Jeremy joined the Unlocked Podcast on 22 Nov 2021 to chat with Ricky Willianto about:
- What makes the Southeast Asia startup ecosystem unique
- The evolution of the market: from being an end market to becoming a region with grassroots innovation that has global potential
- Industries where Southeast Asian companies can potentially become global leaders in
- Southeast Asia as a glocalised market - well connected globally, but having very unique local influences
- The evolution of the startup ecosystem driven by the 2nd and 3rd generation startup founders in the region
Check out the podcast here & the transcript below.
Ricky:
[00:00:00] This is Unlocked, a series of conversations about fast-growing industries and disruptive technologies. My name is Ricky Willianto, the co-founder of Ravenry, and the host of unlocked. On this podcast, I'll be speaking with practitioners and experts, and founders and CEOs who are at the forefront of exciting new industries and trends in Southeast Asia. Thank you for listening and let's start the show.
[00:00:38] Hey, Jeremy. Nice to see you here again. This is like the third time we are on a podcast together. Welcome and thanks for joining us.
Jeremy:
[00:00:47] Yeah, each time around has always been interesting. And this time we're going deeper into some advanced topics. Excited to be here.
Ricky:
[00:00:54] Sounds good. Why don't you introduce yourself really quickly, just in case people don't know who you are? Which they should by now.
Jeremy:
[00:01:03] So I'm a VC at Monk's Hill Ventures, which is really about [00:01:09] entrepreneurs backing entrepreneurs. I'm a former founder, myself, serial founder, who has bootstrapped, as well as exited companies of my own across Singapore and America. And I also happen to run a podcast called BRAVE: Southeast Asia Tech podcast, which is a global top 10% podcast entirely focused on Southeast Asia tech topics. So you can find it at www.jeremyau.com and on on the side, I enjoy reading science fiction, doing improv and hanging out with my family and baby daughter. So excited to get started.
Ricky:
[00:01:50] Sounds good. It seems that you have your hands full with so many different things, which is great. It's always fun. So why don't we just get started right away? Let's talk about Southeast Asia. You have a lot of experience here. You have been in the tech scene for a while now, not just in Southeast Asia, but also in the US and also you've been a VC here for what, three years now, two years, three years now. So tell us what see in this region.
Jeremy:
[00:02:17] Yeah. So I think what's interesting is that having grown up here in my roots, having been a Bain consultant here and being part of that early, landscape view of technology and rise across Southeast Asia. Across different geographies and obviously being part of a founder movement here in Southeast Asia. Now looking at it from the mindset of VC. I think we're seeing a lot of changes of that from an ecosystem basis, from a chronological point of view, but also from a country point of view long story short would be, technology's eating the world ,country by country and vertical by vertical. So what we mean by that obviously is that we've seen that technology can increase the productivity of a team or different industries, different countries.
[00:03:10] And we see the ripple of those business models, the ripple effect of those technologies and the ripple of those business transformation cascade into Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam. And [00:03:27] we see the examples, for example, in transportation and logistics, for example, in the retail side. But we will see that in the B2B side for, marketplaces but also in, medium and small, medium enterprises and even now productivity and SaaS tools as well. So we really see that from a cross-border inspiration and ripple effect. And we also see that from an inside out chronological maturation as well. So founders learning from each other. The next generation of founders getting groomed at current companies, as well as the growth of VCs, accelerators, incubators, and public policy as a part of that in each individual company and at each individual country.
Ricky:
[00:04:26] Yeah, that sounds good. So let's explore them step by step, right? I think there is one part where you said there is a chronological development in terms of the kind of [00:04:36] technology and startups that is growing in Southeast Asia. I think the second thing you mentioned as well, there are some sort of a trend around, you how, like we are entering a new generation of like founders essentially, a new group of startup founders who are probably second generation right now. And they might be thinking very differently and behaving very differently and we can a market differently. So let's talk about the first thing first, which is the tech like chronological development. What have you seen as in the past two years, at least some of the biggest changes in terms of in a what's hot in the market, what's growing and what investors are thinking and looking at. Firstly.
Jeremy:
[00:05:16] Yeah, I think historically, the first crux of it was that, a lot of people looked at Southeast Asia and when I was a Bain consultant coming back from UC Berkeley, I think a lot of people looked at Southeast Asia as at a time, an end market. So I don't know the US then EU then China, then India. And then Southeast Asia like on the Excel, on the [00:05:45] Y column. And then, the goal was to like, if you saw shampoo, then you would expand your product line from country or region to region.
