Huiting Koh: Women Taking Back Their Power, Consumer Wants vs. Needs & Drinking Your Own Kool-Aid - E219

· Purpose,Women,Thought Leaders,Southeast Asia,Podcast Episodes English

 

Taking back your power really means first and foremost, being your own cheerleader, but having enough self-awareness to not drink your own Kool-Aid. And it has to be done in a way that is empowering, as opposed to powerful because I make that distinction, because powerful can have negative connotations, but empowering is much more positive. And we want to be doing this in a way that empowers other people. So you take your power back, so that you can give that out to other people. -Huiting Koh

Huiting is a Partner at Altara Ventures and likes investing in founders solving real problems, that have the ability to positively impact millions of lives. She has led investments in the Consumer, Fintech and Enterprise/Deep tech space such as Tonik, Stashfin, Senseye, Sampingan and SATURDAYS. She is also a newbie angel investor and has invested in almost twenty startups across Southeast Asia and the US.

Huiting started her career in investment banking in New York with Goldman Sachs IBD FIG. She then went on to Stanford Graduate School of Business for her MBA, thinking she wanted to build and run a luxury-budget hotel chain across Southeast Asia’s most remote communities and islands. This dream was refined during her MBA and refocused to being in Brand Management. She realised every business is ultimately a brand and there is more than just financials and metrics that make a business successful. Creating emotion, touching people’s hearts and having positive experiences with the brand is what truly makes a lasting brand.

Jeremy Au: (00:29)
Hi, Huiting, I'm excited to have you on the show. We had such a wonderful coffee last time around, I felt like we had to have another conversation on a podcast. And so I'd love for you to introduce yourself and short one minute?
 
Huiting Koh: (00:41)
Thanks, Jeremy. I had a really great conversation with you last time round too. So I'm glad we were able to do this. And so I'm Huiting. I am currently a partner at Altara Ventures, which is an early stage East Asia fund. We invest across every sector, essentially sector agnostic, seriously.
 
Jeremy Au: (01:00)
Amazing. How did you get started in kind of like the wall of technology and startups? When did that interest begin for you?
 
