Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings has written off its entire investment in cryptocurrency exchange FTX irrespective of the outcome of the US-based company’s bankruptcy protection filing.

Temasek invested US$275 million in FTX International and FTX US across two funding rounds from October 2021 to January 2022. This comprises US$210 million for 1 per cent in FTX International and US$65 million for 1.5 per cent in FTX US. 

In an updated statement issued on November 26, the VC firm said the write-down would not impact its overall performance as it is just 0.09 per cent of its net portfolio value of SG$403 (US$293) billion as of March 31 2022.

“Similar to all investments, we conducted an extensive due diligence process on FTX, which took approximately 8 months from February to October 2021. During this time, we reviewed FTX’s audited financial statement, which showed it to be profitable,” it said. 

Also Read: Our main competition in SG is the idle cash lying in banks: Kristal.AI CEO Asheesh Chanda

The due diligence efforts focused on the associated regulatory risk with crypto financial market service providers, particularly licensing and regulatory compliance — i.e. financial regulations, licensing, anti-money laundering/know your customer, sanctions, and cybersecurity.

“Reports have since surfaced that customer assets were mishandled and misused in FTX. If these statements are true, then this amounts to serious misconduct or fraud at FTX. All of this is currently being investigated by the regulators,” Temsek said.

Temasek also clarified that its investment in FTX was not an investment in cryptocurrencies and currently has no direct exposure to cryptocurrencies.

“The thesis for our investment in FTX was to invest in a leading digital asset exchange providing us with protocol agnostic and market neutral exposure to crypto markets with a fee income model and no trading or balance sheet risk,” it said.

Temasek’s announcement comes a few days after Sequoia Capital decided to write down the full value of its US$214 million bet on FTX. SoftBank, another high-profile FTX backer, said it anticipates an investment loss of around US$100 million. FTX’s other investors include BlackRock, Tiger Global, Insight Partners and Paradigm.

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Work-life has drastically changed since the pandemic began, and while the hybrid workforce has become the ‘new normal’, there is increasing conversation globally on how organisations can potentially adopt a four-day work week.

In fact, some countries such as Australia and the UK have already implemented trials of this new working style. Although Australia had only started running the trials recently, a spokesperson has already mentioned that the study looks “very encouraging”, and additionally, the UK trials saw no loss in productivity.

However, it was noted by the chief executive at 4 Day Week Global, a non-profit organisation in New Zealand, that there were some “understandable hurdles” for businesses whose cultures “date back well into the last century” during their trial.

Also Read: How to tackle cybersecurity threats during the holidays

Closer to home, a survey conducted by Indeed found that 88 per cent of Singaporean employees advocated for a four-day workweek with the same pay.

In spite of the findings, Singapore would need a nationwide shift in mindset from its dominant work culture; the country has been ranked the most overworked country in APAC by The Instant Group.

As interest in flexible working grows, there is still a large swathe of people within organisations who hold roles that cannot be “switched off”.  In particular, we are talking about cybersecurity professionals responsible for managing the explosion of endpoints as remote workforces expand and the frequency of cyberattacks increases.

Staying safe has no holiday

Between July and September alone, BlackBerry’s Threat researchers reported that they had prevented 1,129 cyber-attacks within its customer base in Singapore. These days, there are rarely any days off and uninterrupted holidays for cybersecurity professionals.

In fact, the REvil ransomware gang took advantage of the US’s largest holiday, the fourth of July, as a distraction while they commenced their attacks.

Additionally, the pandemic has put underlying pressure on cyber skills and resources. When organisations expanded their roster of connected services and devices to adapt to the challenges posed by remote working, more security vulnerabilities arose for attackers to gain entry and cripple businesses.

That said, it is not impossible for cybersecurity professionals to adopt a four-day workweek. Modern cybersecurity tools such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) make it possible to keep up with modern threats, such as malware and ransomware.

For example, a leading express delivery service provider in Malaysia and other markets in Southeast Asia wanted to put intelligent cybersecurity at the forefront of its digital transformation. Hence, they adopted BlackBerry’s automated AI/ML cybersecurity software to prevent malware infections and potential data breaches.

Benefits of AI and ML

The use of AI and ML solutions offers several benefits to organisations. Firstly, AI-driven security reduces human error and can ensure security policies are promptly updated to prevent hackers from worming their way into workers’ devices and networks to steal their identities and passwords.

