Monk's Hill Ventures & Southeast Asia with Ong Peng Tsin
Ong Peng Tsin, general partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures joined us to discuss his story from an entrepreneur in the US to subsequently moving to China as a venture capitalist. Drawing his experience from Match.com, Interwoven and Encentuate, he offered his thoughts about the lessons learnt as an entrepreneur and also highlighted his observations on both the US and China start-up ecosystems. Finally, he discussed the story of Monk’s Hill Ventures from their investment thesis to why they are betting big on the Southeast Asia ecosystem.
Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with timestamps included):
- Ong Peng Tsin
- General Partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures (@pengmhv , LinkedIn, Monk’s Hill Ventures)
- How did he get started in technology? [0:49]
- In his journey as an entrepreneur building three companies: Match.com, Interwoven and Encentuate, what are the interesting lessons and reflections you have on them? Here are Peng Tsin’s thoughts. [1:30]
- It’s all about people. [1:44]
- Success/failure are both transient. [2:30]
- Be conscious with how you spend your time. [4:15]
- What is the motivation to make the switch from being an entrepreneur to an investor? [5:50]
- As a partner of GSR ventures in China, what have you learned about the Chinese technology startup ecosystem and how different is it from the US which you built your companies? [8:15]
- Monk’s Hill Ventures & Southeast Asia (Facebook) [11:55]
- How did you ended up starting Monk’s Hill Ventures? [12:02]
- What’s your investment thesis for Monk’s Hill Ventures? Is it challenging in a fragmented market with different countries and culture? [13:05]
- What is the range of capital that Monk’s Hill ventures invest in each company? [16:05]
- What are the attributes that you are looking in founders before you invest in them? Resilience and Clarity [16:20]
- What are the red flags which you also looked out for as not to move forward? [18:23]
- Can you tell us about some of the companies on Monk’s Hill portfolio? [20:01]
- You have recently moved to Indonesia to focus on investing in that ecosystem, what’s your motivation behind this? [22:16]
- Is Indonesia is similar to what China and India are in the past decade? [22:55]
Podcast Information:
The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Aspirus Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium) and Linkcious (and check out their other product, Chiibi). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Aspirus and sign up for their mailing list.
