Student Experience, Action Learning, MBA – Page 5

Areena Shahril is the Manager for Performance Management and Capability Building at Sapura Energy Berhad. She’s also part of the MBA for Working Professionals (MBA-WP) Class of 2021 at Asia School of Business (ASB). Recently, Areena took some time out to share with us her journey being part of the first MBA-WP cohort. In a conversation with ASB MBA 21’ alumna, Jamie Tam, Areena opened up about her transformative journey and overcoming the challenges that came with completing an MBA amid a pandemic.

“Before the MBA, I used to shy away from new things, but with ASB and the MBA program, I thought: “You know what? What is there to be scared about?” – Areena Shahril, ASB MBA-WP 21’ alumna

Jamie: Can you share what you were doing before the MBA?

Areena: Before I joined the MBA-WP program, I started off my career in Sapura Energy as a junior executive in the Corporate Finance and Investor Relations team at Sapura. After a couple of years, the company started a transformation program and they transferred me to the Change Management office to work on this new initiative. Around that time, I decided that I wanted to do an MBA.

I was at a point where I wanted to test my boundaries but didn’t have time to do much research on what options were out there as I have been balancing both my career and personal life. So, when I heard about the ASB MBA program from the HR team at Sapura, I decided to check the program out. The rest was history! When I started the MBA-WP program, it coincided with the early stages of my transfer to the Change Management office.

What made you decide to take the MBA-WP program? And why ASB?

I was really intrigued by the way ASB marketed the MBA program. They said it was going to be an unconventional journey, and I wanted to test my boundaries. I was working all the time, I had just become a mother of three, and I wanted to push through my limits.

I wanted to see what I could do. This WP program met those criteria. I thought why not do an MBA that I could complete while working, and while being based in Malaysia where I can be close to my children and family? ASB’s WP curriculum ultimately ticked all the boxes.

How has this MBA-WP program impacted your career?

It has impacted my career significantly! Although I was working for the Change Management office at the start of my studies, there was the opportunity for me to join the Organizational Development Team under the People & Culture office just one year into the program. From my experience in the CMO, I thought I could really bring value to the P&C office and that’s when the transfer was made.

Shortly after, I started leading the Capability Development function within the team. My experience in the MBA really helped with this work transition – I was more structured with my thoughts on how to approach work. Everything I learned during classes, I was able to transfer to my work, just a week later. I still remember what I learned in a communications class where we had to learn how to present your PowerPoint decks and send emails effectively.

Till today, those takeaways are at the back of my head when I have to present or do something as simple as writing an email to a colleague. On the technical side of things, our business research methods that we learnt for Action Learning are methods I used everyday to ensure a more structured approach to work and presenting my findings.

I think if I hadn’t joined ASB, I would have never made that transition. Before the MBA, I used to shy away from new things, but with ASB and the MBA program, I thought: “You know what? What is there to be scared about? Treat new things as a mini Action Learning project!”

What were the biggest challenges you faced as a WP? And what did you do to face those challenges?

Time was always the biggest challenge. Then COVID-19 happened and it really threw off our schedule. For instance, we were supposed to be in Boston for our MIT immersion, and we would be physically away from work to manage classes. But because we couldn’t fly to Boston and had to take classes virtually, classes were held at night in Malaysian time (or early mornings for the MIT professors in Boston). In the mornings, we would spend time doing work.

It was really hard to shut work off for some down time to recuperate. But the cohort really helped. We knew we were all going through the same thing together. So we talked to each other all the time. In fact, our full-time MBA counterparts also gave us words of encouragement and that really helped! Even the faculty was also very understanding of the hectic schedule we had.

There was blood, sweat and tears everyday! We knew that we were going through this together, so might as well just bite the bullet and push through. That mentality really pushed us through those crazy weeks of ongoing courses. Until today, I still don’t know how we did it, but we did it!

How has Action Learning been for you? Did you gain any skills that were transferable to your career?

Action Learning (AL) was very interesting for WPs. Since we were the first WP cohort, it was a learning process. Unlike the full-time students who had Action Learning projects in different countries and companies, we had to do AL within our own companies. This was an interesting differentiation from the full-timers. Since AL was very new to us, we didn’t really know what we were doing at the beginning.

But throughout all the projects that I have worked on, AL has taught me that we always need to fall back on what the data shows us, because that is one of the ways to develop more structured thoughts. It’s about contextualizing the data and figuring out how to use it. Data will always be there, scrubbed or not.

My favourite Action Learning project was the third project, where we had to learn how to make a podcast. Prof Loredana and Prof Ambra taught us how to effectively make a podcast that would not be boring. The topic of my podcast was “How to communicate effectively during COVID-19”. I worked on this with Victor and Pyora, two of my WP colleagues from different companies.

This project was particularly fun since we were learning how to do something outside of what we normally do at work. I also worked on an entrepreneurial AL project focusing on increasing employees’ mental health awareness at the workplace with three other WP colleagues.

Our idea was to create a platform to deal with employee mental health awareness by utilizing communities and gathering data to come up with sustainable solutions. This entrepreneurship project made use of a lot of transferable skills.

Now that you have completed your MBA, has ASB delivered on your expectations?

ASB did say we would have an unconventional journey, and we did! I didn’t know what to expect when I first joined, so my advice to future WPs is to expect the unexpected and just do it.

Would you recommend the ASB WP-MBA to others, and why?

Yes, I would recommend it to those who have grit and a hunger for knowledge. This is not an easy program, and I am not going to sugar coat it by saying it will be a breeze; it does take a lot of your time. But the feeling of completing it was just amazing – to know that you finished it. I would recommend this to those who have the stomach for it!

Sapura Energy’s Ir. Nik Hasmizie from the Class of 2021 for Working Professionals (MBA-WP) discusses his ascent from Engineer to Project Manager, his experience thriving in international waters, and his thirst for upskilling even as an industry veteran.

Building on Two Decades of Engineering Expertise

Sapura Energy’s Ir. Nik Hasmizie believes that expertise is no excuse for stagnancy. With almost 20 years of experience in the Marine & Oil and Gas industry, he continued his pursuit for advancement with Asia School of Business (ASB) MBA as part of the Working Professionals (MBA-WP) Class of 2021.

Currently, Nik works at Sapura Energy Berhad, where he has been providing his expertise on marine and oil & gas EPCIC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Installation & Commissioning) projects since November 2013.

