 recently or still happening. Let me tell you a little bit more about our first speaker, Walter. I think I met Walter a few years ago when I decided to support Boxscreen and I've been subscribed to that service ever since. Delicious yumminess in really personality full packaging. And I think Walter is very much like that as well, a personality full packaging, bringing a lot of energy and laughter to the events that he organized. It doesn't stay here but he used to be part of start-up grinds and that's why I knew him too. Okay so he says he works with a bunch of squirrels and I think they do have that kind of excitement towards life and towards their work. But maybe he will say otherwise. Okay please welcome Walter. Thank you, thank you. Can everybody hear me? Hey are we good? What's a big crowd actually? It's been a while since I spoke to such a big, sure. Just before I start I think big thanks to Angela for inviting me here. I think the biggest reason is also she's been a really a bit supporter of Boxscreen. We kind of started out two years ago. It's been half years ago and she's one of the very first few subscribers to the service and even up to today she's still you know with us and she's given us a lot of input. Every time we send a feedback form she's the first to comment you know how awesome the packaging is you know we finish up the snacks blah blah blah blah blah so it's really awesome to have Angela to be supporting me. So yeah I think you guys kind of know what I do already. So Boxscreen is a, I was just looking back again you know when we talk about technology food company blah blah blah I think that's kind of like the first like fuck up of the night because that's kind of like the pitch we send it to our investors. They'd like to know that there's a technology angle so you position yourself as a technology startup and that's why I probably need to re-look at the profile before I send it over in the future. So yeah I mean Boxscreen we are in the business of helping people snack good and it started when me myself and my partner Andrew we were both in the financial sector you know you graduate and then you want to get a good job in the bank and then you work long hours in investment banking. The very traditional route and the truth is you sit for 12 hours a day and you kind of like binge eat whatever that's there. The chocolate, the Kit Kats, the Oreos is there and you just like open it up when you're stressed. So we thought like you know it wouldn't be nice if someone would send us something healthy. It was during like a lunch break that I had this conversation with Andrew. So the wouldn't it be nice if someone would send us something healthy every week or month. So at the very night I went to buy the domain my partner is called Andrew so I went to buy the domain Andrewsnuts.com. I know not the best choice because if you Google Andrews nuts it turns out you know the Google images shows a lot of different things. And I kind of like okay let's MVP right you know you look at TechCrunch and you read all these articles and you're like okay let's MVP. It means Minimal Viable Product. You launch something quickly and you know see what happens. So I put in a PayPal button and on the site if you go to Andrewsnuts.com it's still there by the way it's really ugly. You can still buy a box from the site but yeah and it grew from there you know to many people our friends subscribe and then it was like it was when a company kind of called in and asked like hey you guys can you fill up the pantry for us. We are looking for healthy snacks and then I was like all right time to quit my job and then I quit my job. So I think the first struggle that I really had you know really was like like any other graduate nowadays. I think back then finance was still kind of like the big thing and especially Singapore being a financial hub. It's always good to come back and work in the financial. I mean I'm not sure how many of you are like in the finance industry here anyone anyone yeah yeah you know good money but you know probably non-stop right. So the leap of faith was really like kind of crazy. I had a lot of struggles when I first started. Even the first few months I'm always telling my wife like you know what am I doing am I crazy. And then the first year especially I kept asking myself you know I'm really like taking a pay cut and I'm so miserable and I'm working out this like my bedroom shipping out the snacks really you know and my friends my peers you know they're just getting raised and get more promotion every year and and so it's really like the first year was really tough in terms of the mental side of things. I think every entrepreneur kind of goes through the same thing. It's it's easy because your peers are like stable job and you are here selling peanuts. You give up a job in a in a bank really good one to sell peanuts right. So took a while but even up to today I think for entrepreneurs every time you hit a roadblock you're kind of always questioning yourself why are you doing this. So yeah I'm still figuring it out actually so I'm no different from you guys. So yeah I think it's very classic example of what you know okay so this this whole thing I got a confession I kind of did it like only yesterday Angela has been chasing chasing chasing but yeah I was thinking you know what's the best way to kind of tell the story to everybody I think keeping it to all