According to both Startup Genome’s 2019 and 2020 reports, Singapore has secured its position as one of the world’s most well-known regional hotbeds for startup ecosystems. Much of this reputation is due to the country’s notable track record of successful startups buttressed by the extensive funding pool, and ushered in largely by innovative and knowledgeable talents.

There are many factors that ultimately contribute to this feat, from government policies that support local research, innovation, and strong connectedness to global ecosystems; to robust local infrastructures and networks of private accelerators, incubators, and venture capital firms. Moreover, with the addition of Southeast Asia’s first and only student venture fund, Protégé Ventures, Singapore now has a nationwide programme anchored on hands-on venture capital training to add into the mix. This further strengthens their commitment to promoting entrepreneurial education, and by extension, a vibrant startup ecosystem.

The importance of VC training

Venture Capitalists (VCs) empower entrepreneurs in converting their knowledge and passion into viable projects by providing support through assistance and funding. They help new products and modern technologies become commercially feasible.

In order to successfully navigate through the complex business ecosystem, VCs need to learn how to read the markets and build their decisions around qualitative and quantitative data. VCs also dig deep into a startup’s business plans and operations as they conduct due diligence and assess each startup’s potential for investment. Most exceptionally, VCs hone their abilities to navigate through the unknowns, in our disrupted world today.

Traditionally, due to the shortage of university-level VC training programmes, in order for a person to step into the world of VC, they have to first obtain years of investment banking or management consulting experience to be considered for an analyst or associate role in a VC firm.

Protégé Ventures powered by SMU Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

While conventional entrepreneurial education has already been booming across the region for many years, Protégé Ventures is enhancing the dimensions of entrepreneurial education by being the first to offer leadership training grounded by and leveraging on the investor’s perspective and the techniques of the trade.

First established as a pilot programme by the Singapore Management University Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in 2017, Protégé Ventures has recently received an MOE grant at the beginning of 2020 to scale this initiative into a national student VC training programme.

As Southeast Asia’s first student-run venture fund programme, Protégé Ventures offers unique training and mentorship that zooms in on startup investment and the full suite of decision-making involved in the process. With its peer-learning model, coupled with in-depth advisory by industry veterans, including seasoned VCs from Wavemaker Partners, Openspace Ventures, and MassMutual Ventures, students in Protégé Ventures are able to gain practical insights to the industry by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Protégé Ventures’ model focuses on early-stage deal activity where students assess and fund startups at the pre-seed/seed stage. Part of the groundwork inculcated in the hands-on and real-life quality intrinsic to the curriculum are actual deal sourcing, deal evaluation, and due-diligence work, with opportunities to meet with founders and pitch deals to an investment committee. True to its emphasis on hands-on learning in investing, Protégé Ventures students have the opportunity to deploy real capital into startups with cheque sizes from $25,000 to $50,000, ultimately making real impact.

With this in-depth hands-on VC training, students are equipped with critical skills as they cultivate the mindset and acumen to negotiate our unprecedented times. These are important competencies to develop in our next generation of entrepreneurial leaders both within and beyond the VC industry, and will go far to enrich our ecosystem.

Protégé Ventures Making Real Impact

Witnessing significant success since the beginning of its inception, Protégé Ventures has trained a total of 78 students under the programme. Also, more than 70 percent of Protégé Ventures students and alumni have secured internships and job placements in VC firms and startups such as Wavemaker Partners, MDI Ventures, Qualgro Ventures, Grab, and Shopback.

Protégé Ventures stays true to its ‘for students, by students’ mantra by making at least 80% of their investments in campus startups led by students and recent graduates. To date, Protégé Ventures has invested in 6 startups, spanning across different verticals that include IoT waste management, human resources, edtech, and mental health.

One of Protégé Ventures’ investments, Lumitics, has since received follow-on investment from external funders. Previously known as Good For Food, Lumitics utilises IoT and data analytics to assist hotels and commercial kitchens in managing their food waste. Protégé Ventures invested in the pre-seed round in 2018, endorsing confidence in the company that went on to raise S$750,000 in its seed round which closed in January 2020.

The programme leaves not only a lasting impact on student founders and their startups but also the students who have joined the programme. Some of the former students have shared their experiences and impressions of the programme.

Lionell Loh, Managing Partner from Class of 2020, said that Protégé Ventures has developed his business acumen, critical thinking, and passion for learning new things especially from other smart and ambitious founders and outstanding entrepreneurs. Currently, Loh has secured a position with Facebook in the US and is eager to start as soon as the global health crisis subsides.

Meanwhile, Theodora Boo, Managing Partner from Singapore Management University Class of 2021, said that the programme helped develop her interest in spotting deserving and successful ventures using both qualitative and quantitative data. It has also shown her how a VCs can provide game-changing value for a startup. Having been in the programme for 2 years, she has also managed to secure internships in Cento Ventures and MDI Ventures.

Want to join the Student VCs of Protégé Ventures?

As the world faces new challenges, Protégé Ventures believes that the disruption will also change the face of the startup ecosystem. Taking risks in known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns has never been more important and Protégé Ventures is now looking forward to recruiting its 4th batch of driven, analytical, and fearless student analysts.

Students will be expected to commit at least one year with the programme to master venture capital and entrepreneurial skill sets. During the programme, Student VCs will get access to industry events, networking with regional VCs, and receive bi-weekly mentorship from industry leaders.

To learn more about this nationwide programme, you may join Protégé Ventures’ virtual information session on 17 July by registering here.

The application to the programme is open until 31 July. If you think you are up for the challenge, apply now by clicking here to register.