Prior to his work with Sapura Energy, Nik graduated in mechanical engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in Johor, Malaysia and has since worked with major shipping and oil & gas companies such as MISC Berhad, American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), Lloyd’s Register, and SBM Offshore. Recently, Nik sat down with us to discuss his own experience working across the world and his transition from engineering and construction to leadership roles.

ASB: What do you like about being a Project Manager at Sapura?

I joined Sapura Energy in late 2013. My role as a Project Manager is very client-facing. The scale of each project can range from $25 million to $500 million USD. You deal a lot with the client, interact with engineering and procurement departments, and oversee constructions and offshore installation works.

Sapura Energy Berhad is one of the world’s leading integrated oil and gas solution providers operating across the entire upstream value chain. Sapura covers the exploration, development, production, rejuvenation, decommissioning and abandonment stages of the value chain.

So as a Project Manager, I cover the end-to-end of a project. It’s not a 9-to-5 job, to say the least, and it’s challenging because you work outside of your hours to ensure that a project is properly executed and controlled. But with proper management and collaboration with your team delegates – it’s very rewarding at the end of a project.

Tell us more about how you got into oil and gas.

Truth be told, getting into the oil and gas industry wasn’t the initial plan. Before graduation, I was applying for many companies across different industries but my initial interest was always mechanical engineering. When I heard back from MISC Berhad and started a position as an engineer – I had the chance to go to Japan in 2002 to get involved with the new ship building of LNG carriers at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nagasaki.

I was there for three months of On-Job Training (OJT). Day-to-day, I attended the site of the process and it was fascinating to see the conception from paper plans to a ship that’s fully operational and can start sailing. I returned to Malaysia for a few months and then was sent to Geoje Island, South Korea to get involved with a new ship building project at Samsung Heavy Industries.

For nearly two years, I was involved with this project to build four Aframax-sized crude oil tankers and we all saw this happen from engineering design until the vessels completed their sea trials and sailed away.

As an engineer, I’ve always wanted to see the end-to-end of something and I got my wish even with my first company and being relatively new in the industry. It’s a wonderful and constant intellectual challenge.

Has your job given you international exposure too?

I was recently in Mexico City for work, for a long-term assignment. Sapura provided the accommodation and facilities to stay in for that duration and it was a wonderful experience living in this big city. Together with my family, we enjoyed local street food, events with the locals and travelling with friends and colleagues around Mexico.

My two daughters attended international school there and all of us (including myself and wife) took part in a 1-hour session, twice a week, to learn the Spanish language, by engaging a local teacher to come to our home. Travelling has always been a challenging part of the job – but again, very exciting because I’m learning new things about my career every day.

How did you launch your journey with ASB?

I’ve always wanted to do an MBA, that’s for sure. Before 30, I set a personal target to get my professional engineer and chartered engineer credentials – and I achieved that. And before 40, I’ve wanted to start my MBA. Sapura had also announced prior that the company was opening their scholarship applications for those who meet certain criteria to apply for ASB’s program.

I tried my luck, uncertain of whether or not I would get it. But I was selected for the interview with Sapura management, and passed, and also passed the interview with ASB. In total, six other members from Sapura and I were part of the MBA class.

In August 2018, I attended my first residency at ASB. Balancing my full-time position and maintaining my studies was something that I thought was going to be super tough because I was always busy with a project. But Sapura supported my development exceptionally, and because of ASB’s unique flexibility, I had the time to still grow in my career and develop my corporate skills with ASB’s syllabus.

During the first part of the MBA, you were flying in to study in KL and working in Mexico at the same time. Was it difficult coping with this arrangement?

Before Covid-19 hit, keep in mind that I wasn’t attending online classes or anything like that. So, I was still working in Mexico City and visiting KL once every six weeks to continue my studies.

Nik Hasmizie (center) and his team onsite for a project in Mexico during the “First Steel Cut” ceremony

But it was through ASB’s flexibility in schedule and the arrangement of the entire syllabus that made it possible. It’s very clear that ASB understood that this was an MBA made for working professionals, and it didn’t feel like an additional burden but rather a healthy development for us.

How did you balance between delivering excellence to your clients while pursuing an MBA at the same time?

I was always able to email my clients back on time, complete all deliverables and be in constant communication with them. There was no need to compromise on timelines or delay a project indefinitely because of my MBA. Work went on like normal, as the schedule accommodates for our day jobs.

That said, it is still a big challenge, and time management is the most important factor here, and if one understands how to divide their time between responsibilities – then completing an MBA whilst working a full-time job will not be as impossible as people make it seem.

Why is it vital that working professionals who are experts in their industry continue to pursue further education?

For me, I wanted to have a deeper understanding of other aspects such as finance, accounting, data science, entrepreneurship and corporate strategy. It goes beyond furthering my career too. Joining ASB showed me that an MBA can also steer someone in the right direction in terms of networking with individuals from different countries, professions and interests. I share this sentiment about our ASB professors as well, who have always helped us see different perspectives.

What newfound skills learned at ASB were most valuable in your journey?

One of the most vital skills I’ve learnt is the power of negotiation. We learnt about this in one of the negotiation classes in ASB and that has helped me understand the dynamics of negotiating with vendors and clients in Sapura as well.

In terms of promotions, there is always potential in Sapura as more projects roll in. I’m in the midst of a project that require my attention, but down the road, I do hope to take on higher responsibilities and showcase my newfound knowledge learned from my time at ASB.

I can’t emphasize enough the power of delegation and empowerment of subordinates – which is something we were taught as well. During my time in ASB, when I was occupied with studies, I had to mobilize my staff to take matters into their own hands when I was not around. It was a win-win situation because I learned how to get things done faster with the resources of those around me, and my staff were able to make more decisions and be more in control of what was happening in the project as well.

Change is happening at a rate never seen before. To keep up, business as usual just won’t cut it. Instead, the ability to understand how to drive strategic innovation is crucial – not merely to survive, but to truly drive breakthrough performance.

To deal with these unprecedented challenges, conventional hard and soft skills may not be enough; rather, great leaders require a dynamic combination of what at Asia School of Business (ASB), we call Smart and Sharp skills – the former, to lead, motivate and direct people more effectively, the latter to understand, leverage on and deploy technology, data, processes and resources.