Also Read: Best cybersecurity practices for startups to stay ahead of the curve

These ‘smart’ tools are also proactive, helping workers locate and solve problems that may appear as network systems are updated, modified, or replaced.

Secondly, AL and ML help to reduce threat alert fatigue and stress on cybersecurity professionals. Eliminating manual processing of security alerts is not only practical, given the volume and velocity of daily threats, but gives cybersecurity teams the bandwidth to determine what more urgently needs their attention.

Smarter security, powered by AI, allows IT teams to manage these threats in a practical and manageable way with automated labelling, even as the machine learning algorithm solves some threats on its own.

Lastly, AI and ML-based cybersecurity solutions can significantly reduce threat response time, which is one of the most pivotal metrics for measuring a cybersecurity team’s efficiency. While human responses may lag, AI/ML-assisted security never does, as these solutions can pull data from an attack to be immediately regrouped and prepared for analysis.

Taking it one step further, automated security also provides reports with recommendations and insights to prevent future attacks.

Final thoughts

Although a hybrid workplace has existed in some form for several years, it is now clearly here to stay. Whether cybersecurity professionals adopt a four-day workweek, they would have to continue evolving their solutions to fit this new configuration of work.

Ultimately, organisations need to consider implementing AI/ML in their cybersecurity models to aid their employees in the fight against the barrage of cyber threats they must deal with on a daily basis. Not only will this reduce burnout among cybersecurity professionals, but it also keeps the organisation safe from cyber threats 24×7.

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Food sustainability has long been a hot-button topic for Singapore, and there has been a greater push for Singapore to inch toward self-sustainability.

As a Farm Manager in Archisen, a local urban agritech farm, we’ve seen the changes in Singapore’s agriculture landscape firsthand. We’ve had to experiment with many new ideas and concepts, build teams, optimise yield productivity, and implement new innovations – all to keep up with the increasing importance of food security in Singapore.

The current agricultural landscape

Agriculture has been a crucible of evolutionary change over the years. Despite being ranked the most food-secure country in the world, The Singapore Food Agency reports that the country imports over 90 per cent of its domestic food consumption.

Also Read: Can agritech solve the world’s growing food security problem?

As a result, this leaves the bulk of our food supply dependent on unpredictable factors such as climate change, political unrest or economic shifts.

In the current agriculture landscape in Singapore, I feel that urban farms have their own set of unique challenges, and we do have a fair share of implications from these price hikes, such as rising costs of raw materials and energy.

The confluence of technology, engineering, design, and farming has set the stage for a transformation in urban farming. Amidst growing realisation that food security is an existential issue to contend with, SFA unveiled their ‘30 by 30 vision’ in early 2020, which aims to locally produce 30 per cent of the country’s nutritional needs by 2030.

Leading the Farm Operations at Archisen, it is my responsibility to ensure that Archisen is actively developing new technologies and solutions to optimise how Urban Farms are operating and to change people’s perceptions towards them.

The Singapore government has enhanced the Agriculture Productivity Fund and pushed out the 30×30 Express Grant to support producers looking to use technology to grow more with less. These recently introduced policies reflect the government’s interest in moving Singapore towards becoming a more self-reliant and food-secure society.

With support from the government, Archisen is playing its part in spearheading the Singapore Green Plan 2030 along with all other local farms.

Despite the government’s efforts to move towards self-sustenance, the lack of popular demand for local products presents a pressing issue today. Without sufficient consumers ‘buying local’, there could be a surplus in production and, subsequently, more food wastage.

Consumers do not tend to actively source locally produced food, especially if it is not certified as ‘locally grown’ or ‘organic’ and placed at eye level on supermarket shelves. Local producers not knowing the right kinds of vegetables consumed by the bulk of the people might also be a contributing factor to the issue of low demand.

Apart from that, one major problem we face in this industry is the lack of manpower. This industry requires a passion for farming which often demands a lot of hard work, and this sometimes demotivates potential applicants.

Also Read: From working on a family farm to driving growth for the world’s fastest growing foodtech company

On the whole, it is technically difficult to grow popular local varieties at competitive rates, and many farms may choose to specialise in less popular leafy greens. Hence, it is crucial that we balance local vegetable supply with an array of different options which can help to reduce waste.

