Der Shing Lim’s Post

We are running our annual angel behavior survey. Pls help fill this up and the full report will be sent to you when its out later this year. Hope to see a revival in angel interest for 2025 onwards!

Very well deserved award. Role model for sg entrepreneurs. Real solid firm by solid founders. Charles & Keith is a great example of local family building a regional giant in their space. The company is worth 1-2b generating close to 90m in net profit annually. Best part? Still all owned by the 3 dynamic brothers & family. Startups besides modeling after tech role models should also see what non tech success stories are doing. Esp in the area of profitable regional expansion and keeping share dilution to a bare minimum. Raising too much VC money could end up making your business bloated and not growing correctly. Charles & Keith had PE fund L Cap invest only when they were already sizable and wanted to enter China. Then after that was done, the brothers later bought it back from the fund. How much balls, foresight, drive and belief does that take? Business leaders bag top honours at 39th Singapore Business Awards https://lnkd.in/gMapujqn

Yes I am also seeing the trend of our companies targeting the highly competitive and large USA market early. I am like Jeremy from tin man in that I feel should secure home ground with decent revenue/profits and traction before heading there. This is the more conservative,grounded businessman in me speaking. It maximizes chance of success, and doesn’t create a do or die situation. But i am also mindful there are always many ways to build a business and that if enough try, at least a few will make it big there. There’s also the idea of do or die creating the drive to succeed at all costs. So kudos to these intrepid founders who uproot themselves to give their startups a new giant market. I am sure some will succeed and I hope it will include the likes of EngageRocket and Auk industries! https://lnkd.in/gXVwrRV7

Strange that he knows his purpose all along from 20s but did not go after it with actions. If that is the case it is indeed regretful and a lesson for others to always do what is right by you and not by others. My experience is most people don’t know their purpose or aren’t convicted enough and so go with the flow. And many quite happily esp if it’s a comfortable family business and life. So there is a nuance here. If it’s when one is disabled that one realizes or decides one’s purpose, then there is nothing to feel wasted about. Because the past “you” was happy doing what he or she did. And each moment is equally valuable.

Time really passes in a flash. Have been volunteering with the Pro enterprise panel for 6+ years now and just stepped down. A few takeaways. 1) Our civil service is very serious about doing its job well. Not only do they provide services and regulate society and industry, they go the extra step to constantly benchmark against world standards and push forward sg development across multiple facets. 2) The PEP focuses on helping the civil service be pro enterprise in its activities as regulator and service provider. The fact that chairman is head civil service shows how seriously this is taken. Over the years I have seen suggestions from industry get taken up seriously and changes made whenever it makes sense. And even if it does not make sense, proper answers are given to the suggesting firm. You can read more below. https://lnkd.in/gjGV-cMZ 3) There is good clarity of thought on the role of the regulator when it comes to significant innovation. Industry naturally leads on many new services like ride hailing, ev ecosystem or even crypto exchanges etc. Many will push the boundaries of our laws. The approach is never a sledgehammer but a case by case, let the market show the nuances approach. Open sandboxes, engage industry and the answer frequently will reveal itself in terms of what regulators need to do. 4) The civil service is huge. So naturally it is not nimble and there is always a good reason for status quo. And many issues cut across multiple ministries and agencies so it’s easy to get bogged down. Hence it’s necessary to have encourage cross pollination of ideas and have cross agency task forces to look at things. Again, this is done in many cases. Quite heartening to see an entity so large try to be nimble and responsive to stakeholder feedback. 5) Finally, many of the civil servants we meet whether senior or not are engaged with their work. Maybe not at the startup team standard but they clearly have strong domain expertise and there is good thoughtfulness of many replies. Hardly any lip service kind of talk. 6) If there is anything I feel can improve it’s that the sensing of what’s happening on the business ground and in future tech and business trends can be made even stronger not just at the top mgmt level but also at the directors and officers who deal with industry. More mechanisms for regulators to interact with the businesses they regulate and learn and see what’s done in overseas jurisdictions. Maybe even more roles for secondment to private sector etc.