Or, as Professor Loredana Padurean, Associate Dean & Faculty Direction for Action Learning at ASB and International Faculty Fellow at MIT puts it, “Humans are complex algorithms”, thus the need for smart skills to “augment our humanity.” Similarly, business approaches need to be constantly optimized using science-based management, data analytics and analytical reasoning. As Prof Loredana adds, “We cannot say that once we have learnt these skills, we’re done. They need to be ‘sharpened’ at all times!”

These Smart and Sharp skills form the basis of essential leadership strategies that, when combined with the right leadership mindset, can help organizations unleash their potential. In this article, we take a broad view of five of these strategies, which are explored in more depth and detail in the flagship Leading Leaders for Strategic Innovation Programme from ASB.

1. Turning Political Risk into Opportunities

Politics is part and parcel of a business’ operations. Within the context of the current pandemic, for instance, considerations such as “Is your line of business classified as an essential service that would be able to operate during a lockdown?” or “Will you need to restructure your supply chain in order to deal with government restrictions to imports, or to escape newly-impose tariffs?” become crucial.

“To just comply with the laws of the country you’re are headquartered in is not enough when the world is your marketplace,” says Professor Renato Lima de Oliveira, Assistant Professor of Business and Society at ASB and Research Affiliate at MIT, whose primary focus is on state-business relations, specifically where industrial competition, innovation policies and energy transition are concerned.

Having spent a better part of his life studying political economy and non-market strategies in international business, Prof Renato has a deep understanding of the complexities and dynamics of international business and political risk. With business becoming increasingly borderless and therefore more integrated than ever before, modern day leaders need a strong grasp of these political issues to ensure they’re adequately prepared for any eventuality.

Prof Renato believes that with the right insights informing the appropriate strategy, politics becomes not just a source of risk, “but also of opportunity. If you can identity these opportunities, they become a source of competitive advantage”.

2. Mastering Supply Chain Design by Understanding Clockspeed

In today’s increasingly complex global environment, businesses that are able to evolve and defend their competitive advantage are those that, according to Prof. Charles Fine, President and Dean of ASB, can “master the art of supply chain design while continuously building capability chains.”

To do this requires an understanding of a concept that Prof Fine pioneered in his ground-breaking book Clockspeed: Winning Industry Control in the Age of Temporary Advantage, defined as “the evolutionary life cycle of an industry that is measured by the rate at which it introduces new products, processes and organizational structures.” He surmises that “the ultimate core competency is mastering the art of supply chain design, carefully choosing which components and capabilities to keep in-house, and which to purchase from outside.”

Prof Fine drew on over a decade’s worth of research at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and took inspiration from the world of biology to develop the concept of clockspeed. The concept of clockspeed is inspired by the evolutionary path of animals – and how some, like the fruit fly, evolve faster than other. This is why the fruit fly is studied by geneticists to gain insight into the evolutionary path of other animals.

In his work, Prof Fine identifies the “industrial fruit flies” of today, such as the Internet of things, smartphones and streaming entertainment, which are evolving through each new generation at rapid speeds. What all industries can learn from these “fast clockspeed” industries is that “All competitive advantage is temporary”, he stressed.

Instead of relying on competitive advantage, it is a firm knowledge of what Prof Fine calls “the new laws of value chain dynamics” that will allow leaders to keep up with the competition and become industry leaders.

3. Nail, Scale, Sail – or Fail

Just as the evolution of a company’s industry is crucial, the evolutionary journey of the individual firm is also crucial when thinking about how to best structure and run an organization depending on its stage of growth. To that end, Prof Loredana has developed a unique new framework revolving around Nailing, Scaling and Sailing, a framework that is “shorthand for different stages of the organization’s life cycle.”

The framework helps business leaders to “understand the complex journey that successful companies go through – from a start-up, to scale-up to a sail-up” while focusing on practical operational strategies and tools.

She uses the “Jungle, Mountain, Ocean” metaphor to better describe these different stages and the important elements within each. Nailing is akin to “hacking through a very dense jungle with nothing but a machete”; then there’s Scaling the “mountain” where the path is clearer and the peak is more tangible.

Finally, Sailing, which usually happens much later, is when a company has somewhat achieved part of its goals, but may still need to “navigate the stormy seas of competitive, technological and environmental challenges.” After all, even the largest, most advanced “ship” can somehow find itself in a never-before situation, such as what recently happened in the Suez Canal.

4. Authentic Leadership, Driven by Clarity of Values and Purpose

In the article “Emerging Leadership During Times of Crisis and Change”, Muhammad Sabri, Senior Lecturer with the Iclif Executive Education Center at ASB, mentions that, “A leader’s integrity and deeply held principles serve as an anchor for decision-making in unpredictable times.” True leadership is built on a leader’s values, and the ability to act on those values to create positive change.

This is why he believes that “leadership starts with leading oneself.” He finds that most leadership definitions “tend to focus overly on what we do for and to others”, when the focus should be on the motivations of the leaders themselves. This is particularly evident when it comes to the current pandemic era, where effective leadership is seen to be built on authenticity rather than authority.

As Muhammad Sabri puts it, “Leaders today cannot afford to just focus on strategy and KPIs; they need to reach out and touch someone. Being able to talk honestly and openly, even if it’s through Zoom, is crucial. Leaders have the opportunity, more than ever before, to lead through authenticity.” This springs from the belief that humanity is at the heart of leadership – and that people want to be led by those they believe understand what they’re going through.

5. Harnessing the Power of Leadership Energy

“Leadership is the art of harnessing human energy to create a better future,” says Dr. Thun Thamrongnawasawat, Professor of Practice at ASB and International Faculty Fellow at MIT, who specializes in the neuroscience of leadership and holds an ExMSc in neuroleadership. He believes that there is merit in looking at leadership through the lens of energy science in order to “guide leaders to navigate their flow of energy to create the most useful output and sustain its longevity.”

This is the idea behind what he calls The Leadership Energy Journey, which uses the laws of energy and overlays them onto the art of leadership to form a series of “mileposts” that leaders need to navigate in order to tap into their limitless source of leadership energy.

From waking up the brain from its fundamental energy conservation mode, to creating a difference of states and working to cross the activation barrier, to understanding that “energy is value-neutral” and must therefore be actively channelled towards usefulness, each stage moves an individual towards the inevitable revelation that “the Leadership Energy Journey is not linear, but a continuous loop.” Figuring out how to sustain one’s leadership energy by recognizing this and developing the ability to ride the flow, is what enables leaders to stay resilient in the face of overwhelming odds.