What the future of Singapore’s agricultural landscape looks like

There are still areas that we do not know well enough in the field. In many situations, ready solutions are unavailable, and we must attempt to innovate to solve our problems. However, this also provides many opportunities for development and collaboration.

In 2021, a US$60 million Agricultural Food Transformation Fund was announced, aimed at increasing production efficiency, boosting yield, enhancing productivity and sustainability, and improving circularity of resource use while reducing the reliance on manpower. Such initiatives could help propel the industry towards integrated growth systems, automation and robotics to solve some of their growing problems.

I can envision the continuous development of CEA to efficiently produce more crops that are difficult to flourish in harsh external environments and provide more varieties and cheaper prices for consumers in Singapore.

Apart from greater varieties, There would also be 10 to 15 times more vegetables and fish produced, growing up to half a million kilograms of fresh vegetables each year, mitigating the problem of food insecurity.

To date, there are 238 local urban farms selling produce in supermarkets around Singapore. And this number will grow in the years to come. With a growing supply, an exponential increase in demand for local produce should be expected.

Fortunately, with Singaporeans becoming more environmentally conscious, this shift in mindset will hopefully spur Singaporeans to put sustainability needs over their money-mindedness and support local agriculture.

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Ruangguru lays off hundreds of employees
The company cites the drastically worsening global market situation for the job cuts; Ruangguru has raised a total of US$205M in funding to date; In July, it acquired education startups Schoters and Kalananti.

Startups in HK and Singapore sidestep local bourses for US SPACs
Info from financial data provider Refinitiv shows that at least nine SG and HK firm this year have announced plans to go public with SPACs listed in the US, despite the cities offering many shell companies since Q1.

GoTo’s Q3 losses drop a tad, revenues triple on cost-cutting efforts
The losses in the quarter came in lower at US$432M compared with US$483M in Q3 2021; The firm reported US$286M in net revenue in the July-Sept quarter, a significant rise from US$91.5M last year.

Binance was soliciting SG users without license, MAS says
In a letter, the MAS said that while both crypto exchanges were not licensed to operate in Singapore, only Binance had been soliciting users in the city-state; Binance also supported listings in SGD and payment methods specific to the city-state.

PropertyGuru’s Q3 revenue soars 47%, net loss narrows
Net revenue rose to US$25M for the quarter on the back of strong marketplace revenues, especially in Singapore and Malaysia; The net loss dropped to US$5.4M in the quarter from US$7M in the same period last year.

Recession Run: Australia’s Mandalay Venture to invest 20% of new fund in SEA
Partner Philippe Ceulen says the VC firm is raising a US$25M fund, meant for startups in the agritech and food technology space; The check sizes are likely to be between US$100K and US$804K.

Lightspeed eyes investments in climate tech startups in SEA, India
Electric mobility is one of the biggest areas to invest in; SaaS-based carbon accounting and offsetting solutions is the other areas of interest; Both SEA and India are poised for innovation in the EV and other climate tech space.

Better Bite rolls out new fund for idea-stage alt-protein firms
‘First Bite’ will select “several new alt protein founders in APAC” and invest US$50K into each; Founders working on new ideas in plant-based, fermentation, molecular farming, and cultivated meat spaces qualify for funding.

Indonesia’s Hangry posts 2.5x revenue jump in 2022
According to the culinary startup’s filing with ACRA, it generated US$12.2M in revenue in 2021; With that figure, its total revenue for the first 10 months of 2022 would be around US$30M.

Ayurveda tech startup NirogStreet raises US$12M to strengthen supply chain
The investors include Jungle Ventures, Spiral Ventures, and ICMG Co-Creation Fund; NirogStreet offers integrated doctor-led prescription e-commerce enablement, P2P learning for Ayurvedic doctors, and health record management.

Singapore’s wealth-tech firm Kristal.AI banks US$10M
The investors include Chiratae Ventures, Stride Ventures, and the Desai Family Office; The company has 50K+ individuals across over 20 countries on its platform, handling upwards of US$1B in AUM.

Sorabel, Magpie founders join Monk’s Hill as venture partners
Lingga Madu and Huong Tran will be in charge of sourcing and executing deals in Indonesia and Vietnam, respectively, and working closely with the VC firm’s portfolio companies.

