"Network effects are actually one of the few things that are truly special about the digital world. And a part of it is because, for most digital stuff, the cost of replication is effectively 0, right? But if we talked about a USB thumb drive—if I use a thumb drive and you're also using a thumb drive—then actually both our experiences get better because we can swap files with each other, right? And so we see that a lot for ChatGPT as well. When you use ChatGPT—and I use ChatGPT—when you use ChatGPT, you are teaching the AI model how to respond to you. And because the AI is learning from you, my experience is getting better. So I want everybody to use ChatGPT because my experience will get better.” - Jeremy Au, Host of BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech Podcast" - Jeremy Au
"If you told me, “Hey Jeremy, you pay one dollar and you get 15 dollars back,” or if you put one dollar into buying land in Singapore and you're going to get 15 dollars back eventually in the next ten years, I'll be like, “Oh my god, I need to go get as much land as possible because it's a great deal,” right? Whereas if you tell me, “Hey Jeremy, you put in one dollar to buy land today, but you only get one dollar and ten cents after ten years,” I'll be like, “Forget about it, I’ve got other things to do with my life.” So I think understanding unit economics is very important because that explains why you see the phenomenon of many startups that seem to go crazy, right?” - Jeremy Au, Host of BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech Podcast" - Jeremy Au
"So there's a time allocation that you need to think about constantly. As a result, you need to be thoughtful about each funding round. Companies typically require more capital to grow every one to two years. For example, Simon pointed out that a company had scaled a bit—after putting in a million dollars, two years later, they were looking for five million more. At that point, you have to decide: Should I invest more money? Should I invest my pro rata, meaning the allocation I deserve? Can I double down? Can I ask for more because the company is performing exceptionally well? Or should I skip the deal? Most recently, in a fund, we evaluated a portfolio company and saw they were doing really well. I immediately called the team and said, “We need to make a decision.” After discussion, we concluded that we wouldn’t just keep our pro rata—we wanted to double down.” - Jeremy Au, Host of BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech Podcast" - Jeremy Au
In this episode, Jeremy Au speaks on blitzscaling: Uber vs. Lyft, first-mover traps, and VC power laws.
Keywords: Blitzscaling, Uber vs. Lyft, First-Mover Traps, VC Power Laws, Strategic Capital Deployment, Singapore, Southeast Asia, VC, Startup, Thought Leadership
