Why Khailee Ng puts mental healthcare support as key to successful founders-investors relationship

Khailee Ng is one of the most successful founders from Southeast Asia. In 2011, he sold daily deals site GroupsMore to Groupon, as part of the latter’s entrance into Malaysia. Just two years later, Ng sold social curation and news platform Says.com to Malaysian media giant Media Prima Bhd.

Now, as one of four managing partners of 500 Startups globally, Khailee also oversees Southeast Asia as a region. Ng is one of the few venture capitalists with direct experience in the region as both a founder and an investor. His track record in this role is equally impressive. Of the 180 investments Ng has made, three are already unicorns: Grab, Revolution Precraftd, and Bukalapak.

Gracy Fernandez: What is the toughest part about mentoring and advising founders? How do you make this investor-founder relationship successful?

Ng: I ask myself, how does this get done well, at scale? Assuming that I will be the primary mentor and advisor to founders creates limitations on how effective the firm can be at scale. The benefit of having a large portfolio the way 500 Startups does is that we have the economies of scale to run programs. We have run B2C and B2B growth programs, bringing down legendary talent from the likes of Facebook, YouTube, and Lyft, and in multiple geographies.

In Southeast Asia, for example, we have flown in 50 mentors, with 88 companies participating, clocking in over 2,000 hours of hands-on growth work! I wasn’t involved in mentoring and advising. But the team put together a successful program that did.

We noticed that founder burnout, stress, and depression were a real thing.

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We sought out experts. We found the Director of Emotional Wellbeing Research at Yale and his partner, a successful life coach. We tried and introduced their programs to founders in Southeast Asia. We got feedback like, “We canceled our divorce after practicing the tools we learned,” and “I was cured of my three months of insomnia and now manage my mental health way better,” all the way to entire management teams of our founders seeking more coaching. Again, when I embrace my personal limitations, I unlock unlimited potential. This is what I believe 500 to be, not a VC firm, but a VC platform.

Gracy Fernandez: Can you delve deeper into this problem, so people can better appreciate your innovative solutions? How have you seen founder burnout, stress, and depression negatively affect both founders and the companies they lead?

Ng: The divorce and insomnia examples are listed below. But across 500’s 2,000+ investments, there have been two founder suicides. That’s two too many.

On a basic level:
1. Founders may tend to over-personalize, internalize, and energize issues in business as issues in themselves, or their lives.

2. Tools and tactics to regulate awareness, communication, vulnerability, and strength are very helpful, but are not the first things they ask for. They just spend more time at work.

3. Having a foundation of friends, health, and family gives strength. But it is also the weakest part in most founding journeys with this “all in,” “go big or go home,” overglorification of over-working culture.

There is another way. Very rarely is a startup a quick sprint. We’re playing the long game here. It is better to have foundations and tools. You’ll need them.

Also Read: This world is a f**ked up place!: Khailee Ng

You don’t want to pick them up the hard way. That’s what the drive to run these programs is about.

Personally, when I was going through having my entire business wiped out at SAYS.com, from the Facebook URL ban, I had to put up a strong front every day, but I felt broken inside. That takes energy. Even after we created the new business, I felt it may happen again at any time, and I didn’t feel secure. The thing is, I still did not talk to my team about it. I only told them much later when I broke down, and they asked me “why didn’t you tell us earlier, we all could have doubled down and helped, shared the burden”. This is a familiar story that all founders can relate to. And I’m here to say, you don’t have to turn your problems into your entire universe. On the contrary, you have a universe of resources and help for you to overcome any problem at all. Anything.

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This story has been excerpted by courtesy of the publisher from Asian Founders at Work by Ezra Ferraz and Gracy Fernandez (Apress, 2020).

To purchase the book, please visit Amazon.

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