Care Squeezing Out All the Toxic People The audio on this episode was expertly edited by Isabelle Goh.

The Asia Tech Podcast was honored to have Dr. Pinak Shrikhande, Director at HealthQuad, join the show. HealthQuad, India's leading healthcare venture capital fund, partners with extraordinary entrepreneurs to nurture and scale up transformative and impactful healthcare businesses in India. Some of the topics that Dr. Shrikhande covered included: His experiences as a practicing critical care physician for almost 20 years Dealing with life and death situations every day While at Fortis Hospitals, built the first eICUs in India Always wanting to make a difference and be at the cutting edge of technology Digging deeply into eICUs Extracting data remotely and filling the expertise gap with technology How COVID created a paradigm change in the way people thought about healthcare delivery Some of the challenges of working across national borders Raising and deploying the first HealthQuad fund HealthQuad's investment thesis A few other titles we considered for this episode: Try and Tip the Balance Towards Life It’s Kind of DNA-ish One Should Not Die Because of Lack of Quality Care Using Technology As a Bridge to Get Quality Care

The Asia Tech Podcast was graced with the pleasure of Jennifer Tiang's company. Jennifer is the Regional Cyber Lead - Asia at Willis Towers Watson.  The recently rebranded WTW provides "data-driven, insight-led solutions in the areas of people, risk and capital that make your organization more resilient, motivate your workforce, and maximize performance." Some of the topics that Jennifer covered: Born and raised in New Zealand, based in Singapore Studied law and moved into the insurance broking business Studied Mandarin in Shanghai The macro change of insuring digital and non-tangible assets How risk is constantly being reassessed The importance of the data behind the risk analysis The significance of asking clients the wrong questions It is not just about insurance, it is about minimizing cybersecurity risk The need to consider financial, legal, and business interruption risks Having an advantage coming from a legal background Insurance for NFTs? Other titles we may have considered for this episode: Navigating Into Asia from the Bottom of the World If You Know, You Know It Is Not Binary Anymore As Amorphous as Cybersecurity Insuring Your Lifeblood, Your Data You Can't Build Buildings That Are Not to Spec The audio on this episode was expertly edited by Isabelle Goh.

The Asia Tech Podcast was pumped to have Evan Wong, a co-Founder, and CEO at Checkbox(dot)ai on the show.  Checkbox is a no-code platform that allows users to build their own business apps for process automation. If you talk to Evan, you can hear the boundless energy in his voice and one can not help to get excited about the business he is building at Checkbox. Some of the topics Evan covered: Starting his first business, Hero Education, while still at university Fell in love with entrepreneurship and started another company after graduating Mom is an accountant and Dad is a business analyst Building business relationships early and getting great feedback How he met (already knew!) one of his co-founders The importance of having great investors and the unfair advantage it provides Why no-code matters and what has changed since Checkbox was founded in 2016 Creating continuity and minimizing key-person risk Googling "list of software terms you should know" Expanding into a global business Building a remote team and the extra effort it requires Expert Process Automation (EPA) and the competitive landscape Some other titles we considered for this episode: Are You Sure? Every Single Company Is Going to Have Its Own Unique Path They Come On the Journey With You We Met When We Were 12 Years Old It Takes a While to Build a Good Company This episode of the Asia Tech Podcast was brought to you by IR - leaders in performance and experience management.  Click here to download the ultimate guide to future-proofing the hybrid workplace.

