Jingjing Zhong: UC Berkeley to Investment Banking, General Manager Firefighting & Superbench Services AI Founder - E463

Jingjing Zhong, CEO & Cofounder of Superbench, and Jeremy Au talked about three main themes:

1. UC Berkeley to Investment Banking: Jingjing reflected on her time at UC Berkeley where the competitive environment introduced her to the high-stakes world of investment banking. She shared her initial motivation for joining Houlihan Lokey, which was to make money (influenced by societal expectations from her upbringing in China). Her experience in the financial sector led to a significant reevaluation of her definition of success and steered her away from banking despite its financial allure.

2. General Manager Firefighting: Jingjing’s entrance to high-growth startup Helpling and eventual promotion to General Manager brought immediate challenges of operational management without initial support (a sharp contrast with the structured world of finance). She navigated intense periods of firefighting and strategic planning and learned to balance immediate problem-solving with long-term strategic thinking. Her experiences emphasized the importance of adapting to market and consumer trends and the transformative impact of effective coaching on her leadership skills.

3. Superbench Services AI Founder: Jingjing leveraged her experiences to cofound Superbench, an AI-driven platform aimed at optimizing operations for home service businesses. She detailed the transition from manual operations to AI-enhanced processes, which significantly improved sales conversions and operational efficiency. She discusses the nuanced applications of AI, where it complements human effort rather than replacing it, along with the practical benefits and challenges of integrating advanced technologies in traditional SME clients.

Jeremy and Jingjing also talked about Jingjing’s cultural adjustments when she moved from USA to Singapore, the critical role of mentorship, and the role of data in strategic decision-making within service businesses.

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(01:49) Jeremy Au:

Hey Jingjing, how are you?

(01:50) Jingjing Zhong:

Good. How are you, Jeremy?

(01:51) Jeremy Au:

Why are you laughing? Just because we know each other?

(01:53) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah.

(01:54) Jeremy Au:

It's like we just hang out already and now we're doing a podcast.

(01:56) Jingjing Zhong:

I know. I mean, it feels like just having a conversation with you.

(02:00) Jeremy Au:

Yeah. Now it's time to make it horrible and stilted and awkward.

(02:03) Jingjing Zhong:

Just don't ask me any difficult questions.

(02:06) Jeremy Au:

So I'm excited to have you to show Jingjing because we've been friends for a while. And you've been out, and we've seen you transition from being a General Manager to being a startup founder and so I think this is a fascinating journey to see. Could you share a little bit about yourself, Jingjing?

(02:18) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah. Currently I'm the Cofounder and CEO of Superbench. Previously, I was GM at Helpling, which is a platform for home services. And now Superbench basically using AI technologies to transform these home services to get them ready for the, future to allow them to not only to survive but to thrive in this market.

(02:38) Jeremy Au:

Amazing. So, I think we first connected because we were both a graduates of UC Berkeley, right? And so I want to ask, what were you like as a student at UC Berkeley? I just got back from there just a week ago to see my old professor. So I'm just kind of curious were you fun? Were you cool? Were you nerdy?

(02:53) Jingjing Zhong:

Oh man, I think that was a really tough experience because I was an exchange student. So I went to Berkeley as a junior. And I have to declare major in the first semester. And then the moment I walk into campus, everyone's Oh, join our sorority, join, join our fraternity. And we're going to help you to find a job in investment banking, that was the first thing I remember. So that was very overwhelming. So I, I think I studied so much. And then at the same time, also just try to go to every single recruitment info session as much as I can.

(03:25) Jeremy Au:

So you went to Ascend and I actually was at a semester at this club called Ascend as well. So we just found out that we were Ascend uh, what do you want to call them?

(03:34) Jingjing Zhong:

Brothers, sisters?

(03:35) Jeremy Au:

Brother sisters. I don't know. Sounds sounds so awkward when you say that I have a real sister in real life. So, yeah, but what were you like at Ascend? And so you chose that, you signed up to that info session. Why did you do that?

