Introducing NinjaPear Learn more
World's laziest CEO. Before starting the highly-successful Proxycurl and Sapiengraph, Steven founded 5 other startups: Gom VPN, Kloudsec, SilvrBullet, NuMoney, and SharedHere.
I started the Sapiengraph effort by hiring a small sales unit. Historically, I always built the product first then attempt to sell it. The risks are obvious. I might invest months on a product that nobody wants. With sales first, I let the market decide instead. Besides, knowing myself and
In my second meeting with an angel investor, he told me straight up that he is not sure what exactly we are selling.
Last week, I dropped a job specification for our design team to design a demo for our facial recognition demo. The demo does two things with photos: 1. To search for a face 2. To add a face to the database The "Train" buttonFor Feature #2, the designer
"What is in it for you" - Do not sell. Instead, tell your prospect straight up what he stands to gain.
The origin story of how I decided to build my own company
A designer with a soft pink cap. A programmer with a hair bun. These Indonesians have been growing proportionally in my product team. We speak different native languages, but we barter in the same currency -- respect. Despite dedicating an entire post [https://nubela.co/blog/your-first-reaction-is-a-snort-of-air-out-your-nose-with-a-half-smile/] deconstructing why I
This post is hard to write because it means I have to come to terms with my autistic tendencies. But if I am honest with myself, blaming it to autism makes for a poor excuse. If I have to be candid, I will say I am an asshole. But it
No, it is not the early onset of Alzheimer's [https://nubela.co/blog/i-have-early-onset-of-alzheimers/]. It was honest to goodness forgetfulness. I am making it up right now. But it does tie in nicely with what I was ruminating about yesterday. I should slow down. What I have been
Last week marked the start of the fund-raising process. It was a fruitful week, and it has shaped the work ahead of me in the subsequent weeks. This post is a summary of my thoughts. Funds as comfort; funds as a weapon I am raising funds for Sapiengraph because * I
I am a Singaporean with chutzpah [https://www.yourdictionary.com/chutzpah]. A Jewish term for near-arrogant bravado. As a Singaporean Chinese living in a Confucian society, it is not an easy trait to carry. But I carry my chutzpah proudly on my sleeve. In the past, my near-arrogant bravado has
Yesterday, I texted a particular NUS professor seeking an introduction to a specific angel investor. That turned out to be a dud as the professor was not acquainted. And I followed up by asking: > do you know of anyone with deep pockets who like engineers, whom I should meet?
So I pitched to a VC today, and I got a same-day response after sending over the deck. > We usually invest at Series A and often write cheques of $2-3mil for a start. Perhaps we can continue to monitor your progress? If I was any younger, I might have
I am from the special forces, not because I served as a Naval Diver, but because my company operates as a small but lethal team. Two years ago, when it was just Bach and me, we built a database of businesses in the Asia Pacific region. Complete with employees, their
This is my favorite question for people (over drinks). I will like to think that the craziest act that you sought out willingly defines who you are as a person. And this is important to me because I seek rebels. Rebels do whatever it takes to get to the destination
In the last month, I lost : * My car keys. It cost me $900 to replace it, thank you BMW. * Not one, but two Stojo cups. One of it got caught in my car's convertible top because I drove off while opening the soft top. * My Mi Band 4.
Some things cannot be rushed. I bought a few shrimps for my tank yesterday. And I have been drip acclimatizing them with water from their new home. But somehow, they are not grazing as they should. Something must be wrong So I took out the test kit that I have
Two weeks ago, I announced that I was going raise 900,000USD for Sapiengraph. I am raising funds because I believe there is a serious opportunity for (your) data that will disappear from the public domain in the next ten years. Yes, I am referring to those very public Instagram
I have an irrational hatred for bureaucracy. It is probably why I always find bones to pick with the civil service. But bureaucracy is only the symptom. What I truly have an issue with is inefficiency. Centralized systems are efficient There is a reason why the internet has been converging
This is a rewrite of my original post by which I extolled the need for you not to build your business on somebody else's business. Instead, I have rewritten it to include an obsession of mine. I am obsessed with a censorship-resilient infrastructure. It stems from my liberal
My staff and I were debating if Grab falls under our target audience, and she insisted that she had written Grab down previously and I had shot down the idea. Then I asked, but if you believed in it, why did you not argue your point? > Because that would
The new developer in the office encountered a development issue today, and he posted his question on Slack. The CTO stepped in and helped. But the new developer repeated the problem again and again. The bug seemed like it an issue with the deployment made by the CTO. The CTO
Our office is huge, and I carved out the empty portion of the office which had some empty tables lying around to offset our rent. We have a new tenant moving in their stuff today, and the entire office was messy with their stuff lying all around. They had initially
Nubela is founded by Steven Goh (myself) from the revenue of the company's first product - Gom VPN. I built Gom VPN as a response to MDA"s filter to block porn in Singapore. And Gom VPN is a Chrome Extension that allowed the user to bypass
Today is the last day for 18-year-old Scott at LandX. So I will dedicate my blog post today to celebrate Scott. How we found Scott We found Scott because Jerrell and Scott are close friends and Jerrell was an intern at NuMoney then. It was crunch time, and we needed
I am not good at fund-raising mostly because I struggle to empathize with investors. The genius of Elon Musk Elon Musk is a helluva entrepreneur. I do not agree with everything he does, but there is one thing I admire about him -- his ability to don the investor hat,
