Edward Gorbis

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Helping SaaS, FinTech, eCommerce, and Healthcare companies scale in the cloud

SMB Sales

500 Global

I advise entrepreneurs in The 500 Startups ecosystem.

Mentor

Jobandtalent

• Hired and built the US sales and account management team (25) to deliver our SaaS solution
• Closed $400M ARR in organic and inorganic revenue through strategic growth (110% attainment each quarter)
• Responsible for M&A integration, bridging sales and customer delivery efforts

VP, US Sales & Account Management

WeWork

• Partnered with 10-15 cross-functional partners to develop an implementation strategy and identify new business opportunities with the sales and professional services teams 
• Lead international sales, account management, and customer success team (15) and strategy with SoftBank to expand crossfunctional relationships with all 200+ SoftBank portfolio companies globally
• Managed the global SoftBank account, closing $52M in total contract value and
growing the business to 14 locations

Senior Director, Enterprise Account Management & Business Development

• Lead pre-sales activities by working with technical delivery teams (product designers and architects) to ensure the scope of work and budgets were accurately defined with clients
• Built the West Enterprise AM team (SF, LA, and Austin), hiring and training 25 Enterprise AM’s
• Grew the account management team revenue generation quarter over quarter for 1.5 years ($25M ARR each quarter & 110% retention rate)
• Lead Quarterly Business Reviews within 400+ large enterprise clients to identify opportunities for growth (generated upsell pipeline of $75M each quarter)

Director, Enterprise Account Management

Greeneum Network

• Greeneum is a decentralized cryptocurrency built on the Ethereum ERC20 protocol
• Developed partnership models and integration plans for third-party renewable developers, utilities, and smart energy innovation organizations
• Spoke at crypto and Fintech conferences to educate the market and drive adoption

Co-Founder, Head of Sales & Account Management

FirstFuel Software

• Developed plan with Salesforce to add FirstFuel as a trusted partner, lead Rest API development, and trained Salesforce teams on how to sell FirstFuel Software to utility partners
• Responded and wrote RFP responses for 8 utilities, totaling $55M ARR
• Lead a team of 3 Enterprise Account Managers with 18 accounts (300% portfolio growth)

Manager, Enterprise Account Management

Pacific Gas and Electric Company

• Scaled the data center EE program where I improved program enrollment by 50% in 12 months by launching the first localized campaign strategy and building deeper relationships with data center operators
• Partnered with Salesforce to help implement PG&E's CRM for energy efficiency customer relationship management

Senior Program Manager

Gas Transmission Systems

• Managed RFP process with multiple utilities to ensure GTS won bids with clients (6 contracts valued at $120M)

Engineering Consultant

I am an enterprise growth leader, engineer, and startup advisor.

I pivoted from Civil Engineering to Sales Leadership and have built multiple Enterprise Account Management and Customer Success teams for hyper-growth SaaS and marketplace startups. I have led various teams of 25-50 people that generated more than $500MM in revenue over the last 15 years.

In my spare time, I love to educate curious Bitcoin newbies on the fundamentals of blockchain. I believe Bitcoin is the most important innovation of my lifetime and am on a mission to onboard the next 100,000 users.

My mission is to be the Swiss-Army Knife to your business:

My portfolio:

→ I advise early-stage companies on how to strategically scale their sales team
→ I am a 2X Enterprise Sales leader for hyper-growth companies
→ I've built 2 digital products 
→ I have a 1:1 coaching business

Outside of work, I love to spend time with my wife, travel, hike, podcast, read, cook, drink kombucha, listen to music, and tinker with new ideas.

PS: Ask me about how I ensured SoftBank backstops WeWork back in 2019.

SMB Growth

The Runway Ventures

Get the weekly newsletter to help you learn from startup mistakes and become a better founder.

Every Sunday, we analyse and share:

• 1 failed startup ☠️
• 2 costly mistakes made ⚠️
• 3 lessons learned for founders 🧠

90% of startups fail because founders made mistakes. Don't be one of them.

Subscribe for free here 👉🏻 www.therunway.ventures

Founder

beehiiv

beehiiv empowers you to create, monetize, and grow your newsletter with an all-in-one publishing suite.

(right team, great product, crazy execution)

Angel Investor

Fathom - AI Meeting Assistant

Fathom records, transcribes, highlights, and summarizes your meetings so you can focus on the conversation.