Build Up Your Strategic Innovation and Leadership Capabilities

Spearheaded by the five thought leaders in this article, and featuring a host of game-changing ideas, strategies and frameworks on understanding and driving strategic innovation in your organization, the signature Leading Leaders for Strategic Innovation by ASB, which will be held from 24th to 29th July 2022, is an immersive experience that arms top-tier leaders with a comprehensive, practical and future-forward toolkit to help their organization take the next leap forward.

Professor Kevin Crow, Assistant Professor of International Law and Ethics, Asia School of Business (ASB) and International Faculty Fellow at MIT Sloan, was elected to the coordinating committee of the European Society of International Law (ESIL)’s Interest Group on International Legal Theory and Philosophy (IGILTP) this May, making him the first business school professor and first ASEAN-based professor elected to the committee.

Professor Crow’s participation in the committee will span the next four years, during which time he will play a role in setting the theoretical and philosophical agenda for the world’s largest international law society. He will also contribute to the IGILTP’s mission of facilitating research, dialogue, education, and reporting related to all areas of international law and international legal theory.

Alongside his work with ASB and MIT, Professor Crow is an affiliated researcher focusing on freedom of political expression and data privacy with Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression Initiative, which brings together international experts and activists with the University’s faculty and students to survey, document, and strengthen free expression.

In addition, Professor Crow is active in legal consulting and international impact litigation, including advising UN working groups on global business and human rights issues. His new book, International Corporate Personhood: Business and the Bodyless in International Law (Routledge 2021), theorizes the phenomenon of corporate legal personhood in international law.

Find out more about Professor Crow here.
Watch a Virtual Masterclass by Professor Crow on the subject of Responsibility in Action.

Read the full article here
This article was originally published on Asia Law Portal.

Or Why Disciplined Entrepreneurship Is More Than a Startup Creation Formula

The Disciplined Entrepreneurship methodology brought some structure to the chaotic process of starting and scaling a business. Though there is an emphasis on the discipline and rigor of going through each of the 24 steps, in a non-linear iterative process, I would also argue that there’s a value in applying some of these steps for various business decisions, or even life decisions for that matter.

These lessons are now more generalizable to all of us as we re-analyze our businesses and see where we can find leverage points. For example, you might revisit your customer persona and see if their behavior has changed during the lockdown, or even go back to step 1 and redefine your customer segments. In this article, I will explain how mapping out the Decision-Making Process has helped us sustain the business in a time of crisis in Sudan.

Before joining my current MBA at Asia School of Business, in Kuala Lumpur, I was working for RoadMap Group, a small consulting firm. The company was established by Dr. Mohammed Elhadi out of his vision of building a new Sudan through innovation. I was leading the efforts of promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in the county and helping build the ecosystem.

We acknowledged that this was a task to be performed by state agencies, but that meant it would never happen. Someone had to start something. We were fighting on two fronts: a) building our core competency with little access to world-class experiences and best practices, and b) convincing government agencies of the importance of fostering and promoting entrepreneurship for economic development.

We built our internal expertise to the best of our abilities and partnered with regional and international players in the field to complement our services. We also held workshops and talks to raise awareness among different players of the ecosystem. We were also trying to help entrepreneurs who aspire to build their businesses.

Instability in Sudan

Although the pandemic has brought a crisis to people around the world, for Sudan, the crisis was the norm even before we heard of Covid-19. For a bit of historical context, Sudan was placed under US economic sanctions in 1997. The sanctions were lifted in 2017, with no effect on the life of Sudanese people because the country was also on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism since 1993. Sudan was removed from the SST in December 2020.

The sanctions and SST list meant that Sudan was cut-off from the world. In December 2018, peaceful protests erupted and spread over the country. The youths have led a revolution that ended a thirty-year dictatorship of Omar Al-Bashir and his Muslim Brotherhood regime that brought the above-mentioned sanctions. The buildup to the protests started in 2011 when the South separated and took away most of the oil resources.

The economic crisis intensified in 2017 and 2018 leading to people taking to the streets. The economy has completely fallen off the cliff. Life has come to a standstill in many business sectors. Anticipation filled the air, and the atmosphere was very intense. It was a post-apocalyptic scene. We had many clients who were interested in our consulting and training program, but no one wanted to take any business decisions.

Everyone just waited to see what would happen. Being a small company that mainly catered to government agencies, it’s become very challenging to continue. We were in a peculiar situation that called for a change. How could we survive amid mounting uncertainty and continue our mission? A question millions of small and big companies around the world are struggling with now because of the covid pandemic.

Adopting the DE Framework

To even get the Disciplined Entrepreneurship Workbook, for instance, we had to ask someone in Qatar to buy the book and send it to us. My boss and I were huge fans of the Disciplined Entrepreneurship framework, so you can imagine our excitement the day we received the book. The book helped us prepare training modules for entrepreneurs that didn’t have access to that type of training before. Moreover, DE has changed the way we think and act in the company.

Then we had this idea of resorting to the DE book for answers. We shrugged off the idea that the book is only useful for starting a company, and we said, “let’s use it to revisit our entire business model and see where things went wrong”. Mapping out our business assumptions across the different steps revealed some interesting findings. Step 12 Determine the Customer’s Decision-Making Unit (DMU) highlighted the main friction point in our selling process.

Here’s what we found:

For the training programs, it was usually the concerned employees who were interested in our training packages such as strategic roadmapping, business process re-engineering, or innovation management
Consultation to build business incubators were mainly driven by mid-ranked officials and there were several layers to the arduous process of decision making
The Heads of Training and Development in many of the government units have a direct influence on who the training programs would be awarded to. They held veto power. Although we reached the end-users who were also the champions, it was a different game altogether for the economic buyer. We realized that there was under-the-table dealing that created a list of favorited training providers. Since we decided not to play that game, we saw programs that were requested by some units and co-designed with them, being rewarded to other vendors who had no experience teaching those modules
It took us forever to be paid for most of our services to government entities. With the hyperinflation and rapid devaluation of the Sudanese pound, our pay would lose most of its value by the time we received it

This simple mapping process made us go back to the first step and see if this was still the right market segment to focus on. It became obvious that we needed to pivot and redefine our strategic direction. We needed that 1-degree change in the foundations of the business that would set us in a completely different course.

