Daniel Thong: Bootstrapping Past Zilingo, Spinning Out AI, and Surviving the VC Downturn – E606

"The challenge for us is growth. As we crack eight-figure revenue, how do we get to nine? What I learned is that each revenue milestone is like a new boss. Your first million ARR is one boss. Five million is very different from one million, and ten million is different again. Figuring out ten to twenty is what we still have to solve as a company." - Daniel Thong, founder of Nimbus

"Hire faster, fire faster, or hire slow and get it right. My conclusion is that it’s very contextual. For my industry, it’s unsexy and doesn’t pay that well because clients sometimes don’t pay well for essential services. You can’t get a Harvard MBA guy joining you. In my case, hiring slow and getting it right matters because the cost of losing continuity is huge. If you're managing 400 distributed workers and HR keeps leaving, workers think something’s wrong with the firm. It’s way better for me than hiring fast and firing faster, just because of the nature of the business." - Daniel Thong, founder of Nimbus

Daniel Thong, founder of Nimbus, returns to BRAVE to share how he built a profitable, tech-enabled service business without venture capital. He and Jeremy Au unpack the rise and fall of tech companies like Zilingo, examine the structural issues behind finance misconduct, and explore how AI is reshaping service operations. Daniel discusses why bootstrapping gave him more control, how he spun off a new AI startup from within, and what it takes to retain talent and stay healthy as a founder. The conversation offers a grounded look at sustainable growth, founder philosophy, and the realities of Southeast Asia’s startup landscape.