(proud user of Fathom)

X10 Media

X10 Media, a regional influencer agency established over 7 years ago before Influencer Marketing became part of the mainstay, holds a network of over 3,000 Influencers with a combined 30 million network reach in Singapore, Malaysia & Indonesia.

The agency has served over 1,000 brands including Pepsi, Singtel, Capitaland, LVMH, Warner Music, Owndays, Casetify among others.

With its proprietary Leadgram technology and data-driven insights, X10 Media empowers brands to achieve exceptional results through influencer campaigns.

X10 media currently owns 3 business units — Faves, X10 Ventures & TheSpokenTribe, that span regionally across 3 countries in Singapore, Malaysia & Indonesia.

🌏 Faves (micro-influencer marketing arm) runs a combined network of 10 million reach in Singapore, Malaysia & Indonesia.

🌏 X10 Ventures (technology arm) empowers brands with our proprietary technology.

• Leadgram was launched as a first-of-its-kind software in Asia to deepen social media campaign ROI & sales/traffic conversions for brands & companies.
• We retarget consumers that engages on influencers/brand content to create conversations leading to higher call to actions.

🌏 The Spoken Tribe (LinkedIn marketing arm) brings professional voices to endorse companies and brands through the word-of-mouth recommendations.

👉🏻 With a commitment to excellence and innovation, X10 Media continues to drive impactful influencer marketing solutions for brands. Visit www.x10.media to learn more.

CTO (Acquired by TSL Media Group)

Admond Lee

On a mission to make data science accessible to everyone through consulting & corporate training.

Data science consulting and analytics services for startups, SMEs, and marketing agencies.

✅ Previous projects include:

• AI & marketing consulting
• Web analytics & data visualisation
• Web scraping & marketing analytics
• Crypto price prediction model using deep learning with millions of sentiment data points


✅ Corporate & Institutional Training (Data Science / Analytics):

• SPH, DBS, MINDEF, Singtel, NTU, NUS, UTAR, Decoded


▶️ Learn more at www.admondlee.com

Consulting Data Scientist | Corporate Trainer

chatted.ai

Get AI insights from data in seconds and make informed decisions 10x faster.

1. Upload your data
2. Ask questions
3. Get actionable insights

That's it.

❌ No more formulas
❌ No more pivot table
❌ No more learning how to code
❌ No more waiting for your reports

✅ Just ask.

Sign up for free here 👉🏻 chatted.ai

... and start chatting today 🧠

YouTube

Making videos focusing on data science, programming, and tech stuff in general.

👉🏻 Link to channel: youtube.com/@admond1994

Content Creator

Staq

At Staq, we are building the universal API to help fintech companies securely access financial data from SMEs in a quick and easy way across Southeast Asia.

We are reimagining the technical infrastructure to drive financial inclusion for businesses in Southeast Asia.

Our mission is to empower you to build amazing financial products for businesses with more visibility and informed decisions. 

With Staq:
• You can easily and securely access financial data from businesses for SME lending, user identity verification, compliance and KYC etc. 
• Businesses can instantly share their data instead of sifting through tedious UX from multiple banks to extract bank statements. 

Headquartered in Singapore, Staq is backed by Entrepreneur First, the leading startup incubator in the world.

Co-Founder / CTO

Entrepreneur First

Entrepreneur First is the place where the ambitious come together to build globally important technology companies.

Founder in Residence (EFSG10)

Medium

Contributing Writer | Towards Data Science

Co-Founder & CTO @ Staq | Data Scientist

I’m a physicist turned data scientist, now a founder building The Runway Ventures — a weekly newsletter to help people learn from startup failures to become the top 1% founders.

I spent the first 3 years of my career helping companies solve business problems as a data scientist. Meantime, I was also a corporate trainer, speaker, and writer in data science. Then, I spent the next 3 years building startups. 1 failed, 1 acquired.

🧗🏻 This is how I got here:

• Got my degree in Physics from Nanyang Technological University.

• Started as a data scientist at SME (Titansoft), then MNC (Micron) before joining a startup (Hackwagon).

• Quit my job during COVID (wild timing), joined an incubator, found a co-founder, and built my 1st startup (Staq). Spent 1.5 years building Staq but we failed. Despite our mistakes, we learned a lot.

