Ecommerce operator and former Lazada growth exec ⁠Geraldine Se⁠ goes on call with host ⁠Paulo J⁠ in this episode of ⁠Academy Afterthoughts⁠ to walk down memory lane on her Insignia Ventures Academy VC accelerator experience in the pioneering cohort in 2021, share how the program impacted her career as a tech leader and angel investor, as well as dive into her own approach to early-stage investing. The VC accelerator is now recruiting for its 6th cohort! Level up your career in Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystems with the venture capital perspective. To apply, check out the ⁠VC Accelerator program page⁠ or reach out to our program lead ⁠Jiaway Koh⁠!

Timestamps and Highlights

(01:03) A Former Lazada Exec’s Experience of Insignia Ventures Academy;

“Coming from mature tech companies, some of these things that I’ve learned from IVA don’t necessarily come to mind or come to the fore. And it’s also helped me to shape and refine my thinking when evaluating businesses. So a few of these are really understanding what it is that a founder or the team is trying to solve…To this day, I use that to frame of thinking when approaching issues and opportunities…and you have to understand what it is that they face, what pain points do they face, and what is it that your product is trying to address.” 

(13:11) Perks and Purpose of Investing in Early Stage Startups as a Growth Stage Tech Exec with a Finance and Consulting Background;

“Enabling [founders] to shortcut the experimentation process and equipping them with that knowledge so that they can have a greater chance for success, I think, is meaningful to me and I think is how I think this whole experience has also given me the opportunity too in angel investing.”

(22:48) #MinuteMasterclass: Navigating Chaos and Change Agility for Product Market Fit;

“Because when situations are ambiguous, you very often can find many ways to achieve similar outcomes. And top of mind, I think many founders these days are driving efficiencies because of this financial impact to the business, especially now that we are not really living in periods of abundance…And with some of the startups and businesses that I’ve worked with and been in, examples like experimenting with certain commercial levers to optimize our sales efficiency or looking at diversification of marketing channels especially when certain marketing channels or metrics are not able to be measured and isn’t always clear or known. And having to take a punch and relying on intuition and common sense to achieve this especially when you’re trying to target customers that you may not have reached before but may have some affinity to your product.”

(28:30) #RapidFireRound;

About our guest

⁠Geraldine Se⁠ started her career in investment banking first with PWC then Macquarie, and lived for a year in Melbourne with Macquarie. She then pivoted into eCommerce first with a company called aCommerce then Lazada where she held a variety of roles including heading up account management teams, regional strategy and planning, chief of staff to the group co-president and category director of health and beauty in Singapore. 

She has most recently been country manager of Thailand and Indonesia of a series C Edutech company providing language services to children. Some of the achievements she has been proud of are being brought into difficult country transformation situations in Indonesia and Thailand where she has been able to turn both units’ contribution margins positive from negative positions because she really enjoys making an impact on businesses. 

She is also an angel investor and is a Cohort 1 alumnus of ⁠Insignia Ventures Academy⁠’s venture capital accelerator.

Transcript

A Former Lazada Exec’s Experience of Insignia Ventures Academy

Paulo J: I wanted to kick things off Geraldine by asking you what you were doing just before you joined IVA in particular at Lazada and what were the experiences that you carried with you before jumping into the program? 

Geraldine S: So before joining IVA I was leading the health and beauty category vertical in Lazada Singapore and subsequently leading the corporate strategy team. But prior to that, as with most Lazadians, we move around a portfolio of roles. So I was doing all of that before deciding to join the IVA program.

Paulo J: So at that point, dialing back, you were leading the health and beauty categories you mentioned in Lazada, and prior to that you had been an aCommerce and Macquarie. So how did you find out about Insignia Ventures Academy and what made you decide to join the program at that point in time in your career?

Geraldine S: Interestingly, I think I was initially approached by Gail who was previously with Insignia Ventures Academy. And she introduced me to the structure and framework of the program, which piqued my interest. And it came at the right time because it was exactly what I was looking for at that time because I was looking to further my lifelong learning journey. That’s one and second, I think for me it’s always been a desire and passion to be further embedded into the startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia and beyond to see where I can value add and create impact. 