(03:43) Jingjing Zhong:

You know how those like fraternities, they are really competitive to get in. It's harder to get into those than actual getting a job in investment banking. So obviously, as a transfer student, I did not get into any of those when people ask me, why do you want to join investment banking? I'm like, to make more money. Yeah, obviously these are not the right answer, but for a cent, cause it was more on the accounting side. So they're not as cutthroat as those fraternities. So when I just walk in and just show up being by myself, and they accepted me to be part of their social communities because they think I'm fun, apparently.

(04:18) Jeremy Au:

Awesome. That's great. So, there you are at Berkeley and you're just kind of like doing everything that needs to get done. And then you left to join finance. So what was that? I guess you told them that you wanted to make more money but you said it in a more tactful way.

(04:30) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah, I mean, someone coming out from China, growing out from China, cause the society kind of tells you success equals money. That's kind of, how I grew up and ingrained it in my mind that I need to make money to show people that I'm successful. Obviously, nowadays, I have a complete different definition of what success means to me. So, obviously, I went for a job where people think, Oh, this is money, this is fame. I don't know. Is that the same for your upbringing? In Singapore society?

(05:00) Jeremy Au:

Ah, I wouldn't say so. I mean, I think it's a little different.

(05:03) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I went ahead with this job, obviously it pays me the most. It feels good because when I tell people that oh I work for an investment bank in San Francisco, working with technology startups. And people just feel, oh my god. You must be so rich. You must be making a lot. You must be you know, all these things that just comes but obviously later on, I realized, this ain't it. This is not what life is about.

(05:28) Jeremy Au:

Yeah. And then, so what happened is that you went off to do this finance job for two years. And what did you learn from this experience?

(05:34) Jingjing Zhong:

I think it really make me a well rounded person because I absolutely just did not like that job. So obviously I was not, I was terrible at investment banking doing the job, but what I learned was, doing financial modeling, also talking to senior people in a corporate, learning how to draft legal documents. So it made me a really well rounded person from due diligence, experience traveling, talking to senior stakeholders. And that two years, I think it was extremely rewarding. Now looking back, as a young professional, you get exposure to every single department of a company.

(06:09) Jeremy Au:

What do you think you learned, the best thing you learned from that experience?

(06:12) Jingjing Zhong:

How to communicate with a CEO, CFO of a public company. You realize they're just a human, just like you. You really don't have to have any baggage when you're talking to them. You can chit chat with them. How's your day? How's the weather? How, how are your kids? How was your holiday? These kind of things that really helps me to talk to people from all different backgrounds and culture.

(06:36) Jeremy Au:

Amazing. And you choose to leave and you also choose to move countries after that to Singapore. So what was the context of that?

(06:43) Jingjing Zhong:

So I really did not like UK. I think mainly because number one, I was working quite a bit. Number two, the weather. So back then, I was dating a guy and then he says why don't you move to Singapore, Hong Kong, I'll go with you. Because back then, we work for the same company, Houlihan Lokey, and Houlihan has an office in Hong Kong. So, I was just trying to get a whole bunch of offers from Hong Kong and Singapore. And eventually, I got all FinTech offers, except Helpling. And because I was so traumatized using money to make more money, I rejected all FinTech offers and I went for cleaning. So yeah, and that's how I end up in Singapore.

(07:21) Jeremy Au:

Wow. Amazing. So I have to ask, so did that relationship work out?

(07:24) Jingjing Zhong:

It worked out really well. My family members did not really understand why I chose cleaning, right? They're like, oh, you can't even iron your own clothes very well. It's all creased and all that. And then I burn clothes everywhere. They're like, why would you choose cleaning? But then after I explained it to them, it's a platform, now they get it. They couldn't understand for two years.

(07:44) Jeremy Au:

What a time. And I think what I meant as well was, did that relationship work out, did moving for you, person work out?

(07:50) Jingjing Zhong:

It's a history now. Let's put it that way.