• Was very lost after my 1st startup’s failure. Spent the next 2 months doing self-reflection and exploring my curiosity.

• Started my 2nd startup building Leadgram at an influencer marketing agency (X10 Media). 8 months later, we got acquired by The Smart Local (TSL) Media Group.

***

After 3 years of building startups, I'm convinced that mistakes are the best teachers to become a better founder. For any startup, there are many ways to succeed, but only a few ways to die.

That’s why I started The Runway Ventures. 

Every Sunday, I analyse and share 1 failed startup story, 2 mistakes made, and 3 lessons learned with actionable tips to help you learn from startup failures.

Real life case studies, with key takeaways you can apply in your business.

No theories or BS.

99% of startups failed because founders made mistakes.

You’ll learn why and how startups failed to become the top 1% founder.

🤝🏻 Join us here (it’s free!): www.therunway.ventures

🔗 FB: @admond1994
🔗 Twitter: @admond1994
🔗 Instagram: @admond1994

Admond Lee Kin Lim

$4,000 Louis Vuitton bags stuck in limbo. 200,000 users abandoned overnight. $25M from SoftBank Ventures Asia, Alpha JWC, and The Paradise Group gone.

Style Theory just became Southeast Asia's most shocking startup collapse.

Picture this: You hand over your designer Chanel bag to a "Netflix for fashion" startup. They promise passive income when others rent it. You trust them — after all, SoftBank backed them.

September 30, 2025. You wake up to this message:

"All operations ceased. No refunds. Your property is now classified as unsecured creditor."

Your $4,000 bag? Nobody knows if it's in their warehouse or with some random customer.

This wasn't some sketchy startup. Style Theory had everything:
• Flagship store on Orchard Road
• 1 million rentals delivered
• Expansion to Indonesia, Hong Kong
• Media calling them "the future of fashion"

But here's what killed them:

Two-way logistics ate them alive. Ship out, clean, repair, ship back. Every rental lost money. They thought scale would fix it. Scale made it worse.

The founders chased vanity metrics while hemorrhaging cash. 200,000 users sounds impressive until you realise each user cost more to serve than they paid.

When investors pulled the plug, the entire house of cards collapsed in 24 hours.

No warning. No wind-down. Just gone.

Tonight at 8pm, I'm publishing the full autopsy. Every mistake, every red flag, every lesson you need to know.

The graveyard is full of startups that looked unstoppable.

Don't let yours be next.

Subscribe now to get the full story when it drops → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. If your business depends on VC money to survive another month, you don't have a business. You have a time bomb.

Helping you become the top 1% founder by learning from startup failures | 2x founder | 1 exit | Founder @ The Runway Ventures 🚀

$14M from NEA. 1.7 million workers. 45x revenue growth.

12 months later: All staff fired. Website dead. Founders at war.

Gravel just became Indonesia's most devastating construction tech collapse.

Here's the part that'll make your stomach turn:

December 2023: NEA (yes, THE New Enterprise Associates) leads a $14M round. Their first Southeast Asia investment. Media goes wild. "The Uber for construction workers" they called it.

The numbers were insane:
• 6,000+ projects completed
• Jakarta LRT, International Stadium on their portfolio
• 45x revenue growth in 2 years
• Operating in 20 provinces

December 2024: Final salaries unpaid. App offline. 35-40% staff already laid off in October.

One. Single. Year.

But here's what really killed them:

The co-founders — best friends who started this in 2017 — turned into boardroom enemies. Two co-CEOs fighting for control while the company bled out.

When your leadership is too busy drawing battle lines to see the iceberg, you're already dead.

The brutal irony? Indonesia's construction boom is still raging. The demand was there. The tech worked. The workers trusted them.

They had everything except the one thing money can't buy:

Founders who could stay aligned when shit got real.

Tonight at 8pm, I'm dropping the full Gravel autopsy. Every boardroom fight. Every spending mistake. Every warning sign they ignored.

Most startups die of suicide, not murder.

Don't let yours be next.

Get the full story when it drops → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. Having 2 co-CEOs is like having 2 people hold the steering wheel. Works great until you need to turn.

linkedin.com

JSESSIONID

linkedin.com/feed/

li_at

I burned out at 28.