Paulo J: Was there any particular area that you discovered you could make more impact in after joining the program versus your understanding of what you could do in the ecosystem prior to joining the program? 

Geraldine S: The ability to influence founders and sharing knowledge that I’ve had from seeing businesses make either successful moves or mistakes, and sharing that with them because I think many of these founders are also first-time founders and may not have had much experience delving into the space that they’re in. So I think the ability to share that knowledge with them was something that I think I wouldn’t have had as much opportunity to do before IVA. 

Paulo J: And I’m sure you were definitely talking to a lot of founders during the program and maybe you can share a little bit because we often ask the alumni who come on the show what team they were a part of in their cohort.

Geraldine S: I was in the Edutech team together with Hester, Harsh, Abbas, and Toku. I think that’s it. I don’t think I missed out on any but that was the team that I was in. So we were delving into the edutech vertical within IVA and our cohort mates also had different verticals that they were specializing in. So we had teams in B2B SaaS, advertising tech, biotech, health tech, and fintech. So there was much to be exposed to and learn from beyond my teammates and in the wider area amongst my cohort mates.

Paulo J: Given the fact that you had come from ecommerce and then you were in the edutech team what was the biggest learning in particular about the vertical during that journey of yours in the IVA?

Geraldine S: I think that one of the biggest differences is that edutech, especially for K-12 and below, is that your consumers are different from your users, whereas in e-commerce it’s quite straightforward. Your purchasers are very often also your users, whereas there’s the added complexity and dimension in edutech where you have parental consideration and you also have your kids’ engagement and learning and outcomes that you have to measure your success on. So that was quite interesting for me to learn. 

Paulo J: Seems intuitive, I guess, from a consumer’s point of view. But then when you’re looking at all these like businesses, I guess it’s something easy to miss. When it comes to your overall IVA experience, not just the IC meetings and working in the edutech space, what would you say was the highlight of your whole experience? 

Geraldine S: When I was reflecting on the questions you gave me, I think this was what excited me the most. There were so many highlights. The IVA experience of course I’ll go into the IC preparations later. 

But I think for me, I think first and foremost was the ability to form new bonds and relationships with my cohort mates. We had come together from various walks of life, and differing objectives and were able to find kinship through our assignments, preparing for ICs and group study evaluations.

So I think one of the more poignant streams and activities was being part of the leadership discovery stream which forced the team inevitably and invariably to be open and vulnerable with each other. And everyone had differing comfort levels and shared insights right about our experiences, but it did bring us closer together, so I really appreciated that.

So the other highlight and what was interesting was the fact that we were the pioneer cohort and being part of the program also meant that the program was open to feedback from us as participants and was also open to iterations. So that was refreshing and welcoming to me because everyone was all learning and experimenting, and embarking on this journey for the first time. 

Two, I think where IVA is today has been a journey. The other highlight was that the entire duration of the course was held fully online during Covid times as the pioneer cohort. So that made it particularly memorable because we had to self-organize, attend, and actively participate in these sessions remotely, separately in our homes after work hours, which could be challenging at times, especially after a long day of work and home commitments. 

But in spite of all of that, we were still able to forge deep and meaningful bonds. I’d like to think and say, and hopefully my teammates would say the same. Definitely felt like a mini MBA at the end of this.

Paulo J: I think that we definitely learned a lot from you guys in the first cohort in particular. And thanks to the hard work that you put in and all the feedback that you gave us, we were able to keep doing this. And now coming into our, as of recording this, we’re in our fifth cohort.

So definitely a lot more folks like yourself who are going through and who have gone through these experiences. And interestingly enough, as you mentioned, you talked about the leadership stream — I call it the side quest in this program. It’s not really part of the curriculum, but I think it’s one of the more personal and meaningful parts of the program. Many folks who have been on the Academy Afterthoughts series say that definitely was like a highlight for them. So adding you to that list also.

And you’ve talked about learning from diving into the edutech space. But having come from having been part of I guess the strategy development and growth of companies like e-Commerce and Lazada which are definitely considerable organizations and companies in their own right, what was something that you were able to take away from IVA that I guess maybe was something that you think you may not have gotten from your past experiences or something that subverted your thinking that you came in with? 