The DMU analysis made us realize that we needed to revisit step 1 of Market Segmentation and look for a different type of customer. It has also revealed the type of customer that we needed to keep our business afloat. It was essential to find a customer who would have the following characteristics:

An end-user who would champion the project
A fast decision-making process and transparent communication
A provision for training and ability to pay despite the economic and political crisis
Paying in US dollars or an equivalent amount at the rate on the day of the transaction, to hedge against the currency devaluation

Though this exercise narrowed our options, it became clear to us that it was the only way out of the government agencies’ trap. We wasted a lot of effort seeding in unproductive soil. It was time we looked elsewhere. This new realization led us to a very unusual customer. It became obvious to us that private gold mining companies are the ones who check all our boxes.

We had never thought of them as our customers before, but we were not in normal times and we had to think differently. It shocked us that we already had contacts in one of the big mining companies this whole time, but we never approached them. We finally met the management of that company and found out that they were preparing their strategic plan, a task that we were equipped to help them with.

What started as short-term consulting, turned into a complete organizational transformation and capacity-building portfolio that required engaging one of our international partners. Two years now and that mining company is still Roadmap’s biggest client. It was this shift in the focus that kept Roadmap alive and allowed it to continue its mission of promoting entrepreneurship in Sudan.

Interestingly, with RoadMap’s help, the mining company is now planning to create a venture arm that will scout for and invest in new technologies in the mining sector. It was the private sector, after all, who saw the need for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Parting Thoughts

I reminisced about all this experience on the first day of Disciplined Entrepreneurship class by Bill Aulet as part of my MBA at Asia School of Business. I have relived the excitement of receiving the DE workbook when it arrived from abroad. Graduating soon in the time of the pandemic, I am looking now at the snake-shaped poster of the 24 steps, and thinking to myself, how this snake of wisdom can help me figure out this juncture of my life?

What assumptions about myself have I taken for granted for so long? What’s my core? What value do I bring? What are my options? Where could I find a beachhead? Where would that lead me? And most importantly, being my own customer, what do I really want?

This article was originally published on Disciplined Entrepreneurship

“The pen is mightier than the sword”, a proverbial phrase that was inspired by the play, ‘Cardinal Richelieu’, has been often heard in various contexts to underline the value of articulate communication and the ability to tell a story well.

I would like you to meet the human epitome of this phrase – Haviva Kohl, presently Lead of Talent Development Programs at Google. Recently, I had the opportunity along with other students at Asia School of Business to hear her #havivastory, and rest assured I was left inspired and misty-eyed by her story of resilience, strength and dynamism.

Finding freedom and escape through education

Haviva came from humble beginnings. Living in the suburbs, she had to travel with her mother for more than two hours just to reach high school where she had received a full scholarship to study at a private institute. Due to health concerns, as a 12-year-old, she made the difficult decision to leave her family behind and invest in her future by choosing education over living in her family home.

Over the next years, she shared roofs with numerous families, doing chores and helping them out with their children or senior citizens in exchange for room and board. Throughout this experience, she gained priceless lessons, and even picked up sign language in order to communicate with one of the deaf-mute family members she lived with.

Throughout this period, people asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up; she wanted something bigger, and she constantly asked herself which problem she wished to solve in the world. This search eventually led her to embark on her key mission – paying it forward through education. Haviva understood the value of education and wanted other children to be gifted with opportunities to experience the same.

From failure… to progress in her mission of educating others

After rejections from Ivy League colleges, she went on to study at University of Southern California, in Ghana, and then took a job at American Express. This journey did not last long as she was not able to pass the examinations that were required for her to be a financial advisor. “Failure is a better teacher than any university degree,” said Haviva during her talk. And as the inspiring Kamala Harris recently said, “I eat rejections for breakfast.”

Eventually, she landed in one of the most challenging jobs with the NYC Teaching Fellows as a middle school teacher in the South Bronx, in a school which was the fourth most dangerous school in the whole state of New York. She swore to show up and give her best every day, because, in her words, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

During her time as a teacher in the Bronx, she sparred through the challenges, including being stalked by a parent and testifying against a student who attempted to murder another student in her classroom. She moved on internationally, to work in education in Tanzania, continuing to explore and pursue her mission of making an impact through education, she was inspired to create large-scale change that would have a lasting impact and applied to the Harvard Kennedy School.

The fact that she was the first in her family to get a college education was no deterrent. “You must create space for yourself if there isn’t any,” Haviva shared. “There won’t be a door waiting for you to walk through. You have to create opportunities for yourself by asking.”

Haviva’s efforts paid off. She got accepted into Harvard Kennedy School, and, after graduating, went back to her educational roots, leading the the first teachers’ conference in the sub-Saharan African region since 1994. Then, she joined Michael Bloomberg’s New York City education efforts, scaling up Educational Leaders as part of a multi-million-dollar initiative.

Bringing diverse career experiences together as a launch pad for the next leap

After a colorful career spanning the globe, Haviva finally came to a place where she had a bounty of experience, and plenty of options for her next career move. “Work and career is not a straight line but a wiggly journey that doesn’t end,” emphasized Haviva. “Your career is not just your first or your last job but the process in between those. It should be looked at as small milestones and not a final destination.”

Once again, instead of picking the most attractive option on paper, she zoomed into her mission and tried to figure out which option would help her get there. As Haviva put it, “You are you, not your job.” She picked Google because of their 10X thinking which aims to make everything better by 10 times, also called “moonshots”. This thinking aligned with her passion to solve problems and her can-do attitude.

“Values really matter,” said Haviva. “Your values are pivotal to the decisions that you make. This is why it is crucial to understand the values of the organization that you are applying to and see if they fit with your personal ones.”

Fast forward to today: Haviva currently leads multiple talent development programs for Google and she still holds her dream to build schools for children globally close to her heart. In terms of finding meaning, passion, and fulfilment in one’s career, Haviva believes it is her philosophy that allowed her to find her path: “Ask not what they can do for you, ask what you can do for them.”

Learning from a Tale of Resilience and Grit

From Haviva’s talk, I took away a few valuable lessons that I believe will serve me and my fellow classmates well in our own career journeys:

1. Resilience is a form of self-respect: Every time you fall, get back up as it is on you to bet on your future and keep trying.

2. Don’t sabotage your options before you know the outcome: It is not a no, till it is a no. If you are confident about what you can contribute, then have a conversation about it. For example, if you are changing industries or job functions, do not be scared to apply to a job that you know you will bring value to, even if you might not have the right requirements on paper.

3. Values should drive everything: Discover your values and write them down, and this will make your career search much more focused and meaningful.

