Hi everyone! With every blog, there’s an intro, so here’s my “what” and “why.”
Over the next 6 months, I’ll be living in Dhaka, Bangladesh working as an Alter Fellow at Pathao, while I’m on leave/sabbatical from my job as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.
What is Alter?
Alter is a tech VC that finds and scales the best tech founders in emerging tech cities around the world, sending talent and capital to start-ups that will raise the tides for their whole country—not just the bottom-line.
I’m part of the third cohort of Alter Management, Tech and Product Fellows, a crew of 15 adventurers from top companies in the US (e.g., McKinsey, Google, Microsoft) who will be implanted at incredible start-ups in rising tech cities across South East Asia and Africa.
What is Pathao?
Pathao, one of Alter’s very first portfolio companies, is Bangladesh’s fastest growing tech start-up and Bangladesh’s Uber on motorcycles + Uber +DoorDash + courier services and more... In other words, Pathao is South East Asia’s/South Asia’s next potential super-app following the tails of Jakarta’s decacorn Go-Jek, which backs Pathao.
What is this blog for?
I’ll be telling a bit of my story on this blog for the next few months, as a forced mechanism for self-reflection, a check-in for friends/family, and maybe even as food for thought for just one person out there. Meanwhile, for everyday snapshots + video clips, follow my Instagram Stories at @ellacheng5!
And most importantly...Why am I doing this?
I don’t have a background in tech or VC – McKinsey was my first professional step into the business world. I’ve never visited or lived in South Asia. I don’t speak a word of Bangla. And I’ve certainly never worked extensively in a market as fresh and uncharted as Bangladesh.
So why am I doing this?
1. I want to have a ‘skin in the game.’
As a consultant for the past 2 years, I’m thankful for everything I’ve learned – from the people skills to crisis management to even the micro-things like masterfully aligning PowerPoint boxes. However, while consulting has provided the training ground that I was always told it was, I’ve always felt something missing – the investment in seeing something through from beginning to end and on the ground, and the ability to make something from scratch.
In contrast, when I interviewed with Pathao leaders, I could immediately feel the passion and investment they had in what they were doing and building. Their motivation to change not just a market but their country, their grit and their “get stuff done” attitude was contagious, and reminded me of the fun I had had in college piloting small projects (new websites, fundraisers, conferences, initiatives, etc.), whose success or failure I was personally invested in. I wanted to return to that feeling of being in a sandbox where I was creating, breaking and fixing things on the fly, not just fitting things into neat business frameworks.
2. I hunger for mission-oriented work – and I’m trying to find the best outlet for the impact I want to make.
Because of the way I grew up, with first-gen immigrant dreams and burdens, and the things I’ve learned from human rights and ethics classes, I’ve long been driven and only satisfied by work that actually serves and helps others. While I still believe in the ability of governments to do good for their people at the largest scale, I realized personally from many college public/social sector internships that my impact and personal learning as a junior government employee would be limited in a massive bureaucracy.
I also realized, like stated in Alter’s mission, that the private sector actually wields the potential to have enormous social impact, especially in young, emerging markets. In the private sector, I could also learn and grow professionally much more quickly, picking up skills and knowledge that would eventually help in any future impact-oriented job. This Alter experience—at a scaling start-up with potentially massive impact for its country’s economy—will help me to figure out which permutation of the private-public sector intersection I believe in and want to work for, on the spectrum of non-profits to “impact investing"—a hot term these days—to corporations with a corporate social responsibility or philanthropy arm.
3. I wanted to come back to emerging markets, specifically Asia.
There’s nothing quite so alive as the start-up scene in Asia's vibrant tech markets. Having lived a year in China, I witnessed the thrill and madness of the tech scene there with the spectacular rise and demise of dockless bikes (think the endless sea of yellow and orange Mobike and ofo bikes littered on Beijing streets) – and realized that Silicon Valley can't compare with the hustlers, founders and investors out in Asia. Bangladesh’s tech scene is just at its infancy, but you can already feel the energy. It’s so exciting to hear talk of a growing tech scene here driven by a few inspiring founders like those at Pathao who are quickly inspiring others (there’s even word on the street of a “Pathao mafia” emerging of ex-Pathao founders, echoing Silicon Valley's "PayPal mafia"). There’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world, and I joke that it even makes New York seem like a boring place.
4. I want to figure out my next career jump.
Based on previous Fellow’s testimonies, the Alter-Pathao experience will give me the opportunity to figure out my next career move by allowing me to test my preferences on all the spectra I’ve been wondering about – US v. abroad, public/social v. private sector, start-up/small v. large company, strategy v. operations… Ultimately, knowing where I land on each of these scales will help me to decide on my next career move – whether it be at or outside McKinsey.
5. On a personal note, I want to find balance and happiness on my own in the little things life has to offer. I want to see life as a canvas and an adventure, not a grind or a race.
I’ve always been a person of extremes – extreme highs and lows, seeking extreme and challenging experiences, and constantly pushing myself to my limits and out of my comfort zone. Naturally, after more than a decade of this, I’ve found myself burnt out and a bit lost.
But I’ve realized over the past few months that, to feel happy and grounded, I need to first find peace and simplicity in my everyday life, and to slow down and just enjoy life, unburdened by external pressures or sky high expectations I’ve set for myself. While Dhaka seems like a tough place to work on this—with its chaos, noise and traffic—I actually have always felt at my most grounded and appreciative of life’s beauties when I’ve been abroad traveling and learning about new cultures, and I’m stoked to be able to explore Bangladesh and this region to get perspective on the world and my life previously in the States. I also see Dhaka as the ultimate challenge—if I can practice and find inner peace and head space here, I can do it anywhere in the world!
And there’s the list! I welcome any questions or thoughts, and really appreciate if you've taken a skim or made it through this entire long ramble. Reach out and let me know what content you'd like to see!
And also, since music is my life blood and you can rarely find me on the streets without headphones in (although I’ll only keep one earbud in while in Dhaka so I can hear the honking of an aggressively oncoming car), I’ll include the latest ‘song of the moment’ I’m listening to on repeat in every blog entry. Please send any music recs my way—especially chill ones to help with my meditation in the chaotic symphony of Dhaka.