FTX crypto exchange owes biggest creditors US$3.1B
The embattled firm, which filed for bankruptcy in the US last week, says it owes about US$1.45B to its top 10 creditors; Filings revealed more than 1M people and businesses could be owed money following its collapse.

World’s largest crypto fund swept into FTX storm
The shares of the theUS$10.5B Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which owns 3.5% of the world’s bitcoin, has plummeted to a 39% discount to the value of its underlying assets as investors have embarked on an increasingly desperately scramble to exit.

HK’s Genesis Block to shut down following FTX crash
Genesis Block operates a portal that lets users trade cryptocurrencies by opening up an account and getting support from an account manager; December 10 will be the last day of the OTC platform.

Korea, SG, Japan suffered most from FTX’s collapse: study
SimilarWeb data from Jan-Oct 2022 shows that Korea had the highest traffic share of 6.1%, representing 297,229 monthly users; Singapore made up 5% of global traffic with 241,675 monthly users.

Will digital banks take off in the Philippines?
Millions in the Philippines live in remote areas with no access to a branch and, therefore, no way to open a traditional account, presenting a huge pool of untapped opportunities for digital banks to expand into.

Why defining work-life harmony is key to navigating uncertain waters in 2023
Our ways of working have changed forever over the last two and a half years, and it’s important to maintain a work-life harmony for success.

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Early stage venture capital firm Saison Capital today announced that it has teamed up with global data analytics platform Mixpanel to introduce a practitioner-led programme for product managers in Southeast Asia.

The first cohort of the analytics programme in January 2023 will connect Saison Capital’s 2to3 Product Manager Community directly with Mixpanel leaders across product management and engineering. This will allow the PMs to tap into specific and actionable insights during group learning sessions.

In this programme, the Mixpanel team will study insights from more than 7,000 tech companies and answers more than 70 million product questions every month, with some of these insights to be shared with the programme’s cohort.

In an email to e27, Looi Qin En, Principal at Saison Capital, explains the programme and its long-term benefits in further detail.

Also Read: Singapore faces talent crunch for engineering and product manager roles: Report

“During the programme, participants will have a direct touch point at Mixpanel who will partner with them as they make sense of how to implement the knowledge and skills they’ve picked up. Once they’ve completed the programme, they’ll have further support from the 2to3 Community for peer-level learning and networking,” he wrote.

“Ultimately, we launched this with Mixpanel in response to a gap we noticed in the tech ecosystem – a need for a PM community to support the role they play in driving the delivery of solutions in the market. Doing so benefits the industry at large by ensuring we’re lifting the talent level out there.”

The programme is ideal for PMs with at least one year of experience.

“That way, participants can bring their industry perspectives on product building, management and challenges to the table to make for a more engaging way to brainstorm and troubleshoot with fellow PMs,” said Looi.

The 2to3 Product Manager Community, which will be involved in this programme, is a ground-up initiative organised by Saison Capital to invite product managers working in both Web2 and Web3 roles who are curious about the impact
blockchain, crypto, and decentralisation could have on future products and solutions.

Also Read: Lockdown learnings: How I became a half-decent product manager in 2020

Saison Capital said that the community had grown organically to more than 300 PMs within the first month of its launch.

“The 2to3 Community is a ready pool of almost 400 PMs growing based on word-of-mouth referrals. These are all executives who came together because of an organic interest in peer-level learning, so developing this fresh programme was very much in response to the positive feedback from our past 1-on-1 matching sessions and breakfasts,” said Looi.

Fresh intakes of product managers are constantly invited to join the community.

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I have been a VC for over 12 years, and while it’s not too long a tenure, it also isn’t a short one.

But if you can change your mind in a few minutes, imagine how much you can change in a decade. During this time, I have definitely grown in my experience, thoughts and approaches.

The journey hasn’t been a linear one, but I thought maybe this is a good time where I reflect and share my learnings for the benefit of others.

Many of these values (and lessons) that I have learned may not be new to you, but as values go, they are unique to everyone, and everyone applies them differently. But I do hope it provides you with a different perspective through my lens.

(Re)building trust

If building a business is tough, the next hardest thing to build is trust, especially one that has been broken before.

Also Read: 5 lessons from 5 years in venture capital

Building trust is a long-term game, and speaking in investment terms, it starts from the early stage, and you need to keep investing time and effort to make sure it gets stronger. For trust to get to the stage of being unconditional and truly mutually cherished is akin to getting to the unicorn stage- not easily done and not as common.

