Southeast Asia is one of the most exciting regions in the world for founders. With a fast-growing middle class, accelerating digital adoption, and a wave of ambitious entrepreneurs building across borders, the energy is undeniable. And yet, for every startup that cracks the APAC market, there are many more that struggle.
The difference usually isn’t the product. It isn’t the funding. It’s the execution.
It’s a gap that Jenga Anderson Global was built to close. Founded by Iris Xu, the firm works with growth-stage startups and fast-moving companies navigating the complexity of scaling across Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Why APAC is harder than it looks
Southeast Asia is not one market. It’s ten countries, hundreds of languages and dialects, and a dizzying mix of regulatory environments, payment preferences, cultural norms, and consumer behaviors. What works in Singapore doesn’t automatically work in Indonesia. What flies in the Philippines can fall flat in Vietnam.
According to Iris, the most common mistake founders make is treating APAC as a single block and building one strategy for all of it. The second is moving too fast before validating product-market fit in even one APAC country.
“Founders often think APAC expansion is about moving fast. It is, but only if you move in the right order,” says Iris Xu, founder of Jenga Anderson Global. “Too many teams copy their Singapore playbook into Indonesia, Vietnam, or the Philippines without first testing payment habits, trust signals, local partners, and regulatory assumptions.”
The other pattern she sees repeatedly is overbuilding too early. Teams set up entities, hire local staff, and enter arrangements before the operating model is clear. That creates avoidable cost and restructuring further down the road. “In APAC, the winners are not just the fastest movers. They are the founders who sequence well,” she adds.
The founder behind Jenga Anderson Global
Before starting Jenga Anderson Global, Iris built her career across private equity and consulting, focusing on growth, investment, structuring, and cross-border business strategy. She also led technology, media, and telecoms investment efforts under a multi-family office, work that put her in close proximity to founders, investors, and fast-moving technology businesses across the region.
That background shaped a particular way of thinking about expansion. “Growth is not just about capital or market opportunity,” Iris says. “It’s about turning ambition into an executable structure with the right jurisdiction, governance, banking, hiring, tax, and compliance foundations in place.”
The idea for Jenga Anderson Global crystallized from seeing the same gap play out repeatedly: founders with strong businesses who struggled with the practical execution of expanding across jurisdictions. They needed more than a service provider to file documents. They needed someone who could help them think through structure, compliance, banking, and hiring in the right order.
The firm’s name is deliberate. “Jenga reflects how I think about building a business,” Iris explains. “It is about using limited pieces efficiently to build the highest possible tower. Every piece matters, and sequencing matters. Sometimes the tower may fall, but in business, as in the game, you can always learn, rebuild, and start again, ideally with better structure and judgment each time.”
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The APAC ecosystem right now
Despite global headwinds, Southeast Asia continues to attract serious founder and investor attention. The fundamentals are strong: a young, digital-native population, rising consumer spending, and a startup ecosystem that is maturing fast, with more local talent, more local capital, and more locally-grown success stories than at any previous point.
What’s also shifting is how founders are building. Iris sees a generation of APAC companies that are regional from day one. Rather than thinking about one domestic market first and international expansion later, they are designing their companies, teams, payment flows, and investor story with cross-border growth already built in.
AI is accelerating the timeline. Smaller teams are moving faster, serving more markets, and automating operations that once required much larger headcount. But Iris thinks founders may be underestimating what that speed demands structurally. “As companies become more AI-enabled and cross-border, questions around data, tax, employment, licensing, payments, and governance become more important, not less,” she says. “The opportunity in APAC is very real. But the winners will be founders who combine speed with discipline: strong product, clear market sequencing, and a structure that can actually support regional scale.”
How Jenga Anderson Global helps startups scale
Jenga Anderson Global works with growth-stage startups and fast-moving companies that are serious about expanding in Southeast Asia and beyond. The firm helps founders use Singapore as a base to establish, operate, and scale across the region, supporting them across corporate structuring, governance, compliance, tax and accounting coordination, HR and work pass solutions, banking readiness, and ongoing operational execution.
The approach goes beyond strategy. “What clients value most is that we don’t just give advice from a distance,” Iris says. “We help them connect strategy with execution, turning expansion plans into the right structure, process, and trusted local support on the ground.”
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Case study: From strategy to scale
One client was a fast-growing technology company using Singapore as its international base. They had strong investor interest, but their corporate structure wasn’t ready for cross-border growth. Jenga Anderson Global helped align incorporation, governance, banking readiness, hiring, work passes, tax and accounting coordination, and future fundraising considerations into one practical roadmap. The result was a structure that could support real global expansion, not just a paper presence.
What separates the ones who make it
After working with founders across different markets, industries, and growth stages, Iris has identified a few things that consistently set successful APAC expansions apart.
First: intellectual humility. The founders who do well are the ones who walk in curious, not convinced. They ask questions before they make decisions. They hire locally, listen locally, and adapt quickly.
Second: execution discipline. APAC rewards founders who can move fast and stay organized: clean financial setup, clear accountability, and systems that can scale.
Third: the right partners. Founders don’t have to figure out Southeast Asia alone. The ones who scale fastest find the right people early: advisors, operators, and local hires who have already navigated the terrain.
On what ultimately separates those who make it from those who don’t, Iris is direct: “The biggest difference is not just speed. It is learning speed. The founders who succeed in APAC move fast, but they also listen fast, adapt fast, and correct course fast. They don’t assume one playbook will work across every market. They stay close to customers, local teams, regulators, banks, and partners, and they build enough structure around the business so that speed doesn’t turn into chaos.”
Meet Jenga Anderson Global at Echelon Singapore 2026
Jenga Anderson Global will be exhibiting at Echelon Singapore 2026 at Booths M14 and M15. For founders thinking about expanding into Southeast Asia, or those already in the thick of it, it’s a chance to have a real conversation with a team that has seen the full picture.
Visitors to the booth can expect a practical expansion conversation covering market-entry sequencing, structuring, compliance, banking readiness, hiring, and local execution. Jenga Anderson Global will also be sharing a market-entry checklist to help founders assess what to prepare before expanding through Singapore or into other APAC markets.
Southeast Asia remains one of the biggest opportunities in the world for ambitious founders. The question isn’t whether to be here. It’s whether you’re set up to win.
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The e27 team produced this article sponsored by Jenga Anderson Global
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Featured Image Credit: Jenga Anderson Global
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