Ian Goh

PSA for other founders. Scam alert for foreign investors seeking to invest in domestic startups. We had an investment company from Singapore reach out claiming to want to invest. Sent them over our pitch deck, answered some questions and they told us their analysts were doing research for an offer. Came back and said they love our product and want to fund us. Asked for one thing before finalizing any transaction, need a comprehensive insurance. I'm thinking they want Key Person and Criminality insurance, we had already considered needing this when we took on investment. The rep messages that they are looking for a more inclusive policy to protect the investment. Called it ISGI, Investment Security Guarantee Insurance. I did some research and couldn't find any reference to this type of insurance, even called the insurance company that carries our business insurance currently to ask about it. No info anywhere. The investor comes back and says he isn't surprised I cannot find info, it is sold commonly in Asia not the US. Sends me info for a Hong Kong based broker. I am suspicious and ask the broker for direct info for the underwriting company, and a sample policy document. After more questioning, now mostly to satisfy my curiosity and get info to supply to the authorities the investor messages back that he will reach back out at the end of this year if they can forgo the insurance requirement. Be on the look out for Chadway Investment Holding, or similar asian firm. The insurance is a scam. They would have collected a payment for insurance, probably in crypto and never contacted us again. Hope this prevents someone from being caught up and losing thousands.

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Want to take your angel investing game to the next level? Here’s how to start your own syndicate: 1. Gather your network that may be interested in angel investing 2. Create and set up your legal entity and SPV infrastructure via a platform like AngelList 3. Prepare for your first deal - discussions with the founder, collection of deal materials, confirmation of your allocation 4.. Write your deal memo, circulate the deal, collect commitments 5. Close the deal, wire the funds, and celebrate your first syndicate deal Importantly, after wiring the funds, ask the founder if you can pass along future investor updates to LPs so they can stay up to date with how the company progresses over time.

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More startups in Southeast Asia are winding up or will very soon. But…it might be just what we need. Hear me out: I feel for founders and fellow fund managers out there. It’s very tough and many will not be able to make it. We see the peak and troughs of the market crown winners and wash away those that might not make the cut. This is not limited to our market. Capital sitting on the sidelines because they are more cautious than ever. We return to the mean. This is where mettle is tested. This is where we’ll see who’s left standing when the dust settles. It’s painful to bear the failures, but it’s necessary for us to start over again. We got here because force-fitting an investing approach popularised by Silicon Valley to Southeast Asia did not produce the expected results: Backing too many companies, seeking excessive blowout growth When the startups and funds fail to deliver on these expectations, It hurts the ecosystem’s prospects for some time. For SEA, most will realise we don’t actually need MORE companies. We need more startups and funds that are BUILT FOR THE REGION: 🔸Startups that create real value and are sustainably run. 🔸Funds that run their long-term thesis and deliver actual returns to LPs 🔸Funds and startups need to transcend simply lifting strategies and models that worked in mature markets. 🔸What worked elsewhere may not work here. Especially in Southeast Asia where we’re maturing and need to generate results and a track record for the longevity of the region. Let’s use this reset to look inwards and have the courage and audacity to play our own unique game.

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If you get excited by new logos but don’t track advocacy, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Per Rick Song, the founder of Peronsa: “The biggest challenge for a lot of early-stage startups is that they lie to themselves about customer satisfaction. It’s a common trap at this stage to have customers who like but don't love or need your product. I use the relationship analogy a lot internally at Persona: knowing when someone likes but doesn’t love something is very, very difficult but if you’ve ever been in the friend zone, you know that answer.” Sales are only the first step in product-market fit. Don’t wait around for a high churn rate to upend your assumptions, be proactive by measuring the enthusiasm of your deal champions and user advocates. — I help honest #founders stress test the PMF of their #startups. Hit me up at the link in my bio to learn how.