Geraldine S: You’re right. Interestingly, I think coming from mature tech companies, some of these things that I’ve learned from IVA don’t necessarily come to mind or come to the fore. And it’s also helped me to shape and refine my thinking when evaluating businesses. 

So a few of these are really understanding what it is that a founder or the team is trying to solve.

What problem is it that they’re trying to solve? What need does this address? And then we kept hearing during IVA calls like your TAM, SAM, and SOM, the size of the potential demand for your product. 

To this day, I use that to frame my thinking when approaching issues and opportunities because your consumers and your stakeholders, to launch a product or a new business, are usually your most important because you need them to buy into your idea. And you have to understand what it is that they face, what pain points they face, and what it is that your product is trying to address. 

So I think for me, that was one of the biggest and clearest learning points that I took away. Simple, but I think sometimes we forget how critical that is. Cause you can build the most fanciful product, but if nobody– it’s not solving anyone’s problem, it’s not gonna gain any traction, I guess. 

Paulo J: That’s really I guess a benefit of working with early-stage founders perhaps, or looking at a lot of early-stage companies or even starting something from scratch or from nothing. Like you’re really forced to think about why you’re doing this, what’s the first principle or what’s the fundamental principle of the problem that you’re trying to solve compared to say being in a growth stage company where sort of the problem’s already established and it’s already understood across the organization what you’re trying to do. 

Geraldine S: Sometimes.

Paulo J: Yes, sometimes I guess there’s that shared delusion. 

Geraldine S: In periods of abundance there is always that delusion.

Paulo J: Yes. But I guess there is that benefit of looking at things from when companies are still early on and trying to understand that aspect of it.

And we always like to point at people applying to VC jobs or getting venture jobs, but it’s definitely not the only outcome that we’ve seen in the many cohorts that we’ve done.

And some of them might not even be necessarily like a job change, right? So for yourself, how did the IVA experience impact your own career? Especially as somebody who has held executive positions at mature tech companies after the program. 

Geraldine S: I think that the IVA experience has exposed me to a breadth of industries and verticals and technology and learning about them through this program where I would not necessarily, and typically would not have the opportunity to come across.

So I think that makes for a very rich knowledge base, coming across companies or problems that founders are trying to solve for in biotech, in agritech, which may not be so applicable in Singapore, but I think in some of our surrounding Southeast Asian countries, femhealth or B2B SaaS businesses.

“Coming from mature tech companies, some of these things that I’ve learned from IVA don’t necessarily come to mind or come to the fore. And it’s also helped me to shape and refine my thinking when evaluating businesses. So a few of these are really understanding what it is that a founder or the team is trying to solve…To this day, I use that to frame of thinking when approaching issues and opportunities…and you have to understand what it is that they face, what pain points do they face, and what is it that your product is trying to address.” 

Perks and Purpose of Investing in Early Stage Startups as a Growth Stage Tech Exec with a Finance and Consulting Background

Paulo J: You mentioned about your team being in edutech, but then your teammates were all coming from different verticals as well. And also obviously I hope you got the chance to also connect with many other cohort members outside of your own team.

Another thing I wanted to emphasize also is that even as people are looking for startups within their own sort of verticals or teams, you guys also get to watch and see the progress of other teams as well and learn from their pitches.

So you mentioned about really getting exposed to different industries and verticals, and I was wondering how that ties into your hat as an angel investor. Were you angel investing already before you joined IVA or was that something that you got into after?

Geraldine S: I had started a little bit before IVA in one or two companies, but not heavily and mostly only in the consumer space because that was where I was most familiar with anyways. But I think how this helped as an angel investor was not just the exposure, but also learning about what are some of the success metrics to look out for in the various verticals when assessing opportunities. So that was very helpful for me. 

And I think for me, seeing how the Southeast Asian tech landscape has become a lot more vibrant and so many more different business models surfacing is quite exciting for me. So witnessing, for example, many and much more use cases of AI and machine learning in this part of the world which you never really quite hear of or come across before, at least from my limited perspective.

And hearing that these use cases can be, whether it’s for training or medical diagnosis, supply chain management, mental wellness, that have the potential to have tangible and widespread impact. So I think that’s really exciting. 

