8 & 8
Symmetry
8 years & 8 months ago, I left the Monetary Authority of Singapore (“MAS”), Singapore’s Central Bank & Financial Regulator, my workplace for the previous 8 years & 8 months.
For this fleeting moment, there is symmetry.
I’ll always be grateful to the folks at 10 Shenton Way, Singapore 079117. For the chance they gave me to work, learn and grow, and play a small part in Public Service.
For the chance to live in different countries — the US where I went to university, and the UK — where I worked in MAS’ London office and had a ringside seat to the Global Financial Crisis, where my elder child was born, and where I watched much quality football at White Hart Lane.
I remember a stint in bank supervision, and helping with local capital markets development and financial safety nets policy.
I remember most vividly the MAS Dealing Room, where I spent the bulk of my time in MAS. As a Portfolio Manager in our Reserve Management Department, I played a small part in growing and managing our Foreign Reserves, in Singapore and London.
I remember hard work — days and nights spent analysing markets, conducting financial surveillance, building models and helping to construct and manage our portfolios to earn good risk-adjusted returns — part of which supplement our Budgets, notably this year’s extraordinary ones to help our people and economy combat COVID-19.
I remember some of the smartest people I’ve ever worked with and learnt from. Singapore’s financial sector is in good hands.
I also remember and remain ever-grateful to my first 2 Deputy MDs for taking interest in the career of a (then-)young officer — for their counsel, the chance to see a little of their lives and homes in Singapore and Canada, and for my ladies to meet them. Even though my time with our Central Bank was a brief 8y & 8m, I hope I did ok by them.
A Simple Equation
I left MAS after 8y & 8m to be a stay-at-home father.
I left to be present. Changing diapers for the younger one, long bus trips to nowhere with the elder one. Not that much in photographs, but a lot in memories, and hopefully laying the foundation for their later years.
I left with no job waiting for me. Only that it needed to be done, and I’d figure it out along the way.
I left without knowing how long we could survive on our savings. But I remember a simple equation a wise friend shared with me:
HAPPINESS = WEALTH ÷ DESIRE
I never had a high numerator. But because my denominator was considerably lower — the equation had always turned out ok for me.
It’d be great to raise the numerator, not for myself as much as for the family to be more comfortable. But what the last 8y & 8m taught — was how little material comforts one actually needed, once basic needs were met.
The family’s spending dialled down when my income stopped. But I never felt poor, or short-changed the girls in any way. When we needed to spend, we spent. But we also found ways to do things together without spending that much.
Mostly, we found ways to devote our time to our girls, which is worth much more than money. Because that’s what kids desire and deserve more than toys or gadgets.
I think we got that part right.
The Meaning of Risk
Leaving MAS meant I could regain control of my time. But what economics (and life) teaches is the concept of Trade-offs. What I gained in time was “paid for” by a loss in income.
I also went from the stability of a public sector job and income — to founding a startup, where i had little experience in running and no certainty of income. These was at opposite ends of the risk-reward spectrum.
It was also opposite to how life had panned out till then. Up till 8y & 8m ago, life had gone on an entirely predictable path: School -> National Service -> Public Sector scholarship -> University -> Public Sector career.
It would have been perfectly rational and comfortable to have gone on for the next 8y & 8m, and the next few 8y & 8m. But somehow I went on a different path. I thought that having a little intelligence, starting a business couldn’t be hard.
I was right. STARTING a business was indeed easy. But growing the business was the hardest thing to do.
It didn’t matter how smart one was or how hard one worked. Intelligence and doing well as an employee does not automatically translate into success in business. It was a wonder the first business survived as long as it did. And the riskiest thing I had ever done — did not take off.
But I learnt valuable lessons —
1. Smarts do not equate to savvy. I had to learn to be much more flexible and much less naive.
2. The importance of being able to do the very thing the business did. I was running a tech startup with no knowledge of tech. No knowledge of design. It was like setting up a chicken rice stall without knowing how to cook.
3. A business needed a WHY to exist— to meet a user need so well that enough users were willing to pay you for it. Be it a chicken rice stall, a supermarket, an interior design firm, or a tech startup. This principle will never be wrong (see my interview by HRTech guru Adrian Tan).
4. When founding a business, it is crucial to get good advice from people who had built a business from scratch. A mistake I made in this first venture — very few whom I sought advice from were founders. Most advice was well-intentioned but ultimately not useful. Because no matter how successful one was in corporate life, the challenges of the entrepreneur are unique.
Do I wish I had done things differently? Of course. I would love to have avoided making the mistakes I made. These are expensive, especially when on one’s own dime. But I blame only myself.
