A living document about myself 🙂

<aside> 👇 TLDR

1. [Context] Sunsetting a bootstrapped lifestyle business —> exploring and thinking to start something new again (a non-lifestyle business and wouldn’t want it to be a solo founder again this time). Looking for collaborators, particularly in Bay Area temporarily (given I’m based here for now and it’s easier to collaborate in person) and we can start with:

• fun side projects
• or mini hackathons
• tournaments
• other ideas to stress test our compatibility!

</aside>

👋 About Me:

• 👶 Born to and grew up in a Hokkien (Borneo 🇧🇳🇵🇭🇮🇩🇲🇾 , 3rd largest island in the world) & trucker family 1st generation to go to high school & college (paid some by selling flowers & donuts)
• Spent a considerable amount of time in North & Latin America ( 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇧🇷) before moving to Seoul ( 🇰🇷)
• Was able to work in Silicon Valley despite having no US college degree. Glad I took the leap that has changed my life forever.
• 🚀 I’ve had several stints in my past life:
  • Rocketships early employee/engineer & exec leadership @ 2 Y Combinator-backed high-growth startups from no product to unicorn. Both got into YC Growth & top YC startups list (Xendit - YC S15 & Spenmo - YC S20)
  • non-profit & US digital government
  • Other

• 💡 Always passionate about building an impact-focused organization and solving problems around these themes: emerging market infrastructure (B2B), financial inclusion, small businesses, healthcare/insurance, and non-profit.

✍️ Current State:

🤩 Exploring/looking for what's next!! (I'm a big believer in building "infrastructure" that will last for years and people can't live without it)

• Market agnostic (but preferably emerging market with global ambition). Niche / small market is ok but growing

[NON-Interests]

<aside> 🚫 Problems I’m not interested in based on my past exposures (unless someone convinces me to like it!):

</aside>

1. Web3
2. Marketing
3. Pure dev tools
4. Legaltech
5. Pure enterprise software with no social impact
6. Mental Health
7. Investment platform for high-income people
8. Pure video or audio tooling
9. Pure productivity apps
10. Media
11. Gaming

^ Anything not mentioned here is either I don’t love it or I haven’t tried/thought about it much

[Interests]

<aside> 💡 I’m mostly driven by social impact and improving people’s lives than just solely being the next unicorn (status game).

Hence, I’m always looking to solve problems for underserved markets (disadvantaged people) and build something that people can’t live without it. And also, long-lasting infrastructure to support that :)

Some examples of those problems:

</aside>

1. Financial inclusion
   1. e.g. Vertical SaaS ina preferably slow-moving spaces / yet-to-be tech-enabled areas (FinTech/SMBs/Insurance/Trucking/etc)
2. Helping small businesses (B2B or B2B2C) thrive and gain more revenues ( especially internationally)
   1. e.g. B2B marketplace
3. Supporting scientists & NGOs to discover more social impact projects/products
4. Education
5. Meta: Helping other companies or organizations to achieve one of the above 🙂
6. Big plus:: Extendable or related to emerging market problems (especially in the Philippines)

🎉 Fun Facts:

• 👨🏻‍💻 I coded too intensely in 2016 until my hand bled 🤯 . I couldn't code for 2 days after 😣. I guess that's how much I love coding ♥️