4. Have a message and a story to tell that reflects your purpose and allow it to guide your course. With ‘paying it forward’ being her mission, Haviva recognized opportunities that enabled her to draw closer to her goal.

To end this on an even more inspiring note, I highly recommend watching the video below by Dr. Seuss, who has also greatly inspired Haviva in her incredible journey:

Have you ever appreciated a product so much that you just keep talking about it to anyone, everywhere? And the company is not even paying you to do so. Unless you are hired as the product’s influencer, you are essentially doing word-of-mouth marketing for free. This exact experience happens to me when I talk about my iPad as it has improved my productivity as a working professional tremendously.

In fact, that sentence alone has got me promoting it to you right now – that is the power of marketing – when a brand and product can understand and fulfill your daily needs! During the Marketing Management course delivered by Prof Juanjuan Zhang, the John D. C. Little Professor of Marketing at MIT Sloan as part of my MBA for Working Professionals (MBA-WP) program, I learned that marketing is relevant to anyone in the business world.

Whether you are a full-fledged entrepreneur or budding intrapreneur, working at a new startup or a global organization, marketing knowledge is relevant, whatever job scope or function you are in – and that’s why it’s imperative to understand how to manage it. Sitting there in class, peeling off the layers various case studies of renowned brands allowed me to understand what worked and what went wrong for some companies.

It also taught me to look beyond the industry I am in, and see that not every tactic would work the same way, depending on the business model, industry, and most importantly – who the customer is. Whether you are in consulting, banking or retail, the marketing framework can be applied to help you achieve your intended outcome. Here are 3 ways marketing management will be relevant to you as a working professional, despite your industry or job scope:

1. If you have stakeholders, you have customers.

In simple terms, marketing strategy allows us to understand what our customers want, what our competitors are doing and who is our target market that we need to attract. With data collected through research, we could then decide how to influence our customer’s decisions by formulating effective marketing tactics. For examples, one of the case studies we looked at in class was on BMW’s effective marketing strategy.

They managed to profile their customers so well that they could target them through the different tiers of vehicle offerings according to their customers’ perceived lifestyle and age range. Their marketing promotion through short, action-packed, and delightful films proved to be sensational and effectively made some customers switch to BMWs. With this kind of success in a pre-digital world, one can only imagine the sophistication of what we can do for our customers now, with more data available to profile customers!

This customer-centric approach does not only apply to you if you are in the Marketing department – regardless of your role at work, you are required to deliver results for your internal and external stakeholders. For example, before you can convince senior management (the ultimate decision maker) to invest in something, you will need to understand what their motivations are as your “customer” before you can deploy effective tactics to influence their decisions.

Often, the first driver of decision-making tends to be financial analysis, but being able to articulate a customer-focused strategy and understanding of where a company stands against competitors (both essential elements of marketing) can also influence decision-making at the top level.

2. Just as you have customers, you are also a customer.

The course also made me realize how crucial it is to become more informed as a consumer. Everything is a transaction, and as an employee of a company, you will at some point deal with vendors, contractors, and software subscriptions, and probably need to assess their products and pricing strategies.

They might come to you with convincing returns and benefits, but it does not hurt for you to conduct market research to see if there are alternatives available for a better price, whether the product really fulfills the needs of the company, and what other customers have to say about the product. Having this knowledge gives you the upper hand to negotiate a better deal for your company with the company’s best interests at heart.

3. The framework makes you a disciplined thinker.

The marketing framework is useful in a way that the process is iterative. Each step feeds into each other – you cannot start off with pricing a product before you know where your product is positioned against other competitors in the market.

You first must start with identifying your customers, competitors, and company, gathering the necessary data which will be turned into insights, and then implementing the strategies through competitive product pricing and effective promotions on the right channels and platforms.

Applying the marketing framework, trains you to become a disciplined thinker and equips you to constantly think about improving the process – whether for your customers, or as an organizational customer yourself.

I work in the transport industry, and attending this class has changed the way I view marketing at my company. Previously, I used to think that marketing is a once-off event. Now, I see the opportunity for ongoing marketing improvement in areas ranging from how we promote our various product offerings to how we reinvent our transport services.

In summary, marketing management provides us with the tools that are necessary to achieve the best results for the right target market. Working professionals have a lot to gain from applying this framework that is relevant to every aspect of the business world.

The opinions published are those of the author alone and do not reflect the views of the author’s employer.

Why did you choose to earn your MBA at this business school?

Pre-MBA, I was a law graduate who had worked in the government as a policymaker and advisor to a prominent regulatory leader. I wanted to make a career pivot to the private sector yet I was undecided on where I’d like to land.

The ASB MBA with its one-of-a-kind Action Learning component not only gave me practical experience in 5 industries across 4 Asia-Pacific countries over 7 months cumulatively; it also allowed me to experiment and validate the industry and job function that I would like to be in post-graduation.

This practical experience, coupled with MIT Sloan’s world-class innovation-forward curriculum, was what gave me the confidence and skills to secure a job at the height of the COVID-19 crisis and a national emergency.

What was your favorite class and what lesson do you use from it in your role?

It was definitely the Platforms Strategy class. Platform businesses are incredibly complex, and your strategy to grow and compete needs to be delicately calibrated. Working at a fast-growing super app whose digital platform encompasses travel, e-commerce, and fintech products, the most valuable takeaway for me was knowing which growth drivers to focus on amidst a constantly changing playing field.

Pretend you are an ambassador giving a tour at your business school. Name one place you would show a candidate and why was it so important to you?

The charming communal spaces of the student residence! What tied my ASB experience together was the lifelong camaraderie forged with my class. The architecture of the campus makes that possible with its many open, communal spaces, from its lush front lawn to its serene rooftop gardens.

What was your best memory during your MBA program?

So hard to pick just one! The one memory I keep going back to was an Action Learning project in Bangkok. It was a challenging project – we had to design a social commerce strategy for one of the largest banks in Thailand – but I had a team that was absolutely ace.

We analyzed research, conducted meetings and built decks in agile sprints during the day. By night, we explored the best of Bangkok nightlife: street-food, bars, and spas galore. One weekend we hired a van to take us to the lovely countryside and spent a gloriously long Saturday afternoon at a charming vineyard and alpaca farm.

What is one thing about the MBA program that you wish you had known when you applied?

The 20 months will fly by like a breeze. It will be near impossible for all 47 of my classmates to ever be in the same place again, so make every moment count!

What has been your biggest professional achievement?