100-hour weeks. No weekends. Just code and coffee.

Friends said I was crazy. My health crashed. But that sacrifice? Built everything I have today.

The skills from those brutal years — irreplaceable. The 3am network — now running $100M companies.

Today I watch founders trying to build companies on 40-hour weeks. Meanwhile their competitor hasn't left the office in 72 hours.

The math:
• Them: 80 hours/week
• You: 40 hours/week
• They're moving 2x faster that you

I burned out twice. Would do it again.

Why? Because burnout from chasing your dream beats regret from playing it safe.

Look at every massive founder story. Elon on the factory floor. Chesky eating cereal for dinner. Jensen working 365 days straight.

No balance. Just obsession.

Truth is, work-life balance comes AFTER you win. Not before.

Want weekends? Get a job. Want to build something that matters? Different game entirely.

Your call.

P.S. Not glorifying burnout. Just telling you the price. Someone's gonna pay it. Might as well be you.

I made $60k total across 3 startups in 3 years.

My friends at Google made that in 4 months.

Here are the biggest misconceptions about founders:

1. "Founders are rich"

My monthly salary:
• 1st startup: $0 (failed)
• 2nd startup: $2,000 (failed) 
• 3rd startup: $3,000 (exited)

The brutal truth? Checking my bank balance before buying coffee. Explaining to dates why I can't split the bill. Watching friends buy houses while I slept on a mattress on the floor.

We only get rich with a life-changing exit. Until then, it's instant noodles and anxiety.

2. "Founders promote hustle culture"

We don't promote hustle culture. We're just trying not to die.

When you have zero advantages — no connections, no capital, no safety net — working hard is the ONLY variable you control.

I remember coding at 3am not because I wanted to, but because if I didn't ship that feature, we'd be dead.

Work-life balance doesn't exist. Only work-life integration. Your startup becomes your life.

3. "Founders are crazy"

We're not crazy. We just think differently.

While everyone complains about broken systems, we're stupid enough to think we can fix them. We see problems others ignore. We build solutions others think are impossible.

***

People glamorise being a founder.

That it makes you rich.
That it makes you look good.
That it makes you special.

But here's the real question you should ask before quitting your job:

Not "How much money will I make?"

But "Would I work on this problem for 10 years even if I never get rich?"

If the answer is no, save yourself the pain.

Every week I break down the most expensive startup failures and turn them into lessons you can't afford to miss.

Join 17,000+ founders learning from other people's mistakes → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. The graveyard is full of founders who chased money instead of mission. Don't be one of them.

$385/month. That's what most founders are burning on AI subscriptions.

ChatGPT here. Claude there. Midjourney for images. Before you know it, you're hemorrhaging cash across 10 different platforms.

I found a better way to research my failed startup stories.

For the past month, I've been using i10x.ai to dissect startup collapses. One platform gives me access to GPT-5, Claude Opus 4, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and 500+ other AI tools.

The price? $25/month. Not $385.

Here's what changed my research game:

When I'm writing about how Gravel burned through $14M or why Style Theory left $4,000 bags in limbo, I need different AI perspectives. Some models catch details others miss.

i10X's Chat Arena lets me compare outputs side-by-side. Same prompt to multiple AIs. Instant comparison. No tab switching.

The brutal math:
•⁠ ⁠ChatGPT Plus: $20/month
•⁠ ⁠Claude Pro: $20/month 
•⁠ ⁠Perplexity: $20/month
•⁠ ⁠Midjourney: $30/month
•⁠ ⁠Runway (video): $95/month
•⁠ ⁠Jasper (marketing copy): $49/month
•⁠ ⁠Other AI tools: $151/month

You're looking at $385/month. That's $4,620/year going up in smoke.

i10X gives you everything for $25/month.

I've written 5 failed startup autopsies this month. Each one required deep research across multiple sources. Cross-referencing facts. Analysing patterns.

But here's what surprised me:

While I use it for research, i10X also includes Google's Nano Banana for images, Kling for video creation, and specialised AI agents for everything from legal contracts to marketing copy. All in one workspace.

The old way? Jump between 5 browser tabs. Log into different accounts. Remember which tool does what.

Now? Whether you're writing content, generating product images, creating marketing videos, or drafting contracts - it's all there.

