The Kickass Women Podcast

Originally, Alisee de Tonnac chased a “traditional” career in a corporate, having the perfect CV. However, she grew more and more frustrated not knowing how her daily doing contributed to anything. That is when she met her co-founders and started the first Seedstars world tour to find the best early stage startups in emerging markets. Today, Seedstars is represented in more than 80 countries around the world with their competition, co-working and -living spaces, accelerator and entrepreneurship programs and the startups they invested in. In this episode Alisee shares her journey from corporate to startup, what her daily life looks like now, how she juggles being a founder and being a mom and how she unwinds.

This episode rings in the second season of The Kickass Women Podcast, featuring both a new host and a new guest. New host Hannah Mayer talks to Susanne Mitschke, co-founder of MindMate and Citruslabs. MindMate is an app with mental exercises, workout routines and recipes, designed for people with memory loss. Citruslabs, where Susanne currently serves as the CEO, is a set of tools to help research organizations screen, enroll and retain patients for clinical trials. Susanne’s entrepreneurial journey included several pivots in business model, target customer segments and, not least, her own geographic whereabouts. She’s listened to both good and bad advice and now knows how to circumvent the bad. In this episode, she gives practical advice, shares some knowledge nuggets as well as both inspiring and frustrating stories – and along the way we both share some laughs.

Listen to the episode on iTunes and on Spotify.

After building her own media startup which was later acquired by Tech in Asia and working in VC as well as investing as an angel, Gwendolyn Regina currently acts as Entrepreneur in Residence at Entrepreneur First in Paris and Singapore. In this episode, Gwendolyn shares her experience about what makes founding teams work well together and points that need to be discussed early to lay the right groundwork for the team to thrive. We also talk about differences in technology adoption rates in Europe and Asia, the need for privacy and how confidence is achieved. 

https://archive.org/download/GwendolynRegina/Gwendolyn%20Regina.mp3

This episode features an AI trailblazer: Ayesha Khanna, founder and CEO of ADDO AI and founder of 21C girls. After graduating from Harvard and Columbia Ayesha spent 12 years on Wallstreet as a Software Engineer. She then completed her PhD at LSE and moved to Singapore, where she became an entrepreneur. This episode covers so many facets of Ayesha’s path and she shares and incredible amount of advice. We discuss confidence and who to build it, the moral dilemma with AI, imagine a future, viewing tech as a tool instead of passively consuming it, active networking, and the myth of having it all. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did our conversation and editing it!

Twitter: @ayeshakhanna1

Website: ayeshakhanna.com – addo.ai – 21cgirls.com

https://ia601400.us.archive.org/1/items/AyeshaKhanna/Ayesha.mp3

This episode features the Director of the Thai branch of 500 Startups: Pahrada (Mameaw) Sapprasert. She is on Forbes 30 under 30 list, has invested than more than 50 startups and shares how she landed a job at the world-renowned accelerator and VC 500 and why she thinks it is harder to get a job in venture capital than get funding. Mameaw also explains what she likes the most about being an investor, what she is looking for in a startup, how to get her attention and how she interacts with startups once she has invested. Whether you are looking for a job in VC or for funding, this episode is for you. 

Listen to the episode on iTunes and on Spotify.

https://ia801505.us.archive.org/33/items/Mameaw/Mameaw.mp3

Olena is the Director and Investment Lead for CEE at Luminate, a spin-off of the Omidyar Network, founded by the founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar. Luminate has supported 236 organizations, in 18 countries with over $314 million in funding with the goal of empowering people and institutions to work together to build just and fair societies. Olena shares her experience growing up during the Cold War and Perestroika to having the opportunity to study at Oxford and now supporting entrepreneurs in CEE. She is a strong believer in the flexibility of investing including grants. Moreover, she is not only passionate about chess but the author of a chess book for kids, which actually led a lot of mums to become chess players. 

Listen to the episode on iTunes and on Spotify.

https://ia601504.us.archive.org/30/items/Episode3Olena/Episode%203%20Olena.mp3

Xin-Ci Chin is the head of marketing at storehub, a POS system with 4,000 clients in 12 countries. Apart from talking about the most common mistake entrepreneurs make when it comes to marketing and growth hacking, Xinch shares how entrepreneurs that tackle female issues can get a foot in the door with male investors. She shares a strategy she has developed when she was raising for whatoverme, a women safety startup that she founded after she was the victim of a kidnapping attempt. Lastly, we talk about the Malaysian startup ecosystem, and why it is exciting to be a Malaysian right now. 

Listen to the episode on iTunes and on Spotify.

https://ia601503.us.archive.org/17/items/Ep2Xinch/Ep%202%20-%20Xinch.mp3

Nichapat Ark recently joined the Singapore based VC fund Open Ventures. The Seedstars ambassador in Bangkok took the time to talk to me about her journey into startups and the world of venture capital, the startup ecosystem in Thailand, and what a great startup team is, choosing a career, what skills one should hone right now and how to network.

Listen to the episode on iTunes and on Spotify.

https://archive.org/download/NichapatArkEpisode1TheKickassWomenPodcast_201810/Nicha-FirstEpisodeDone.mp3