Three Stages of Entrepreneurship
“The most ambitious people should be founding companies,” I heard variations of this over and over again but it didn’t occur to me that this could apply to me.
My reference point was working in finance out of my undergraduate. As a hopeful millennial that came out of the financial crisis during my school years, I focused my attention on making finance more compassionate and sustainable. I became convinced that there are two things that could move the needle quickly — policy or innovation.
Working in finance is like observing the bonfire and asking the question, “How will our interests be affected by policy or innovation?”
Over time, I learned more about myself, what I enjoyed doing and where I did my best work. When I looked around me, the friends I admired the most and the people I wanted to learn from were living in the flames, and not dancing around it. Without noticing it, I was already becoming an entrepreneur.
My journey towards entrepreneurship is one of three stages — three actual physical stages.
Stage 1 — June 2018, Singapore
In 2018, I was invited to the first Unleash gathering in Denmark where 1,000 young people from around the world would ideate and build solutions to the different United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Serendipitously, I couldn’t attend so I ended up in Singapore the following year for the 2nd edition of Unleash.
On the final evening of the event, the best teams of each SDG theme would present to everyone. I was sitting on the back balcony when I saw my future co-founder Aurelien present with his team. I momentarily saw our future mentor Tyler Norwood tell the crowd about Antler’s startup generator, before all details of the packed event was replaced by the excitement of seeing old friends and making new ones.
Stage 2 — Sept 2018, Bangkok
Three months later, I found myself at a regional United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) conference. Having decided to attend last minute, I was scrambling to prepare my remarks for the panel on sustainable finance.
I had been living in Asia for half a year at that point, after having decided to come on the ground to work more directly with environmental projects that we were trying to develop and fund in my previous work. I was disappointed and a little discouraged by this period of my life that I called “Apprenticing with the Problem” after a Stanford Social Innovation Review article on the topic. I had been working out of a nice brownstone office in Toronto for a few years, while trying to solve problems I didn’t live through and didn’t fully understand in developing countries. Moving to the Philippines showed me what I already knew and more — there was so much work to be done not just across the environment, but on livelihoods. I understood more deeply that no one can take care of the planet if they can’t take care of themselves and their families.
At the UNEP event, I was thinking about how I might work more ambitiously with the new knowledge of what needs to be done, when I heard Stig Travvik, Advisor to Antler and the former Norwegian Ambassador to Indonesia, speak about Antler and the opportunity to create solutions on the ground as an entrepreneur. The memories of Unleash came rushing back to me.
The UN conference setting forced me to ask myself, “Do I believe that I will make more impact through policy or through innovation?”
I decided to apply on the Antler website while sitting at the conference that day. I was getting ready to jump into the fire.
Stage 3 — July 2019, Singapore
Fast forward to this week, almost six months after returning to Singapore to join Antler as a Founder, I am just beginning to understand what is means and what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
We launched Eskwelabs in April. Eskwelabs is a skills education platform. We combine the low-cost of online learning with the high engagement of offline training to produce job-ready students. Eskwelabs was launched with data science bootcamps in the Philippines.
The Demo Day is a showcase of 17 companies funded by Antler to more than 500 VCs and innovators.
We are indebted to the Antler team, our thoughtful mentor Dimitri and pitch coach Peter Browne for their relentless efforts to help us improve. And I am most grateful to my co-founder Aurelien for pushing me to tell the most authentic story that only I can tell as a part of our pitch.
The reality is that most of us only showcase our best moments on stage, but the outtakes are where the magic happens. Here is behind the scenes from our initial pitch rehearsal a few days before the big event. Since then, we were able to make incremental improvements to polish the presentation.
Building Eskwelabs has been the hardest and the most rewarding things I have done, and it’s only been a few months.
Once we have figured out our “why’s” as entrepreneurs, the harder part is executing the “how’s”.
How can we break through the doors of the status quo and the immovability of stagnant systems?
I am still discovering the “how’s”. But I am always inspired by those around me. I saw it in the eyes of my fellow Antler Founders on the Demo Day stage.
The fire was burning bright.
