Jeremy Au joined Rohit Malhotra on Life Self Mastery to talk about the moves between founder, VC, and operator, and what each seat actually teaches you. Now leading Cosmetic Physician Partners Asia after Bain, CozyKin, Monk's Hill Ventures, and Lucence, Jeremy is candid about what does not transfer between roles.
They cover the three things every founder has to get right (the product, the team, and the business), the Southeast Asia story that still is not told at ground level, why angel investing is an Olympic-level race rather than a pass-fail test, why coaching someone and investing in someone are two completely different prisms, and the two-by-two he uses to advise emerging fund managers who have deployed capital without returns.
Support the original show: Life Self Mastery with Rohit Malhotra: https://www.youtube.com/@LifeSelfMastery
Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/navigating-southeast-asia
BRAVE is Southeast Asia's leading tech podcast, hosted by Jeremy Au. Honest conversations with the region's top founders, investors, and operators on building startups in Southeast Asia.
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00:00 Intro
01:19 Founder to VC to operator, and back again
03:10 The three things: product, team, business
07:33 Scaling a clinic group from the US into Asia
10:54 The Southeast Asia story nobody is telling
18:30 Why a regional thesis is too broad a brush
22:20 Angel investing is an Olympic race, not a pass-fail test
25:41 Coaching someone vs investing in someone
28:08 Advice for emerging VCs who have not returned capital
35:07 The thread: high-performing teams
41:59 The comfort crisis and the 2% idea
46:54 What he would tell his younger self
50:20 Why Flow Club is his favourite tool
52:37 Where to find Jeremy