Trust is the most important currency we speak of in the VC world (or at least within AJWC). The value it brings is almost immeasurable. When we have mutual trust between us and our stakeholders (investors, founders, and also especially between partners), conversations become more honest and impactful, deals close quicker, and we are seen as a partner of success rather than just as an investor.

For me, I have also learned that trust needs to be equally strong between co-workers and co-partners. Having my trust broken once before in a business partnership, I became more resolved that in my new partnerships and ventures, it is vital for me to work with people who are not only trustworthy but also value it as much as I do.

Lastly, trust in yourself is often forgotten too. You will learn that there will always be naysayers or detractors who will try to bring you down. But you need to trust in your own abilities, actions, and conscience to rise above all the negativity.

We talk about trust between people, but trust is also about believing in yourself to be able to achieve your goals and be the best version of yourself.

Integrity

So how do you command trust? What kind of person do you trust? To me, it would be someone with a strong sense of integrity.

Having worked in the corporate world (in Credit Suisse and Citibank) for over 10 years, the importance of possessing strong integrity (in myself and the people I work with) played an inherently critical role in further shaping my professional career and how I approach my relationships with my co-workers and clients.

Having worked with different people and faced different challenges and opportunities, I also got to witness (and learned the hard way) how a person’s sense of integrity can be tested in different situations and sometimes that integrity is compromised over short-term gains, thus ruining relationships that took years to build.

I value a friend, a partner, and a colleague who has an unwavering sense of integrity. That is the number one quality I look for in a founder too, because that is the kind of founder that commands respect from his team and who will do the right thing for his team and company.

Being authentic

Trust and integrity then bring about authenticity in the way you present yourself, run the company, and work with founders and investors.

When we were raising fund 1, the best thing we had was our trust in our network. We hustled and went out hunting and farming investors, and it took us over a year to close our first fund. A lot of hard work and time was put in to raise that first round.

What we told ourselves was that there is no shortcut to this, and whatever it is, we have to be authentic and be real about what we can do and achieve and not overpromise to get investments.

I believe that being authentic helped us gain not only the trust of our investors to raise our first fund and showed them who we truly are, what we are capable of, and how we will run our firm.

Also Read: What lessons can crypto investors draw from the Luna, UST episode?

Authenticity in our relationships with our founders is equally important. We knew the kind of partnerships and roles we wanted to play in our portfolio investments, and we were always upfront with would-be founders on our approach to active involvement and open communication. This ensures a right fit between the founders we invest in and us.

Onwards

I have learned many lessons from my professional and personal journey, and I know those lessons will continue to come my way. But as I was once told, if you learn and grow from them, they become valuable lessons. If you don’t, they will remain regrettable mistakes.

In our industry, where failures are costly and challenges can rife, I am very glad that we are able to build a great team at Alpha JWC who uphold those values and work very closely like a family to make things happen for all our stakeholders and most of all our portfolio founders.

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Garnering corporate partnerships is often a coveted goal for many startup founders. Still, it may not always be perceived as an immediate strategic priority, given the relative differences in scale of business operations, thereby giving a perception that possible intersecting priorities are thin to nil. However, in a conversation among Southeast Asian startup founders at Echelon, along with e27 and SAP, key insights about emerging use cases where corporate-startup partnerships in the region have served to be a compelling avenue to drive more significant business value were shared.

Tackling the topic of how startups can scale sustainably and enter new markets through corporate partnerships, the panel speakers were Raunak Mehta, co-founder and CEO of Igloo, Junkai Ng, co-Founder of Janio Asia, Shamir Rahim, founder and Group CEO of Versafleet, and Aaron Ang, SAP head of Southeast Asia mid-markets. The conversation was moderated by Justin Chin, head of business development at e27.

The conversation focused on what they did to prepare and secure corporate partnerships, how they navigated associated challenges and overcame them, as well as insights on how to effectively forge long-term collaborations with corporates.

Corporate-startup collaboration

Touching on the mindset needed when deciding to work with corporates, Shamir, who runs a transport management software that digitalises business execution and last-mile route optimisation, shared that it was a challenging journey at the start.