Huiting Koh: (01:07)
Actually, a while ago, I spent a lot of time as a brand manager at Unilever. So I probably spent about eight years in kind of like the brand management and advertising space. And at the time, I would get decks that I'd see from my dad, and you would say, what do you think of this company? And so that's kind of that was the first taste I guess of what a pitch deck looks like. And actually, in 2017, when I was still in New York with Unilever, I said to myself, I love this job. I cannot imagine a better job. But I thought ahead 10 years, and I said, I'm very good at what I'm doing, I can probably do it with my eyes close, where would I be in 10 years, and I probably could see myself as a category manager, or maybe a VP or SVP for large category, maybe globally. But at the end of the day, I realized that I would still be selling mass market shampoo, ice cream, toothpaste. And that did not feel exciting for me at all, it was exciting from the sense that I knew I would get a lot of job satisfaction, but in terms of a greater purpose, it felt very empty. And so I decided to quit my job at Unilever, and literally just chose to travel the world for a little bit. Because I wanted to kind of see where the cards would fall. And what would bubble up to the surface. If I had no safety net, to let's say, fall back on a different job. I think, I don't know whether it's being brought up in Asia. But it was always brought up with the idea that you must have a second option before you leave your first job, it makes you more marketable, and you're easier for you to get a job. But I also knew that whatever that option was, it was always going to be made with a decision to I need to leave my job or I want to leave my job. Those options never really planned out, panned out well for me. Not that it didn't pan out well. But there was always something about the job that eventually, maybe why don't we goes in I get annoyed about I'm frustrated about. So I really wanted to put myself in this space where there was barely any safety net in terms of job security, I was based in the US, I knew I would have to give up my work visa, I knew I would have to ship myself out of the country within a month. And that's actually how I ended up getting into Venture because it was all very serendipitous. I was in this phase of follow the energy. And I literally just decided to take meetings and do things with people that left me feeling energized and positive after. So that, I was back in Singapore after I left the US in between travel. And a friend of mine said, you must be really bored. Is it just sitting around doing nothing? And I said, actually, I'm not that bored. Because there's a lot of things to do. And she's like, why don't you just come with me to this meeting? I'm going to meet this founder. And I said, Okay, sure. So I went with my friend to the meeting. At the time, my family was beginning to think about setting up a family office. And we have a history of also doing a lot of angel investments. So I guess for founders, they kind of knew that, this is potentially somebody new might want to invest in my business. And so that one meeting with that one founder turned into meeting a whole bunch of other founders in a very short span of time. So I probably met like 100 over founders within a month or so, because I was so energized from that first meeting, that I had all the founders reaching out to me I was reaching out to other founders, and I had planned it such that I was doing a meeting every hour every day from Monday to Friday. , including breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner. So from 9-6 or 9-7, I was doing essentially nine or eight or nine meetings a day, from Monday to Friday. I remember I was staying at home and my mom was like, what are you doing all day? Are you going to the beach? I was like, I'm definitely going to the beach. But I was I remember, I would come back and I would feel so energized, but so exhausted, but then wake up the next day going, who am I going to meet today, because I just loved kind of getting to know the founders, hearing their stories, understanding what they were trying to do, what they were trying to build, and how that was going to actually positively impact the lives of people that either use their product or service or interacted with whatever enterprise software that they were trying to build, at the time, a lot of the companies I think would be to see. So it was also a lot more up my alley, given my consumer background. So I thought it was very interesting. And they felt like I had something to contribute. And to me, that was a surprise, because I had gone into these meetings thinking. I'm just a brand manager, I don't know anything about your business. I don't know how to run a business. But that's kind of when I realized, actually, I did quite learn a lot about running business as a brand manager. So probably did not give myself the credit up until then.
 
Jeremy Au: (06:21)
What's interesting is that obviously, you had that experience as a brand manager. And I think a lot of folks in Southeast Asia have that experience. That first job is with P&G, or Unilever. And what's interesting is that you're saying that that experience did translate to some of these later insights. Could you share a little bit more about what things I think you learned from your time as a brand manager that you felt, I think prepared you or was relevant for your role in startup learn?
 
Huiting Koh: (06:46)
I think the one thing that I learned was to really discern what is a consumer want versus a consumer need? And the distinct difference is that a consumer can tell you what they want. But they might not necessarily be able to tell you what they want to use in order to service the need. So for example, then the best way to think about this, and what I always come back to is, is there a product or service that you use today that you didn't realize that you needed, or was it until you actually started using it? For me, that's the iPhone, I didn't think I needed an iPhone, I went around for the longest time with like a razor flip phone, . And I was like, I'm happy, I can play Snake on the phone. But then when the iPhone came out, it was like a game changer for everybody. Because, and especially for me, what was interesting was not realizing how much you needed this thing before you actually used it. And before you actually had it. And to me, that's like a true sticky consumer product. And that is because it's a consumer product that has literally answered the needs of a person versus the wants as a person, the wants can change over time. And they are why you have trends in your fats. But a need is an inherent thing that doesn't go away. And if you can develop a product or a service that actually speaks to a consumer need, you're going to have a product that is so much more sticky, you're going to not need to do a lot of marketing in order to get traction, and you're going to have loyalty. And if you package that together with good design, good design, thinking, strategic thinking about how you want to talk to your customer, and make them feel like you are talking with them as opposed to talking at them, then you're gonna get very loyal customers who then will buy whatever you produce their own, even if it's not as successful as the initial product.
 
Jeremy Au: (08:50)
This is really interesting, because wants versus needs is something that we kind of know what we learn when we grow up. But I think it's very different to apply this, I think kind of in broader ways. Would you say that it's better to deliver what consumers want versus delivering what consumers need, I guess? Because it feels like it's a weird space I give an example would be like cigarettes are more compelling than cigarette prevention programs, for example, even smoking cessation programs. So how do you think about approaching that?
 