(07:53) Jeremy Au:

Okay, so gotcha. So you move for love and it didn't work out, but you got a job and you were in a successful job and you changed industries. So you did that double jump. So could you share a little bit more about how did you see the growth for Helpling and what you were doing as part of that?

(08:08) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah. So Helpling was very different than investment banking. The biggest difference is on my day one, the moment I walk into the office, I was expecting people will set up your laptop, show you this is how it works. This is company policy, whatever. No. When I walked in, Hey, Jingjing, can you pick up the phone? Customers are complaining. What? I don't even know what are you guys doing? Right? I was like, can I get a laptop? , Oh we have a stack of laptop in a shelf. Can you just go check which one works and use that for now? So that was my experience since day one and I found there, we didn't have product market fit initially and we just pivot the business model and they're really just grinding it through every single day. Otherwise, the company can shut down next month, right? So I didn't know what else I could do other than just working hard and really trying to figure out, okay, what's the problem that I can solve right now? So I think after a year and a half or two years, the moment you found product market fit, you feel it. It's the combination of thrill, fear and excitement all together.

It's like, Oh wow, all these jobs are coming in and all the clients are staying. Now, we need to grow. How do I get more people accepting jobs? Oh, wow, every day it's like you wake up, you just see so many jobs comes in and all the clients, Hey, can I book again? Can I book again? Right? So, yeah I think I resonate very much when people say that when you found product market fit, you feel it. And from that point I realized, Oh, I'm just not doing ops anymore. I need to build a team. I need to offload this. Previously, me and James, my boss, we were doing matching every single day, seven days a week. Now I realize it's not enough anymore. We need aa team. So you learn how to build a team, how to recruit people, retain talent. Yeah, that was a journey. It's fun.

(09:44) Jeremy Au:

And I think what's interesting is that, you stepped up eventually to become general manager. So what were some of the changes in that role from your perspective?

(09:49) Jingjing Zhong:

You need to take a step back from firefighting to see the business a year, or two years, to be a more of a planning role. So now you have to be a planner and instead of being an executor, and that requires you to understand number one, the industry dynamics. You have to know where's your positioninng amongst competition. Number one. Number two, you also have to be very plugged in, in the macro trend, consumer trend as well. So knowing what's happening externally. And also knowing what's your internal capability, Bridge the gap. And that's what my definition of strategic planning. So it's a lot of thinking. I spend a lot more time thinking, writing, instead of looking at the day to day, putting fires out.

(10:33) Jeremy Au:

So when you're working on putting all those fires out versus planning, how does the trade off happen from your perspective?

(10:39) Jingjing Zhong:

Putting fires out, basically just look at what's happening right now. That was definitely a switch. I was fortunate to have coaches, you know, performance coach that I get to work together. And then they really helped me to, when you're in the mid transitioning from putting fires out and to planning, you have a lot of things to do. So, a lot of times I was overwhelmed and I was stressed because when I see, okay, we're growing but we're losing clients or I'm focusing on retention, but then I see we're not growing. So it's constantly back and forth. It feels very tiring and overwhelming. And then employees, you start seeing, they're not happy.

So it's a lot of things to juggle, but then the moment I start working with a performance coach, it really helps me to see that, Oh, actually these incidents, it doesn't happen that often. I don't have to worry about them right now. But if I don't plan, it will happen more often. So, that's when I really start changing my mind. Every time when things happen, it's like, calm down. Look at the numbers, look at the stats. Do some math. Does that going to impact the business in the next month or two? Based on these facts and evidence, if it does, okay, let's plan this to prevent this from happening. If it doesn't, let's monitor it. Don't be too worried about it first. So I think getting a coach that was extremely helpful, I cannot see myself changing that mindset very quickly without having a coach on the side.

(11:58) Jeremy Au:

So, what's interesting is that you were thinking all this time as a GM and then you eventually decided to become a founder eventually. So kind of walk us through that journey.

