 It was Grace Sy, you might have seen her around the hub. She's not normally a model, but I think in some context she does, she does look like one. Grace Sy is the founder and CEO here at the hub and I hope that just by being in this space you feel the courage, the contagious courage that we try to create here. She's a social entrepreneur pioneer creating more opportunities for social entrepreneurs, guiding people along the way and she also has inputs with the Singapore Prime Minister's office and the Malaysian government and she also loves skiing and diving so with nothing else those are two things you can talk about with her afterwards. Please welcome Grace Sy. Okay, hi good evening everyone. This is really strange because for those of you who have attended my talks and stuff and my team you know that public speaking is second nature for me, but speaking about your mistakes and your failures and your workouts on home ground is another story, right? So I'm extra close today because I have to terribly make it. I have done a similar talk like that two years ago in Vancouver, in Vancouver stress failure week where you talk about your failures and I took one day to write that speech and my boyfriend at that time was like, what's wrong with you? Usually we pop a deck in an hour, right? And it was very difficult to try to verbalize your failures so events like that is really necessary especially in Singapore because by verbalizing it you are removing yourself from it and really you know begin to make sense of it and sharing it as well is like a closed loop. So today for this talk I took one hour not one day so even that you learn it can be learned, right? Just as great and perseverance can be learned talking about your mistakes can be learned so tonight I'm going to talk about four fuckups and as my team will know I don't like anything in lists of fours or six everything is in three or five or seven but since it's a fuckup night we can do four and put this clown here because usually an entrepreneur you know the heroism around built around the successful founder is quite sexy, right? It's the happy circus go-go the clown kind of thing but the other side of the other face the clown is the eight clown. Have you watched that movie? So that eight clown is a haunted clown that comes and creeps out of your bathroom holes and scares you at night and you're in your shower room so there's always two sides to entrepreneurship and depending on how you want to take it it can be verbalized, right? Okay so first one. So I'm going to share with you a little bit of the inside story of the hub and I that many people don't know so the hub to me is the train and I am the track or I'm the I'm trying to lay the track as the train is coming and sometimes you can never expect or assume the speed of the train that is coming and you never know what materials to use to build the track and you're caught in the middle of it there's no way to stop the train. There's no way to stop a train, right? So I'm sure other founders you know through the same year laying the track as the train comes and sometimes as well you feel like they're just standing in the middle of the track as the train is approaching. So let's work out. Be careful who you go to bed with, right? When I was 10 years old mom always tells me Grace I will never ever want you to marry your first boyfriend I want you to have 10 boyfriends and then and then understand yourself your strengths and your weaknesses that only choose the husband, right? And also try your best to not have one accent. What did I do when I started the hub? Forget about all these advice, right? And to Adrian's point you know when you're a first time entrepreneur or when you're a young entrepreneur you always feel like no one is going to support your thing, right? And with the hub it was very different. You know four years ago when I was founding it everyone wanted this to happen. Everyone was so supportive. There was not a single person who said you shouldn't do this, right? So a lot of support, a lot of Fuku Ha Ha and then you know we came to talk of town all of a sudden. In the process in the in the back story you know there's so many pieces that need to come together because it's a very complicated business although it looks simple that's the real estate, that's the community, that's the investors and the co-founders and working with the government and things like that. So in the search of finding partners and co-founders to do this with before ending up with my current co-founder there were a lot of rounds and iterations of the wrong people you go to bed with, right? And so one of it was a lawyer. And I don't know for some reason just because I thought that he knew a lot that I don't, a lot of legal counsel advice kind of thing. I just gave him to 3% of the hub. Now you go like that, right? But I have no idea why I did it. I did it because I wanted to do to have proper governance and I didn't want the hub to just be about me but clearly once it's on paper it's fucked up because what happened was I had to spend one and a half years trying to bring it down to five percent as I have found the right people, right, to to be co-founders with and also to reward employees with functions. So this journey involved many more lawyers than I would want, a lot more time, a lot more emotional fatigue and yeah just lots of destruction away from from running the real business. And so you know first first advice really, do not have, what makes sense, do not go to bed with someone before dating, right? Cannot, you like, I like, we are that side of business together, right? In fact, in fact the the only time I found out with that guy that it was never meant to be was that I make him draw. So I brought A3 paper and crayons and make him draw the vision he had for the hub in five years and guess what? Drawings can't lie, right? You