Huiting Koh: (09:21)
So I think you have to think about it from the point of view of what is the need that is being fulfilled when a consumer smokes, because the need is not does the consumer need to smoke? The need is what inherent need is he trying to fulfill when he smokes that's a different way of looking at it and I'm not a smoker, so I can't really tell you but let's look at let's come back to the Apple example. Why does anybody need maybe at our age we don't feel a need to own an Apple products but think back to when you were 18 or 19 and put yourself in the place in a position Shouldn't have an 18, 19 year old today, you're getting your first paycheck, and you're like, I need to buy an Apple iPhone, because I want to buy an Apple iPhone, they'll say I want to buy an Apple iPhone. But that's not a want, it's a want, but it's powered by a need. And the need is to feel accepted, it's the feel the same as their friends, it's to feel I have made it, I was able to make enough money to buy myself an Apple iPhone. And it's about self-validation. It's about self-esteem. It's about being seen, it's about feeling part of the group and so all of those needs. So if you can figure out what are those real needs, which is a what we call insights that needs that you can identify, and it doesn't have to stick with a consumer product, it doesn't have to end with a consumer product, there's always a need that's being fulfilled, or an intrinsic insight that's being fulfilled, even if you are delivering like a B2B enterprise SaaS product. Because at the end of the day, there's a human on the other end that's making a decision as to whether do we pay $5,000 annually for a subscription for the whole team to use this product? So that decision maker has to, we have to stick to his need for the product even if it's not a consumer product.
 
Jeremy Au: (11:20)
How should founders be more thoughtful about that? Because the truth is, so many startups we meet kind of like muddle those two parts, when the gentle way of saying is that they did not achieve product market fit, and therefore they failed. I think that's a very common failure point for pre seed and seed and even SUSE startups. So how do you coach or help founders kind of reach that understanding maybe from a process perspective?
 
Huiting Koh: (11:47)
So I have really asked founders, why does your product need to exist? And what would your consumer use if your product did not exist today? And if they can say, they would probably do this. And they will probably do that. And I'm like, so then why should I need to use your product? Tell me and show me why. And sometimes it's hard to tell. Sometimes it's about the user experience, sometimes that the founder has said, I have built something that is so much more intuitive than what you're using today. And that will also work that will also answer the need, because you will find consumers who want something less clunky, something that's more efficient, something that they feel understand stem. So even if you have an AI program that says I just tried out this new enterprise product that is actually helps arrange your calendar, and I tried it out. And if you can use a product that actually makes you feel like, hey, this program understands my needs for the day, and will help me arrange my schedule, according to what I would like, that is very useful for me. And it's not that competition cannot exist. But if you can deliver the service or the product, or the experience in a much better way, that makes it sticky for the consumer sticky, because the consumer then realizes what did I do before I use this product? How did I can't imagine that I had to talk to my assistant to move things around, then that becomes a sticky product, even though there might be other competitors in the market?
 
Jeremy Au: (13:24)
And I think the tricky part, of course, is that, I think we also noticed that some founders figure it out, and then they kind of lose track of it along the way, or this somehow seems to be weird, they seem to become more distant from it. What are your feelings about that, or do you have any advice for people going through that process?
 