A wide ranging interview with the economist. Gives a good idea of incoming PM views across many issues. It’s mostly our official sg stance of course but he handled the questions well with clear nuanced answers esp on our position on various geopolitical trends. Do read the full transcript. I met him during the CFE main comm meetings 7-8 years ago and he does indeed listen more than speak. It’s good to have someone who internalizes the maxim that “I don’t assume to have all the answers” https://lnkd.in/gRZh5m55

Still see a lot of bad numbers coming out of startups. Heard many only cut cost significantly in 2023. So no wonder 2023 filings still poor quality financials. Poor means gross profit already above 3m but even with $Xmrevenue, still loss making with >>0.1Xm losses. What kind of board decision making went on back in 2H2022 and 1H2023 to not cut dramatically and act. Market leader SEA (and later Grab) and growth stock market already screaming things are bad and crashing on valuation front for so long. And we didn’t even have the worse scenario of a recession. That’s still possible with yield curves still inverted in USA. So it’s like watching a slow moving train wreck. So many startups with revenues above 10m, gross profit also in the many millions but net loss and net cash flow super negative. Many of the b2c ones….i am afraid a lot will die if they don’t improve asap because later stage and existing investors are no longer blinded by returns (upside no more as growth stocks have fallen 70% or more on nasdaq). So lean is the mantra esp if you are above 3-5m gross profit and still can’t break even. This is an article I wrote back in Covid era on staying alive in a crisis. Still relevant. https://lnkd.in/dgANJdN Boards investors and founders also need to be realistic and start embracing big down rounds to right size the firm valuation and get cash flow once financials are decent. Most 2021/2 unicorns are worth 100-300m now. Most 100m companies are worth $30-50m. And these are the ones who can cut down to better metrics. Finally, I would add mgmt need to take a lot more pain and think like a sme owner now. Some common measures I have done and ceo I respect have done. - fly budget airlines not economy. - stay 3 star hotels - no private office. Only cubicle or open plan for ceo/founders - always cut founder salaries more than staff cuts and announce it. If you already sold secondary and are fine personally, take zero pay like what sea guys did. It’s a moral authority thing. Even if you don’t control your board, actions like this give you great power. I am shocked founders can have their startups running out of money in 6 mths and still pay themselves >$10k. To me this means the founders are thinking like hired guns and not aligned with company outcome. Remember this is the time for your masochistic cost cutting side to show. Many 9-10 digit business owners are well known for their frugality and leanness in running their business. Current environment- these guys are the role models!

My previous blogpost on the learnings from market losses last 13 years had lots of feedback that it was useful to investors esp retirees who invest. So I’ve finally had time to analyze the winning trades and also write down the learnings from those. Hope it’s useful!

Slow and steady will win the day now! (With primarily profits funding growth!)

Good to know Min Ong’s stand. Insurance in healthcare needs to be controlled tightly to prevent runaway costs. Why? 1) I have met so many medical professionals who obviously take into consideration whether one is fully insured or not when recommending treatment. 2) huge asymmetry of knowledge between medical expert and patient. Moreover there is often a short window of time to make a decision. So the buyer is frequently under pressure and doesn’t have full knowledge. Add 1 and 2 and we have a recipe for over testing, over treatment - the buffet mindset minister talks about. This serves to drive up medical costs and insurance premium. These increases are sticky so it won’t go back down. If we agree these issues exist, then he is right MOH should work with insurers and doctors to find the right balance. So that health costs don’t spiral out of control for all citizens. The devil is in what interventions and what policy we create. First thing is data. We must collect comprehensive data on pricing and outcome. That alone is a mammoth task. With quality data then we will know what levers work. Not an easy task at all and I don’t know which countries have done this well. But the work is worth doing and the impact great!