But here's the killer feature:

When I’m researching complex failures, I need different AI models to spot different patterns. GPT might catch the financial red flags. Claude might see the founder dynamics. Perplexity verifies the timeline.

With Chat Arena, I see all perspectives at once.

Want to slash your AI costs by 90%?

Check it out here: https://i10x.ai

Then comment "10x" below and I'll send you an exclusive promo code.

P.S. If you're still juggling multiple AI subscriptions, you're not just wasting money. You're wasting time. And time is the only thing you’ll never get back.

i10x.ai

$25M raised. 200,000 users. Overnight collapse.

Style Theory's consignors are still looking for their $4,000 Louis Vuitton bags.

Here's what killed Southeast Asia's "Netflix for fashion":

They built the dream. Rent designer clothes and bags for $89/month. Swap anytime. Unlimited wardrobe. Even Orchard Road flagship store.

The founders cracked the code. Or so everyone thought.

The numbers looked perfect:
• 20 items rented per user monthly
• 600,000 pieces saved from landfills
• 1 million+ deliveries completed
• Expanded to Indonesia, Hong Kong

September 30, 2025: Service stops. Raena posts a farewell note.

"I don't know whether the bag is with them or is in one of the customers' places."

That's a real consignor who lost her $4,000 Louis Vuitton bag when Style Theory died. Zero compensation. Her property? Now classified as "unsecured creditor."

The killer detail nobody saw coming:

Two-way logistics ate them alive. Ship out. Clean. Repair. Ship back. Every rental cycle bled money. They thought scale would fix it. Scale made it worse.

The brutal reality:
• Subscription fees couldn't cover the logistics costs
• Each swap meant more losses
• More users = bigger burn rate
• Unit economics never worked

When investors stopped writing checks in 2025, game over.

I just published the full Style Theory autopsy. The 2 critical mistakes. The warning signs. The lessons every subscription founder needs to know.

Read the complete breakdown → https://lnkd.in/gU2NBtAf

P.S. Their Indonesia exit in June 2025 was the canary in the coal mine. By September, even the flagship Orchard store couldn't save them.

$30M exit. 3 brutal truths. Most founders won't listen.

I met a founder who sold his company for $30M. Here's what he told me that 99% of founders refuse to accept:

1. Solve a problem you're passionate and genuinely care about

If you don't fall in love with the problem, you'll burn out easily and won't last long.

Sounds obvious. Yet I see founders chasing "hot markets" every week. They last 6 months. Maybe 12. Then they're gone.

2. Bootstrap if you can (don't raise from VCs)

Build a business on your own terms instead of getting pressured by investors to grow or exit.

The math doesn't lie: Exiting a $5M business at 100% ownership beats exiting a $30M business at 10% ownership.

But founders can't resist the dopamine hit of a funding announcement.

3. Make mistakes, learn from your mistakes, and improve

It's ok to make mistakes. Learn from them. Iterate. Become better.

Every founder nods along to this. Then they make the same mistake 3 times because they're too proud to admit they screwed up.

This isn't rocket science.

But most founders don't get it.

Especially the second one.

The graveyard is full of VC-backed startups that looked unstoppable. Meanwhile, the quiet bootstrappers are cashing out with life-changing money.

While you're still chasing your Series B.

***

I write a weekly newsletter to help founders become better operators by learning from startup failures. Join 17,000+ founders here: https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. That $5M vs $30M math? Do it yourself. The answer will change how you think about fundraising forever.

$65 million invested. 8-storey "fish condo". CEO took $450k bribe to buy an actual condo.

Apollo Aquaculture just became Singapore's most embarrassing agritech collapse.

Picture this: World's first vertical fish farm. Backed by Temasek with $35 million. Government land. Media darling. Singapore's answer to food security.

CEO Eric Ng was living the dream. From scrubbing his dad's guppy tanks to building an 8-storey fish skyscraper that could produce 2,700 tonnes annually.

Then it all went to hell.

The construction costs exploded. Production targets missed. Cash burned faster than fish could swim.

But here's the part that'll make your jaw drop:

While his company was drowning, Eric took a $450,000 bribe from a contractor. Used it as down payment for a $471,000 condo at Wak Hassan Drive.

His fish farm? Sold for $3.5 million. A 95% loss on the $65 million invested.