[00:05:55] And finally you. That product line would reach Southeast Asia, but it's shampoo or a food category or a new type of product or electronics. And so always looking at Southeast Asia.
Ricky:
[00:06:10] When you say "end market", just to clarify, you're talking about how, like we are the end consumer.
Jeremy:
[00:06:16] Yeah, exactly. An end consumer market, because the truth is, yeah, there's hundreds of millions of people here with a GDP per capita there's has a lot of catch-up growth that has more and more disposable income.
[00:06:31] And that has been true for a while and that continues to be true. And so we continue to see GDP capita growing at about 6% consistently, which is a tremendous amount of growth and should not be undersold and should not be forgotten because that is still a fundamental driver, which [00:06:54] is that there is an exciting domestic market.
[00:06:57] Within Southeast Asia and these economies are not only taking care and consuming more, whatever that is, but also producing more. Learning more and treating each other more. Is this, that technology historically 10 years ago had historically said, okay, are you from America where you from other countries, we're look at this as an end market in Southeast Asia to be sold to.
[00:07:26] And I think that a big transformation over the past 10 years has been okay. Turns out that it's not just an end market. But it's also a talent market, right? That there is incredible folks in Southeast Asia, part of it, the diaspora so they had studied in America, the west and China and India, wherever they were, but part of diaspora, but also, homegrown. So they study at a top university study and, on the streets, hustlers, [00:08:03] but the savvy hungry, there's a very strong domestic talent market that had been overlooked and just never had an opportunity or never had the language is to some extent the freedom to really go out there and build.
[00:08:19] And has really been the unlocking and understanding what the past 10 years is that actually great. Southeast Asian tech companies can be built and learned by Southeast Asian leaders. And I think there's been a big transformation because you go back 20 years ago, 30 years ago, it was like, okay, how does Facebook add to Southeast Asia?
[00:08:42] Then how do they find great general managers? Or junior talent in Southeast Asia, but the past 10 years, I think we've seen a rise of Grab, all these other great companies. And if you look at one level deeper the centaurs and those unicorns, and one level deeper, the new wave of startups, there's so much great founder and operate and executive talent that are all homegrown.
[00:09:10] And these people are not saying to [00:09:12] themselves, Wow. I really. Really think that this stuff, this audit guard from Silicon valley is the gospel or that this American who came off a flight knows this geography better than I do, because the answer. Maybe they have industry expertise, maybe they have vertical expertise, media, domain, and skill expertise.
[00:09:37] But having that roots in the ground, lets you have that network skills, cold norms, a bunch of implicit knowledge that's just really hard to get remotely. And so I think there's seen that bar for the past 10 years. And I think what we've seen over the past two years, actually now, is the broadening of that.
[00:10:00] I think just a sense now that Southeast Asia talent can not only build and win for the Southeast Asia market, but they can also build and win global markets as well. So potentially also win. So we see Shopee expanding to South America [00:10:21] and winning to some extent they're making great share in terms of market share and penetration there also see other local companies also starting to make those moves, expand different regions, cross border, et cetera. So I think there's a sense that actually the world is everyone's oyster in that sense. And so I think it's been interesting to see that cultural and mindset transformation. So three phases, and a sense where Southeast Asia was an end market.
[00:10:55] For global companies to enter and sell to towards now technology where domestic champions can arise, led by domestic trends to now domestic champions can also win on the global stage as well. That's the three stages I've seen.
Ricky:
[00:11:13] It's interesting that you say there's that shift between how I guess the market look at Southeast Asia is an extension of what they build in other markets. And so they think, oh it's successful in my market. Why don't we sell as well to the Southeast Asian market? [00:11:30] Shouldn't be that different. But actually, evidently we've seen that a lot of more successful startups in this region actually are very much grassroot grown.
[00:11:38] So a lot of them like Grab, they have a pretty good understanding of the local market are able to kind of like customize or localize their solution to that degree. And they've managed to collect, expand that and extend that capability beyond just the, this region. So what do you see as like the key reason why it is so important for market like Southeast Asia to have that kind of a grassroots connection with the region, with the culture, with the people here, because evidently there are some nuances that has helped on this.
[00:12:13] And startups be a lot more successful than the global place. If we getting like boring example of Grab, Uber managed to come and get pushed out by Grab because they've done so much better and Uber is a global company, so there must be something that is in the DNA of those local founders, that is non-existent in most of these global companies.
[00:12:33] Who's just trying to expand, globally in a universal, standardized way.
