Episode 3: Decoding entrepreneurship with Phil Opamuratawongse
Phil is the co-founder and CEO of Shipper, a one-stop logistics platform for warehousing, fulfillment, and shipping.
Phil, a Bay Area native, took the leap to Jakarta to start Shipper, an exciting startup that recently raised its Series B from DST and Sequoia. Interestingly, we both attended Columbia and Stanford though we never crossed paths.
In this interview, we’ll hear why co-founders are like romantic partners, how to overcome entrepreneur’s block, and why Jakarta is the place to be.
Jesse: Phil, great to connect and thanks for making the time out of your busy schedule. Tell us about your career path leading up to Shipper!
Phil: I grew up in Bangkok and then the San Francisco Bay Area early on before ending up at Stanford for undergrad. After university, I moved back to Bangkok to join McKinsey where I spent just under 3 years before making the jump to venture capital investing, joining Floodgate in the Bay (which is a well-known VC firm in the area, with prior investments including Twitter, Lyft, Twitch, and many other blue-chip tech companies).
But I left Floodgate after just about 2 years. For me, being in the Bay Area started to feel a little bit routine. At Floodgate I met with all these different entrepreneurs who were solving such interesting problems and tackling them with an immense amount of passion. I quickly caught the entrepreneurial bug and decided to move to Southeast Asia and start something of my own!
Jesse: So how did you end up in Jakarta?
Phil: I considered starting something in Thailand, but I wanted to make sure I was considering the other countries in Southeast Asia since I had a more regional aspiration.
I was fairly new to the region despite growing up in Bangkok, so I started meeting basically everyone I could shoot an email to: entrepreneurs, investors, and everyone else in between across multiple countries. One of the folks I met was Yinglan Tan, the founding partner at Insignia Ventures Partners (a top VC in Singapore), and he said to me, “look, why don’t you come sit in my conference room and meet with all the startup founders who walk through the door, so you can get a sense of what problems you could solve in the region.” I basically got paid to get up the learning curve and meet with potential business partners!
Yinglan said to me, “look, why don’t you come sit in my conference room and meet with all the startup founders who walk through the door, so you can get a sense of what problems you could solve in the region.”
Jesse: That’s really awesome that Yinglan provided that kind of opportunity for you. So how did you get started with Shipper?
Phil: After 45 days of camping out in Yinglan’s conference room, I met Budi Handoko (co-founder at Shipper). He was actually someone Yinglan had already backed, and Budi had been building an earlier version of Shipper by himself. While Budi and I were both passionate about the opportunity to streamline fulfillment and shipping, what we both believed to be most important was our great “co-founder fit”.
Jesse: Oh? Tell me more about “co-founder fit”. How do you evaluate who would be great to work with? What made the relationship click?
Phil: Two things I always look for in business partners: trust and loyalty. Doing business in Indonesia is not as neat and clear cut, everyone is hustling extra hard which makes trust and loyalty that much more important. The connection between Budi and me on these two values has been very helpful. Many teams break up because of unhealthy co-founder dynamics; in fact, it’s one of the top reasons that startups fail.
You might think there are a lot of people in the world who you can connect with on these two values, but my experience has shown me that it’s not as easy as you’d think. And of course, this connection is on top of what I consider to be baseline compatibilities — for example, you need to connect emotionally, meaning you can understand what each other are thinking; you need to connect intellectually, meaning your communication styles work and are productive together. It’s almost like a romantic relationship!
Two things I always look for in business partners: trust and loyalty.
Jesse: Co-founder fit is so important, awesome that you were so thoughtful about it. So what happened next?
Phil: I flew to Indonesia and started running around doing anything to support Budi and Shipper! Actually, I realized pretty quickly that I was overthinking a lot — it’s so easy to be distracted by all the reasons a startup won’t work. So I gave myself clear, short-term, controllable milestones: sign up X customers, expand them by Y, and ultimately raise Z amount of funding to double down on what we believed in. I wanted to make sure I was singularly focused on executing at that point. We checked all the boxes within 90 days, and it was full steam ahead after that. But those milestones were really helpful to remove any mental blocks and distractions.
It’s so easy to be distracted by all the reasons a startup won’t work. So I gave myself clear, short-term, controllable milestones.
Jesse: Really clever, sounds like a great hack. Authors always talk about writing blocks, so it’s interesting to hear about busting the entrepreneur block. Going back to your search for startup ideas and founders — how did you evaluate which business models and industries would be the most compelling?
Phil: I don’t want to overgeneralize but the way I thought about it was pretty simple. First, I looked at the team. You can argue that the single most important factor to long term success is the quality of the team being built — a startup is merely a factory for smart people to express their creativity without the inertia of a large organization. So I talked to as many team members as possible.
Second, I looked at the key levers of growth and the technological leverage that would allow it to generate huge value to customers. Break down the unit economics and cash flow cycle, and have an honest understanding of the implications on capital raise needs to achieve the ambitions of the company.
Lastly, the ability for the team to stay focused on one or two things is very important. A startup can only do a very small number of things very well. It’s probably not going to be a good outcome if a company tries to spread its focus too wide too early.
Jesse: What advice would you have for someone like me as I think about the next stage of my career in Southeast Asia?
Phil: So let me ask you — what is the vision of your life 5–10 years from now? Because I think it’s always best to start from there and work backwards, and consider what you in 5 years would think was a good use of time.
Jesse: Short answer is I would love to be a “successful” entrepreneur in 5 years. “Successful” meaning working on a really promising idea and running a high quality team. So what’s your take Phil — should I dive into entrepreneurship right away, or spend some time at an early stage startup getting the cultural context and prioritizing learning a lot?
Phil: Whether you should just jump into entrepreneurship or work at a startup first: I’ve always had the belief that we should skip the in-between steps and just do what we want to do now. The earlier the better to get your first startup out of the way, and have more time (and energy) for second, third startups if that’s what you want. I do see a lot of value in joining a fast growing startup (like Shipper!) but for you personally I’d recommend you to jump straight in. And that’s what I did!
I think you’ll find Jakarta to be one of the best places in the world to be an entrepreneur at the moment. It’s a big, fast growing market and home to some of the most exciting startups in Asia. You’ll experience a culture that’s really different from what you’re used to in the Bay Area, and you’ll be proud you took a risk, saw something new, and lived an even more well-rounded life! But I’m not a life coach so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
I’ve always had the belief that we should skip the in-between steps and just do what we want to do now.
Jesse: Haha, I love the wisdom! And jumping into entrepreneurship is working out pretty well for you so far! Thanks so much for your time and thoughtfulness, looking forward to the next time we chat.
Phil: Thanks Jesse! Talk to you later.
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