memes would be the best way to show how fuck ups happens. So the very classic scenario is everyone thinks you're doling in cash and then you know my mom thinks okay my mom actually don't think my mom thinks I'm crazy to quit my job and every every every month or every year it's kind of like reminding me whether like it's a good choice you know go back and get the job you know it's stable and blah blah blah. So and then the media like you say you know if you look at Tech in Asia, Balkan Post, yeah very successful businesses, we raise X million dollars, we raise 20 million, blah blah blah. So it's all like yeah that's how it works so that's what the media thinks and then again you kind of have to drink your own Kool-Aid and feel like you're changing the world you're doing something great at the same time but actually you know it goes back down to packing the nuts and sourcing and packing and doing the dirty work. So yeah at the end I think a lot of it is very mental and yeah this is pretty much the life of an entrepreneur. It may look glorious but once the article is over you get back to work it's back to the grind. So yeah I think the first part of what I've done so far I was like every other entrepreneur got to get on media, got to get on Tech in Asia, got to get all the media to cover us, got to raise some funds show people we have money, hire a great team and grow. So you know that's what I started out to do right after I quit my job and I was fortunate enough I mean there were there were investors who liked the model but the road to getting there if I would go back in time I would say it's not worth it it's very brutal you know you kind of like go through multiple investors who don't really know about what you do they have their own opinion they kind of smash you telling you does anyone even eat this you know they look at the packaging so yeah but eventually we got funding and it's a blessing and because at the same time I think even in the media they talk about you know venture capital it's kind of like a form of drugs because once you take it you keep on taking it you know and a big part of the business is once you take for example if you have a million dollar in your bank what you do next right you have to deploy the capital and a lot of times inexperienced founders even myself included you kind of don't manage the money very well so you either build a team too quickly or you kind of say like take this do this take this do we got to show the numbers so again I think the media I think after a year whatever you read on TechCrunch I'm not sure if there's anybody from tech in Asia here but take it with a pinch of salt it's always 40 40% you know it's like people writing adding good things on it but I think the fundamentals still stays that article is great people say good job on your Facebook post but after that you know it's back to work again so the funding scenario again I think one of the businessmen actually gave me a really good advice you know venture capital actually came about only in the 1970s actually it's when you know when Intel was coming there's a semiconductor and they needed money and really comes back back again from the pharmaceutical industry where if you want to invent a drug cure cancer you need to hire a bunch of really smart people spend five years working on it and maybe you don't even get a cure so that's that's what it is you know it's a gamble and you need to hire good people so but you know as startups evolved and up to now you know it seems very normal that every startup needs to get some sort of funding to kind of reaffirm that themselves but the way businesses have been done 100 years or thousand years ago is you got to be able to be profitable and that's how you kind of feed the team right and grow sustainably so yeah I think funding it's it's a big it's a big thing out there it still is I think Singapore especially you will never be short of investors wanting to hear about you but you know the whole process can be pretty brutal yeah and then you know I went out got a bunch of people hired bunch of people we have a nutritionist we have a designer we have sales people the marketing team of like so right now you're a team of 15 working with us the great people young people but again being an inexperienced founder you kind of learn like a used to be I'm doing the sales I kind of go out and drive the sales and then you know when it comes down to managing a bunch of 15 people maybe 75 percent are millennials it's a different ballgame altogether expectations change so you know culture so yeah I mean culture things happens I think these are some of the foundation that we have set up to do you know we didn't really iron down what's our value so it's our mission and those things you know for a founder you just want to focus on growth right and it comes back to bite you you know and then when you have a great team of four people used to be working in a desk and make the decisions and then we have a team of 20 people everyone's and you don't talk them on day-to-day basis people start to create their own version of box screen you know I like this a little bit cuter I like this a little bit you know you know this copy I don't like it and then what does I don't like it mean right everyone has their version of I like it I don't like it so it becomes a little bit subjective so yeah it turns out you know we have that conflict with our