Huiting Koh: (13:42)
I think you're asking what happens with founders who kind of lose the plot. And to me, sometimes that is synonymous, or maybe that goes hand in hand with founders who drink the Kool-Aid. I mean, I invest into early stage companies. So thankfully, I haven't had any founders get there yet. So I can't speak from my own experience as to how I would have coached those founders. But I do always just come back to the five why's. And I might not necessarily oppose this to the founders, specifically. But in my own my own head, when I think about does this business still make sense today? Would I still invest in this business today? Why would I still invest in this business? And then it goes into the five whys of why does the business need to exist? Should it still exists all that kind of stuff? And that's how I built my own conviction, especially when it comes to like, follow on rounds of funding. Should we still be in existence today? Does this business still make sense? Is it still relevant? Why is it still relevant and how does it compete with the competitive competitors? Do I still believe in the vision? Do they still believe in the vision? And I think one of the most important things that I learned is don't just speak to the founder about their vision. One of the things What I like to do is I would like to speak to all of their heads, , as many people as possible on the team, whether it's senior or heads of department, especially because it's head of department and I always ask the same question. And I usually try and see if they give me the same answer. It's the founder. And so I usually always ask, why do you think we're doing this business? What do you like about this business? Why are you involved in this business? And if everyone can give me the same answer, then I know that the entire company, by and large, is unified behind the single vision, and that they know why they're doing what they're doing, which is so important at the end of the day, because especially for founders who are running super-fast growing startups, they can't be involved in every single aspect of the business, they have to delegate, and they have to trust that business heads to do the thing. But you can only do the thing if you are all aligned to the same North Star. And that's where the vision for the business needs to come through. And that's why you need to have a very simple need that is being answered for why the business exists, because then that means that everybody in the company can get behind this vision. And it's easier for everyone to have this in what it is that we're trying to work towards.
 
Jeremy Au: (16:10)
What's interesting is that there's different layers, and I think I like the phrase drinking your own Kool-Aid. And I totally get it, I call it core pm these days. So I hope you knew you're selling, selling, selling to customers, and then you didn't ask the customer what they want. And actually, it was washed out recently at a dinner party and the part was selling, selling, selling, selling and then I was like, I asked prospective customers like what's the number one problem? And the number one problem was like, totally different from the solution? How do you have that conversation? I guess, with founders, or if you're like a co-founder or your executive team member, but when you're in a situation where someone's got their own Kool-Aid, how do you broach that conversation? How do you approach it in a way that obviously is respectful, but also helps I kind of reset the conversation to like, what the actual consumer wants, what the actual consumer needs, what we actually can deliver, and what we hope to deliver.
 
Huiting Koh: (17:01)
So there's different ways of doing it. But most of the time, I try to remind myself, I try really hard not to go into Operator mode, because that's what I know. So I'm like, I have the solution but I have to remind myself that I'm not the operator. Now I'm on the other side, I'm the investor. And so I look at my role very much as a coach, I have to suggest I have to encourage, and so I will usually try to say to the founder, actually don't think that that might be true, I would suggest that you talk to your consumer do focus group, make sure that the need that you say you are solving is an actual problem for the consumer. And what I usually say to them is just because you build it doesn't mean that they will come, I get that you think that your product is amazing. And it is in itself, if it is actually answering a real need, and it has to be a real need. And then I tie it back to now you're talking to a VC, the real thing that you we are concerned about is whether it's venture packable. There are lots of businesses that make money that aren't necessarily venture bankable. Because we're obviously a venture capitalist, we're looking for a certain return on our fund. That's a different story of constraints. But at the end of the day, sometimes I had to have the conversation with the founder decide for yourself, if you want to be a venture backed business, or you just want to have a nice income for yourself, because either one of those things are okay. And how you build your business will be different. What you want to do with the business will also be different.
 
Jeremy Au: (18:30)
I think what's interesting, of course, and it was discussing it before the show started also was, I think we noticed that a lot of these categories, obviously, there are a lot more women who are new to the next generation of founders really today, especially across Southeast Asia. And also we have received as a new generation of female venture capitalists in the space today as well. And you shared about how you're very much passionate about this movement. Could you share a little bit more about your thoughts about this space?
 