(12:05) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah. Because of, this whole coaching and therapy at Helpling, I grew a lot as a person as well. Back then I think I was 27, 28 grew the business with the team to 30 million ARR a year and that's when I realized what's next. I realized I was young. I have tremendous amount of energy. I have no dog, no debt, no husband back then. So let's take some risk with life, knowing all people like you, right? People in the Berkeley club, like Aaron who else? Vivek, left banking and be a farmer. I was like, man, this is like very inspiring. Maybe I should do something like this as well. So I decided to maximize my risk tolerance at that point of time. Then the best way to do a step one is to leave your comfort zone. Helpling was a comfort zone. So I was like, okay, I need to leave. So I start planning. That means step one, I need to really delegate everything that I was doing. So I start planning the succession. So I want to make sure without me, the business will still continue to grow. Once I've done that, I was like, okay, it's time. I feel very happy that this journey has come to an end. When it comes to end, you feel it. And that's when I tender.

(13:12) Jeremy Au:

Wow. And when you think about Helpling and when you think about that experience you obviously, you took a lot of those lessons. Could you share a little bit more about what you're building today?

(13:20) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah. After I left Helpling, obviously I still have very good relationship with all these home services companies. So I took the chance to talk to about 40 of them. I realized all of them have operational issues and all of them have juggling in between operations and sales. And with a problem that I was solving at Helpling the biggest driver, it was, I, we solved the sales funnel conversion problem by having an army of people talking to customers, so we can respond to them really fast, but at the same time, we can match the job really fast as well, because we have a separate matching team. And that's a lot of people processes, a lot of data going around and then likely, you're going to have too many cooks in the kitchen.

So then, one of my client was like, Hey we really have this issue. Can you just help me to increase my sales? Cause I have, let's say 2000 marketing budget. I can't increase it anymore, but I see all these leads go to waste. So we ran a POC with them with AI, gathering all the information instantly, and also converse decision with the end consumer instantly, and the results was 3X the sales conversion. And that's when I realized, Oh, what I did with human, this works better with AI. And we still keep people in the loop. So everyone knows what's happening instead of if you need people to step in, they can do it anytime.

(14:31) Jingjing Zhong:

So why don't we scale this? So I ran the POC with a couple more clients. It works for every single one of them. So with the same marketing budget, now your sales conversion is 3X. Imagine that. Obviously, marketing team is happy. The business owner is happy. The team is happier as well. So that's when I realized we have a good business here and I want to scale this with all the home services companies in the industry. And what's interesting is that I start having companies that's not doing home services, reaching out to me. And I realized there's a use case with them as well. So yeah, that's what we're doing here, building an AI sales and ops, right now is sales and scheduling, but eventually want to build a revenue ops agent for them.

(15:08) Jeremy Au:

So what's the challenges? Because, it feels like we're having two different conversations, right? One we have is like this, Ooh, wow, AI, you know, can do everything. So there's that story. And then the other part of the saying is that these are services businesses, so we just get stuff done, fix a toilet, fix a window. These are kind of like on the ground stuff. So could you share a little bit more about that translation or what are the challenges with this?

(15:28) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah. I think the key is that we need to understand the current state of LLM very well as a technology provider. There are, I would say 80 person of use case where you do not require an LLM to kind of automate the process, however, with LLM, with that bridging the 20% it makes the whole thing much more efficient. I can that can really get the job done. So what I'm trying to do here is that we're not just handling part of the conversation, but what we're trying to do is that I need to get the job done for the company. For example, I will fully automate So it's a technology plus a service part where I will fully automate your scheduling portion, then this is traditional technology, right? So I need to help these companies to understand, treat me like a tech plus service provider. I will get one job done for so you can focus on your offline experience, which is help you to build your brand for the long term. And this is what people really need to think about in the long term. We still need plumbers. We still need people to come in to fix your air con. Who can do the job at the first try? This determines your overall Google reviews, your brand, and referral as well.

(16:37) Jeremy Au:

So when you say that we want to understand what is the extent of LLMs and you're saying that a lot of it doesn't need to be done by it per se, how would you define the responsibilities between what an LLM does versus what simple automation or process, SOPs?