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My recent post on Southeast Asia’s funding scene saw very polar views. Some agreed on numbers, while others felt more active risk-taking was needed to progress. To add more flavour to it, let’s ponder the question: Will SEA produce the next ### unicorns? I’d say eventually with time, sure. The region has great growth, a tech-savvy young population and more FDI flowing into it.  Plenty of tailwinds for success. It boils down to the right timing and approach. (That aside, I believe measuring ecosystem health purely with “# of unicorns” is an incomplete yardstick.) Southeast Asia’s current market dynamics and current maturity of the region simply imply that it’ll be a long shot in the short term. 1/ SEA is a fragmented market with no regional exchange 2/ Investors need repeatable exits to return a gain for their LPs 3/ LPs need to see DPI to justify reinvesting more capital Doubling down on funds hunting for elusive unicorns 🦄 … In the short-term it looks rosy. Many funding rounds will be done with huge buzz generated. But this is not without consequence. What most miss are incentive structures that force careless allocation. To allocate quickly, VCs will investing in many startups, hoping 1-2 winners will carry the portfolio. This has been proven to work in markets like the USA. But we haven’t seen irrefutable evidence it does as well here for majority of funds. 🔺The hit rate for unicorns is low. 🔺Our current exit environment doesn’t support mega exits. The numbers simply won’t make sense, for now at least. Instead, the result is a lot of failure and weak DPIs. Layoffs ensue, markets crash and LPs pull out never to return. --- What you can find are Zebras 🦓 Sustainable businesses generating good cash flow & predictable rev. Eventually, they get to a steady state of profitable metrics without heavy reliance on capital to still deliver a good return. That’s what we look for at Tin Men Capital. My point is - I may come across as pessimistic.  But on the contrary, I'm positive that our region will grow with patience and the right strategy. We have to accept capital cannot solve all problems to ensure growth happens immediately. Our region is unique. So we’d do well to avoid an approach built for another. When the region’s success is proven, it’ll attract deeper, more patient, sophisticated capital We can build upon that and build the next game-changing tech companies. What do you think?

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I see hundreds of pitches each month as a VC. So many fail to do justice to very good startups. That’s why I’m pretty excited to share that we managed to get Eugene Cheng 🪄 to run a masterclass in pitching for Tin Men Founder’s School in partnership with AppWorks and Aspire. You might have seen him on CNA’s ‘The Big Spark’ mentoring contestants. + He’s the quiet advisor behind many of the fundraising success stories of companies like Growthwell, Glints. + His startup clients have raised more than $300M (and counting) to date. + A trusted mentor to many accelerators like GROW, FINLab, Startupbootcamp, Longhash and more. For a couple of hours, he’ll be sharing: ✅The biggest mistake early-stage founders make in structuring their pitch (and how to avoid it) ✅The ‘Golden’ pitch formula that startups use to successfully raise eight-figures ✅How to turn flaws in your business into powerful stories that bolster your case ✅How to build urgency in your pitch so investors don’t drag their feet ✅Answers to your burning questions about what to exclude/include We’ve also carved aside time for Q&A where you can ask specific contextual questions to improve your own pitch. I highly encourage founders to attend if currently in fundraising mode or plan to raise in future. When: Tuesday May 21st, 2024 Time: 2PM-4PM Where: (RSVP to see venue) What questions would you ask? P.S. Link in the comments to sign up

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I explained how angel investor vs venture capital investor is like influencer vs TV actress during CNA Money Talks podcast that aired on radio a few days ago. As an angel, it's like being a social media creator. You can do anything you want, post any content, invest in any sort of things. Your content can fail completely or go very viral. But being a VC is like being a TV actress. You have to follow a certain branding guideline, just like your investment mandate. You have a diversified portfolio across various roles. And there are management fees. We also discussed how founders can validate investors (we usually talk about the reverse), and how I only angel invest in companies I understand especially if I can value add. Thank you Junaini Johari for having me and Andrea Heng for hosting. Read the excerpt and listen to the episode at https://lnkd.in/gwtxK2Rs #venturecapital #startups #podcast #cna #interview

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What resonates : Providing hands-on assistance and strategic guidance can make a significant difference in navigating the challenges of building a successful business. The testimonial from Abel Teo, Co-Founder & CEO of Castomize, adds credibility to VentureBlick services, showcasing tangible results achieved through your support. Directing potential clients to a video testimonial and your website allows them to learn more about how VentureBlick can empower their startup with the right connections, resources, and strategies. Overall, it's a compelling message for startups in need of strategic support.

