e27 has been nurturing a supportive ecosystem for entrepreneurs since its inception. Our Contributor Programme offers a platform for sharing unique insights.
As part of our ‘Contributor Spotlight’ series, we shine a spotlight on an outstanding contributor and dive into the vastness of their knowledge and expertise.
In this episode, we feature Maggie Po, CEO & Founder of FullSuite, a Humans-in-the-loop partner for AI-powered startups in the private capital market industry.
Thoughts, goals, and journey
Po is a seasoned accountant turned operator. She began her career with multinational conglomerates before leading the financial planning and analysis division of a venture-backed startup in 2006. Her journey with that startup culminated as CFO, where she played a key role in completing an M&A transaction alongside the CEO after eight years. Following this experience, she founded FullSuite to help startups scale efficiently by managing their back-office operations without burning through their runway.
In 2019, FullSuite pivoted to focus on supporting AI-augmented startups, particularly in the finance and legal tech sectors within private capital markets. The company specialises in providing humans-in-the-loop services to help these startups onboard customers’ legacy records into their applications.
Since then, her goal has remained consistent: to offer tech startups a scalable and cost-effective way to onboard and manage customer data.
Po remarked, “I addressed the often unmanaged cost of sales-led growth in AI-focused SaaS companies by efficiently and effectively managing customer onboarding and post-sales maintenance. When SaaS startups start accelerating sales growth, they are often pressed with the manual work of getting their new customers’ legacy data into their system. With the rest of my FullSuite executive team, I set up a scalable process for them, hired the people to handle the same, and oversaw the said team through the startup’s growth.”
She added, “There is increasing integration of AI in both the finance and legal industries, but a lot of the data that needs to be entered into the system remains out of reach for AI to properly process without some human intervention. As training the AI gets expensive and unsustainable in the foreseeable future, and it is costly for US-based startups to build in-house teams to structure the data, it is more important than ever for companies to find a partner to help fill that gap.”
The driving force
Po has been a regular contributor to our community for several years, writing extensively on productivity and culture. Her insights, rich with expertise, resonate well within the thriving startup ecosystem.
“It has been an honour to be part of the program. Writing for e27 allows me to share what I have learned as a CFO/COO and eventually CEO in the last 24 years. Even with the rise of automation and technological advancement in the workplace, the challenges in scaling organisations to support growth remain the same. Most new founders continue to struggle to scale efficiently, and not for the lack of best efforts. Being given an opportunity to share my learnings and that of the hundreds of startups I was exposed to in the last 18 years, I hope that somehow, I can provide first-time founders additional practical views on what they need to watch out for or focus on,” she said.
Advice for budding thought leaders
“Thought leadership is not all about giving answers. It is about providing value to your audience. Value is provided when communicated clearly and simply. It is easier to do this when you draw references from practical applications rather than theoretical situations. Write what you believe to be true for your readers,” Po advised.
She added, “With the rise of the influencer era, there is a tendency to write for virality. This could be a tempting bandwagon for newbies to ride; don’t. Be grounded in your own experience and that of those you have had the opportunity to impact.”
Juggling too many things?
Po stated, “In all practical sense, I embrace the belief that there is no such thing as work-life-passion balance—the scale tips where it needs to tip at that particular time. And you need to be okay when that happens.
Personally, I do not impose society’s standards on how I use my time. I am a mother of three. I am the founder of a company that supports startup companies that require much of my time and that of my team. I am a woman in my forties who loves traveling, scuba diving, and learning to be better at skiing. I am an operator who wants to write to share my stories and the stories of other founders I worked with in the last two decades. I am one of these things more than the other at some point in my life as I see fit.
The mindset that allows me to be okay with the scale being unbalanced is that I do not aim for happiness out of the stuff I do. Instead, I seek purpose. Is there a good purpose for why I am doing a particular thing? If the answer is yes, then I focus all the needed energy to get it done.”
Staying in the loop
Po has built a robust network within the industries that FullSuite serves, which keeps her well-informed about developments in the private capital markets.
She recommends Lex Friedman’s podcast, which contains enough interviews with AI subject matter experts to immerse oneself in them. Emmanuel Maggiori’s Smart Until It’s Dumb and Siliconned are good contrarian reads on everything related to Generative AI. She also appreciates Dr. Jeffrey Funk’s opinions on everything AI.
Take a look at her articles here for more information and perspectives on his expertise.
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The post Maggie Po: Balancing purpose and passion in the evolving startup ecosystem appeared first on e27.