marketing team and people kind of like have their own say or what box screen is about and you know you can start everyone work really hard so for sure no one nobody's lazing around right but everyone's going their own ways so you know that's something I've never thought about it before because you know that's the last thing that'll be on my mind I'm pretty focused on growing the top line of the business so yeah and when you have one person that's unhappy you go to a team of a you kind of get like starts to grow and you get a few disgruntled employees who don't believe or they don't understand what the founders are trying to do and especially for a startup it's never a clear path you know one day you may want to try this one day you want to try that different strategies so even for us now we are still experimenting I think a big part is it's experimenting around what we can do to grow the business so yeah and then you know morale gets low if you kind of have to let people go it's just what's the case because it's affecting everybody and then when you kind of step back and you realize you know the founders have to kind of lead lead that whole mission and values thing again we're gonna ask them so why are we doing this right why are we selling nuts again so we come back again asking ourselves why right I mean it's easy why why go through the trouble and and then it's a big team and it's trying to understand each people you know firing someone is always done and we did that just last month so it's the hardest things that hardest thing I've ever ever done because it's a talented person I almost had like I never have gastric you know and you know when I was about to let a person go I actually had it and that feeling is sound it's really horrible it's not something I want to go through again so you know the learning is again you know when you hire someone it's your responsibility whether it turns out to be good or bad it's the founders responsibility at the end of the day so yeah it was tough you know it's a talented person but has you know cultural or attitude issues with the company so what do you do right if it affects everybody in a room or in you know the energy spreads you know I think a big part of why we are here because you know I can sense great vibes great energy with the people and the crowd is is great so if it's a smaller team with a company of 10 or 15 it can be felt even more so we have to make that call and and that happened so again it comes back to the founders now kind of re-looking at our values kind of driving it out with the team what box screen is gonna be about so again when we start when you're starting from nothing you say the only way it's up right yeah so I think when we come back to understand what we are doing at the end of the day box screen is all about snacking good treating good about your body and also doing good at the same time so from the onset of why we started this business we always wanted to give back you know you are being a banker being in a very privileged position I kind of felt like okay we have the luxury to order all these lifestyle products but you know when I volunteered a soup kitchen I kind of understand like you know some people can't even afford their three meals and we so for every box that we sell we pledge about a meal equivalent which is about 2.5 percent of our revenue to willing hearts or whichever market they were in so and really Tony is the founder of willing hearts if you haven't been there you should you just walk in and you can start cooking and packing and without any restrictions and the guy was cool because for every dollar that goes in there I think 90% of it really goes to the end the beneficiaries so yeah so we came back again to doing good wanting to do good I think it's similar to the hubs believe it's sustainable growth and when I came back again it's do we need to raise the series a do we need to do what the startups are doing do like a 2 million series a and then you know hire more people and grow and then do that story but at the end it's at a cost for sure of the employees they have to work doubly hard they have to figure it out you have to show the money is being used so it's not sustainable at all and you know a box screen doing good means just being sustainable so we set out you know to find out what it what that's doing good mean right so I borrow books from Tom's Bobby Parker charity water even understanding is that the backstory of Ben and Jerry's trying to understand how they started the business and really you know our story is no different again wanting to do something good too crazy guys bought a domain name Andrews nuts growing the business as it is and ultimately wanting to see you know can this brand actually resonate better in the community that we are in so yeah it's the last month we we have a cop certified it's a it's a certification bought from the value from the US so they kind of look at sustainable or social businesses with a cost and yeah it's double bottom line as well and yeah we are proud to be one of these so if you go on be called you'll be able to find our profile up there by the end of the month yeah so they have a very stringent process yeah funny thing is when they arrange the meeting they didn't take into account that it was in Asia timing so we had to do the we had to do the assessment in like 3 a.m. and they go through every single question so it took