Playing an entrepreneurial role within a super app that is reinventing itself from its airline roots, amidst the worst crisis in all of aviation history. This has entailed supporting the CEO’s vision in a multi-disciplinary capacity, leading a successful public relations campaign, and building strategic partnerships.

What advice would you give to a prospective student to help them earn a spot in your business school?

Have a clear story of what brings you to business school and how you hope to benefit and grow from the ASB experience. Don’t be shy to share what interests you, what makes you click, and what makes you different. ASB prides itself on bringing together interesting and unconventional people – you might just be what they’re looking for!

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on Poets&Quants, a platform that covers all that matters in the business school world, with in-depth analysis of B-schools rankings and full-time MBA programs.

AI (Artificial Intelligence), ML (Machine Learning) and PM (Product Management) – these are the hottest fields for jobseekers today and everyone is making a beeline for them, especially MBAs. But few truly understand what it takes to succeed in these emerging fields, and fewer still know what it means to take risks in their career to work on frontiers where few have gone before.

Dubai-based Swami Sekar is one of these rare individuals and technologists who does understand, having worked across Asia, the US, and Europe as an entrepreneur and angel investor. His career history that runs the gamut of established tech names from AMD to Amgen, Intel and VMWare, as well as start-ups in edtech and martech. Currently, he runs Winimy.ai, a Singapore start-up he co-founded in 2016 which provides omni-channel communication and voice-assistant technology services.

An MBA graduate from MIT Sloan (ASB’s partner school), Swami was kind enough to share his experiences with soon-to-graduate MBA candidates (including yours truly).

Here’s some of my key takeaways from an intimate fireside chat with Swami:

Don’t dismiss sales roles 💼

Swami had his first taste of entrepreneurship during his undergraduate years in Singapore, when he started a marketplace platform to connect local businesses with freelancers. The team growth-hacked the business without venture funding from zero to 10,000 freelancers. After graduating from Nanyang Technological University with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, Swami spent a couple of years as a product engineer at AMD.

But it was his next stint – as part of the team setting up Meltwater’s operations in Singapore – that was pivotal. “It was amazing to work with all these hustlers in a new sales new office,” he says. “The managing director was about 27 years old, and it was a terrific experience.” Swami’s role at Meltwater involved selling to government, technology and finance clients across the Asia region.

Whilst MBAs have an easier pathway to marketing and business development functions, sales could actually turn out to be the better choice, according to Swami. Apart from the fact that technology multinationals in Asia are primarily sales offices, carrying sales quota can pay off in the long term, he says. “Don’t just think about the salary,” Swami says. “Instead, think about whether this will be a valuable experience five years down the line, as there will be opportunity costs to doing foot soldier-level work.”

Swami’s advice is to look for high-risk and high-growth learning opportunities in developing markets, more so if you have the backing of a large corporate or some kind of buffer. Ironically, Swami regrets declining such an opportunity when he was asked to start a new local office for one of the multinationals he worked at.

How to PM your PM career 👨🏼‍💻

Swami has the following tips for MBAs looking to launch careers in technology product management for AI and ML: be comfortable with using platform tools and get familiar with the technology stack and technical requirements (for e.g. Jira, agile and scrum), because PM is all about managing expectations between engineering and sales. Python, R and statistics and probability skills are pre-requisites.

Much of our conversation with Swami revolved around the opportunity set in product management roles, which was natural given the increasing importance of PMs. From my own vantage point (based on discussions such as this one on project versus product management from WWCKL), product-oriented thinking and agile development are set to become the dominant mode of management in most organizations if they haven’t already.

And the product management track is seen as the strongest pathway to business leadership roles. But the truth is dedicated product management roles in Asia are still few in number, according to Swami. In Singapore, where there’s a higher concentration of technology talent and product management vacancies, tightening immigration rules and a saturated MBA market could prove to be significant barriers to entry.

It may be helpful to look elsewhere in Southeast Asia instead, Swami points out. His advice is don’t be afraid to take the road less travelled, for instance by exploring Vietnam or a less developed market where competition isn’t as fierce, and where visa authorities are more welcoming.

On entrepreneurship, life, and living 🦸🏼‍♂️

As an entrepreneur, Swami knows how to launch companies and scale them from zero to $1 million in revenue. But because start-ups are so high-risk, nobody should start a new business if they just want to give it a try, he says. “Entrepreneurship is not a job due to the high probability of failure, and you have to be married to the vocation,” he says.

According to Swami, there are three types of businesses: lifestyle (revenue up to $10m), growth (revenue between $20m and $100m) and rocket ships, otherwise known as “unicorns”. Like Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly-Effective People, Swami adheres to the belief that everything happens twice in the world: first, through mental conceptualization and visualization and secondly, through the physical, actual creation.

He puts this into practice by outlining five-year growth plans and using a hypothesis-testing approach to find the strategies that work for him. His framework involves reflecting on where he wants to be in five years in terms of geography, industry and role. Even more fascinating is the fact that Swami has two mentors at any one time. On the post-MBA job search, Swami agrees that in light of Covid-19, the world has shrunk when it comes to available options.

The world is no longer our oyster – at least in the short-term. But rather than being distracted by the noise of what we can’t do, Covid-19 has eliminated the paradox of choice, and made it easier to be clear about what we really want and are willing to overcome challenges for, Swami says. “Staying optimistic is the most important thing,” he says. I couldn’t agree more.

As part of ASB’s MBA Action Learning Curriculum and Entrepreneurship Trek, successful entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs are invited as guest speakers to give students an insightful lesson on their journey and struggles to get to where they are today.

In this guest talk session, Professor Loredana Padurean, Associate Dean and Faculty Director for Action Learning speaks to ASB 19’ alumnus, Jack Farrell, to discuss how he came to launch a fully vegan, cruelty-free D2C beauty brand after his MBA, the venture building support he receives, and why he thinks Asia is a great place for building businesses.

Loredana: One of the reasons why we invited you today is to talk a little bit about your LAVLAVLUV journey, but before we go into that, I want to talk about the beginning of your journey at ASB. Did you always know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

Jack: So, when I graduated undergrad I joined Venture for America where even throughout college, I was always entrepreneurial. I bought and sold textbooks on Amazon back in 2012-2013, just hustling textbooks and I have always loved that. Even as a kid, I would put lemonade stands out in front of my parent’s house so I could buy baseball cards. I was even on eBay back then. So, I’ve always loved the game of buying and selling.