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Exciting Times 🎉 After launching Student AI and InProfiler, we've taken a big step in our journey by acquiring Parth's startup, The Third Dimension, a cutting-edge mixed reality platform that’s transforming the way busy professionals think about fitness. Parth is extremely talented and has built a really strong product with good traction and a loyal community. I am personally excited about watching his future developments at Apple's Vision Pro. Elbo -- What began as a modest trading entity has transformed into an exciting company, featuring a vibrant suite of products and an expanding investment portfolio, similar to a micro family office. This acquisition is a leap towards diversifying and strengthening our offerings which already include innovative AI solutions like Student AI and InProfiler, immersive AR experiences, and fun educational games such as Baby Blocks and SuperKid Learning Games. The vision for Elbo is to create a unique ecosystem where future tech and everyday lives meet. OUR BRANDS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ⭐ StudentAI - AI Tools and 24/7 Tutors for Students, Graduates and Professionals https://studentai.app  ⭐ InProfiler - AI Powered Lead Generation Software https://inprofiler.com  AUGMENTED REALITY / MIXED REALITY ⭐ Third Dimension Fitness - Third Dimension Fitness is a cutting-edge Mixed Reality app meticulously crafted to revolutionize fitness engagement. https://lnkd.in/dxjZHGGe https://lnkd.in/dGiTrr3k  GAME APPS FOR KIDS ⭐ Baby Blocks - Teacher approved fun, education and fine motor skill app for toddlers!  Android: https://lnkd.in/dmShQMdD IOS: https://lnkd.in/dxJcU6BJ ⭐ Super Kid Learning - Toddler learning activities & mini games  Android: https://lnkd.in/dTa2wPa4 IOS: https://lnkd.in/d2idTSqc #acquisition #investments #ai #ar #artificialintelligence #augmentedreality

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Yes Indonesia, favorable demographics can only go so far.... The biggest issue I see is celebrities have been made of people who were in fact not very good at business or investing at all.. I have never seen such a contradiction between noise and reality. Ppl keep talking about dry powder, but the risk v return on this asset class is abysmal and it is hard to believe LPs will continue to fund this mess. #realitycheck

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Oh, didn't realise my braindump would make it straight into SmartCompany 🔥 Why we took Startmate to Bali + we're hiring two legends 👇 [HIRING] (1) Founders Associate (2) Growth Marketing Associate --- 💌 When you think about your life, the best times at work are never the times spent as an email warrior or on yet another Zoom call. 💥 The best memories we have are always about something out of the norm, an adversity, a crisis moment, or something so exotic or foreign that it becomes an adventure. They are the moments of belly laughter, cold sweat and utter elation. [INSIDE OUT?] These core memories are shared experiences, bringing us closer, bonding us and, from a work context, crucially increasing trust and communication flow. ❤️ There is no substitute for creating life-changing shared core memories other than in-person and outside the norm. There is no better place than to take the whole team out of their comfort zone. 🌴 The safest bet to be able to do that is an exotic location, with new language, culture, food, drinks and surroundings. 👯‍♂️ All senses are on high alert for the new experiences and shared mini-crisis, adventures and LOLs are bound to happen. ⚡️ Then, next time, instead of being worried about shooting a colleague a message because it might inconvenience them, you don’t hesitate. Instead you ask for help as you know what makes them tick because of the late-night offsite boardgame or early morning yoga chats you’ve had. 👇 full article + JDs in comments

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launched a long form post newsletter at LearningLoop.com. they say founders in southeast asia don’t share their knowledge and experience because they are culturally shy and hard working and humble and reserved and only share their lessons if they achieve extremely outrageous success. i’m like then why tf do southeast asian VCs create so much content? anyway, no hate but yea im just saying i don’t buy the whole “you can’t change behavior because culture” argument. i think competent people create culture, while less competent or incompetent people speculate how competent people are gonna fail. i want more founder-generated content in southeast asia and we’ll have it. LL’s mission is to create a low cognitive-load-way of capturing and presenting specific knowledge and high value mental models from people who practice important fields, and make space for people to adopt these mental models iteratively together, and sometimes the best thing to do to get 1% closer to that goal is to just write. P.S: a friend suggested we should choose ONE between southeast asia and san francisco market (since our customers are founders). fair but look. i started in southeast asia and am spending some time in SF now. we’re working towards a global launch but this company’s mission has always been to capture the best mental models from the top 1%, where ever they are, and make it usable by and available to people who is willing to pay for it but don’t have access to it. we’re by design a bridge between extreme competence and extremeu untapped potential. if you’re a founder and you crave this intensity sign up for LL