(16:51) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah. So for example, scheduling. To schedule an end consumer and a service provider, you need to, first of all, know scope, price, where, what time, and who's going. Very rule based scheduling. LLMs struggle to follow rules. So, this is where you use traditional matching algorithm. Then, getting LLM to match, you're gonna get, they're gonna match an aircon provider to a cleaning job. I can guarantee you. So, this is where the use case is not very suitable for LLM, but what LLM can do is to converse the decision. Hey, Jeremy, you want to book a cleaner for next week? I understand that. However, we realized we don't have anyone next Wednesday. So what about next Thursday? I can tell you immediately give you a recommendation instead of you wait for an hour. Hey, sorry. We don't have someone. It's like you wait an hour to get a no versus you get a no now, but I give you a recommendation. So this is something that I did with a human back at Helpling. This actually, the chance for you to say yes to the proposed slot is about 90%, if I can do it instantly.

(17:50) Jeremy Au:

And when you think about all of that, what are some of the challenges that service businesses have in terms of implementing AI or automation?

(17:57) Jingjing Zhong:

They think everything's AI. They think nowadays technology is, everything's AI. Can your AI press the screen? button for me. Can your AI generate invoice for me. Can your AI check which client PayNow me?

(18:09) Jeremy Au:

The answer yes, I guess.

(18:10) Jingjing Zhong:

No.

(18:11) Jeremy Au:

Well, From a sales perspective, I would say yes. From a technical perspective, it would be no.

(18:16) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah. So a lot of questions I get is oh, can your AI write the invoice for me? So the client will always get an invoice upfront. The answer is obviously no, cause that's a finance accounting. Can your AI do your books? Then I will always tell them, this is AI salesman. AI salesman does not create an invoice for you but AI salesman does sales, which means quote, and then which means trying to understand the scope and ,then trying to quote with the client and align the scheduling So if I go from a problem approach, that helps company to understand, okay, what's the job to be done here? So I always go back to tell them this is a problem, And instead of telling them AI can do all, let them take the conversation and go all the way around. But there's a huge education piece of it doing my sales process because these companies, they don't really understand technology. So a lot of time I have to draw the diagram from the first touch points from the clients to let's say payment, to even after sales, customer support, that's a huge touch points, a whole journey there. So without being the industry expert, I struggle to think anyone can do this. And once I walked them through it, we kind of just sell it ourselves. They want to work with us because they can see that we're an industry expert.

(19:30) Jeremy Au:

What's the benefits of implementing AI for a service company? What is that maybe qualitatively and quantitatively?

(19:36) Jingjing Zhong:

So number one, immediately they see their sales conversion increase. So the CAC would decrease. That's number one. Number two, you can see their employees are getting upgraded as well. Employees, they start to understand what LLM can do, what LLM can not do. And with that, they can give us a lot more feedback for us to tune the model for every single client that we have. And then, they're also getting used to it as well. So for example, one of my clients on Sunday morning, he woke up. He's like, bro, I woke up with 10 leads. Previously, I woke up with 40 unanswered messages. It's a huge difference. And we have another client. We switch AI off for a week. They have three customer support agents on the ground. They're like messaging us. Can you switch it back, please? We are so busy right now. I look at the conversations. It's just like we're so busy answering all the questions. We have to do the mental math for all the packages that they're doing. So like they really see the value add in employees. They can spend more time dealing with clients who really needs their help, for example, elderly care. But instead of answering basic question, Oh, can you serve Choa Chu Kang? Do you bring cleaning tools? Things like this. So, these are the two main things that we've been seeing.

(20:46) Jeremy Au:

What do you think is the dream AI you think for a service business from your perspective?

(20:50) Jingjing Zhong:

I think we really want to be the single source of truth for these companies, meaning, all the data will be sitting with us and for an operator, previously, you need to know which tool you need to go to find certain information. They have to learn, okay, click this, click this, click this. Then you get the customer transaction. In the future, just ask, they don't have to know where to go to look for certain information, they just ask and information will be served to them.