Initially starting out with SMEs as their primary client pipeline, their team eventually faced pains associated with inconsistent sales cycles, not to mention encountering partners with misalignments in innovative mindsets. From their seventh year of operations, they gathered the courage to target corporates. While they had to grapple with going through long contracts and questionnaires, they persevered. Getting their first corporate client gave them the confidence and experience in their playbook to win more corporate partners. These now include Resorts World Sentosa, Watsons, and Indofood.

Expanding on the massive potential of corporate-startup collaboration, Aaron elaborated SAP’s strategy to build value and sell to, through, and with startups, “You can no longer ignore the proliferation of tech moving the market and changing trends. Rather than solving everything, partnering is always the way to go”.

Aaron is excited about partnering with startups, citing Versafleet as a successful case study wherein they have developed APIs and intellectual property through the SAP Innovation Platform and have since reaped substantial business value through catering to more corporate clients via this avenue. Providing the leading enterprise software in the market at its core, SAP also serves as a platform for startups to be connected to other enterprise clients globally and access this as a compelling business development channel.

Also read: Optimising business solutions through customer-centricity

Overcoming challenges and building strategies

On the challenges involved in forging corporate partnerships and overcoming them, Raunak, who runs a regional insurtech company spanning Southeast Asia with a vision of insurance for all, emphasises the importance of having clarity in the fundamental aspects of every deal and being deliberate on your ability to deliver promises. This may entail saying no to fluid sets of requirements, in order to commit to things that your startup can deliver on and deliver well. 

Junkai reiterated this insight and urged other founders to consider the costs of client acquisition versus the costs of losing them. He emphasised the importance of focusing on what you do really well, staying true to the fundamentals, and treating the rest as noise. As most things are already digitalised, it is not hard to find direct and indirect competitors for your solutions in the market. Therefore it is important to focus on solving the core pain point well. They embodied this case recently and have had to cut 500 clients and instead focused on delivering compelling value to their over 60 clients while retaining 90% of revenues.

Also read: Supercharging B2B startups with SAP’s enterprise collaborations

Helping startups navigate the market

As for advice to startups on driving growth for their companies as they navigate through more VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environments, Shamir shared, “Think of distribution. Partnering with corporates is important for new markets.” Versafleet has adopted this themselves as they leveraged SAP’s collaborative programmes where they got to work with SAP executives across continents, learned how to integrate out of the box with SAP, and eventually accessed wider networks and strategic partnerships. Due to this, Versafleet now enjoys having a larger corporate business development pipeline within the ecosystem. 

Raunak emphasised this and shared, “find platforms that have enough captive audience, requisite network effects, and piggyback on what they offer”. It is practical to identify platforms that give you substantial access to your target customers, rather than having to work on the distribution piece first-hand. He also urged startups to focus on strong business fundamentals, looking at the business financial statements as guidance to weather through macroenvironmental changes. He encourages leaders to build 12-18 months of runway, and look beyond P&L to focus on ensuring that margins are liquid, and power through by having a good spread on working capital.

Junkai reiterated the advice to focus on what is controllable versus what is not. Ultimately, the economic climate is a business cycle, and the focus is to survive this slump. Therefore it is important to get rid of the noise, focus on the business, build value for customers and meet payroll.

He shared, “the market doesn’t care if it’s startups or corporates offering, but the value you bring. There are two main principles of focus: cost and speed of distribution. Once put in place, the rest will follow.” They have the same perspective when it comes to their clients as well as to their suppliers and partners. Ultimately, it’s about providing value at scale, speed and efficiency.

Harnessing the power of SAP

Aaron encouraged startups to never stop innovating and to always share solutions that can help startup founders to manage various situations, including the good, bad, and ugly. SAP has supported startups in their growth in various ways, by either being a technical partner or a consumer of their tech solutions.

Rather than being stage-specific, SAP focuses on the value that startups bring, and how they disrupt markets and differentiate themselves through their products and innovations. “Startups can develop their IP, integrate with SAP solutions, making their IP sellable”, Aaron shared. With this, startups that become tech partners of SAP can tap 440,000 customers across 180 countries.

SAP looks forward to bolstering its provision of value through strategic partnerships with leading startups in the Southeast Asian region. Apart from Versafleet, they have collaborated with other innovative businesses in SEA such as Opsis which offers emotion and facial-recognition based AI business applications, F&B businesses like Jumbo Group, and e-commerce businesses like Love Bonito.