about three hours yeah so yeah we're happy now I think a big part of it is we are part of be called I think it's just the beginning we still have a lot more to do to tell and doing good it's not just to the community is to the company so the employees is to how we source sustainably as possibly as we can be environmentally friendly in our packaging etc etc so yeah I think the bottom line now is we're still like any other startup burning money and we're close to doing that I think we're close to profitability I think we have switched gears a bit to kind of be sustainable so we are targeting to be profitable by NLQ2 and again it's not just about go go go go spend the money and grow right I think when investors talk to us the real people who are interested in us are the people who believe in the story and what good that we're trying to do so yeah I think at the end of the day we and in July it'll be our third year birthday so we're still around it's all about staying alive and having fun at the same time yeah so this is our team we do this at every quarterly we go to willing hearts to volunteer as well and yeah it's it's a it's a small I wouldn't say small but it's okay team I think right now we're still kind of in the process of rebuilding the team yeah and again happy to answer any questions that you guys have thanks as you are thinking about your questions I need to do a quick remodel so if you are sitting in this area could you please pull your chair slightly forward if you're the by the door make your way in this area you can't see but you can hear really well and there's more air conditioning or you can wait we'll be pulling out a couple more chairs we can come up to this area and there are two wonderful chairs right up here in the front okay let's get everyone moved in into the cool space of the room probably did there are two chairs up here is that another chair someone there oh one more okay we have a third chair we have one more chair up here you're welcome to sit on the floor if you'd like it's okay finding something to lean on there's another one more chair here we're finding somewhere where you can stay for a little while maybe just make sure you shift from side to side fantastic now you have an opportunity to ask Walter some questions I really love what he said about doing good to the company and to the people in it as well I think sometimes when we work in social entrepreneurship it's easier to forget that perhaps I can start what what made it so difficult to hire to fire that person what did you think or feel that made it difficult I pretty much like to put myself and always in the other person's shoes I think nobody and I mean not nobody everybody will remember the day that they are fired if they ever get fired I think it's one of those things that will forever be in your memory even then if I imagine myself being fired yeah I'll probably remember my boss and that douchebag or whoever is fired me right for the rest of my life and it was really difficult because again on what premise do we you know do we on what grounds do we do that like just saying cultural fit is a very vague term to let someone go right but you can feel the energy and sometimes when the energy gets toxic people don't dare to speak up or people sort of tune off you know they start you know just not not caring about anything else you don't contribute ideas and that's where you feel like something needs to change and when you go to the root cause of the problem if it's one person they may have good intentions but they are not doing it well it becomes hard because it's it's more like a character thing and when we always try to preach about hiring for character train for skills I think we didn't we didn't live up to that standard so for me I felt really bad not not holding up to that principle as well and at the end of the day yeah really you know the whole team or the people that join us they don't know anything when they join box screen or startup but they learn along the way and I think that's the spirit so when someone comes in and have that skills and they are doing it over others and throwing it in a different way it makes people uncomfortable and that's our culture we are willing to sacrifice a little bit of growth but you know to help everyone move on to do greater things so yeah the hardest really putting myself in their shoes and kind of trying to feel like how like understand how she'll feel and yeah to me you will have to do it yourself to to find out it's not easy yeah and do it amicably sometimes you know you can say it's professional but at the end of the day people are still losing their job and to me you know we hired to give them a chance to work on something interesting and exciting and then being left behind it's always a case yeah yeah I can hear you I guess the big part is even now as a founder a lot of things that's not being said again is the mental condition that the founder has to go through a big part of it is you have to be strong but at the same time you don't really know anything right I mean even to be honest for me every day is a learning trying to make a decision on what to go next for box screen so I'll say if you would like an example of really what fucked up I think you know even our series A funding didn't go very well you know I spent the last March trying to race around but again the funding situation changed our numbers don't don't add