Try it, Own it, Master it: From PwC to AWS
An accounting major’s journey in the startup/tech space

For some strange reasons, a thought of “I should probably write something down about what I have done in my life up to this point” has been in my head for a couple of days. So, here I am, my first ever article ever.
From Taiwan to Hong Kong
After 18 years of spoon-feeding education in Taiwan, partly forced by parents and partly appealed by the “top universities in the most internationalized city in Asia” image, I came to Hong Kong for higher education.
For an accounting and finance major studying in a campus 10-minute-ride away from Central, Hong Kong, the top-tier financial hub in the world, graduating and jumping right into a bank, getting an MBA degree, making money all seem natural and reasonable.
Well, things work out differently on me. The true reason for the diversion, though, is that I am not one of those who are on the dean’s list nor those who can easily get a backdoor-ed offer from the top-notch banks. In one way, I am just a typical college student who meets people, stays up for video games, and studies at half blast in between.
Don’t get me wrong, I did spend 30% of my time on schoolwork, another 30% on being a normal lazy-ass uni student (which is far-fetchedly reasonable).
Not the typical
Before talking about how I made use of the remaining 40% of my time, I’d like to mention something about the two cities I have spent my life in.
You might think that Taipei has a better living environment than Hong Kong, and the over economy in Hong Kong is much better than the one in Taiwan, and that’s true btw. By taking a closer look from a fresh graduate’s perspective, though, there is not much difference between Taipei and Hong Kong in terms of the rat race of graduates for traditionally-valued industries, and also the severe lag of technology, regulations and mindset compared to the US, even some parts of mainland China now.
And the society’s common perception on industries and slightly outdated mindset have successfully keep talents inside the comfort zone. Yes, it’s doubtlessly great that the states’ leading positions in global markets (TW in OEM, HK in Finance) remains, however, it also discourages young talents from trying.
I would say this is the superpower I got. I threw the other 40% of my college time into “Trying”. Yes, trying, trials and errors, whatever you like to call it, I have been exploring around and learning from every piece of the journey.
Everything worth a try is an opportunity
First of all, to clarify, I was not inherently biased against accounting nor finance. I did spend 3 months interning in PwC, a leading accounting firm across the globe. Another strong clarification, it’s a good place to work at and it got its own dynamics day in and day out. It’s just not my thing. But I do appreciate the chance to have a glance at what it is like inside the industry.
Yes, you’ve always got to give it a try, cherish the opportunity and let it go if it doesn’t fit. That’s the mindset of learning and personal growth.
I then interned in Fresco Capital and several startups in Hong Kong in the last 2 years of my university study. I was lucky enough for me to get all these opportunities to understand who I am and who I want to be. However, far more important than nailing the jobs, learning the best out of them is the key that brings me to where I am today (of course in the future too).
Take ownership and keep learning
After working at different players in the tech/startup landscape in Hong Kong, while falling love with the dynamics and innovation of it, I started thinking of which skills I need to equip myself with in order to pursue a role with more responsibility in the space.
In my year 3 of uni (2015), programming started to become a hot topic because of the success of several tech giant and startups like Facebook and Airbnb. Although it was too late to switch my undergraduate major to computer science, I did try to pick up how to code by self-learning online and consulting who has succeed on that. Things did not work out quite well since I got schoolwork (even though I did not put too much efforts in it) and tasks to finish from my internship/part-time role in the business side of startups.
I was frustrated at the moment, feeling that my skills were going to be obsolete soon, and even thought of switching back to the traditional career path a business student might have. However, not long after I had pessimistic thoughts, I found that I was terribly wrong when I started looking at different topics on the learning platforms I used to learn coding at including Coursera, Udemy and even Google search results.
“Everything can be a master class.” That’s the most important thing I learned in 2016, from what I read in spare time and the new things I’ve got to learn from work. From digital marketing including social media, SEO, partnerships, and analytic, to business development for different stages, industries and product nature, these skills and specialaities are as important as building a product with codes in every industry and every company, and you are able to make changes as critical as programmers if you master even just one of them.
That is the best thing of working at startups where the “observe-try-improve” cycle is utterly emphasized. Taking initiatives, understanding the needs/problems (including the needs from customers, problems of products and even your own disadvantages to be improved), trialing with a solution, and improving it are basically the blocks of the agile and ever-changing startup/tech world, well applied to both the development of a company and individual. Of course, without a need of mentioning, “always learning” is the one and only backbone that you should have to ace the process.
Below are the places where I interned [tried] before and the key tasks I’ve done [owned] and takeaways I’ve got [learned] from them. Much appreciated to these amazing people that offered me the opportunities).
PwC — Accounting — Deadend X
Fresco Capital — Venture Capital — Human-centric approach in analyzing, investing and managing relationships
AlikeAudience — Ad-tech startup — Inside sales: Full outbound sales cycle/First glance at business development in tech startups
Easyship&SamtheLocal&Spacious&Tink Labs — Startups in HK — Marketing, Analytic, Partnerships, Strategy
Pathship —Ed-tech startup — Inside sales: Systematic approach for outbound leads prospect, qualification, and mass/personalized outreach
Amazon Web Services — Cloud services — Inside sales: Inbound leads profiling, nurturing and qualification/First glance on systematic leads prospecting at scale with complex product offerings and extensive CRM system management
Master your edge
With basic knowledge and limited experiences, I categorized the business-side tasks in startups/tech firms into two main streams: sales and marketing. Unlike the same two functions in traditional industries like FMCG, sales and marketing in the emerging tech space are special and emphasize more on personalized messages and systematic approaches powered by pipeline/CRM tools. I chose sales over marketing in the industry given my previous internship experiences and my stronger interest in people-oriented roles.
So I’d say, for me as well, it’s time to focus on your own edge, deep dive and master the relevant skills, no matter you are a developer or not, and no matter which industry or company you are working or expect to work in.
Don’t forget to play and meet brilliant minds!
Of course, college life (or life in general) is not merely about deciding which industry or company you want to work at or what skills you want to keep yourself abreast to.
Play hard, always need to. But more importantly, meet some brilliant minds along the way! Throughout the 1.5 years exploring around the startup/tech world, I got some luck to work on projects with different groups of people from various background. Through experiences cooking out ideas with them, working on development and design of projects, organizing a hackathon, and simply exchanging thoughts and knowledge casually, I have learned way too much and got myself one more reason to enjoy trying out opportunities, taking initiatives and doing what I am most capable of along the “observe-try-improve” cycle, taking place in not only the projects we worked on or my own career planning, but also small things in life!