Jeremy:
[00:12:37] You know when I was an undergrad, I actually put together a deck and, Localization, which is something we pulled from movie caught up in the air as well. So just globalization with localization, right?
[00:12:53] Localization, or just, how do you like localize at scale on a global basis? And I think it's a good strategy, right? Which is if you have a global product and at a time we were putting together that presentation for Facebook and Facebook has done a great job. If you think about it, where it is actually a global product and it is actually also localized by every country in different ways.
[00:13:19] Yeah. Same point of time. I think that Facebook also. Came to existence at a time when there was a such a long window for competition to arise. And also there different economies in terms of how the different markets had in terms of being able to catch up and does a building, how that technology as well as different economies of scale as well in terms of that [00:13:48] vertical actually has. Whereas if you actually look at right healing, we actually saw that same approach where Uber was super aggressive in terms of that approach, which was trying to go global and also localize aggressively in China as well as in Southeast Asia. As well as in multiple auto markets.
[00:14:11] And what we saw of course, was that DiDi out competed Uber as well as, Grab and Gojek actually out competed. Uber is Southeast Asia what's interesting, of course, is that, Grab and Gojek were both founded by Harvard MBAs, which was, you know, my old school. And they both enjoyed using the Uber experience and app in America while you're studying. And he went back to Southeast Asia to build it right. And so the truth is they to also glocalized global localized Uber, they were the GMs, or they should have been the GMs that Uber hired. But the truth is Uber did not identify them or incentivize them [00:14:57] correctly to be as hungry to build out that way or did not give them enough autonomy to build it out that way.
[00:15:03] So in a perfect world, Uber should identified these two folks and said, we are going to give you the equity share and going to give you the hunger, the autonomy to build, Grab and Gojek in your countries it would be happy. But the truth is who did not, whoever hired GMs and a team that represented Uber entity went out and build a team.
[00:15:29] That was hungrier more local, faster, and eventually our competed Uber in Singapore. So the Gojek right. They did so in Indonesia and after markets. And so the truth is the fundamental thesis still is true or where just right. Bike hailing was glocalized. Globally localized it's just that the execution was done by a superior team.
[00:15:58] And the economics of that team just turned out to be funded by a different VC supporting better operators [00:16:06] at the ground level.
Ricky:
[00:16:07] So is, what is lesson here, I guess for this larger organizations is trying to like, own this market, right? As you mentioned in the past, it's very much of a perspective of an end market.
[00:16:19] So a lot of the operators are actually from HQ, it's always that from, the the mothership. But then it was mentioned that there is that component of having, local understanding and being able to collect, built that appetite. For fast-growth right. By the local team, make a big difference to some of these startups.
[00:16:39] So what is it that the founders of these Southeast Asian economies should realize about themselves? How do they tap into those capabilities at the same time for the larger organizations that may be successful in other markets and try to capture the local market or some of the things that has gone wrong in the past and some things that they should realize by now.
Jeremy:
[00:17:02] At the end of the day, it really boils down to execution when expanding to Southeast Asia. And so I think the old days of flying someone in, on a posting for two [00:17:15] years or three years, I think those days coming to an end soon, not because the talent advantages are there, I think that will continue to be a rotation.
[00:17:26] They'll come to be a posting. They'll continue to be a norm because so much of central HQ, the processes, the norms of what needs to be there continues to be key. It's just that we need on the outside, in and inside out, I did two different things, right? The outside in, competitions is way more intense, right?
[00:17:47] Full stop. Competition from other companies, knowledge is so much more flatter. The processes that used to be very much like special to America, no Western companies. Now is available on the internet. It's available via consultants, it's available for purchase or hire. It's very commoditized in many ways.
[00:18:13] And so I think the intensity of competition is much higher. And so it's really about that iterative improvement on the ground level execution is [00:18:24] for you really the key. To keep pace or stay ahead. And so the window of time is very different. I think the second aspect of it adding from an inside out perspective is that I think if someone is getting posted to Southeast Asia, I think the big thing is they need to have a longer time horizon.
[00:18:44] Which is that I didn't begin to position for the next two to three years, or are they making a position for Southeast Asia for the next 20 to 30 years? Because the question is then are you going to groom talent. Are you gonna bring in talent from your office. Indonesia office, a single office, and sure.
[00:19:04] Yeah. True. They may not understand the language may not be as on point, is this idea that if they stay empowered, can then be groomed to become the general manager or the CEO of this unit over the next 10, 20, 30 years. Because that's going to be super duper key.