up not good enough people like to invest in robotics AI nowadays is the flavor of the month instead of a food tag company that's trying to make e-commerce you know maybe five years ago e-commerce works you know you can get funding for that but nowadays you know you better have an AI or a botanical to kind of get something I mean investors are still nice to us as you talk to us but you know you kind of know like you know you think back again do you want to you know why not just change it into a platform and bring all the social brands social entrepreneurship like companies who are doing social good on to the platform and start selling it you know since you have the reach things like this that you have to do it you have to you have to weigh the balance so for me I felt like okay maybe the fundraising isn't gonna work probably run out of money in six months if we things carry on like this so we have to tell the team right like guys can't do this anymore oops and thankfully there are people who are who are who are leaving who have left I think they're kind of cut trims out of the fat but yeah I would say the fundraising is not an all I think it's just a perspective thing but I'm sure people are hoping for me to raise fund I think like if you join a startup you are hoping to start up raise more money you move in the better office and then you know the team becomes so big can tell people like you know you know you're in a big company like you know carousel or red mud I know etc right so but again we can come back to us ourselves we want to do do it and the answer it's no so for me I think fundraising will take it as it comes yep so I think when people come to fuck up nice there's an image of fuck up that's like an explosion it's a thing that happened instantaneously in one moment one mistake that triggered everything but here we we brought in the definition of fuck up a little bit to include doing things that you don't want to do and doing it for quite a long time things that look successful in the outside and just hiding all of the terrible sides to it not being honest with the team and just taking on the burden themselves these are all fuck ups in a different way they're not so big and explosive they're kind of like a constant nagging thing like a thorn that stuck yeah so we're including those and I think we have those more as well other questions right now I think a big part is always thinking about the hardest part is what to do next for the company it's still a young company honestly everyone is you're kind of throwing everything on the wall and see what sticks so one moment we kind of have this snack delivery service and the next moment we want to see oh vending machine looks like it's just an opportunity then we go in to do that so I think the hardest thing is trying to find like a clear you know path on what to do next and it's easy to kind of like spread ourselves too thin and you know you just want to do everything by the same time you know we just had a Mandarin gallery and I'll let just a small pop-up at Orchard Mandarin gallery and okay that was like a fuck up honestly so so we were like hey let's try retail right we got a space and you know those guys are great enough to pay for the rent for a month and do up all the the decorations and then all the interior design so we went in knowing like yes yes it's time for like you know from clicks to bricks you know online to offline you know the buzzwords and then the startups can go in there and do all this but you know the reality is we're not ready for retail at all we went in there we you know retail is really tough because you got to have someone there from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. we don't have the resource to hire anybody there so guess what everyone says like you know teamwork everyone takes shift so I created a timetable and make everybody put in hours to put to kind of man the store and you know when someone goes in there again what's the objective of it is it just to have fun or try or what right it wasn't clear enough on a strategy part of things so we went in there and it was miserable as hell we didn't know what we're doing people didn't want to come in we don't know you know we are on the third floor which has zero traffic so it's really hard you know just opposite us is the victorious secret like warehouse so those ladies are like pushing things out every time and then they just come in and buy stuff so it just ended last week it but it was a reminder that you know to think things through a little bit more especially you know for online you can test and try but for things like offline there are way more things involved like if you want to plan for a retail outlet you could have all the blueprint ready and then and this is different be sold together so as much as we would like to MVP and do it I think it kind of burned us people are burned out people on weekends we have to go to the shop and sit down even though there's nobody you know and those are not like fun stuff honestly and you know when someone walks in you always have to put up a smile and welcome them to try so you know yeah that's a legit fuck up and every day the hardest thing is to think about what to do next and what opportunity presents itself do you take it or not there's someone there should we like just do it you're good okay okay unless it's a burning question thanks everyone enjoy the night