Analyse Asia with Bernard Leong

"We have an intuition that at like a hundred million users with self custody signing their own transactions every day at those numbers, a hundred million and a billion, those are where there's going to be big unlocks and unexpected use cases that pop up in the way that people coordinate their resources together may make shared decisions together and align interest again, and participate in new forms of global capital markets together." - Raj Gokal   Fresh out of the studio, Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana joined us in a conversation to share the backstory behind how the blockchain emerged and is currently one of the leading blockchains in the market. Raj dived deep into the mechanisms behind the protocol and explained why the speed of transactions generated new decentralized applications on the blockchain. He also addressed on the outages and cybersecurity challenges for Solana, and offered his perspectives in what great looks like for Solana in the future.   Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"As a seed fund, we will always be small. ... and that's done with the intent of building towards product market fit. we talk a lot about product market fit in startup land. We don't really talk about it enough and in venture land, It's really hard to deploy a billion dollars in capital if you're focusing on seed. Intentionally is a feature. It's not a bug. And if we're doing our job right, we'll continue to raise the same fund size, relatively small speaking, and just be great at pattern recognition at seed pre product market fit and staying really focused that way to be the best in our niche is the way we think about it. " - Tiang Lim Foo   Fresh out of the studio, Tiang Lim Foo, co-founder and partner of Forge Ventures shares the story of how he started the seed stage venture firm and his perspectives on early stage investing in Southeast Asia. He dived into a deeper discussion of the rise of early stage investors within the key countries in the region and how the whole venture investing space is transforming with web2 and web3 in transition.   Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"I have lots of different people that I go to and I think that board of directors is really important. It's not the only social capital, but that's social capital primarily outside of your work, out of your specific job, that's important for you to build over time so that you get outside perspectives. If nothing else, sometimes in your workplace, you get very locked into a certain way of thinking or a certain style. And it's important to get perspective from." - Aliza Knox   Fresh out of the studio, Aliza Knox joined us to discuss the inspiration and key themes behind her new book "Don't Quit Your Day Job". We began the conversation on Aliza's observations on how the technology business and startup ecosystem have shifted in the last decade within Asia Pacific, during her stints with Google, Twitter and Cloudflare. Last but not least, we discuss how her book can help people out there to think about career growth and progression in the midst of the pandemic and the Great resignation.   Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"So literally we have this planned out, we have a ten-year plan and in ten-year plan, we want to be able to deploy about $2 billion in AUM. We think it's possible to fund a lot of companies in the early stages for all emerging markets. All those emerging markets have the same problem, which is there in this phase of rapid economic development, tons of founders wants to come out. So we want quite a lot of capital into seed stage companies." - Brian Ma   Fresh out of the studio, Brian Ma, partner at Iterative Capital and founder at Divvy Homes, joined us in a conversation on the current venture fund in Southeast Asia and shares his perspectives on how the fund is building their entrepreneurial community in Southeast Asia. We dived deep into the beginnings of Brian's career and how both his co-founder, Hsu Ken Ooi and he set up the venture firm and accelerator in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last but not least, Brian shared his perspectives on the Southeast Asia landscape and what great means for Iterative Capital moving forward.     Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"First, I think happy employee and employer partners, for us, great customer experience is important. Secondly, technology driven products that improve the lives of the workers across the region. That's great tech. And happy and motivated gajiGesa team with a lot of career growth opportunities. That's a great team. So I've put great under these three buckets." - Vidit Agrawal   Fresh out of the studio, Vidit Agrawal, CEO and co-founder of GajiGesa discuss the backstory of the fintech company focusing on developing financial services for the unbanked across Southeast Asia, starting from Indonesia. The conversation with Vidit's background with high growth tech companies: Uber and Stripe and he shared his perspectives on he invests as an angel investor. Vidit dived deeper into the unbanked market and how GajiGesa aims to solve that challenge, and offered his mental model in how one should think about geographical expansion across Southeast Asia as an entrepreneur.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"... One of our mantra is we don't build good companies. We build great companies. I think the beauty is that we have seen enough companies to realize what great looks like. For us, we have a high bar. So one of the metrics that we mention a lot is how many founders with the means to do so that we back will invest again in Insignia?" - Tan Yinglan   Fresh out of the studio, Tan Yinglan, founding managing partner from Insignia Ventures Partners joined us in a conversation to share the backstory, vision and mission of his venture firm and offered his insights on the Southeast Asia entrepreneurial ecosystem. He started with the inspiration behind the venture firm and discuss how he indexes founders and startup teams to fund. Last but not least, he discuss where venture capital is heading towards in Southeast Asia.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"But what I would want everyone to take away from this is that you have the geopolitics, the geoeconomics and the geo technology as a triangle, three corners of this triangle. A successful society, a power, a great power is going to be one that is fluent in all three of those languages that focuses on building capacity in all three of those areas and looking for the linkages and synergies between their technological innovation or economic power and their military power and state capacity." - Parag Khanna   Fresh out of the studio, Parag Khanna, CEO of Climate Alpha & celebrated author of "Move" joined us in a discussion to explain why the 21st century belongs to the Internet and not to any great power nations out there. We discussed his recent popular article "Great Protocol Politics" that he co-authored with Balajis Srinisavan and we dived deep into the weeds how technology such as web3 and cryptocurrencies will be important in reshaping society and monetary systems and what it means globally in the next decades to come.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"As well as in terms of profitability, we've been able to grow the brands as well as make them more profitable. So having a track record really matters because as part of our purchase consideration, we also share the upside with sellers. So with us, the investor, we are able to extract the maximum of sight from the brand and via the right stewards of the brand. That's something which we spend a lot of time building. Those capabilities and having that reputation, which then sets us apart and helps us win many deals in competitive situations." - Kiren Tanna

"The key theme is you can be incredibly successful with the community, but you have to be intentional. Oftentimes what happened in my experience of observing other communities is that people would get really excited at the beginning. They would do a whole lot of work. And then after hosting, maybe three events, the enthusiasm would die and they wouldn't do anything else. So it was actually easy for people to start. It's not very easy to grow and scale, and that's why I talk a lot about intentionality" - Mark Birch   Fresh out of the studio, Mark Birch, global startup advocate from Amazon Web Services (AWS) joined us in a conversation to discuss his new book "Community in a Box" and the key initiatives to engage startups and developer communities globally from New York to Asia Pacific through AWS. We start from Mark's background and discuss the inspiration, key themes and main takeaways on how to build event-driven professional communities. Last but not least, he discuss how to build the community flywheel and provided the aspiration to what a great community would look like in the future.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"I believe that we have made great change. I think five years is going to be the same, I think in five years when we look back, even if it doesn't look that way, as we build piece by piece, we will be a technically advanced, user-first global news organization that is sustained by a diversified revenue model." - Gary Liu   Fresh out of the studio, Gary Liu, chief executive officer of South China Morning Post (SCMP) joined us in a conversation on the digital transformation journey and where it is heading in a web3 world. We began the conversation with Gary reiterating the important role that SCMP plays as a bridge between China and the rest of the world. From there, he shared the early days and reflected on the key lessons from the first phase of their digital transformation with a focused video strategy. Continuing on, Gary shared SCMP's move into the Web3 world with the ARTIFACTS NFT project and how it jumpstarts the next phase of the digital transformation. Last but not least, he shared what great looks like for SCMP in the next 3-5 years.     Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).