[00:19:24] And I think the best MNCs in Southeast Asia have that structure have that mobility have that [00:19:33] meritocracy. And they have that long game to say Hey, someone from the region is going to win the region, right. And it's in our interest to be long-term greedy and long-term invest in the talent necessary to win these local geographies.
[00:19:52] So that's the key of it. So I think that's the tricky part is just like when you're expanding to Southeast Asia is how do you balance those two things, right? How do you have the short term. Investment requirement of launching the markets, Southeast Asia, which requires people to be able to hit it into the geography, which have a two to five year time horizon.
[00:20:15] And yet how you also pass them with the requirement of making sure that deals are transitioned to the general manager or the longer term local leadership with the right incentive structure. And the right long-term place and metrics that make them really hungry to win the domestic market. And that's gonna depend company to company.
Ricky:
[00:20:40] Your observation, do [00:20:42] you see this in the talent contracts, this glocalization effect to be a lot more pronounced in Southeast Asia compared to other markets?
Jeremy:
[00:20:52] Yes. It's important because of two reasons, language and market and why? But that is the benefits I think of working across eight states and the EU is that they are harmonized, right? So America, everybody speaks English. That's federal law, the barriers to trade and commerce across states and towns have been simplified.
[00:21:30] And effectively a free trade agreement within the country, a huge economy. And they've also bundled Canada and Mexico so that you have a similar labor market as well as similar skills market that makes it easy for a general manager to [00:21:51] manage that as a whole region at scale, to some extent that's also similar for the EU, where the harmonization of rules over time has made that simpler over time, although to a greater extent, language differences and country differences that are larger than that of America. In Southeast Asia, the Vietnam economy, language, and market is very different from Indonesia end market.
[00:22:25] And these three markets are so dramatically different from each other. And then you'd show in Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, which have some, share some attributes of these three other countries, but also different in their own unique ways as well. And then you try and add the countries Southeast Asia and therefore.
[00:22:46] Being a general manager of being that global localization requires you to not only understand Southeast Asia from a country by country basis, which requires you to have a [00:23:00] sensitivity. It also requires you to be sensitive to the diversity of that yet also be able to strategically. To have the flexibility to have that autonomy or ability to target, for example, do production across these different economies on a trade level yet cater to different local preferences. That's actually not easy, right? If you think about it, because then that means that your preferences are localized, but your production is globalized. And that's not something that someone in a different geography may have had the personal scale experience or autonomy of having done before, which makes this geography a little bit more interesting to navigate compared to other geographies.
Ricky:
[00:23:56] Yeah, in the differences between the cultures and the country groups in Southeast Asia is greater than regions. Like even in Europe, I think at least they can speak the same language. I think like economic [00:24:09] standpoint, they also the gap is much smaller compared to Southeast Asia. So I think there's definitely a lot of nuances in Southeast Asia that is a lot more pronounced culturally. And therefore we need to be a little bit mindful of when it comes to building startups here as well. I want to round back to what you said earlier about how Southeast Asia has like in a way grown from having this end market life perception, right?
[00:24:33] The global market thinks of us as, okay, this is the consumer market. This is where we sell all our stuff. And we've been like climbing up the value chain and we've been producing, we've been creating things. And in fact, we've been growing the homegrown businesses beyond as well. Do you see any specific areas or industries that are especially prominent in terms of, we have competitive advantage in an area where we are strong in. Do you see any specific industries or areas where Southeast Asia excels more than maybe other regions or other markets?
Jeremy:
[00:25:06] From a production perspective and technology or from an end market perspective or?
Ricky:
[00:25:12] Yeah, I think like we have quite a lot of successful end market products, and even tech [00:25:18] companies that are e-commerce companies like we've built really great businesses around value chain, supply chain. We ha we are very fragmented and difficult logistically, like very difficult market to tackle.
[00:25:29] So there's definitely some areas that I think, we might be good at, in a global market, especially with tackling issues in region that have similar characteristics like us. For example, that's so yeah, my curiosity. Whether it's in the end market segment right off, high up in the value chain.
[00:25:46] Where do you see Southeast Asia excelling? In, in terms of technology, in terms of being able to build a global level business?
Jeremy:
[00:25:55] That's a million-dollar question, or even a billion dollar question that all of us asking ourselves right now. It's tough to explain it on an Southeast Asia level...
Ricky:
[00:26:05] We can reframe it. If you were to think about a company that you can invest in now in Southeast Asia, that you're confident has the potential to go global. Which industry? What kind of business would that be? You would speculate to be having that potential.