The killer details:
• 4 out of 5 subsidiaries liquidated
• High-tech facility never reached production targets
• CEO secretly owned shares in vendors selling to his own company
• Charged with 7 counts under Companies Act

From Singapore's food security hero to corruption charges in court.

Tonight at 8pm, I'm dropping the full Apollo autopsy. Every red flag. Every governance failure. Every lesson about scaling before stabilising.

This isn't just another startup failure. It's what happens when ego meets electricity bills.

Subscribe now to get the complete breakdown when it drops → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. The new owners bought the entire 8-storey fish farm for less than what Eric paid for his condo. Let that sink in.

"Here in my garage with a Lamborghini." Remember that guy?

Tai Lopez just got slapped with SEC fraud charges. $112 million gone.

The same dude who taught millions about "knowledge" is now facing federal charges for running what the SEC calls a Ponzi scheme.

Here's how it went down:

2015: That viral YouTube ad made him internet famous overnight. 2 million subscribers hungry for success secrets.

2019: Teams up with Alex Mehr (Zoosk co-founder) to launch REV - Retail Ecommerce Ventures. The pitch was genius: Buy dead retail brands, resurrect them online.

They went shopping:
• Dressbarn
• RadioShack 
• Pier 1 Imports
• Modell's Sporting Goods
• Stein Mart

The promise to investors? 25% annual returns. Monthly dividends of 2%.

Those are Bernie Madoff numbers.

By late 2020, Tai's bragging about "nine figure" revenues. Telling investors business is "on fire" and "cash flow is strong."

Reality check:
• Not ONE brand ever turned a profit
• Dressbarn lost $13.7M in 2020
• Another $10.7M loss in 2021
• Zero profits across the entire portfolio

So how did they pay those fat returns?

Classic Ponzi playbook. New investor money paid old investors. At least $5.9M in returns came from other people's investments. Not profits.

The kicker? $16 million of investor funds went straight to Tai and Alex's pockets.

Even better - their COO Maya Burkenroad (Tai's cousin) was marketed as having "10+ years managing multi-million dollar companies."

Her actual resume? Preschool teacher. Radio promoter. Tai's assistant.

September 2025: SEC drops the hammer. Fraud charges. Misuse of funds. Ponzi-like payments.

The empire collapsed:
• $112M raised from hundreds of investors
• Every brand asset seized by creditors
• Facing massive fines and lifetime ban from running companies

From "knowledge" in the garage to federal fraud charges in court.

Turns out the oldest lesson in business is still true: If someone promises you 25% guaranteed returns, run.

Every week I break down the most expensive startup failures so you can learn from their mistakes before making them yourself.

Join 17,000+ founders getting these lessons → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. Those books in his garage? Should've included one on securities law.

Australia's first new airline in 15 years just collapsed overnight.

750,000 passengers stranded. $133M burned. 323 staff left without pay.

Bonza promised to revolutionise Aussie air travel — connecting regional cities at ultra-low prices. They had Boeing 737 MAXs. US backers with deep pockets. Routes nobody else would fly.

15 months later? Dead.

The planes literally got repossessed mid-operation. One day passengers were boarding flights. Next day, empty terminals.

Here's the brutal part:

In July 2023, they axed 5 routes citing "unsustainable demand."
By November, they were launching new bases.
By April 2024, liquidators were counting the bodies.

Classic startup death spiral — expand faster than you can stabilise, bleed cash on empty flights, then run out of runway before finding product-market fit.

But here's what actually killed them:

Bonza made 2 fatal mistakes that most founders don't see coming:
• One decision cut their addressable market by 70%
• Another guaranteed they'd never build trust in a duopoly

Tonight at 8pm, I'm dropping the full Bonza autopsy. Every mistake dissected. Every warning sign exposed.

Because when you're competing against giants, you can't afford to learn these lessons the hard way.

Want the full breakdown when it drops? → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. The same pattern that killed Bonza is killing startups in every industry. Learn to spot it before it's too late.

$14M from NEA. 1.7 million workers. Gone in one year.

Indonesia's hottest construction tech startup just imploded.

December 2023: NEA's first Southeast Asia bet. Gravel was crushing it — 45x revenue growth, built Jakarta's LRT, 6,000+ projects done.

December 2024: Dead. Website offline. Workers unpaid.