Huiting Koh: (18:55)
I think I'm generally very passionate about women owning their power earlier. Because it took me a very long time to find mine. And I'm still finding it. I'm definitely not. I mean, I still go through days where I feel literally like a woman in a man's world. And then why do I have to take what is given to me? Why can't I simply just take and I think a lot of that has to do with how we're brought up how we're conditioned, , you shouldn't be too assertive, you shouldn't be too opinionated or your opinions are too strong. It's relative, but it's also people make these comments based on the gender lens that they apply when they when they when they meet you. So I might say the same thing as a guy next to me, but I might be labeled as too opinionated, but he might just be labeled as confident. That for me is frustrating and has been very frustrating for me in my own career because I started my career in investment banking before I was a brand manager. So my career has been largely with the exception of my time at Unilever. But very male dominated, the only difference is that Unilever was much more female dominated, but then that does not solve a lot of problems. That's a different set of problems. And I mean, back in venture, it's still very male dominated. And so I'm very passionate about women empowering younger women to feel confident in standing up for themselves taking back their power earlier than I figured out how to do for myself is interesting phrase.
 
Jeremy Au: (20:27)
So about women taking back their power earlier, what does that mean scary? Let's unpack this what does that mean? I think I've never heard this phrase before. I think it's relatively new even in Southeast Asia. So what does that mean to you personally? And how do you see that playing out?
 
Huiting Koh: (20:48)
I think taking back your power really means first and foremost, being your own cheerleader, but having enough, I guess, self-awareness to not drink your own Kool-Aid. And it has to be done in a way that is empowering, as opposed to powerful because I make that distinction, because powerful, can negative connotations, but empowering is much more positive. And we want to be doing this in a way that empowers other people. So you take your power back, so that you can give that out to other people. And you can empower them, when you're not empowered. Or when you have given away your power, you stand in a position of being a victim of being a victim of your circumstances, of feeling like I can't do anything to change and control the situation episode happening around me. And that is true to a lot of extent, you cannot control what other people do. But you can control how you view the situation. And if you are able to change your perspective, you then realize that the possibilities of your reactions to that situation, it becomes much broader than he did this or she did this, therefore I'm gonna do this. That's a reactive position that you're reacting from. But if you're able to take a step back and say, okay, they did this, how am I going to respond? How do I want to view this situation? How am I going to turn this situation into something that I can work with, and it might not necessarily give me the best outcome right now, but it will give me a better outcome later? That's what I'm talking about by taking the power back. Because I think a lot of the a lot of young women, I hear they say, I shouldn't say this happened, and therefore it made me feel this way. And therefore now I do this XYZ. And I think that's very natural, normal human reaction. But taking your power back is going this happened. I felt like this, I don't like it. I'm going to think of the situation from a different perspective. And I'm going to do this differently. Because then that automatically opens the horizons for the possibilities of what can happen. And I think there's an element of maturity that comes into that an element of experience before you can actually reach that point. Think like that. It probably took me, I probably was like 37, or 36 before I reached that point. And I was like, if I had known that I could change my mind like this change my own perspective like this earlier. Man, the things I could have done. I don't know what I could have done, but I probably wouldn't have been.
 
Jeremy Au: (23:41)
What catalysed that shift for you because you said that was later for you? And you wish it had been earlier for other folks. And even for yourself, what would you say catalyze that shift was like a book or content or people like, I'm so curious, because I think a lot of people are looking for that catalyst, whatever that means. So could you share?
 
