[Keynote] How to make 2023 a better year for tech?

The following is an excerpt from Momentum Works CEO Jianggan Li’s keynote at the “Navigate tech companies in turbulent 2023: People, Culture and Leadership” event on 8 February 2023. 

The closed door, invite-only exchange was co-hosted by Momentum Works and 01VC, joined by close to 100 investors, founders, and corporate executives. The organizers also co-hosted “Taking you company global: People, Culture and Leadership” last year. 

At the Feb event, Moses Lo, Founder & CEO of Xendit, shared his trials and tribulations building a fintech unicorn in Indonesia and taking the company regional. In the fireside chat hosted by Ian Goh of 01VC, Moses also shared his candid reflections. 

In the following keynote, Jianggan touched upon four major topics:

1. Are elephants bigger than rhinos? 
2. What’s happening closer to home?
3. The investment narrative for SEA
4. Building great companies – the bottomline 

If you would like to have this sharing and other insights for your leadership team, you are welcome to contact Momentum Academy ([email protected]). 

1. 2022 was a difficult year for large tech platforms, but not without bright spots – Pinduoduo, a Chinese ecommerce giant, saw its share price surge by 67.7% in the year. (We have recently published a report on Pinduoduo’s new venture, Temu) 

2. A lot of headlines (scandals, implosions) grabbed people’s attention in 2022, but when you put the investor losses in perspective, it presents a very interesting picture.  

3. ChatGPT, which was launched on 30 November 2022, presents new opportunities for the tech sector (but also a lot of uncertainties). Momentum Works will release our report on ChatGPT very soon – stay tuned!

4. All the layoffs did not go to waste for large tech companies – just look at how much confidence investors have put in Meta since the latter’s layoff announcement: 

5. While people are arguing about whether China will see a rebound, we dug into some data. In 2022, RMB17.84 trillion went into increase in household savings, while consumption decrease, at RMB88.1 billion, was much more modest. 

6. The payment landscape, which attracts almost half of the fintech funding in Southeast Asia in the 1st half of 2022, remains interesting despite two large exits already happening: 

7. Path to profitability has become a top priority for many companies – the path is obviously clear, but not always straightforward:

8. The bottom line – coming back to Pinduoduo as we mentioned earlier in this presentation – still lies with relentless focus on efficiency. 

The full version of this presentation is available upon request. Again, if you would like to have this sharing and other insights for your leadership team, you are welcome to contact Momentum Academy ([email protected]).