(21:17) Jeremy Au:

When you think about the future, what do you think needs to be built because, you see LLMs getting more advanced, et cetera, et cetera. What do you think is the easy part that you think the future will bring and why the harder parts that the future wil find it more difficult to break?

(21:31) Jingjing Zhong:

Ideally, every single company will have their BI team, have all the data at one place, structured, unstructured, right? Ideally. However, for these home services, they have no SOP. They don't really have any history. All their CRM convert, all their CRM are sitting on WhatsApp, so they have no data points whatsoever. Then what happens is for us, part of our job is to really start collecting data for them. And then slowly would become the single source of truth and then they can use this, let's say the brain to start making a lot more business decisions because this cannot be replaced by AI or anything. You as a business owner, setting the strategy for the company, still, crucial for the business, right? But what insights can you extract from the history to help you to make that decision? I think this is what we're trying to get to.

(22:20) Jeremy Au:

And when you think about this product roadmap that you're building, what are the things that you're going to be building?

(22:24) Jingjing Zhong:

So step one, collecting data. And if you think about the first touch points is sales. And when you want to do sales right, there's a scheduling component because in the service industry, sales is incomplete without scheduling. You want a haircut appointment. Hey, I want a haircut. Sure. When? You need to know when and where. So for that, we need the client's information as well as the service providers' information. We're starting with collecting the client's information. We're halfway there. And with the service providers information, that means a combination of the company's information as well as the service providers whereabouts. Once we have all these together, we have all the data that we need to be a brain.

(23:02) Jeremy Au:

You know, What's interesting is that obviously, there's always that debate between verticalized SaaS, right? Just, being the SaaS for one industry, which is, this case, home services or other service companies. It's kind of like horizontally, which is for example, salesperson, but for multiple industries, how do you see this differentiation from your perspective?

(23:18) Jingjing Zhong:

I'm obviously pro-vertical SaaS from my experience. What I'm seeing is that these SMEs, either they just use WhatsApp as the only tool that they work with clients, or they have a combination of four tools, at least to serve their entire customer base. So you see the two extreme, right? The one tool provider trying to level themselves up. So they're looking at tools that can help them with a specific problem. Or there's another company that has four different tools. Agents, they're copy and pasting for every single tool. They don't really understand how to use Zapier. Or a lot of time when they're choosing they're not thinking about the linkage. How do I link them? So end up choosing tools that's the cheapest, with no API, with no Zapier link. So they're pretty much stuck there. Or you see another type. They're, more established business. They would take the government grant to build their own customized solution. They're stuck there, right? Cause they already invested it and there's no way for them to drop that cause they feel very proud with their own technology, even if it's very buggy.

So, what we're trying to do is to bridge the gap of the four different tools company. They're already using, let's say four or five tools to run the business. We try to kind of bring that, okay, for these four tools, first, I'm going to drop your booking funnel one, and then drop your scheduling one, then next we'll integrate with your payment, with your invoicing, eventually, this becomes something that kind of the. single source of truth for running your whole company. Instead of you have to go through, Oh for scheduling, you have to go to Jobber. For sales, you have to go to Acuity. For invoice, you have to go to Zoho eventually accounting Xero. So it's a lot for a service company to deal with. At each department, they don't talk to each other. That's horrible. Sales team doesn't know their sales number. Accounting team doesn't know the sales team's numbers. It's not very good for running a home services like this.

(25:05) Jeremy Au:

When we think about this kind of problem, is there a certain scale that it really kicks off? Or you think it happens from a small scale as well because I think services business, you see like single person shops, which I assume this problem happens, all the way to 10. And I also feel like service businesses also tend to have a natural plateau for how big they can get. Because, they're primarily using human who talk to each other as well.

(25:25) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah. For Singapore context is quite easy. So the, the turning point is when they have to be GST registered.

(25:32) Jeremy Au:

Oh. Why?