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I’d be worried and watch Tesla very carefully if I were Uber, Grab or Gojek. Tesla just released v12 of the Tesla full self-driving (FSD) last month. We might be in a watershed moment where Tesla FSD is finally making the breakthrough to ACTUALLY get to real full self-driving. Before v12, Tesla FSD was based on humans writing code telling the car how to drive. Tesla threw all that away with v12. As Tesla puts it, “FSD Beta v12 upgrades the city-streets driving stack to a single end-to-end neural network trained on millions of video clips, replacing over 300k lines of explicit C++ code.” So far, there have been lots of reviews about how human-like the driving is, and how it has vastly improved compared to all the earlier versions. How is this different from Waymo and Cruise? A few things : 1. You need a lot of compute power to do AI training. As of March 2024, Tesla already has the equivalent of more than 35,000 H100-equivalent GPUs. This means Tesla has the 2nd most H100-equivalent GPUs after Meta, according to the State of AI Report Compute Index. 2. AI training also depends on access to data. And Tesla has a ridiculous amount of driving data. As early as 2016, Tesla had 8 cameras on the vehicle that is capable of collecting video data. Tesla reported that they have already collected more than 1.2 billion miles of data on FSD Beta. For comparison, Waymo reported their driverless vehicles have traveled more than 7 million miles as of Dec 2023. That's several orders of magnitude difference. It means Tesla is more likely to have meaningful amount of data around edge cases to train the model properly. 3. Tesla said last week during their latest quarterly earnings report that FSD v12 has already been pushed out to around 1.8 million vehicles with half of them using it. That is A LOT of people helping Tesla iterate FSD v12. What has this got to do with Uber, Grab or Gojek? Tesla may be coming close to realizing Travis Kalanick's dream of having a truly self-driving robotic fleet to disrupt ride-hailing companies. Tesla has sold over 5 million cars to date. When the car owner is at home or in the office, the owner can send the car out to earn extra cash doing ride-hailing on its own. Taxi companies can buy Teslas and have them drive on the road 24/7. So when will this happen? To be honest, I have no idea. I don’t think it will happen so quickly especially in countries like India or Indonesia. (Have you tried driving on small roads in cities like Pune and Lembang? It’s no joke…). But these changes have a habit of coming “gradually and then suddenly”. Perhaps, this is the iPhone moment for Tesla, a whole new paradigm shift. I’m sure the last thing ride-hailing companies want to say is (quoting the Nokia CEO in 2014), “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost...” Full disclosure - I don’t own $TSLA Credits - Video from https://lnkd.in/dyddZqt9 showcasing drive from Berkeley to Stanford #Tesla #selfdriving #AI #neuralnets

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A lot of my conversations with Neo Zhizhong (Neo) revolved around learning personalisation. It’s also his answer to my question of what is the one bugbear from his own schooling days that he is working to change today as CEO and co-founder of Geniebook. What Neo’s invention purports truly bowls me over and made me think of how this could have been so game changing for me as teenager with sass but not much smarts. As a student from a lower-income family growing up in Clementi West Street 2, I’ve never been lead to think that things like tuition and after-school school was necessary. For me, in-class education was enough. Sure I was weak in the Maths and Sciences but with two parents who weren’t educated and worked to provide for the family, what was I going to do? It’s why listening to Neo talk about Geniebook and the premise of how the software caters to your weaknesses and strengths gave me goosebumps. I reflect on how this would be so great for adult learners but I also reminisced on my time as a secondary school student and how much more academically inclined this would have made me. So today, I’m trying to convince my Sec 2 nephew to give this a try. He’s a bit resistant (which teenager isn’t?) but I really think bespoke education could be the very answer the world needs today to help students study smarter — not just harder. Neo is my cover personality for The Peak Singapore’s May issue of The Business of Learning available both in print and online.

