"People walked away from $50 million transactions because they felt like they could go much higher, much faster. Unfortunately, almost all the stories I know of, when they walked away, they ran out of runway. It is zero. An outcome is an outcome, and founders should not look down on it."
"The ones that are doing well, the ones that are continuing to get investor interest and scale, are the ones that had the unit economics fundamentals correct from the start. A market like Southeast Asia is going to require businesses that have a good gross margin because they cannot be over-reliant on venture capital for too long."
"The proximity in Southeast Asia has, for the first time in a long time, become an asset, not a liability. In AI, you build a moat really fast, but you lose it really fast if you are doing something global and generic. The Southeast Asia opportunity allows you to build a moat very deeply in specific verticals like agriculture and waste management."
Keywords: Southeast Asia Venture Capital, Startup Unit Economics, Artificial Intelligence in SEA, Micro Private Equity, Tech Startup Exits, Tech Layoffs and AI Automation, Southeast Asia AI Moats