(25:33) Jingjing Zhong:

Because that's 1 million revenue, right? They have to decide, okay, do I want to go over 1 million? Do I really want to grow? Because the moment you go over 1 million, let's say you make 1. your unit economic will shrink by a lot. So the moment they decided that, okay, I want to grow to, let's say, over the GST curve, then they're growing a lot faster than when they decided, okay, I just want to stay within 1 million. I don't want to be a big company, then they're perpetually stuck there. So what I'm looking for are those companies who will go through the 1 million mark and really trying to be GST registered, right?

The moment they are, they feel the pressure because the moment that's nine, 10 percent is gone from the revenue. Then anything about how can I reduce my costs. How can I increase my revenue? Cause they still have all these salary to pay the liabilities there. So that's when the business owners start thinking about how to run a proper business, than putting fires out every single

(26:28) Jeremy Au:

Yeah. On that note, I was just wondering, could you share about a time that you personally have been brave?

(26:32) Jingjing Zhong:

Okay. You know how people talk about investment banking, you make a lot of money. Back then it was real struggle to let go of a job that has so much fame and so much kind of leave the money on the table kind of feeling. I left that job even without not getting bonus because that's how miserable I was. And I decided that even if I was in a path to success in other people's definition, but eventually if I'm not happy, I don't think that's success in my own definition. So I decided to do things that would really make me feel better as a person than making more money. And then later I realized if you do things that you really enjoy, money will come. This has been my motto ever since. Just find your passion and do things you love and money, fame, whatever. That's the by product for doing something that you enjoy.

(27:23) Jeremy Au:

When you think about that you know about doing work that you enjoy, the money you follow, how do you think that has shown up in your life?

(27:29) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah, definitely. For one, at Helpling, when I first joined, Helpling, I was getting 5k a month. Sing. that difference from being an investment banker to 5k a month, right? But then because I was doing a great job, so I get a salary increase like very frequent. And then, obviously later, become a GM of the company and running a huge P&L. Obviously you see that translated in a financial perspective. And also when I start building Superbench, I think we had this discussion previously. I wanted to bootstrap, but then every day I wake up with three, four investors just slide into my DM. I took that as a sign to start fundraising.

And I just talked to these people and solely refine my pitch. And solely my round was completely oversubscribed. I had to open up a second tranche because it doesn't make sense for me to sell the company at a really cheap price. So, that really just translate into this. My, my CTO thought, why are you fundraising every single day? I'm like, Look at my calendar. it's all inbound. I'm not doing any outbound. So I think I'm extremely lucky to be in a position, especially in the current funding market to be kind of just taking all these inbound kind of inquiries, from VCs and angels, then me have to do go through the list doing all the outbound. So I'm very grateful for the experience and this is where I feel like following the flow of life really make a lot more sense.

(28:53) Jeremy Au:

On that note, thank you so much for sharing. I'd love to summarize the three big takeaways to note of. The first is thank you so much for sharing about I guess your university days, but also, why you decided to join banking for money, but also a little bit about yourself about how you made some of those decisions along the way.

And secondly, thanks for sharing about your time as a GM and really kind of sharing about what you learned about Helpling, but also about what are the skill sets about needing to firefight and the plan and the zoom out at the same time.

Lastly, thanks so much for sharing about what you've learned from building an AI startup that is servicing service businesses. And I really appreciate you doing all of that. Before I wrap up, I understand that you also have a podcast for service businesses. Do you want to share people to where they can go to?

(29:34) Jingjing Zhong:

Yeah. So you can just go to YouTube slash service business show to find the show. So the reason I started the service business show is whenever I'm down, my boyfriend just talk about, think about the pest control business. I immediately, my motivation goes up. I was like, okay, let's do things that boosts my energy by talking to more service people. And I want the rest of industry hear directly from these business owners. This is a gold mine. Anyone who comes in, I'm telling you, I can help you to make, go from zero to 200k revenue in a month. Can you believe that?

(30:06) Jeremy Au:

Wow. It sounds like you have a cost and a book to write. Okay. On that note, thank you so much. Jing Jing for sharing. I appreciate it.

(30:13) Jingjing Zhong:

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Really enjoyed talking to you, Jeremy.