My parents told me “Jack, can you get a real job?!” I thought I’ll do consulting, or go do investment banking. When I joined ASB and completed Action Learning projects that were centered around that, I realized I really don’t want to [go into consulting or IB]. I didn’t lie in bed at night and think about doing consulting or working at Google. I would lie in bed and think about cool products that I could sell online, how I can build them, and how I can make them unique.

In ASB, I kind of went through that full spectrum. I thought to myself, I’m coming here, I’m going to grow up, I’m going to do something that is, you know, considered legit.

Doing my own thing matters more than anything else because I love it. You know, I love the game, I love figuring it all out and I’m just fortunate that ASB put me in Malaysia in Southeast Asia, which, I believe is genuinely the best place you can build a business for many, many reasons. So, I’m just very fortunate that ASB gave me the opportunity to be exposed to all this.

“I didn’t lie in bed at night and think about doing consulting or working at Google. I would lie in bed and think about cool products that I could sell online, how I can build them, and how I can make them unique.”

Just to take you back in time. Do you remember what projects you worked on for your last semester in trek five (the entrepreneurship trek)? And do you remember what product, problem, and solution you worked on?

When I was at ASB, I produced a lot of video content on LinkedIn. The process of making a professional video and putting it up on LinkedIn was difficult. So we created Thought Leaders Labs, a service software deal that was going to help people easily make videos to put up on social media, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. It was an idea that came about from what I was doing at the time, making these videos. I said, dang, this is kind of hard. There’s got to be a better way to do it.

Jack, I have a hard time looking at such a beautiful feminine product (LAVLAVLUV) and looking at you and thinking this product came out of your mind. What compelled you to create this bedtime face mask made with lavender lava?

The thought for Direct-to-Consumer brands is the idea that we build e-commerce brands around products that are small in size, light in weight, have a high-end value and really focus on today’s social media driven world.

We’re early in our process of building these brands but everything that we’ve done has justification and rationale behind it, which is really important. Nike’s ‘Just do it’ or Apple’s ‘think differently’ really showcases what makes them unique and why you should believe in it. Cosmetics is phenomenal, especially since we’re trying to build decisive business. You can truly get differentiation without the need to invest huge amounts of money.

So, you started working with the advertising agency, TBWA, and this is how you got here. Can you take us back to that journey of how you actually got on this partnership?

I remember I was first introduced to TBWA by you, Loredana, probably 6 months into my ASB journey. I met Tim and I liked him as a partner and investor in the stuff that we’re doing. Long story short, we met up again sometime later by chance. I told him I had this idea and this is what I want to do. And he’s said, ‘Well, why don’t you try and we’ll invest in you, we’ll help support you.’ From that day on, I thought to myself, ‘Okay this is what I’m going to do.’

Share with us more about the deal you have with TBWA, because I think a lot of people are interested in knowing. What’s that partnership like?

Jack: TBWA is an advertising agency under Omnicom, which is one of the world’s largest advertising agencies. The group that I operate inside of TBWA is called START, and we’re a venture builder of startups that just creates businesses. The way you win market share is with brand, and that’s what START does. It’s a venture builder, which really builds businesses from the ground up inside of the world’s largest advertising agency. In exchange for investment and shared resources, they own equity in the stuff that we’re doing. I’m just genuinely grateful for that relationship and I’m very grateful for Tim, and I’m very grateful that Loredana introduced me to him and TBWA.

10,000 followers on Instagram. How many jars of LAVLAVLUV have you sold? Can I ask you that approximately?

It arrived in the US around middle of April 2020. We started ramping up some content, you know, for socials and building out ads. Since June or July, we’re averaging about 25 to 30 sales a week, which is still relatively small. Everything is directly correlated to ad spend, the whole game we play is literally what we call return-on-ad-spend (ROAS).

Listening to you, I’m realizing that you have an amazing combination of smart and sharp skills in the sense that your decisions are actually very quantitatively driven. How did you learn to be so good in digital commerce and understand the game?

Being part of an advertising agency is a huge advantage. Getting a brand built, you know your brand architecture and you’re creative with all that stuff. Luckily, because of the relationship and the way that we structured our deal with TBWA, that’s all included. So, we know they’re able to help us with creative work, design our Instagram feed and do our web design.

Another reason why I love Malaysia is because the quality of work is the same, but you’re paying in Ringgit as compared to USD. We spent about RM5,000 to take a flat artwork and turn that into a Shopify website. Cost does not equal quality; It’s about value. And if you hustle around enough and you talk to enough people, you can get anything you want done for a very good price.

“The way you win market share is with brand.”

Are there any plans for extending the product range? Are you going to make a product for beards?

Many of these things I can give you an answer to, but they are hypotheses and we can debate that. The way my model is built is once we hit 10,000 sales for LAVLAVLUV, we will then layer on a second product. We’re already going to have those 10,000 customers that we can dump this new product on top of that love what we do.

When you choose a name, it’s extremely important to be sure that the name communicates what it needs, and that it’s also translatable across countries. When I was trying your LAVLAVLUV product, I was like, ‘Ooh, I love, love, love this.’ It matters so much and sometimes being simple is important.

I think that naming and branding is so important in 2020. It’s not like 1980 when you’re walking down store shelves and you had like 20 options. Now you have tens of thousands of options online, and so what do you do to give yourself a chance to win?

One thing I’ll add: I think it is very important to know what you are trying to build. In the sense of, are you trying to build a brand like L’Oreal that wants to be global and mass, or are you trying to build a brand that can do $2 million a year? It is because the resources that are required to build both of those are vastly different.

If you know what you’re trying to build, like a direct-to-consumer brand with relatively minimal resources, I wouldn’t want to raise tons and tons of money.

“I think startup media nowadays does such a disservice when they only glamorize the metric that uses money raised. What’s wrong with the dude that’s down the road and just opened a coffee shop that has a line out the door and is profitable the day he opens?”

Not to mention that a lot of these business models that are so hyper-glamorized are never going to be financially profitable – billions of dollars behind them and they still don’t break even 10 years later.

What you’re really trying to build and being honest with that – is so important. I think startup media nowadays does such a disservice when they only glamorize the metric that uses money raised. And I think to myself, ‘What’s wrong with the dude that’s down the road and just opened a coffee shop that has a line out the door and is profitable the day he opens?’

To me, that’s what I love. I just wish that there was more focus on people trying to build profitably. You know, not everything is about Facebook or Google, you know, even though that seems to be the only thing people want to talk about.