Navigating Southeast Asia: Jeremy Au on Building, Investing, and Career Pivots - E720

Jeremy Au joined Rohit Malhotra on Life Self Mastery to talk about the moves between founder, VC, and operator, and what each seat actually teaches you. Now leading Cosmetic Physician Partners Asia after Bain, CozyKin, Monk's Hill Ventures, and Lucence, Jeremy is candid about what does not transfer between roles.

They cover the three things every founder has to get right (the product, the team, and the business), the Southeast Asia story that still is not told at ground level, why angel investing is an Olympic-level race rather than a pass-fail test, why coaching someone and investing in someone are two completely different prisms, and the two-by-two he uses to advise emerging fund managers who have deployed capital without returns.

Support the original show: Life Self Mastery with Rohit Malhotra: https://www.youtube.com/@LifeSelfMastery 

Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/navigating-southeast-asia 

BRAVE is Southeast Asia's leading tech podcast, hosted by Jeremy Au. Honest conversations with the region's top founders, investors, and operators on building startups in Southeast Asia.

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00:00 Intro

01:19 Founder to VC to operator, and back again

03:10 The three things: product, team, business

07:33 Scaling a clinic group from the US into Asia

10:54 The Southeast Asia story nobody is telling

18:30 Why a regional thesis is too broad a brush

22:20 Angel investing is an Olympic race, not a pass-fail test

25:41 Coaching someone vs investing in someone

28:08 Advice for emerging VCs who have not returned capital

35:07 The thread: high-performing teams

41:59 The comfort crisis and the 2% idea

46:54 What he would tell his younger self

50:20 Why Flow Club is his favourite tool

52:37 Where to find Jeremy