I think for me also seeing the transformation in Southeast Asia, at least in the past 10 years, where, maybe a decade or two decades ago, again, in my limited exposure the kind of early-stage companies being like a run-of-the-mill marketplace app models and us having evolved from that. But back then, that seemed to be the representation of innovation, right? But we have gone so much and progressed so much more beyond that these days. 

Paulo J: Definitely a lot more business models, a lot more I guess industries that even investors back then would’ve considered to be too difficult to digitalize or would take too long, beyond a fund life, to actually see happen. But now that has definitely changed as you’ve mentioned. 

I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into how specifically your IVA experience, in particular, has impacted your own [angel investing], having done a few investments prior — how it has changed. Obviously, you talked about wider scope, right? But any other impact that the experience has had on your angel investing? 

Geraldine S: I think from the IVA experience, really learning, especially for early-stage companies, that angel investing is a very people-centric business especially for early-stage companies.

And it very often boils down to founders and their team. And we kept hearing also during the academy course, it’s like the founders, founders. So what do the founders stand for? What principles do they live and work by, and with whom are they surrounding and building the team?

And we’ve seen this also, I think more often than not, the core team carrying the startup is often more critical than the product that they seek to build in the early stages. Things that come to mind or values that come to mind very often when we’re assessing what our founders are like, whether they have the grit, the resilience, and are they intellectually rigorous? Are they also open? Do they have the conviction to carry their beliefs through and are fundamentally purpose-driven?

Paulo J: I would think that this also a learning process for anybody doing angel investing, but in your experience so far is there anything that you ask in particular to founders or do in particular in terms of DD to flesh these characteristics out, especially since it’s hard to be tangible about it compared to other aspects of a company?

Geraldine S: It is. And it does sound a little woo-woo. It does boil down to that. I don’t have a fixed set of questions that I ask. But it’s really assessing how they take failures. And what impact is it that they seek to achieve to get a sense of how purpose-driven or principle-driven they are. Because the same words can be said by different people, but mean different things. So it’s usually through face-to-face and upfront interaction where we are able to test this well. 

Paulo J: You did go back to that whole concept of the problem that you’re trying to solve and that whole first principle thing that we were talking about earlier. I think that’s really important to take note of. Another aspect of your angel investing that I wanted to touch on was the fact that you have had a career working at mature tech companies. So I wonder what is the synergy there in terms of how it impacts your angel investing and vice versa?

Geraldine S: One of the questions you asked earlier was the kind of impact that I seek to create. And one of which I think is the luxury of having some of these resources that some of the early stage or first-time founders may not necessarily have access to and offering them up, whether it’s relationships, networks, potential capital sources, from connections that they can leverage on, introductions, connections, and referrals that can be helpful to founders, I hope.

And where possible, I think sharing knowledge, and [sharing] lessons, influences the founders so that they can also go on to do that with their team and create a bigger impact through their work in their teams and in the businesses that they seek to run and build.

Especially having, I think, seen maybe more success cases and mistakes that similar businesses have made before which may help them shortcut their processes and prevent loss of time and resources, which is critical for founders, right? Because as founders, I can imagine on a day-to-day basis, they are living with some form of scarcity.

So enabling them to shortcut the experimentation process and equipping them with that knowledge so that they can have a greater chance for success, I think, is meaningful to me and I think is how I think this whole experience has also given me the opportunity too in angel investing.

Paulo J: Is there a particular area of that whole experimentation process that you notice like founders ask you in particular or that the kind of advice that you give — is it mostly around product or is there like specific functions that they ask about? 

Geraldine S: Yeah I think because of my background coming from Lazada, many of these founders or startup owners are either hesitant to get a headstart into entering the marketplace for fear of brand dilution. So they always ask lots of questions around that before making a decision.

And interestingly what I’ve noticed is not so much around financial returns that they’re concerned about or the financial investment, but they’re very concerned about brand dilution and how much control they’ll be able to have over their business.

Paulo J: That’s pretty interesting that from your perspective, that’s something that they’re really concerned about from the get-go. And it is something that I guess if you’re not careful can really creep up on you in terms of the whole ownership and all of that if you’re not careful. 