Huiting Koh: (24:01)
I was introduced to a program by an ex colleague, and we used to work at Unilever together. And we were kind of like the junior brand managers in that team. And we report it directly to a brand director and there was nobody in between us. So we were essentially acting like the brand managers. There's usually, you've got your junior brand managers, assistant managers. And then you've got a brand manager and then a senior brand manager, and then VP and then a director. And that's kind of what was missing for us because we were very small team, even though we were running like 400 million euro global business. We worked very well together. We had different approaches to work. We had different approaches to handling problems. I was very much the action oriented, let's do something. And I was the opinionated like, I don't like this, and she was the softer, but how about we do it this way? But she would we would both have the same frustration hands. So what that showed me was that despite having different but complementary approaches to work, and different approaches to dealing with a problem, I was a lot more like action oriented, she was a lot more like, let's think about things before we take an action. We were both equally frustrated at certain things. And I asked myself that, why are we frustrated, we're different people were different. We shouldn't have. I didn't expect us to have the same frustrations. But we were both equally frustrated. And our frustrations were equal in measure. And I always thought that she would be a lot more she her frustration to be a lot less than mine, because she was so much more measured than I was. And so she, in order to solve her frustration, went to this course called landmark. Now, I'm plugging that mark, which this is a terrible thing, but I thought it was great. And she was like, you have to go to this thing. And I said, what is it? And she's like, well, you just come. And because I'm asking you, and I was like, that's a very direct ask. And you are literally asking someone for a personal favorite. I have never done that. I would not feel comfortable doing that with a work colleague, but she felt and knowing her character, I was like, this is so out of character for her. I'm just gonna say. And so I went to this thing. It was an introductory, introductory evening. And at the end of it, I said to her, because it was her graduation, she was graduating, it was a three and a half day weekend thing. And I showed her a picture.I said I think this is a cult. She was like, I knew you would say that. And she said, are you going to sign up for it? And I was like, what it's a cult. And I was like, don't you feel a little bit like a used car salesman? She's like, but are you gonna sign up? And I said, okay, sure, I'll sign up. And I said, because she was so convicted. And I could see a huge change in her, and how she was dealing with our frustrations at work. And I saw her and I said, I want what you have, I want to be able to let all of these things flow over me like the water off a duck's back. And still take the next empowering action. A lot of the times, because you're reacting, your emotions are heightened to you, you are unable to take the next empowering action, and you take a reactive action and so I did it. And I was like, this is a life changer, because it completely flipped, how you view the world and things happening around you on its head. And the minute things are flipped on its head, the power comes back to you. Because then I realize every action, every decision, everything I say is at my own discretion, I have full control. And I have the ability to change my life every 10 seconds with every decision that I need to make every 10 seconds. If I don't like it, change it and make some sense and so I did that. And then I went on to do a few more like communications courses, which was all about taking back your power. I was the power of communication. And when I started in Venture, I remember saying to myself, when I have a portfolio large enough with large enough founders, I would want every single founder to attend this course. And people are going to think up probably crazy. And it's going to they're going to feel like it's a cult, but it's not going to only make them better leaders. It'll make them better spouses, it'll make them better partners that are people, everyone will feel so much more empowered to do more, not just in their professional life, but in their personal life, their relationships with their family, their friends. And so it impacts everything. And so that for me was the turning point, there's Rayleigh long answer to your question.
 
Jeremy Au: (28:52)
Amazing. I really appreciate you sharing all of that. Huiting, could you share with us about a time that you personally have been brave?
 
