The Rice People Podcast

Hsu Ken is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Iterative , a YC-style accelerator focused on Southeast Asia. Hsu Ken and his co-founder Brian Ma started Iterative in 2021 and are already about to begin their 4th accelerator batch. As part of the accelerator startups receive anywhere between US $150,000 to US $ 500,000 along with 3 months of working together with the Iterative team and fellow batch mates on growth, product, pitch etc. Prior to founding Iterative, Hsu Ken also co-founded Decide (acquired by eBay) and Weave.

Alan Wong is the CTO and one of the Co-Founders of Ula. Ula is fast growing Indonesian startup looking to digitize and empower mom and pop retailers, also known as warungs in Indonesia and across Southeast Asia. The company also recently raised a $100 Million Series B round from prominent investors such as Bezos Expeditions, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Tencent and more. We cover how Ula's journey, how customer obsession is their North Star and also get Alan's point of view of when is the right time to progress from being an individual contributor in an organisation.

Albert Ho is the Chief Strategy Officer as RateS, which is a social commerce platform that enables small businesses and individuals to start their online business via social channels.

We dove deep to understand social commerce, how it works in different geographies, why its taking hold in Southeast Asia today and also the nuances in the varying social commerce models adopted by a variety of startups in the region today. We also talked about Rate S' evolution from a financial platform into a social commerce startup, challenges they've faced and also touch on how Albert's newsletter and telegram community journey.

On this episode, we had a chat with Grehg Yeo, the host of the 1 Foot In Podcast which aims to help you get into the doors of teh top and fastest growing companies in the world. The podcast introduces you to the individuals who have done just that and you get to know who they are, what are their value systems and what worked to get them in.

This was a loose and fun conversation where we discussed why he even decided to start a podcast focused on careers, his own personal experience as an undergraduate, looking for internships and a job. We also talked about the nitty gritty parts of running a podcast as well the various highs and lows he's had with 1 Foot In after 1 season of the podcast. At the end of the pod, you also get a sneak peek into what Gregh and 1 Foot In has in store for you in Season 2!

On this episode, we had a chat with Neelesh Bhatia, the founder of Akadasia which is a mission driven startup looking to empower educators everywhere by building the largest global community of educators and providing them resources for continuous professional development. He was also the founding director of SPINOFF, the entrepreneurship centre at Singapore Polytechnic.

This was a wide ranging conversation where we discussed Akadasia's origin story and why Neelesh wanted to build this company, how he made the tough decision to leave his comfortable government jobs to dive back into entrepreneurship, the evolution of teaching and education over the past couple of years, why hunger is more important than passion and so much more!

Our guest today is Justine Win, a Product Designer at Shopify.

In our conversation, we understand her perspective on what makes good design, what a product designer does, how compromise is a key part of the design process and how you can develop your own creative muscle. We also dive deep into understanding her thought process behind moving from the Philippines to Canada, why she was intent on working at a product-led company and how she even got into the design field, having studied IT in college.

Angjolie Mei is the Founder of The Life Celebrant, a funeral services company in Singapore that focuses on celebrating the departed's unique life while facilitating moments that lead to the healing of grief. She is also the author of Dying To Meet You, a book where she documents her own journey and experiences through the Funeral Services industry in great detail.

In this conversation, we dive deep into various aspects of the funeral services industry and the services that are provided, Angjolie's journey from her initial experiences with death while she was in school to running her own company today and also how she has worked to overcome doubters and naysayers and brought fresh ideas and services into an industry best known for following tradition.

Natalja is the Founder of Sisters of Code, the first female coding club in Cambodia. Only 7% of female students in Cambodia study tech-related subjects. Their goal is the provide coding training to female students over an 18 weeks to empower and support female students to discover their full potential.

In this conversation, we talk to Natalja about why she decided to she ended up starting this coding education program in Cambodia, the challenges she has faced in running a non-profit, how she has overcome the cultural and infrastructure challenges to get the program off the ground, what kind of outcomes they see after students have completed the program and we also discuss the state of technology and startups in Cambodia.

Sean is the Co-founder of Noah and Zoey, 2 rapidly growing healthcare brands looking to provide Asian men and women modern and discreet access to healthcare. Their mission is to provide an inclusive, zero judgement space where men and women can seek treatment for highly stigmatised yet prevalent conditions in sexual, aesthetic, mental health and overall well-being.

In this conversation, we talk to Sean about the incident that triggered the idea for starting Noah, how they validated their idea to their 6 week sprint to get an MVP out the door. We touch on the reasons for the large disparity between the awareness of these stigmatised conditions and their prevalence. We also chat about the importance of talent density in a startup and how he is building an A+ team at Noah and Zoey as well as his thoughts on the future of tech in healthcare.