The killer wasn't the market. It was the boardroom.

Two co-CEOs. Georgi and Fredy. Started as best friends solving a real problem — construction workers sitting idle for weeks, then projects scrambling for labor.

But dual command = death sentence.

Every decision became a war. Who owns product? Finance? Investors? The board finally forced Georgi out. Too late.

Here's the brutal math: Construction tech burns cash on razor-thin margins. That $14M wasn't a war chest. It was a countdown timer.

Most startups die of suicide, not murder.

I just published the full Gravel autopsy. The exact moment trust shattered. Why NEA's money couldn't save them. The lessons you need before your next raise.

Read it here → https://lnkd.in/gYg3wNAG

P.S. If you have co-CEOs, pick one. Today. Or join Gravel in the graveyard.

1,200 employees. 
One email.
All unemployed.

$33 million in funding. Gone.
$1 billion in property transactions. Worthless.

This is how Propzy became Vietnam's most devastating startup collapse.

Picture this: John Le lands in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnamese American founder who'd already built successful fintech ventures in the US. He tries to rent an apartment. The process is a nightmare — shady brokers, hidden fees, zero transparency.

"I'll fix this," he thinks.

By 2020, Propzy was Vietnam's golden child:
• 80,000 customers served
• 30+ physical transaction centres
• SoftBank and Gaw Capital Partners writing $25M checks
• Plans to expand to 70 centres

The math was criminal:
• Earned: 1% per transaction
• Spent: Like they owned the whole property
• Result: Burned cash 10x faster than they made it

1,200 employees. 30 transaction centres. Each centre bleeding money daily. A "tech company" that needed armies of brokers to close deals.

Then COVID hit.

John Le watched his empire crumble in real-time. 70% revenue drop overnight. Fixed costs eating them alive. He tried everything — cut 50% of staff, launched desperate new products, even negotiated with Singapore's 99 Group for acquisition.

September 12, 2022: John sends his final email to the team.

"Our inability to raise funding was the final jab of the knife."

The same 2 mistakes that killed Propzy are killing startups right now. Today. While you're reading this.

I broke down every warning sign, every red flag, every lesson from Propzy's collapse.

Get the full story here: https://lnkd.in/gunrp9nX

P.S. When your business needs another funding round just to make payroll next month, you're already dead. You just don't know it yet.

They sold you the founder dream:

Find problem → Get customers → Raise easily → Scale fast → Happiness 🚀

I ate that shit up. Hook, line, and sinker.

Then I became a founder.

Day 1: "I'm changing the world!"
Day 30: "Why is my bank account negative?"
Day 90: "Maybe I should get a real job"
Day 365: Eating glass while staring into the abyss

Here's what they don't tell you at startup events:

• Your "problem" isn't a real problem
• Your beachhead market is a desert
• Target audience: "Love the idea! But we won't pay"
• Money flows OUT, not in
• Bills pile up like rejection emails
• "Too early for us" = VC speak for "you're fucked"
• Can't hire anyone. Can't even pay yourself
• No customers + No traction + No growth = Death spiral

You wake up feeling like shit. Go to bed feeling worse.

The brutal truth?

90% of startups fail because founders make the same preventable mistakes. Over. And over. And over.

But you don't have to be part of that 90%.

Every failed startup left clues. Breadcrumbs of what NOT to do. Million-dollar lessons written in bankruptcy filings.

That's why I dissect failed startups every week. Real companies. Real numbers. Real mistakes.

Style Theory: $25M raised → 200,000 users abandoned overnight
Privé: 18 years of success → collapsed in 24 hours
1880: S$7,000 membership fees → founder's personal bankruptcy

Each failure has 2-3 critical mistakes that killed them. Learn those patterns, and you drastically increase your odds of survival.

While everyone else is chasing the fantasy, you'll be dodging the landmines.

Join 17,000+ founders getting these million-dollar lessons for free → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

P.S. I guarantee this is the best 5 mins you'll spend each week to become a smarter operator. Because the most expensive education is learning from your own mistakes.

What's the founder's myth you've been lied to?

Most founders try to "think up" startup ideas.

Paul Graham says that's exactly why they fail.

In his essay, PG admits he wasted 6 months in 1995 building an online art gallery platform. Nobody wanted it. Total flop.