Do I regret anything? No. The products we built are still serving schools worldwide through Finnish ed-tech platform TeacherGaming, and it bought valuable experience I’d couldn’t have replicated if I had continued my Public Service career.
The Opposite of Support
When I was still in Public Service, I used to think — why was it so hard for private sector to understand government? I was idealistic. And naive.
I’m still idealistic, but now have a greater appreciation for entrepreneurs’ perspectives, grittier and much more pragmatic. There is no ivory tower theorising. Because with founders, the rubber HAS to hit the road. It is never just a Powerpoint presentation.
We are in one of the most trying times our country has seen in a long time. We need visionary leadership, for policies to counter this challenge and keep our nation and economy running. Most of us can see them trying their best.
Our country’s Leadership is able and well-intentioned, but does not have a monopoly of good ideas.
There is also a somewhat strange view that they cannot make mistakes, or admit them. Perhaps a result of having been successful throughout their careers in civil and military service. They have never seen failure.
An ongoing concern is our leadership continues to be drawn from the same narrow pool of talent with similar experiences and career pathways. This can result in groupthink — similar perspectives and similar blindspots.
No matter how well-intentioned, a public sector person can never truly understand the private sector perspective, unless (s)he has walked it before.
On economic policies, our leadership already seeks business views, but there is over-representation from large corporates, not appropriate when smaller companies employ 70% of our workforce, meaning they have a much closer pulse of the average worker’s needs.
I respect anyone who can run a billion-dollar company, which I’ve not yet done. But those of us who have risked our own money, built product from scratch and sweated over ops, topline and cashflow — bring a wholly different perspective that is useful to our country’s leaders, who really need the feel ‘of the ground’.
I hope that when formulating policy, our leaders can tap on more founders and small-business owners, in addition to the corporates and academics they already tap.
And if the views offered are different to what was derived top-down, it doesn’t mean we are being trouble-makers. It would be far easier to say nothing.
The opposite of support is not protest. THE OPPOSITE OF SUPPORT IS APATHY.
Entrepreneurs are never apathetic. Entrepreneurs pound pavements, build product, optimise funnel, chase topline, sweat over payroll, counsel staff, sweep floors, empty trash, among a myriad of tasks and worries that are foreign to leaders of large corporations.
That’s in addition to being strategic and constantly executing and innovating. And not being afraid to admit mistakes so we can try again, which does not necessarily advance corporate careers. Something our founding fathers understood when they led — they were entrepreneurs; they created a nation out of nothing.
I think some in our Leadership today do desire to shift to a truly more open posture. To WANT to hear negative things. To WANT to hear where it’s not working.
It’s hard to do. But that’s what all good entrepreneurs want to hear, and what we demand from our customers and users. Support and encouragement is good, but what’s really valuable is to find out what can be done better. So much harder, but so much more impactful.
As Government, as the country’s stewards and servants— what’s really valuable is to hear what isn’t working, from someone who cares enough to tell you.
On that, I remain idealistic.
A Second Try
I recently co-founded ArcLab, a mobile learning Software-as-a-Service platform to help organisations create effective training to upskill workforces.
This time, I hoped to imbibe a public-sector-originated desire to do good into a commercially-sustainable venture.
After the first venture’s mis-steps, I adopted a simple playbook — to generally do the opposite of what I did with the previous one.
I didn’t start by building product. I researched as much as I could, interviewed as many companies as I knew. I learnt to code as much as I could, how to do simple design etc. — to be as self-sufficient as possible.
I did not hire. Working with (super-)interns, we built a simple Proof-of-Concept tool IN 6 WEEKS and offered it for free, purely for users to use and provide feedback. When that saw some usage, I got our first investor and CTO onboard and built our fully-functional Minimum Viable Product IN 4 MONTHS.
Building quickly and learning from users kept us nimble — to keep iterating to become better, and build what users needed. We spent no money but managed to bring in paying customers even while the platform was being built, helping us validate the product and market.
Thankfully we grew, and recently welcomed the investment of Spaze Ventures, joining the pioneer class of their EduSpaze accelerator. I learnt from the Partners who are hands-on & helpful, and our Cohort 1 startup colleagues buzzing with dynamism, grit and a desire to impact the world through better learning. We recently concluded our Demo Day and ArcLab is honoured to be featured in Holon IQ’s Southeast Asia Ed Tech 50.
It is still early in ArcLab’s journey. But hopefully — with a better toolkit, more XP from failing and falling, with good investors, mentorship, network and resources, I can walk a little further and faster with this 2nd venture, serve the underserved, and scale ArcLab’s vision to Upskill the World’s Deskless Workforce.