Jeremy:
[00:26:22] Got some interesting ones. I'll give you a few and [00:26:27] I'll give you the bone and bare case so that you have some thoughts around it.
[00:26:33] Just so that you're aware. One interesting dynamic that we're seeing is for example, blockchain, what's interesting is that historically finance used to be an American game because of the American financial system as well, specifically a New York game. All finance was American. And all American finance was New York.
[00:26:57] And what we found out is that with the advent of decentralized finance and blockchain, it turns out that even though access to the American financial system is concentrated in New York. It turns out the talent to engineer financial systems is equally distributed. And so that means that there are people who love economics and finance in Australia and the Philippines and Singapore.
[00:27:24] And so it's an off or on the wall. And so what's interesting is that there is a groundswell of. Southeast Asian folks who are [00:27:36] building for Southeast Asia and emerging market economies using blockchain that was just locked out. They could never get an American education into the Ivy League and they could have never gone to New York to become a banker, to join the financial system and serve the global financial American system. But now we're able to do so from Southeast Asia. And this has been helped to some extent with the Chinese regulating a way that as well as Singapore choosing to have a light touch on blockchain. So what has that means is that there's a concentration of blockchain startups and incorporated companies in Singapore. Obviously America continues to also be its own huge hub as well, because itself is a market, an end market because of its strengths as a creative economy in Los Angeles, with Hollywood.
[00:28:35] So it continues a lot of traditional advantages but if you look in Asia, whereas the Asia hub for blockchain, [00:28:45] well, it's not going to be China. So it's unlikely to be India as a result because of historicals. So if there's anywhere going to be, it's going to be in Southeast Asia and therefore Singapore.
[00:28:58] So there's an interesting dynamic of if there's two poles, east and west. Blockchain one hub would be in Singapore because of the regulatory there. Another vertical, I must give example this is adjacent. For example, e-gaming or interesting dynamic as an overlap with blockchain there, but e-gaming has been something that has been historically been quite popular for east-west at Southeast Asia. What's interesting is that in America and Europe, a lot of the spots, revenue, and budget was fundamentally driven by underlying leaks. So like sports. Like soccer and football that doesn't exist in Southeast Asia. That spend doesn't happen even though there's a desire for such a team.
[00:29:52] And so to some extent, [00:29:54] e-gaming is rising as an emerging vertical in Southeast Asia, definitely from a consumption and definitely from a playtime perspective. Although we haven't seen that emerge yet from a production basis. So we haven't seen too many startups, really succeed yet. A lot of them have primarily been American or Chinese companies really succeeding so far yet, maybe over time we'll see that happen over time.
[00:30:21] So yeah, those two examples of verticals that we see and they show different things in player. Regulatory choices not just of Southeast Asia, but also China, of India, of America, but also, end market preferences that's what we're actually doing one last thing that I think Southeast Asia has as well, which is also a function of geography and history is really, and you mentioned that earlier is the logistics and trade, right? For thousands of years, Southeast Asia has been the hub and the route for trade between east and west. It has [00:31:03] always used a monsoon trade between India, China, Europe.
[00:31:09] For thousands of years and it continues to be, that's why there's a huge business culture in Southeast Asia. There's a huge middleman culture. And that translates into local customs, and the one level, but also that allows for local competencies in terms of trade supply, or adjacent to supply chain startups like tourism hospitality, et cetera, they're really like adjacent if you think about it, because it's really not about not just the production of stuff, but also the flow, right?
[00:31:47] The flow of people, the flow of products, the flow of production which is adding a really interesting difference. I think from other places across the world.
Ricky:
[00:32:01] Singapore is a great market for like semiconductors, right? No, we have a lot of RND sensors here, but at the same time, I think there are a lot of technologies.
[00:32:11] It's not [00:32:12] necessarily available in this market. Southeast Asia in itself, doesn't have a lot of this high-tech stuff that allows the industry to really kinda take a big leap forward. So a lot of those industries rely on external parties markets to actually close that gap, whether it's infrastructure, whether it's no holidays, IP.
[00:32:33] Yeah. I'm just curious to understand in a region like Southeast Asia, what are some of the, I guess, catalysts, if you will, that will enable a lot of this new wave of technology, disruption.
Jeremy:
[00:32:46] I think that's already happening. Really happening. The diaspora of Southeast, Asia is studying around the world in China and India and America, Europe. They are also coming back. They're bringing what to have that as far as that. Foreign direct investment has been in Southeast Asia for decades and continues to come in at a steady clip.