For more information, visit https://www.sap.com/sea/index.html and https://sap.io/startup-programs/.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by SAP

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It has been a crazy journey for me over the past three years, especially during the COVID-19 lockdown. I had a lot of time to reflect on the life I desired and what I needed to do to achieve that goal.

I used to work as a client project lead for a smaller agency and got to learn the ropes of managing clients, but over time it was not sustainable because I had to deal with the stress of managing my boss while also working long hours, and it took a huge mental toll on me. I badly wanted to upskill, but I also did not have the time to do so while working my full-time job.

It was a mindset shift that pushed me to take control of my own life and build toward the work-life balance that I wanted.

I tried the nine-to-five and hated it because I love my freedom of working wherever I want. My creativity certainly does not suit the corporate environment either, so I knew that I had to take things into my own hands.

Also Read: Dedoco: A founder’s journey to building next-gen digital trust technology

When I decided that I had enough and quit my job, I positioned myself as a digital marketing consultant and, over time, built my pool of freelance clients who would eventually refer me to more clients, but I eventually realised that there was a cap on how many clients I can manage as a solopreneur/freelancer because I do not have the time to juggle so many things concurrently. I am but one person with only 24 hours a day. That was when I decided to build my own team. 

It was very profitable being a solopreneur, but when I built my team, I slowly realised that I had to pay more expenses and, simultaneously, make sure I would bring in more revenue to support the business growth. It was a new set of problems that I had to work through, but I had to do it if I wanted to scale.

It was not an easy journey for me because the rigours of entrepreneurship demand sacrifices. I was working 24/7, wearing a dozen hats, and pushing myself to learn dry subjects I had never considered.

The mindset shift from freelancer to entrepreneur was the toughest, in my opinion, because I had to remodel my offerings and be comfortable delegating and increasing my pricing strategy.

Lessons I have learnt as an entrepreneur

Here are some lessons I have learned along the way in bootstrapping my company from the ground up:

• Concentrate. Try not to juggle too many things in one go.
• Understand dealing with setbacks is an ongoing process, and you will get better at handling failures over time.
• If you are an introvert and don’t like to network like me, try mastering other verticals like social media ads, Google ads, email marketing, influencer marketing and etc. Set up a solid funnel and drive leads you can convert into sales. Keep A/B testing and optimising one funnel if you are strapped for time. I see many businesses driving leads successfully by mastering one funnel, and they do it really well as opposed to creating multiple funnels and becoming a jack (or funnel) of all trades.
• Set up your SOPs, then delegate everything. I hate to break it to you, but you are not so special that the business cannot function without you. You should want the business to function without you because that indicates that you have built a business, and ‘you’ are not the business.

Also Read: From hobby to startup: Here’s my story as IKIGUIDE’s Co-Founder

• Learning is a continuous process. It never ends. So it is important to set aside time to build on your knowledge and skills. When I started building my agency, I fashioned myself as an autodidact and continuously scoured the web looking for answers to every question that I had, which led me to understand design thinking, marketing, and how to run a business. I believe you can learn anything online these days.
• Be a reasonable yet firm leader. I believe that if you are genuine and want the best for your employees, they will feel it. At the same time, when shit hits the fan, you need to be firm, you need to be direct so your employees have the structure they need to get the job done and learn and grow from their mistakes.
• Find a mentor. I cannot emphasise the importance of this enough. You need at least one person to bounce ideas off, gain new perspectives from, and also give you advice. He or she will be the one that impacts your career trajectory.
• Choose your network of friends wisely because they influence your decision-making process. And if you are an introvert like me, there is only so much time you can afford to socialise until the overstimulation and fatigue hit you. I like to spend my social time wisely and surround myself with entrepreneurs because of their spirit and resolve. I have realised over the years how big of an impact these people have on my life and how vital it is to surround myself with people who challenge and elevate me.

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There are many more remote work opportunities now than a few years ago. More companies are hiring remote workers, and employees now prefer to work from home at least a few days of the week rather than commuting to the office all of the time.

The sudden popularity of remote work in 2020 came with many advantages. Organisations gained 21 per cent more profit on average, and employees turned up for work more than they would in the office. It seems like a win-win for both sides — but, unfortunately, there is at least one glaring negative: the increase in successful cyberattacks on remote workers.

