Reginald Koh
Chief Financial Coconut | Audio Storyteller | In short I talk for a living
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5 Things Business school never taught us about starting a business with almost no budgets… aka bootstrap 1) The systematic grind is more important than the ping pong table. There is this blind faith that if you take care of your people they will take care of the business and often it manifest as a nice office with great amenities (aka ping pong table). But let’s be real, when you are starting a business, it’s usually 2 dreamers, 1 or 2 super stars that you manage to smoke/convince and a bunch of people that are either underemployed or still figuring things out (aka interns)On what basis can you believe in letting them figure it out? To be fair, everyone on the team is as lost and starry eyed. What I think is better is to set up repetitive systems that can allow everyone to work towards product fit and KPIs that indicate the possibilities of a business. So say no to ping pong table 😆2) Brand Equity + Budgets = 0. Meaning Flexible work arrangement is a MUST.Doesn’t matter whether you believe in it, you just have to be more flexible to have people on the team. And they come in all shapes and sizes, from activitist to jaded corporates professionals to retiresss to part timers of part timers to lost uni child to someone that was inspired by you in your previous thing. I remember one of my ex co founders saying something along the lines of “I’m not comfortable that these people are not paid to do work”. While I understand the sentiment, the reality is you got nothing and as long as you can provide other soft things that these people seek and be clear with them, what is wrong?Simply put, you use everyone and anyone that is willing to contribute in any way and you as the leader need to have some vision of how to build this in a modular fashion. Think “If this person is only here for 6months because of some hyped up vibes, what can I get them to do to impact the business down the road?”3) MVP + Sell + Iterate + Sell + Iterate = New MVPThe core is MVP, aka Minimal Viable Product. You will never have the dream product, so you have to make something that is “good enough”. Along the journey there will be all sorts of people that are professional in their own field telling you what is wrong with your product. Here lies the wisdom:- Accept their feedback (because either way you wouldn’t have enough rigour to process it’s accuracy)- Prioritise what you actually execute on (a mix between what you can easily do and what your potential client said)- Look to the market for the clearest feedback (are they using or paying?)More often than not these feedback are noise, your goal is to sell enough to show there’s something here. So it is always MVP. Until you get to size. I hope you find my little brain fart useful, I have more but I ran out of space. (So this is part 1?) Please share your thoughts in the comment section below. I would love to compare notes 😆👍🏻
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Derek Tan
Co-founder @Viddsee | Creator Operator - I help creators grow their audience, sales and dreams | My vision is building empathy and driving action with stories
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For #1 - Sell the vision, the design and iterations will work its magic along the way. As Steve jobs said once “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”
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Judson Teo
Marketing Interactive's Leader of the Year '23 | Marketing advisor to startups | Helping young marketers level up at work | Ex-Grab, foodpanda, Singapore Tourism Board
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Reginald Koh Since the beginning of time, marketers have been trying to give founders feedback on their products and many times we get brushed aside because they think we are "just comms". So for Point 3 does that mean you'll sayang your Head of Marketing more? 😀
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Alex Loh 劳星裕
Wellbeing Champion & Strategist ☆ Wellness Solutions Consultant ☆ Keynote Speaker ☆ Coach ☆ Community Builder
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I like your little brain fart.I say focus on purpose. Because when that general direction compass and north star is set, you've already gotten most of your priorities and perimeters set. The rest is iteration and pivoting and adaptation. And the team must be nimble enough to follow as long as their purpose is aligned.
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Reginald Koh
Chief Financial Coconut | Audio Storyteller | In short I talk for a living
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The more I do this. The more I feel like I should do a business podcast 😆👍🏻 looking forward to its release!