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The challenge of building a tech product in Southeast Asia. If your product isn't great, fails to address a big problem, or isn't cost-effective, you may find yourself trapped in a self-defeating cycle: 1. The less mature the product, the more you must sell services to compensate for that (SEA is unforgiving to companies that do not drive consistent revenues).     2. Offering more services detracts from the time available to refine and improve your product.     3. The less time you spend on product, the less you can scale your business.     4. That results in a restricted customer base, meaning you'll have to charge more.     5. Higher pricing further narrows your potential client pool and increases overhead, i.e., managing a large service-oriented team. It does not take long until you end up with a great service business BUT not the venture-backable product you dreamed of at the beginning of the journey.

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💳 4 things YouTrip did to bounce back from covid despite decimation of global travels At Echelon X, YouTrip Co-founder & CEO, Caecilia Chu shared how the company lost 80% of their business during covid when global travel was decimated. How did they get out of it and appear so much stronger? 1. They decided they 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 and survive if covid lasts forever. 💡 It wasn't a "let's wait this out; it will pass" posture. It was a pro-active and deliberate act to dig deep and pivot if they were to survive should the winter last forever. 2. They 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 - and found that super-users were afterburning the service, maxing out their limits each month. 💡 Even as most of the people stopped using the service, there will always be some outliers who find ways to use it, sometimes much more than the others, despite it all. 3. They 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘵 what they were using the service for - and found out that many of these were small businesses needing to pay their suppliers and get money flowing through the system (remittance etc.) - and found YouTrip the great service in terms of use and costs. 💡 Do things that don't scale if you are serious about the customer - they called and chatted with their users to find out how the service was being used. And discover some gems along the way. AirBnB did similar things in the early days, visiting home owners to chat and understand the use cases. 4. They figured they could 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 that caters to these small businesses, to cover easy-to-use experience at low cost of cross border payments. They came up with YouBiz. 💡 Dig deep and leverage the competencies the company already has to innovate new businesses that could bring a whole new revenue stream to the mix, possibly even dwarf the current one. An inspiring turn and scale narrative that should energise any founder who is stuck in a rut --- if we look hard enough, we can find stuff in our backyard that we could use to spin a whole new venture and scale it for success. It starts by being willing to look. And see the silver lining. Comment below ⬇️ if you have a similar experience of how a silver lining has helped you in your life or business. Let's learn together and inspire each other! Eric Lam Need help to Supercharge Your Business Growth with new revenue streams and scale for a successful exit? Let's connect! 🤝 Send me a direct message or comment below with "Let's Talk" and I'll be in touch to explore how we can drive growth together. #superchargegrowth #newrevenuestreams #growth #pivot #silverlining

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I’m going to invest $9M into early-stage startups in the next 6 months. 15 companies. $600k per investment. 🚨 Big problem statements 🚨 Sector agnostic  🚨 Building from Singapore  🚨 Pre-launch, pre-seed, and seed funding 🚨 Open to individuals who are still ideating, as well as, companies with co-founders that are already building - - - If you’re still ideating, comment "STEALTH" below and I'll message you. If you’re already building, comment "BUILD". If you know people building the most defining technology companies, tag them below or share this with your network. - - - Antler is a global early-stage VC investing in the world’s most driven founders across 30 cities including Singapore and across Southeast Asia. By investing from day zero, we are the earliest backer for startups as well as a long-term capital partner that provides follow-on funding of up to $10M for growth-stage startups at Series A and beyond. Want to reach us sooner? In addition to the above, connect with us at antler.co/singapore

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Building a startup now is like the old saying - "selling ice cream during winter". You are doing it at an unfavorable time. But it also shows that you are not here for the hype, you truly believe in something. Here's Antler & Winnie Khoo connecting with founders who are ideating or building during the 'startup funding winter' - The time when most resilient founders shine.

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Check out our Q2 Newsletter below!

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