Huiting Koh: (28:59)
I think it was, when I quit Unilever and really had no idea what I was doing next. That was very out of character. For me, I shared a little bit earlier about how my first career was in investment banking. So I started at Goldman in New York and investment banking out of college. And if anybody understands what that is, at that point in time, in order to get that job, you would need to have done at least three summer internships in different investment things in order to even get your resume seen, let alone having to have the GPA having to have the poise when you're presenting yourself or having the extracurricular, all that stuff. And so for the longest time my life was much planned. It was always like, I want to do this. Therefore, I need to do this and this and this today. And the first time I chose to quit Unilever and we're just in 2017. It was the first time I deliberately chose to not have a plan and I was 36 at the time, and to have spent 36 years of your life like always having a plan, always working towards a plan in order to get to the next step. And suddenly to not have that was very, very scary. Not to mention that my parents constantly called me and they said, you're crazy, I can't believe you're giving up your work visa, you'll never be able to get a job. So there's a lot of like, external doubt, as well combined with my own internal self-doubt. But I said, “No, this feels like the thing to do”. And I cannot explain why it felt like the right thing. It just felt like a freeing thing. And I just chose to literally say to my parents, Hey, can I come traveling with you? And that was also a very deliberate thing. I had spent most of my life outside of Singapore. And so for me to say to them, I would like to spend time with you, as well as your friends, obviously, while we're traveling to places that they want to go to was very deliberate. And they said, okay, sure. And the reason I chose to do that was primarily because I was actually very bored with talking to my friends, I was very bored with my life of living in New York, wake up on Saturday, go to brunch, wake up on Sunday, go to brunch Saturday night, go and have a nice dinner, go to a bar, I was very, very bored. And I had different groups of friends. But we all talked about the same things. And I said, No, I need to go and talk to somebody who's actually, in my mind, boring. The time so I said, Hey, parents, can I come with you? Can I hang out with your friends? And I did that for a couple of trips. And I realized they're friends. They're not people from the same industry. Up until that point, I had all of my industry friends, all of my work, friends were people from the same industry, people from the same schools, and people from the same job profiles very, very, very similar. Their friends were very different. They had somebody who had owned a company, very boring company, but he loved his job. They had a plastic surgeon, very interesting character, somebody in a bunch of other people, very artistic, very diverse. And I asked my parents, how did you get to know these people, and they said, it's friends of friends. And now we like each other. And so we traveled together. The thing that stuck out for me in talking to all of their friends, or just I didn't actually talk to them, I actually spent two or three weeks with these people just keeping to myself, but listening to their conversations, and what I took from their conversations, and what I heard was that everybody was successful, obviously, because they were able to go on these trips on a whim. And they were very happy, they were very content with what they had achieved in their life, even though their jobs might not necessarily have looked to me with my eyes, as the ideal job or the job that would give you happiness. And that's when I realized there is no job that's going to give you happiness, there's no job title, there's no job specificity, that's going to give you happiness. And these people are simply happy because they love what they do. For whatever reason, they just love what they do. And so that kind of made me realize that you just have to find the thing that gives you energy, the thing that makes you happy. And that makes your heart sing, it makes you want to wake up the next day to do it again, and you will do it for free. And that to me was like the biggest takeaway. And so when I started doing this, meetings with founders, I was doing it for free. I was giving them my advice from someone who has operated a business from a brand manager’s point of view, from an insights that point of view, they felt like I was asking them questions that nobody has asked them before. And I felt like I was adding value. The obviously over the time that I spent with these founders, I came across a few companies that I wanted to Angel invest in. So I did that. And so then I realized why I'm doing this VC thing for free. And I'm also putting in my own money. This is very expensive side hobby, if only somebody would pay me to do this as a job. But that's kind of when I realized, this is a thing and I have to follow the energy. I talked about following the energy before. And so for me, that whole process of just simply trusting where the cars will fall, trust the universe, whatever you want to call it. If you're religious God just trust the process, let things bubble up, that was such a huge detraction from how I normally planned my life. That it required a whole lot of courage
 
Jeremy Au: (34:32)
Yeah, you can. Awesome, that's amazing. I’m going to paraphrase the three big themes that got from this conversation. The first of course is, I think thank you so much for sharing about how women can take back their power earlier. I love how you talked about it from your own personal perspective and how you discovered that leader, your career and how you wish that you could have discovered it earlier, but also how other folks could also discover it earlier as well. And I love how you unpack it in terms of not just language, but also what it means in daily habits and workforce arrangements. The second of course, is I really appreciated you talking about your prior experience as a brand manager in consumer packaged goods in terms of consumer wants and needs, and how that translates to a startup world in terms of how Founders and VC’s should be thoughtful about how to package but also what to deliver in the context of does the future need is does the consumer want this right? Does the world need this? And lastly, I love, I think you sharing about your own experiences in preventing folks from drinking their own Kool-Aid. So talking about how you help coach executive teams and founders, go through the five why's and think through what exactly they need to do to stay in touch with their customers. And also, as a result, the company's growth and future. So thank you so much for coming on the show, Huiting.
 
Huiting Koh: (35:56)
Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. I had a great chat.