Finding Purpose and Balance with Yat Siu
[Interview Series] Discover the People behind AngelHub’s Investment Committee
Yat Siu is the founder, director, and chairman of the board for Animoca, one of the world’s largest app developers and publishers, and the CEO of Outblaze, a world leader in white label hosted web services. He also serves as the director of Typhoon Games and a board member for Cortico, BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts), and the Asian Youth Orchestra, all the while advising for LCX (Liechtenstein Cryptoassets Exchange).
Yat’s origin story is, at a glance, uncommon and yet it can only be described as entirely organic in the way it unfolded. Born in Vienna, Yat grew up under the careful guidance of his parents who were both talented musicians. With aspirations to fulfill his parents wishes for him to follow in their footsteps, Yat proceeded to complete a music degree at the Music and Arts University of Vienna but his passion and aptitude for all things tech could not be overlooked. Blessed with a personal computer at home, Yat taught himself to program and began to write mini software as early as age 13. He shared his work on community forums simply for the pleasure of put forward something that might be useful to others. In a time when programmers were scant, Yat was scouted and recruited by Atari, a popular gaming console of the early 80’s. Unknowingly, Yat took steps towards an illustrious career in tech before the words “tech startup” became an industry term.
When Atari went bankrupt, Yat and a few of his colleagues moved on to design graphics software for Silicon Graphics (SGI), the company which brought him to Hong Kong in 1995 — at the time, a city without internet. The need was immediately apparent. Yat quit his job and started the city’s first internet service provider: HKOnline. Internet adoption was still in nascent stages which translated to significant market potential. However, as an exceptionally young founder, Yat experienced great obstacles in gaining trust from his audience and traction for the business case of internet adoption. Coming to understand that Hong Kong wasn’t ready for the internet yet, Yat adjusted his sails and founded Outblaze, a provider of white label web services.
“I wasn’t thinking about startups since the concept of startup didn’t exist yet. I just saw a problem that I wanted to solve,” he reflects on the founding of Outblaze.
The company came about around the time of the dot-com boom, a well-timed venture that fit the needs of the market. The success story of Outblaze was sensational since young entrepreneurs were largely unheard of. In this way, Yat believes that he contributed to the ecosystem by helping set the standard of businesses run by young entrepreneurs as a norm. Garnering a high profile for his achievements, Yat became a symbol of Hong Kong’s youthful startup energy.
An unexpected outcome of the success of Outblaze are the Outblaze Alumni. Without actively encouraging outgrowths, the alternative working culture at Outblaze inspired and empowered some of its team members to pursue their own ventures — resulting in the emergence of more startups! Nowadays, to actively support the growth of the startup ecosystem, the Outblaze umbrella operates Zeroth, an AI incubator, which has already seen over 33 graduates with 33 more participants undergoing the program now. As an early adopter of building business for a higher purpose, Yat continues to push for more momentum in the growth of the tech industry via Animoca and Outblaze, and through speaking at industry engagements.
Words of Advice:
Yat is ambivalent about the popularised term Work-Life Balance.
“I don’t think it should be called balance because balance [suggests a fixed] equilibrium — as in 50% of this and 50% of that. That’s not how it works,”.
“I’m okay to work 80%-90% of the time sometimes because I’m so driven towards a specific task. If I like what I’m doing, I’m not [overworking myself]. If I don’t like what I’m doing, then it’s gonna be tough,” he reasons. Ultimately, there’s no fixed formula — it’s all very dependent on what stage you are at in pursuing your purpose. In the beginning, you may feel supercharged and can, in fact, sustain working most of the time. Your self-care needs in the beginning may be less. Over time, your energy levels, self-care requirements, and even your direction could change. As you evolve, your changing needs will also change the work-life balance that’s right for you.
When thinking about your balance, define your goal and ask: How do I get there in the most efficient way? Can I get there without taking care of myself? Understanding that self-care is essential means that you will incorporate self-care elements in your day to take you closer to your goals. Everything will be framed around whether it will contribute to the pursuit of your purpose. “If you’re driven in being a better performer in life — whatever it is — then you will find a way to do so because you’re driven.”
When building businesses …
Similar to his views on work-life balance, Yat is a believer that there are modes of thinking that are better suited to the various functions and life stages of a business. He identifies two main approaches: convergent and divergent thinking.
Convergent thinking, as the name suggests, is an approach that is able to narrow down information towards one or few solutions. This mode of thinking is well suited for executing plans since it is very focused in driving towards a predetermined result with little deviation. In this way, convergent thinkers are very practical and grounded. Unfortunately, convergent thinking sometimes suffer from missing out on seeing alternative solutions due a rather narrow focus.
Divergent thinking, on the other hand, is an approach that extrapolates a multitude of possibilities from any given set of circumstances which makes this mode of thinking very effective in creative problem solving. This approach is able to connect the dots for a wider range of possible solutions. However, divergent thinking, if not tempered by a strong dose of discernment and experience, can have difficulty distinguishing between practical and theoretical solutions.
Based on the life stage of a business, the appropriate mode will be determined by whether the company is more focussed on ideating and planning versus executing the business plan. With this in mind, companies can prepare for growth by identifying their business leadership needs in advance.
Why AngelHub?
The concept of an Angel Investment Platform isn’t new. For Yat, what sets AngelHub apart from other platforms he’s encountered is Karen Content & Karena Belin, co-founders of WHub/AngelHub. As guardians of AngelHub, Yat believes that the idea is in good hands with its two founders who are genuinely passionate and driven about streamlining Angel capital towards worthwhile startups.
“They care about what they do and they care for it to succeed for both personal and business reasons. You can feel that they’ve got an energy for this,” he observes.
“If someone else came to me with exactly the same idea but it was run by someone who was more business-minded and less driven, then I may not have participated because I don’t know if they will go the distance. Karen and Karena have a feel for this… and this is what I’m backing.” concludes Yat.