His mistake? Sitting down to brainstorm a startup idea instead of solving a real problem.

The best founders don't brainstorm. They notice.

Look at the pattern:
• Bill Gates heard about Altair → built Basic interpreter
• Drew Houston forgot his USB → created Dropbox
• Zuckerberg lived online → built Facebook

They weren't trying to be entrepreneurs. They were just living their lives when they spotted something missing.

PG's brutal truth about good startup ideas:

1. Founders desperately want it themselves
2. They can actually build it
3. Few others realize it's worth doing

Most founders get this backwards. They think "millions have pets, so let's build a social network for pet owners!"

Then wonder why they have zero users.

The real formula? Live in the future, then build what's missing.

When PG built Viaweb, it was obvious to programmers that online stores needed software-generated pages, not hand-coded HTML. But only programmers living in that future could see it.

The shift is simple:

Stop trying to force ideas. Start noticing what pisses you off daily. What makes you think "why doesn't this exist?"

Your next startup is probably hiding in your daily frustrations.

You just haven't noticed it yet.

P.S. Every Sunday, I break down how startups worth millions collapsed overnight — and the exact mistakes that killed them. Join 16,000+ founders learning from other founders' expensive failures → https://lnkd.in/gdDrhgtq

750,000 passengers stranded overnight.

That's how Australia's first new airline in 15 years died. Just 15 months after launch.

Bonza promised to break the Qantas-Virgin duopoly. Connect forgotten cities. Make flying affordable.

They had everything:
• Ex-Virgin Blue CEO
• U.S. investment backing 
• Brand new 737 MAX jets

100,000 tickets sold in weeks. Routes nobody else would touch. The underdog story everyone wanted.

April 30, 2024 — planes repossessed on the tarmac. No warning. $133M gone.

The killer? 35 routes. 4 planes.

One bird strike and the entire network collapsed.

Their app-only booking made them invisible in a market where 90% buy through traditional channels.

323 staff left without wages. Creditors revealed they'd been trading insolvent for months.

2 critical mistakes turned Australia's most promising airline into its most spectacular failure.

I broke down exactly what killed them → https://lnkd.in/gR5g-FwG

P.S. The warning signs were there. Nobody wanted to see them.

200+ robotics founders. $2B in autonomous funding. 4 free passes up for grabs.

Forget AI chatbots. The real money is building robots that actually move.

October 29. Haji Lane. The Automaton After Party — where the architects of tomorrow's autonomous world connect after ROSCon 2025.

This isn't just another tech mixer. This is where serious builders gather.

Here's what's happening:
🚀 6:30 PM — Dinner with AMD, TIER IV, and Autoware Foundation leaders
🎤 Pitch Spotlight — 2 minutes to change the future (no slides, just vision)
🤖 Live Panel — Open-source autonomy leaders decode what's actually working
🥂 After-Party — Real conversations till the neon lights fade

Here's the deal:

I've got 4 complimentary passes (yes, free). No catch.

Want one? Drop a comment below telling me what you're building in robotics, AI, or autonomy. Even if it's just an idea.

Monday 6PM sharp, I'll randomly pick 4 builders who deserve to be in that room.

👇🏻 Comment below. Let's see what you're building.

A Y Combinator founder I invested in a few years ago reached out to tell me they’ve made the difficult decision to shut down the company.

As he spoke, I could see how heavy it was for him, the mix of exhaustion, sadness, and that familiar sense of guilt that founders often carry when things don’t work out. 

I told him something I think more founders need to hear.

When early-stage investors back a company, we know exactly what we’re signing up for. We know that many of the startups we invest in will not make it, and that’s completely fine. That’s part of the game. 

The obligation of a founder isn’t to guarantee success, that’s impossible. The real obligation is to give it everything you’ve got. To work hard, to learn fast, to make honest decisions, and to care deeply about the problem you’re solving. If you’ve done that, you’ve fulfilled your end of the deal. 

You owe your investors nothing more.

Failure is already an incredibly hard experience. Don’t make it harder by carrying guilt that doesn’t belong to you.


#founder #entrepreneur #startup #venturecapital #vc #ycombinator

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The Battle

Edward Gorbis

Admond Lee Kin Lim

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The Battle

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Admond Lee Kin Lim

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Admond Lee Kin Lim's LinkedIn Performance

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