[00:33:08] It's not pulled back during a pandemic, continues to come in at a steady pace. It continues to be important, great talent in terms of expertise and experts and consultants [00:33:21] continue to help build in Southeast Asia and continue to catalyze that from an expertise and investment perspective, governments continue to slowly experiment and march on in building our needs to be done.
[00:33:35] The GDP per capita continues to grow at around about 6% every year. Internet penetration continues to grow at about 7% a year. Telcos, the more internet, and people have money to buy internet. Electronic platforms and shopping, platforms continue to educate consumers on how to use the internet and buy stuff online.
[00:33:59] Online infrastructure companies continue to lay pipes or logistics. Tier one to tier two to tier three. So I think all these catalysts that I mentioned exists and continue to exist and are continuing to push forward. So I don't really think about it from the perspective of being there, is there anything new that needs to come?
[00:34:24] I think the flywheel is there and he's spinning his going faster. I think that's, what's really interesting, [00:34:30] attractive about Southeast Asia. Which is that the flywheel is going faster and faster because the virtuous cycle is going on. I think what's more concerning is actually like the risks involved with it.
[00:34:41] What could prevent this flywheel from continuing, so like a trade war between China and America. Now that could stop the flywheel because that would slow down trade, that could cause people that pick sides, de-stabilizing going to a hot civil war and causing migrant flows. Destabilization. That's a big risk of it, that could be a big risk as well. Yeah. So those are like the things that I'm more concerned about, if that makes sense, rather than new catalysts because I feel like the catalyst ingredients that is making Southeast Asia special are already here and keep on going.
Ricky:
[00:35:27] That's great to hear. I think I want to loop back on, I think one of the earlier things you mentioned as well, which is, talking about like the new generation of founders, or startups that's coming here. I think we are [00:35:39] starting to see a lot of like second generation. Some even third generation, like founders who graduated from either like unicorns from the US, from Silicon Valley.
[00:35:49] Are like, the unicorns are Southeast Asia. How do you see that dynamic changes in terms of, what is being thought of as a new problem? Because that has also evolved quite significantly from the past five, 10 years.
Jeremy:
[00:36:07] Yeah. Sounds like we have to go on to our fourth of fifth programs in the future to, to wrap things up.
[00:36:15] Yeah. I think the quick answer to that is yeah. With the wave of exits from the first generation of domestic champions who were not only led by domestic leaders but also have groomed domestic talents from junior all the way to middle to senior executive talent. We're going to see not only founders come out and emerge for not only experience, but also a hungry [00:36:48] and familiar with why there needs to be a company from scratch as well as having the capital needed to do and so we're going to see a new wave of startups that now are afraid to be differentiated, not afraid to build new economics, business, and not afraid to be proud of Southeast Asia. And I think that is going to be very interesting because they're going to build in a very different way.
[00:37:18] I think there's going to be much more thought leadership that is very much more Southeast Asian oriented. I think we'll form best practices on our own, we'll still, of course, draw a lot from the best practices of the world, it's just that I think that wouldn't necessarily be that implicit pecking order. I think this advice is better because it comes from America too.
[00:37:42] Like we had a moment maybe turns out I will actually be seeking Singaporean advice about how to crack the Singapore market because this person's from Singapore and this person has built a company in Singapore, right? [00:37:57] So it's just more localized and more tailored and more personalized for what needs to be done.
[00:38:02] So the leadership stands on its own rights and what we are going to see as well. Is that as they build these companies, I think that they will in turn inspire the third wave of founders or first-time founders. So they're going to be excited and passionate about building whatever they want to build for themselves and for the world.
[00:38:27] So very excited to see this new wave. Emerge and conquer the role in a sense for making the world a little bit better in a very Southeast Asian way, for the Southeast Asian consumer, with a Southeast Asian approach. And I think that's exciting.
Ricky:
[00:38:48] Yeah. It's definitely exciting to think about how we are stepping into that phase that you mentioned, which is Southeast Asian companies is going global.
[00:38:56] Yeah, we definitely will save that topic for another time, time's pretty much up for us today, but thank you so much, Jeremy, again for joining us on this podcast. [00:39:06] I really appreciate the time.
Jeremy:
[00:39:07] Thank you. Absolute pleasure, Ricky.
Ricky:
[00:39:09] Yeah, always nice speaking with you. I'll see you soon.
[00:39:14] Thank you for listening to this episode and we hope you enjoyed it. This podcast is produced by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency in collaboration with Ravenry. To learn more about this podcast, just search Unlocked Podcast on LinkedIn. We'll see you next time.