can you can try to ask that person in all scenarios even with alcohol and all that and it never comes up because it's not he's not trying to to hide anything, right? But with the crayon and a piece of paper our visions are so different and at the end of the day who's going to drive this, right? Who's going to eat bravely dream of this, so and and also you know he could be a nicer person, right? So that's that's when I know as well. So really take your time for first time founders, do not say yes even when you feel like it, you know get advice that time pass see over it and then slowly slowly choose who you go to pay with. Okay, sorry go back. So second second Falco, when when you start your company you need seed funding, right? And in my case I calculated normally you need three people to start a hub in one and a half years because as I said involves a lot of committee building before that. I wanted to be in seven months and so I worked for six months to save up money to not work for seven months so I can concentrate on this full time, right? Not to sacrifice. By the time it was six months there was no building, no investor, lots of community, lots of us but none of the important things. So I knew I needed more time and I was running out of personal cash, right? So it's either I keep up then or I press on and I was like what can bring me cash right now? What can I sell to bring cash? I look at my shoes, I look at my clothes, not that branded, right? Kind of go on crazy. So I thought hmm my mom can bake amazing food cakes and I went back to her, I bought her lots of ingredients for six months and I said mom I need you to make me 50 food cakes because food cakes are so amazing that there's one year pre-order okay before Christmas. So it's very very good and I knew I could sell food cakes with no comps, right? Because why I would force my 50 best friends to buy right? At the premium. So I sold each food cake at $100 and with that happy you know my best friend at that time. But it's very good right? And some people save it to Christmas. So you know with that money I could last for another two months and by then you know I've raised the seed round, I've gotten this building and and gotten the first 40 customers as well so few. So second more of the story, always raise double the amount of money that you think you need when it's your first time because you never know when it's an unproven model, you never know how long you'll take right? For people like us right, Alicia, myself and many more entrepreneurs here, we don't see what we do as a job, not even a career right? It's both it's a very personal thing for a lot of entrepreneurs, you really build an extension of yourselves. So there's no lying there and everything is on you right? Whether it makes or you make or break it. So for many of us it's almost a calling, it's almost a life mission where you have no choice but to do this. It's that kind of conviction and because of that as well you give a lot and you and you and you don't stop and you don't admit defeat, you don't admit weakness or fatigue right? And what happened was after one year of the hub being open, we had a team retreat in Ubud and it was then that my team kind of told me that I was burnt out, like completely burnt out, like completely tired. For two years my calendar was not owned by me anymore, it was just meetings after meetings and it's you know you just keep burning for other people and you don't replenish and also one thing I learned is that you can also ask for help from the community right? For the specific communities and from the team and for first time people maybe you don't ask for help as often as you should and you know since then I tried to do that more. So burnout fatigue being vulnerable as a strong entrepreneur is really a fine balance that we need to practice and get right. Okay the last one, the last one is actually a piece of news that we haven't shared publicly. For those of you who know, we have been trying to find a next home for our hubbers and for the hub and we've been looking for over 40 spaces for one year. Why? Because we have to keep it affordable, central, beautiful, everything everything right? Hubbers are very ready-minded and still they just want to pay 200 a month right? So we have to really get the real estate piece right and we cannot fuck that piece up for sure that's why we took so much time and finally an email from one of our 10,000 agents landed in an inbox that said oh that's this amazing 10,000 square feet space on Princess Street and five dollars per square foot is near four MRTs and then I'm like wow this feels right because I want it to be on one floor right now it's on two floors and sometimes that kills a thing a little bit although it isn't here. So you know I'm like okay this is really promising and we need to go and when things are meant to be things move fast right and we were signing the Tennessee Agreement by January we were working with the best interior designers in the country who did the tip and club next. So all these mock-ups designs were all done up we already spent a lot as well until at one point when we take a financial model we found out that the space was not 10,000 square feet and and for those of you who know know this business every square foot matters right and with that with that you know with that 10,000 we could do so much we wanted to build a yoga room for Angela to do her yoga class we wanted to buy a rowing machine we wanted to have a big immense space for 200 people and a cafe and workshop rooms and board rooms and all that kind of thing and like 10,000 team rooms for teams that have grown up from here and suddenly we found out that was only 8,000 square feet so it's a 20% hit right at a negotiated price for 10,000 and I just next like couldn't believe it like what the fuck what mistake did we make here the mistake was as