The Asia Tech Podcast had a super-cool conversation with Hoyin Cheung, the Founder, and CEO of Remo(dot)co. Remo is an interactive virtual event platform that empowers you to grow and engage your audience. Some of the topics that Hoyin covered: Being born in a small, university town in Illinois and moving (back) to Hong Kong when he was 9 years old The benefits and drawbacks of joining a new school and making new friends His Mom's family were business people, Dad's not so much Encouraged by his Dad to study bioengineering; could always transition to business Actually doing stem cell research, loving the science but itching to do business How working at a bank helped him understand how businesses actually work Taking the leap and starting his own business The inevitable bifurcation of your circle of friends How the car mount business led to an Instagram marketing business Building a team remotely and attending remote-work events Remote working was still a bit fringe and parts of the experience were not great Wondering how to replicate that feeling of working together in an office in an online setting Making a bet that remote working was going to be a long-term trend The importance of having a well-thought-out mission Using technology to create human experiences, not solving problems Other titles we considered for this episode: It Felt Like One Massive Suburb You Can Start Off With Something The Whole Part of Entrepreneurship Is Discovery I Was Done With School One of Them Always Leads to the Other It's a Great Idea One Day, The Next Day It’s a Bad Idea Create Authentic Conversations that Develop Meaningful Relationships I Want to Host a Conference. Can I Host a Conference? Humans Do What Humans Do Best I Was Born In Illinois This episode of the Asia Tech Podcast was brought to you by IR - leaders in performance and experience management.  Click here to download the ultimate guide to future-proofing the hybrid workplace.

The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Jason Chen, the CEO at JustKitchen.  JustKitchen operates a network of delivery-only commercial kitchens using a unique 'hub and spoke' model and markets a portfolio of both proprietary and partnered food brands. Some of the topics Jason and I covered: Being born in Taiwan, growing up in Canada, and moving back to Taiwan as an adult Originally trained as a lawyer in Vancouver then got into investment banking Got involved in the Food and Beverage business in Taiwan in 2014 The logistics behind bringing US brands to Taiwan The wide acceptance of different kinds of food in Taiwan The importance of brick and mortar experience for running a ghost kitchen The growth of food delivery in the past seven years The evolution of ghost kitchens and operating multiple brands out of one location Data analytics are key to running ghost kitchens How technology truly helps create economies of scale The importance of having a robust supply chain Just how big the market for ghost kitchens could get The global competitive landscape Other titles we considered for this episode: I've Always Been a Big Fan of Food Taiwan Has Emerged As a Culinary Hub It Really Does Turn Into a SaaS Model It Enables Scalability You’re Running a Hardware Store We All Have Our Hands Full

The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Anshu Agrawal, a co-Founder at Flint.  Flint says that "Crypto is the best thing to happen to money since money.  Flint leverages the power of crypto to deliver incredibly high returns on your stable coins." Some of the topics that Anshu and I covered: The impact of being born in a small village in India The inherent kindness that develops and persists from growing up in that village Not losing the innocence from being raised in a small town Web 3 and building communities around common interests and not physical borders Consumers care about the value you are creating, not about the underlying technology Decentralized finance as a way to change the world Humans should ideally only be bound by their capabilities and their ambitions Building scalable systems Passive investment vehicles are the on-ramp to the financial system Being a cross-chain platform Three pillars of any blockchain - security, speed, and the level of decentralization How communities will start forming around every blockchain Other titles we considered for this episode: It Is In the Best Interest of Everyone To Stay Healthy Let’s Bring Scalability To It They Are Bounty Hunters You Need To Have Sophisticated Customers Building Simple Products Is the Hardest Investment Opportunities Built On Top of Crypto The Third Layer Is the User Experience

The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Dylan Ng, the CEO of LionsBot International.  LionsBot grew out of the realization that there was a need for better and more powerful cleaning robots. Some of the topics that Dyland and I discussed: Founding his first company, SuperSteam Asia Pacific with his wife, Michelle Seow Snowballed into the largest cleaning equipment distributor in Singapore As time passed, fewer people wanted to do cleaning work Was initially against using robots to clean How he and Michelle changed their minds about robots Traveled all over the world looking for the best robots to import Being underwhelmed with what he found - too big and too expensive Getting a call from Professor Rajesh Elara Mohan from Singapore University of Technology and Design Professor Mohan had already taken one of their cleaning machines and added robotics to it Quickly decided to start a robotics company together and build cleaning robots Started with 5 engineers and will likely have almost 300 by year-end 2022 The reaction to the robots from the human cleaners was surprising Who is the competition Other titles we considered for this episode: What If This Could Be Automated? You Have So Many Tomorrows All Roads Led To the Same Destination, Robots The First Reaction Is Exhaustion Humans Are Best for Creative Tasks