I wanted to shift gears a little bit and ask you how coming from corporate finance and consulting has also shaped your approach or thinking when it comes to building a company from the ground up. Do any of your experiences from that part of your career influence the way that you work with founders, for example, as an angel investor?

Geraldine S: Maybe not so much the technical aspect. But I think the mental models and the frameworks picked up and the rigor from investment banking on or consulting has helped. I think it attunes my mind to be analytical first and foremost, and rely on the numbers where possible.

I know it’s quite difficult for early-stage startups, but rely on numbers where possible to make decisions maximizing for growth and efficiencies and to always have that lens where possible, because that impacts your returns, right? Whether financially, or whether from a human capital or whether from a time capital standpoint, I think that’s helpful. And having the same lens apply to business use cases and assessing what kind of options to be pursuing I think, that’s helped. 

“Enabling [founders] to shortcut the experimentation process and equipping them with that knowledge so that they can have a greater chance for success, I think, is meaningful to me and I think is how I think this whole experience has also given me the opportunity too in angel investing.”

#MinuteMasterclass: Navigating Chaos and Change Agility for Product Market Fit

Paulo J: So that leads me to our corner minute masterclass. Since you’ve been sharing a lot of these learnings from your career — it’s a question you asked all our guests so far in this season — if you were to give a masterclass on a specific topic with regards to company building and the students are entrepreneurs or operators, you can imagine maybe some of the early stage founders that you work with, what topic would you focus on and what would be the one key takeaway that you would want them to take away from your class?

Geraldine S: I think the topic would be around navigating chaos because I think to succeed in a startup, you will need to learn to navigate chaos because I’ve learned you can never remove it or avoid it.

Because there’s so much ambiguity and you are starting something new, fresh, unproven, and you need to put yourself out there to prove that and make this work. And very often I can imagine the magnitude is so much bigger for startup founders because your face is competing priorities daily.

You have a scarcity of resources. You don’t always have answers to the scenarios you’re faced with. And then how, as an individual do you best manage the situation? So this book I picked up quite many years ago, and I couldn’t quite appreciate this when I was in banking because the banking environment is very structured, very secure, and very stable.

And I didn’t quite appreciate it until very much later in my career, like now. But I still fall back to this which is learning agility, and I think Korn Ferry was the one that built this framework in HR organizational behavior and it centers around five pillars and every single pillar you have exercises to practice or to exercise that muscle, like you mentioned before. So pillars around self-awareness, mental agility, people agility, change agility, around experimentation, and results agility. 

So driving results when you have imperfect information and how do you go about doing that in a manner that you are confident of. So I think one example would be around, I think, change agility, which is driving for results and not being afraid to experiment.

Because when situations are ambiguous, you very often can find many ways to achieve similar outcomes. And top of mind, I think for many founders these days are driving efficiencies because of this financial impact to the business, especially now that we are not really living in periods of abundance.

So experimentation is key. And with some of the startups and businesses that I’ve worked with and been in, examples like experimenting with certain commercial levers to optimize our sales efficiency or looking at diversification of marketing channels especially when certain marketing channel metrics are not able to be measured, and aren’t always clear or known.

And having to take a punch and relying on intuition and common sense to achieve this especially when you’re trying to target customers that you may not have reached before but may have some affinity to your product. 

For example, a product that we were launching in Thailand in one of my previous experiences, we were typically only looking at tier one cities and customers within Bangkok because they had the willingness to pay for the price of our product, but we never realized that in the tier two cities or just one hour and two hours away from Bangkok, there was also a potential market of consumers that also had the financial ability to pay for the product, but lived further away from the city that did not have access to the product that we had, but had a greater willingness to pay because of the lack of accessibility.

And this was untapped that we had to try to reach and acquire. So that also meant different sorts of approaches to reach them and diversifying our marketing channels to help drive down costs. But all of these would not have been discovered if we weren’t open to ideas. We weren’t open to experimenting. If we weren’t open to challenging our own mental models of how the business used to be run. Yeah, I think it would be a good example of demonstrating change agility. 