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Reginald Koh
Chief Financial Coconut | Audio Storyteller | In short I talk for a living
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TFC X OCBC Financial Wellness Festival 2024 happened on the 23rd of March! It was amazing! I could not thank everyone enough for this. 4 years of Podcasting got us to where we are today, some of our listeners who came for the festival go wayyyyyy back! I would like to give gratitude to the team who made this work, Christopher How, Destenie C., Raven Lim, Jaslyn Koh, Fiona Dawn C., Kenneth Lou, Lisa K, ChenSian YU, Zachary Tang! Alongside our partners from OCBC Bernadette Yuen, Joycelyn L., Lynette Lim, Julian Lim, Hisham Zainal, Aaron Chwee, LOH Chiu Weng, CFA. We could not have done this without everyone's effort! I would also like to thank all of you who gave me a shoutout Alex Loh 劳星裕, Willie Keng, CFA, Muhammad Ridhwaan Radzi, CSAA, Kenny Loh, CFP® AEPP® IBFA MBA, Benjamin Loh, CSP and many many more! I hope all of you that came, genuinely enjoyed our first iteration. I hope we will see you next year (maybe earlier?) haha
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Reginald Koh
Chief Financial Coconut | Audio Storyteller | In short I talk for a living
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Some of the boomers have amassed wealth over their life time while just holding professional careers and “not taking massive risk” They rode the asset enhancement narrative of the 90s and got to their way of life. However, the question is can professionals today repeat that? Or have we moved into a different phase of property in Singapore? I am very glad to be joined by CEO of Orange Tee JUSTIN QUEK to breakdown some of the nuance, changes and opportunities in the property market today. Once again I couldn’t have done this without my producer Raven Lim and also my co-host Rakaesh V. 😎👍🏻 If your CEO has good insights to share, you can reach out to my producer. Hope to have you on our show The Financial Coconut
How Singaporean professionals Are Amassing Wealth In Real Estate [Chills 162 ft Justin Quek] https://www.youtube.com/
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Reginald Koh
Chief Financial Coconut | Audio Storyteller | In short I talk for a living
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It’s been a journey. I’ve always wanted to host business related podcast because I know I can. But for a long time I was bound by the TFC brand. I’m actually really glad Glints chose to work with us at The Financial Coconut and gave me a chance to host a business podcast 😎👍🏻Stay tuned and I will see you all next week for the 2nd recording/event. If you would love to participate, do connect with Moses Xiao and Yaoguang Han! Great one today with my co-host Triston Francis and to our guest and experts! Puay Lim Yeo and Eric Chin 😎 setting the bar!
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Reginald Koh
Chief Financial Coconut | Audio Storyteller | In short I talk for a living
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Women and Money is a topic that is very often jumbled up, there is the side of women being given opportunities to rise in the corporate world, there is the side of representation, and there is the side of women's changing social status needing a new set of stories for themselves. Each of them, are big discussion on its own. Often diminished and convoluted into 1 big "We need more Women in Finance" Is it true? Let us not simplify the dynamism. I am super happy to have spent time with Serena Wong and Sharon Sim to dig deeper into them. I believe not every women has the authority to speak about the topic but this duo have done a lot in the space and published a book of their own Why Women Don't Talk Money! I hope the conversation keeps evolving, going into structures, social norms ,and how daily life evolves across or even beyond genders. Thank you for introducing the duo to the show Winifred Ling 🐦🔥 (M.Couns, GDAPP, CMEMIP-1) and for Raven Lim insisting on this episode. To be very frank, women and money topics kills the algorithm but I hope our contribution to this conversation at The Financial Coconut brings about positive change to all, beyond just likes, shares, subscribe. But do like, share, subscribe la thanks haha #womenempowerment #womenfinance https://lnkd.in/gcb8u6ic
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Reginald Koh
Chief Financial Coconut | Audio Storyteller | In short I talk for a living
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Honestly if I knew how difficult it was to get this going I would have never pitched it. BUT the numbers are looking good and I tbink it’s one of those things where once you do once, it stretches you and you want to do more. Cya at the event! I promise you way better discususon than all the other events you have gone to for personal finance. 😎👍🏻
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Reginald Koh
Chief Financial Coconut | Audio Storyteller | In short I talk for a living
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Is there such thing as too much ?
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Reginald Koh
Chief Financial Coconut | Audio Storyteller | In short I talk for a living
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Financial Wellness Festival 2024 https://thefinancialcoconut.comWe are 2 weeks away from our very first financial wellness festival! I want to see you there! https://lnkd.in/guQ4S-Ej
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Reginald Koh
Chief Financial Coconut | Audio Storyteller | In short I talk for a living
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Thanks for coming on the show! Cecilia HL Tan and Alvin Chow. With the information landscape being very tilted, it’s great to have heard from individuals with greater skin in the game and are practitioners on the ground about China. 👍🏻
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