Remote work and cyberattacks

A cyberattack is any activity that intends to destroy or steal information stored on a network, particularly from devices like laptops, phones, servers, and other electronic devices that could endanger a business’s reputation and operation if compromised.

Just as remote work created opportunities and advantages for businesses and workers, it also created risks like cyberattacks that companies and their employees need to work together to address.

Also Read: Why firms need a multi-layered approach to cybersecurity

In fact, 43 per cent of remote employees inadvertently allow cyberattacks on themselves or their employer. As a result, businesses are encouraged to develop a cybersecurity policy to prevent potential cyberattacks during remote work.

Nine tips for creating a remote work cybersecurity policy

A cybersecurity policy contains a set of guidelines and rules that monitor the access and usage of an organisation’s information technology systems.

To make sure your data is protected and that there is accountability if it is compromised, you, as a business owner with remote employees, must introduce an effective cybersecurity policy. Below are nine tips for creating a cybersecurity policy for remote work.

Educate employees on cybersecurity

Your employees need to know about cybersecurity and all it entails. This is why it is important to introduce regular training sessions in order to update employees on the latest trends and how to avoid falling victim to a cyberattack.

Provide approved work software

When you provide your remote workers with dedicated, work-only software, it means you know what you’re getting when it comes to cybersecurity precautions and built-in safeguards. This will limit potential dangers like accidental loss of, or damage to, company data or risking computer viruses from using unauthorised software.

Encourage two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication (2FA) ensures authorised verification on a second device before access to information is granted. 2FA is easy and smart and requires little effort to enable. Having your remote workers turn on 2FA for their devices doubles your company’s security and consequently protects your data more thoroughly.

Remind employees to auto-update devices

A regular system update is an excellent way to prevent cyberattacks. Companies should ensure remote employees set up automatic updates for their company-issued and personal devices. Updated devices are beneficial to both organisations and their employees.

For example, data accessed on an employee’s personal device may leak company intellectual property if the operating system is out-of-date. Employees must show equal care in updating their work-related and personal devices.

Use a template

The best way to formulate, communicate about, and enforce a cybersecurity policy is to use a template. Templates ensure your policies are readily available and can be updated at any time. You can easily send a cybersecurity policy template to a remote worker you just hired instead of writing new ones every time.

Here is an outline to create a remote work cybersecurity policy:

• Purpose: This states the reason for a remote work policy.
• Scope: This provides details on the parties involved in the policy.
• Policy details: Contains everything about the policy. From remote access control to data protection and remote system management, this is where you’ll find the main content and everything employees need to know about the policy. You might have different templates for different roles, or you might use this section to describe all roles and how data-handling procedures change accordingly.
• Violations: Provides details about disciplinary actions the company would take if its policy is violated.
• Definitions: This contains descriptions of keywords in the policy.
• Related documents: This names and provides links to other policy-related documents that add further context to the organisation’s remote work policy.
• Approval and ownership: This is where the policy author and organisation members add their signatures to signal their understanding and approval of the document.
• Revision history: This section lists the changes that have been made to the policy since its first publication.

Keep it simple

Less is more. The easier it is to understand a policy, the more employees will comply with it. A simple and easy-to-read policy will result in a faster onboarding process because the reader will begin implementing the content and may not have a reason to ask for clarity because it is simple and easy to read.

Also Read: Strengthening cybersecurity measures in the face of Web 3.0

Advice on the use of VPNs

You can ensure cybersecurity in remote work through the use of a virtual private network (VPN). VPNs protect your device’s data and prevent websites from collecting information based on your location because they encrypt all your internet traffic. Urge your remote workers to install a VPN on their computers.

Encourage the use of antivirus software

You can quickly detect and prevent viruses from spreading through your devices by installing antivirus software. Encouraging your employees to do the same will ensure company-wide safety from cyberattacks.

Create a sense of urgency

As an organisation, you must emphasise how vital a cybersecurity policy is to your workers, no matter where they report from. Even big companies have fallen victim to the malicious activities of cyber criminals, and it is essential that you make active efforts to prevent the same thing from repeating itself at your company.

Secure your company

Remote work is here to stay. As such, companies need to keep up with the challenges that come with it. From ensuring systems and software are up-to-date to installing VPNs to protect data, cybersecurity is essential and requires the collaborative work of employers and employees alike.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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