What I learn at this health-tech startup
Just like many other interns, I am writing this post to summarize my journey at the Bangkok-based health-tech company called Health at Home. Through this post, I will explain the reasons why I chose Bangkok as the city I would like to be in, the opportunities that I was given throughout my internship, the things I have learned over the past 3 months and some things that I want you, readers, to learn from my journey.
Why Bangkok?
I was given the opportunity to be part of some cities around South-east Asia including Jakarta, Manila, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, and Bangkok. My first thing that came through my mind was that I should go with Jakarta due to my absolute advantage in speaking Bahasa Indonesia. After the interview phase, I held onto the offers from these cities. I did a lot of reflection, weighing the pros and cons of the amount of opportunity that each city can offer. I felt that I should stay out of my comfort zone to try living in the city that I am not exactly familiar with, at the same time not compromising my safety and be able to enjoy the novelty of the city and Bangkok seemed to fit all these considerations.
My internship journey
Looking back at the internship offer as a Business Analyst to a health-tech startup, I do not exactly know what is expected despite reading the job description. I was asked to do research on the competitive landscape of the business, regional expansion opportunity and help in the fundraising process.
Wait… Helping in the fundraising process? I am a sophomore undergrad waiting for my grant approval for my own startup in Singapore and I was supposed to help a company ahead of me to raise their Series A? Yeah, that was what happened but in gradual steps.
I am really appreciative that the founders of the company are really good at managing people and their expectations. I was given ample time to immerse myself into understanding the business that Health at Home is in, before getting my hand dirty towards the main mission that is to raise Series A.
Throughout my internship stint, I was given the chance to do some awesome things that built my sense of belonging to the company. I shared about myself, presented about fun topics (about the benefits of dating, which shook the CEO because it is an unexpected topic from a formal business guy like me), some business-related presentations, made arts and craft stationaries for an elementary school (a CSR initiative by one of the startups part of the DTAC Accelerator program that Health at Home is also in), visit a nursing home in Bangkok (this allowed me to give my opinion to the company of how different the eldercare landscape is in Bangkok compared to Singapore), attend South-east Asia’s largest start-up Techsauce summit, try out 1,001 different types of food, snacks and desserts and many more!
Some learning points for you readers…
1. Fitting to the right type of working culture is important
Company culture is important to employees because workers are more likely to enjoy their time in the workplace when they fit in with the company culture. On the other hand, if you work for a company where you don’t fit in with the company culture, you are likely to take far less pleasure out of your work. I was able to observe the huge comparison between the liveliness of the employees at Health at Home and the past company that I interned at. The people at Health at Home clearly showed that they enjoy coming to work and their conduct were in line with the company culture of being Speedy, having Empathy and Innovative.
2. Measure results and not the hours spent at work
This startup really emulates this famous quote, “quality over quantity”. It allows the flexibility of working hours, so long as every individual is up to their expectations. Delivering more results than looking at the amount of time spent at work clearly indicates that this startup prioritizes productivity over any other factors.
3. Taking a break during work is important
One of the things that I admired about the company’s practice is to take a power nap or a game session when employees are tired of their work. Having a 20-minute timeout from work really helped in the productivity boost, especially in the late afternoon. Perhaps some readers may want to disagree with this, but it sure worked for me!
4. Learning is a 2-way process
Stocktake or check-ins by the bosses stimulates personal growth and development. Having regular face-to-face contact time with leaders is the quickest yet most efficient way of developing employees, especially when the company’s manpower is consistently growing. Employees of the company come from all walks of life. Through these conversations that both the bosses and employees exchange useful insights, not necessarily related to work. While many of us think that we should learn from people better than us, our bosses are learning a lot from us to improve themselves, the business and our working environment.
5. Don’t be shy, ask more!
I intentionally typed out this point in an ambiguous way so it will have multiple interpretations like “Don’t be shy, ask for more work”, “Don’t be shy, ask more about what you don’t know” or “Don’t be shy, ask for more help”. In essence, I would like to bring out a point that we (including myself) should go out of our comfort zone to ask about almost anything (just don’t go beyond the boundaries). Ultimately, we will not lose anything. In fact, we will enrich ourselves with information that might be useful to us, maybe not now but in the future.
My 3-month internship passed really quickly. I would say that it is one of the useful experiences I have ever had. Having the opportunity to work overseas is not a common occasion and I am glad that I seized the chance to get one. Thank you Health at Home for having me and thank you, readers, for following this write-up till the end!