simple as we did not fucking measure the space in all the in all the hype of preparing all the 1,000,000 other pieces to move and to grow you know we raised a series around with this and that with this and that before we measure the space and the landlord was actually renting the extra 2,000 as the void as the air because there's one center part that is nine meters from slack to slack and it was just air that we were renting and like fucking built me a mezzanine or don't charge me at 10,000 right um and then you know it he did not bend and so for two months lawyers were involved I wanted to put any junction on him and things like that but finally yeah next like everything is fine now um he he bends he bends ultimately at just charging for 8,000 so you can still keep your photo with your hubbers we are spending 1 million dollars on the renovation of the space so it's going to be really awesome um and yeah we've collected the keys and the knockdown is that so we're very very safe hands right now but you know problems never never stop happening and yeah I'll end there with the last thing so yeah I I don't know you know so that's why we need a community um like that I think and and also mentors to kind of help us out of problems so also go straight to drinks so it's not her right that 50% why are you grilling me in front of everyone sure great great question um I think the biggest change is really I'm tough enough so much like no no problem can really shock me anymore and you know when I was younger I did this when I was 26 right 27 when I founded the hub and it was like every challenge that came was like panic mode right shit I don't know this is new I don't know how to think about it but right now you know whatever that comes I'm like okay this is the problem there's always a way out there's always a way out and it's so important to also surround ourselves with smart people who have done things because you are really an average of the five people around you right or you're an average of the 50 people around you and by by you know designing who these people are you up yourself as well so just being more cautious about who who who you know I surround myself with in debate of 10 would you think it's fair to say that there should be also the possibility to go back to number six or is it always the last one which is the best one no you know it's a metaphor yeah yes it's definitely a metaphor um no the point there was that you need to see enough before you choose right you know don't jump just because at that moment you feel like it's a small one it's a small it's a right one when your universe is actually very small still right it's like it's just a mathematical thing what's the probability of getting something right when your sample size is very nine are training sorry nine are training to find the things with the right aspects the right issues topics and everything so if you choose you are educated enough yourself that you know that is right now yeah experience experience counts so much right so now if I do my next venture I know already what to look out for um you know what what kind of characteristics I'm presenting would match with me what are my weaknesses that I would want my co-founder to feel um also you know so even in hiring we see you know you you you kind of observe that you're improving along the way um as well if you keep an intentionality to keep learning each time of these softer things then yeah you do improve I think oh we never did it right 100% gut feeling it always there's always some nagging feeling like this is not 100% right and uh you then you just need to pull the plug just have to think of a you know a safe way for the truth to emerge right um and not attacking for example you know tell me what is a region really or you know um so you know that's where also you know it was an idea that came from a season entrepreneur so that's where you can borrow ideas on how people find out um and things like that but gut feeling hiring firing choosing people is always gut feeling all right okay all right last one last one yeah so um I want to ask a question about money yeah so this seems like you're uh half Singapore or like general advice just now is like where you get started get started up you raise money right so but for me personally uh my biggest fuck up was actually when I got actual busy funding yeah last year and it was my biggest fuck career I fucked up so many people's life because in the end it fell so what do you think about you know starting a startup and like the issue of raising enough money and where to draw the line okay that itself is a whole day of fundraising but in general I think in early early stages you try to get it from your the three s right family friends and fools right try to get from people who wouldn't kill you if you fuck it up um you need to have this kind of people in your life if not you're pretty sad right okay so so that's one always use the fff first and then use your own personal savings so you feel the pain and you feel the urgency right the second best funding source is is customers prepayment right I would I would leave VC money to the very end to be honest like step eight like choice number eight right we're only at second choice right now so if you can find a way to get your customers to prepay for for your product or your service that's also um um a very good way and then try to think of loans and convertibles and all this is always better than give a piece of yourself away in equity right and VCs you know you don't need to feel so bad for them because they are so used to taking ultra risk um because VCs aren't made to invest in startups I feel bad for my trust employees well that's what startups are right you know you go through you it's the journey and not the result and uh just invite them for a drink yeah we'll talk next week next week okay thanks thank you