For more information, visit the Protégé Ventures website.

The post SMU’s Protégé Ventures as a catalyst for entrepreneurial education appeared first on e27.

Last night, to be very precise, past midnight, over a long, long call, someone said ‘founder’s depression’ is on a rise in the pandemic. I was blissfully unaware of the term but very familiar with living that nightmare for exactly three times now.

My life as a startup CEO has been anything but glamorous on the internet, social media, LinkedIn, and on some leading media platforms. As a three-time founder, I had a jet setting lifestyle, the world-class, an envy-invoking gorgeous apartment, the crown of the CEO, power, authority, media attention, honours, and awards.

For the longest time, I was the poster girl for topics like ‘women in tech’, ‘women empowerment’, ‘women CEO’, ‘women in power’ and got an opportunity to voice my opinions and thoughts at INSEAD, French Chambers of Commerce and UN Women, to name a few.

And all this on the Brink of the ’30s. It sounds so much fun!

However, underneath, as a startup CEO, I was living an emotional rollercoaster, unlike anything I had ever experienced in my life before. It flipped rapidly from day-to-day. One day I was euphorically convinced I am going to own the world, to another day in which doom seemed only days away and I felt completely ruined, and then the very next day back to euphoria again.

Also Read: Founder depression and how to tackle it

This went on over and over and over. And by the way, this is something that happens when the startup is on stable grounds. Imagine what would happen if the startup was not doing well or if there is no capital runway, disputes with the co-founders and investors, pending litigations, regulatory issues?

If you are unfamiliar with this dingy, dark world of entrepreneurship, I would say just imagine the magnitude of the stress I mentioned above amplified to 100 times.

There are immense uncertainty and unexplainable risk associated with practically everything that a startup CEO does. The level of stress that I was under, would magnify the incredible highs and unbelievable lows at whiplash speed and huge magnitude.

And that coupled with a difficult relationship marked with long-distance, an abusive individual and a huge cultural gap between us. Sounds like fun? Not anymore, right? This difficulty is the living nightmare of 99 per cent of the founders.

Double-edged sword

This isn’t just my story but that of all the entrepreneurs. In addition to the professional woes, for most founders, a personal relationship is perpetually on shaky ground because their partners cannot truly comprehend the demands and challenges associated with the crown of a CEO. A double-edged sword I would say. And it is the combination of these very circumstances that drown most startup founders into depression, including me.

The paragraphs above articulate the mere situation but the core of the fragility lies in the individuals and entrepreneurs; it is a gap that leads to depression. Over the past year, I have spent significant time on self-reflection and self-awareness and I understood the key factors that led to depression in my case, as mentioned below:

Impostor syndrome

I suffer from the sense that I don’t belong where I am; that eventually I will be exposed as a fraud. This led me to chalk up success to luck, but to take all the blame for any failures of my company.

I-am-my-company syndrome

In my head, I blurred the line between myself and the company in such a way that I started believing company failure is my personal failure. Losing employees, declining revenues, missed targets, failure to secure additional funding– felt like a deep deep personal rejection.

I-am-a-superwoman syndrome

Investors, founders, and poorly trained middle managers all perpetuate a myth in the startup ecosystem that the only way to be successful is to grind yourself inexorably to the bone. And I am thoroughly guilty of treating myself so bad, working 18 hours a day, seven days a week, catching sleep only on flights, and carrying on without any vacations, or breaks.

To be honest I am yet to meet a founder who has a budgeted line item for self-care or who takes guilt-free vacations. I wish I would have understood earlier that I am not a superwoman and I don’t have to fix it all.

Feeling of loneliness

The all-encompassing nature of a startup often caused me to spend less time with family and friends, and required me to relocate away from my support networks. As a result, I often found myself alone when I needed others the most. I felt that I cannot talk with the co-founders, especially when the problem is with the co-founder, I could not pass the burden of worry on to the employees and felt like friends and family do not understand or are tired of hearing about my issues. This was probably the loneliest I ever felt in my life to date.

Financial uncertainty

I had a high paying job in management consulting and Private Equity previously, with pay in excess of US$240,000 annually. In addition to opportunity cost, as a founder for the longest time, I went without a paycheck and/or coughing up a lot of my savings into the project.

This created a scenario where a business failure would actually lead to financial ruin. I suffered from acute anxiety, such that the thought of failure would make me sick physically.

Also Read: Why failing your startup does not mean you are a failure

I strongly feel that everyone who participates in the startup ecosystem contributes to the problem of poor founder health. Few of the things that we can do immediately is to circumvent this curse is to:

• Destigmatise mental health
• Connect, connect, connect and create a stronger support system
• Prioritise and make time for personal well-being and relationships
• Set aside resources and funds for mental and physical well-being

I also strongly believe that the investors should make sure that the founders they work with know that they take mental health issues seriously. Investors, in their on-boarding process with founders, should explicitly touch on their support for the founders’ seeking mental health services when they feel compelled to do so. Being an investor is different from being a founder.

If investors want to support their founders, they need to be authentic and vulnerable in front of them. Investors need to show founders it’s okay to open up and that it’s OK to have doubts or to struggle with mental health.

Building a company is inherently hard – mentally, physically, and emotionally, but the ecosystem is a toxic one, with dozens of factors all contributing to make it even more so. As entrepreneurs and founders, we are literally killing ourselves and thereby sabotaging our long-term competitiveness.

At the end of the day, I believe most of the actions boil down to treating each other and ourselves as human beings. If we recognise and embrace our weaknesses and support our own imperfections, we will start seeing a healthier and more sustainable entrepreneurial stint.

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