Kum Hong Siew’s Post

If you've been thinking of getting a copy of the new book TRANSFORMED, our friends at Amazon have selected the book for a prime day special, so in the US and Canada, for at least today, the Kindle version of the book is only $3.99. https://lnkd.in/g45HHf-E

20 months ago, Jialu Zhong, Wang Ke, Sean Dy and I were among the thousands that got laid off from Meta. Then we started heymax.ai | Gives You a Free Trip, Every Year. 20 months later, we are excited to be featured in the news, doubling down on the mission of Heymax.ai to give our customers a "Free Trip Every Year" with simplicity. We owe our progress to the strong Singapore and APAC startup ecosystem, customer obsession and a few lucky strikes. Why did we raise? Our preferred approaches has always been building a sustainable business model from day one, and only increase the customer value from there. Along our journey we met so many amazing partners that truly pushed our imagination above and beyond, it only make sense to take the "Singapore" approach to befriend and co-create value with all. With the announcements, I'm so so excited to welcome Aik-Phong Ng, a fintech, consumer tech legend to help us build ubiquitous earning and redeeming possibilities of Max Miles. * BackScoop: https://lnkd.in/gvb834M3 * Tech in Asia https://lnkd.in/gANmVQBr * The Edge and Yahoo Finance https://lnkd.in/gZFUujgE We can't do this without the insanely driven Heymax.ai team and all of our supporters out there. Thank you Calvin L., Hammad Jilani, Aik-Phong Ng, David Wang, Mark Mullinix, CLMP™, Sumit Sen, Charmayne Lim, Long Yin Luk, Jialu Zhong, Vinit Nair, Sean Dy, Wang Ke and so many more amazing interns and past contributors to the project (not exhaustive for sure!)

“Dad, can I use your birth date?” - my 8 year old  Isn’t it wild that one of the first things our kids learn to do online is to lie about who they are?  🤨 Today, we change the paradigm. I am super excited today to announce k-ID's $45m Series A, a huge milestone toward effecting a hugely ambitious paradigm shift for kids and teens online the world over 🌏 I’m also crazy excited to let everyone know that our first publicly announced title is the most popular VR game in the world  – Gorilla Tag, from pioneer Another Axiom 🎮 This is a milestone only made possible through the hard work of the incredibly dedicated team we have around the world – they are laying the foundation for a new vision for youth online. I am so humbled to deepen our ties with A16Z GAMES (Jonathan Lai Andrew Chen Troy Kirwin) and forge new ones with the incredible team at Lightspeed (Moritz Baier-Lentz 🎮). We’re so privileged to be working with the teams at Konvoy (Taylor Hurst Danielle Tran Jackson V. Josh Chapman Jason C.) and TIRTA Ventures (Ben Feder Justin Yuan), and to welcome new friends with the world’s identity pioneer Okta (Austin Arensberg) and Z Venture Capital (Hyung Kim) (the great investment team from Japan’s Line-Yahoo J). I say this a lot inside the four walls of k-ID: we have the best team.  Our team is what makes each and every day on this mission special.  To be in the trenches alongside such incredibly smart, hard-working, humble people makes this a special place to be.  This milestone is a testament to the phenomenal people that together make up the DNA of k-ID.  We sweat the detail, we challenge every assumption, we ask ourselves at every turn: how can we make this better in every way. A huge thank you to our entire team around the world and all of the hard work that this milestone represents.  It is an absolute privilege to be building a bright future for the next generation with the humble rockstars of today 🙏 🔥🚀 🪐 ♾️ If you want to work with the most awesome people in the world: https://lnkd.in/dbVA4rZJ #seriesa #a16z #a16zgames #lightspeed #lsvp #konvoy #tirta #okta #zventures #zvc #andreesenhorowitz #andreesen #anotheraxiom #gorillatag #vr #wef #techpioneers24 #kid #ageappropriate #family #familyportal #sso4kids #aadc #gdpr #gdprk #coppa #safeharbor #dsa #dma #vpc #universalapi #onlinesafety #trustandsafety #safetybydesign #safergamer #gamingindustry Link:

Introducing FlyAnywhere with heymax! ✈️ With FlyAnywhere, you can book any flight from any source (airlines, OTAs, etc.) and redeem the cost using Max Miles, giving you unparalleled flexibility and value. Here’s why this feature is a game-changer: 🌍 Book Any Flight, Anywhere: No limitations on routes or airlines. 💸 Find the Cheapest Option: Book from any source you like, with no markups. Even taxes or surcharges imposed by airlines can be paid with miles. 💼 Collect Airline Loyalty Points: Earn airline loyalty points and status points on each booking, unlike award bookings. With FlyAnywhere, your miles work harder so you can fly more for free. Start planning your next adventure today! 🌟✈️

There's no shortcuts to building trust. It can only be earned by being authentic, consistent and offer value over a long period of time. Christopher (HoneymoneySG)'s latest video deep diving into heymax.ai watered my eyes - not because how well he articulates our products, but because he really summarized how we built this trust with him over the year. Earlier last year, we had little to no traction. KOLs, esp personal finance ones are very hesitant to talk about heymax.ai, because if they do - they wager their reputation on the products and company they talk about. We keep them updated and engaged, proactively. I pay for their time (not for their ads) to learn from them, learn from what their audiences are saying, what is needed in the market. We treated them as true long term partners to offer their audiences real value, learn from them and demonstrated our commitment to build long term great value. It also take a long time to show that we're not just burning VC money to do some short acquisition stint and just devaluate our values over time. One year later, we see signs that the KOLs are starting to trust us. These videos are not sponsored but earned. Despite we are still nobody and still feel like day 1, these bits of heartwarming words coming from the leading voices in the industry really help us feel supported. https://lnkd.in/gah28a9q

🆕 Iterative Scout Program Fast-Tracks Startups Directly to Final Interview At Iterative, the highest quality source of promising startups has always been referrals from the Iterative Community. That’s not a surprise. Promising early-stage founders talk to other founders way before they talk to investors, and there’s no better advocate for Iterative than someone in the community. Now that there are 300+ Iterative Founders, we wanted to formalize and build on this organic behavior. We’re excited to introduce the Iterative Scout Program, a new initiative designed to streamline the process of discovering the next Iterative Founders by enabling existing Iterative Founders. 📋 How it Works 1. Email Introductions from Scouts If you’re a startup founder who has been recommended by one of our scouts, they will introduce you directly to our team. 2. Directly to Final Interview As part of the process, you will go directly to a final interview with Brian or Hsu Ken and the scout who recommended you. The scout will be involved in the investment process to provide their perspective. 3. Investment Opportunities If Iterative decides to invest in your startup, the scout has the option to co-invest alongside us. This means you benefit from not only Iterative’s support but the scouts too. 🤩 Why Founders Should Be Excited 1. Accelerated Access to Iterative Being introduced by a scout means you skip the queue and go straight to a final interview with our partners. This can significantly speed up the investment process. 2. Advocate for Your Startup Since the scout is part of the investment process, if they recommend you, that’s typically a sign they like what you’re working on and they can be your advocate in that process. 3. Added Incentive to Help If a scout decides to invest in your company alongside Iterative, they will have an incentive to help your startup. 😍 Meet Our Scouts We are proud to introduce the first group of scouts. * Aaron Yip, Co-Founder of Issa (Iterative W23) * Charles Lee, Co-Founder of CoderSchool (Iterative W21) * Chinmay Chauhan, Co-Founder of BukuWarung * Eric Dadoun, Co-Founder of DeZy (Iterative W22) * Liyen Tan, Co-Founder of Hawkr (Iterative S21) * Prusothman Sina Raja, Co-Founder of twoplus Fertility * Kum Hong Siew, Ex-COO of Airbnb China * Thomas Jeng, GM at Aspire * Tim Grassin, Co-Founder of TendoPay (Iterative S20) They are active members of the Iterative Community and were already acting in this capacity. 👋 Get Connected If you’re a startup founder and know one of these scouts, I highly recommend you talk to them about what you’re doing and see if they’d be willing to refer you. If you don’t know them, you’re welcome to reach out, but almost all of them have a company to run, so they might be busy. Regardless, everyone is encouraged to apply to Iterative via our website. The application deadline for our next batch is on Monday, 24 June, and orientation is on Wednesday, 17 July. There’s no better time to apply.