“Because when situations are ambiguous, you very often can find many ways to achieve similar outcomes. And top of mind, I think many founders these days are driving efficiencies because of this financial impact to the business, especially now that we are not really living in periods of abundance…And with some of the startups and businesses that I’ve worked with and been in, examples like experimenting with certain commercial levers to optimize our sales efficiency or looking at diversification of marketing channels especially when certain marketing channels or metrics are not able to be measured and isn’t always clear or known. And having to take a punch and relying on intuition and common sense to achieve this especially when you’re trying to target customers that you may not have reached before but may have some affinity to your product.”

#RapidFireRound

What digital technology innovation excites you the most today? 

Geraldine S: It would really be machine learning and AI. I know it’s overused, but it is exciting to see how some of these use cases have the potential to evolve, to ease our workload, but it’s also scary to see how this may impact us. And for me, it’s always thinking about how to still remain relevant in the next 10 years. And ensuring that our children and the next generations are being equipped with future-proof skills. 

If you were to be invited to produce a Netflix show or OTT show, what would be the title and what would be your one-liner for the show?

Geraldine S: There’s recently a new Netflix series called Queenmaker. It’s a Korean Drama. So that’s already taken out, but I think I would use that. The log line would be, “ensuring the wheels keep turning to help the people around me and the teams I manage to succeed.”

Looking back now, what is a skill that could be a soft skill or hard skill that you believe you should have learned back in your time as a student? 

Geraldine S: I think it’s the underrated skill of self-reflection and self-awareness. Which also translates to self-management. Again, I know it sounds woo-woo. A lot of what I’ve shared might be a little woo-woo, but I’ve seen how that skill and that muscle have built wisdom in many senior leaders that I admire and respect, especially living through these times. I think the ability to be self-reflective, self-learn, and self-improve is very important.

Other skills, I think, are thinking critically and thinking creatively in the workplace — I don’t think the Singapore system is quite primed for that, but that’s critical. And we’ve touched on this a fair bit, but it’s adaptability and flexibility in finding answers and uncertain and complex environments.

And we’ve talked about machine learning and AI. That technology can very easily replace replicable and repeatable skills. But I think soft skills and skills that require a lot more people, discernment, and people interaction can’t be replaced. So that needs to be something that needs to be enhanced, I think. So who’s gonna self-reflect for us? ChatGPT isn’t. So we have to do that for ourselves. 

What’s your favorite go-to destination in Southeast Asia? Or do you have a particular trip that you’re looking forward to taking in the region? 

Geraldine S: I think in Southeast Asia it would be Vietnam for the diversity of landscape. You can find mountain beaches, lake cities, all in one country. I really appreciate the freshness of the foods and the upward growth of the economy. And I think the grit of the people is quite exciting for me. Myanmar potentially also is a next travel destination.

What’s your favorite activity to de-stress? 

Geraldine S: High-intensity interval training, HIIT exercises, meditation. And I think about enjoying new experiences with my husband whether it’s hiking, trying new foods, or discussing businesses. So my husband is a relatively active angel investor. He used to work in the corporate finance or corporate development function for a tech firm. And now he’s running his own business. 

Anything that you’ve read or taken up recently that you’d like to recommend to our listeners?

Geraldine S: I don’t know what is relevant for this, but what is interesting to me — so I like to read across a variety of topics. So not necessarily only angel investing or tech space, but a couple right across fiction and non-fiction. 

So fiction, what I’m reading now is The Blind Assassin by Margaret Edward is historical fiction based on a crime that slowly unravels itself. And her style of writing is quite unique to me. She has quite a unique style of I would almost say quite dark and classic writing that, you know, draws me in. 

And then two other non-fiction books. And I toggle between several books at the time, depending on the mood and flavor of the day. But one I’m rereading is When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, the neurosurgeon who we discover has Stage 4 Cancer, and it’s particularly moving and personal. I’m not shy to say I cried at a few points, but it provokes one into thinking about pursuit or purpose, meaning, and our greater calling. What do we live for in this world? Again, it’s philosophical, but I think it’s important to clarify that for our own selves.

On days when I feel a bit disturbed by what’s going on in the world, it’s Ray Dalio’s Changing World Order to make sense of what’s happening around. I think it is more relevant, especially in those times when we bear witness to some of the global power dynamics changing and shifting world orders or new world orders establishing.