Everyday, Kai Huang opens his laptops and digs through dozens of queries and operational tasks as JDFI’s Program Manager. The 34-year old Taiwanese born Singaporean uses the metaphor coach to describe his work. “I handle JFDI’s Discover and Accelerate Program,” he says.
JFDI.Asia is a Singapore-based accelerator that nurtures, curates and supports venture fundable startups. We have two showcase programs: Discover, a 21-day online course that teaches entrepreneurs how to apply startup tools; and Accelerate, an intensive bootcamp that helps entrepreneurs from early traction to investment in 100 days.
Is it hard to lead these two programs? It is. But if anyone can do it, Kai can. It all started the day he got into serious reading and contant reflection on his work with startups.
“I wanted to work on the train using my newly bought iPad, but the mobile broadband on the train sux, so I decided the read on my iPad instead.” One of Kai’s friends passed him a copy of Tim Ferris’ ‘4-hour workweek‘, and it “changed the way I viewed my life and my work.” Kai kept momentum going by reading books on entrepreneurship and self-development. “As a Program Manager, I need to keep learning. Like when a founder asks me a question, I should be the resource guy. I should be able to tell them why they’re business model is working or not.”
Right now, Kai is coaching the JFDI Discover March 2015 batch. Each batch averages about 15 teams, for an estimated total of 30 people. He’s also preparing to launch the 2015A Accelerate Program starting on April 9th. Easily, both programs engage over a hundred people including the mentors, which Kai has to manage. “With coaching, what makes me really happy is when I see progress from the teams. It’s not just big one like getting funding, but even little ones like achiving a weekly milestone”
Aside from coaching and the learning process, Kai loves the working culture here at JFDI. “Given a problem worth solving, I would definitely start up my own company, but at the moment JFDI is solving a bigger problem than I can ever imagine, so I am happy to be working at JFDI” He also enjoys sitting beside the person he calls the smartest guy he knows — JFDI Chairman, Meng Wong Meng. “Have you ever felt like you have such a smart boss, that you can’t help but work hard?” Kai asks with a big smile.
Kai got into the world of frog by volunteering as a Lean startup coach. Shortly after, JFDI offered him a full-time job as Program Manager. In the last six months of facilitating the bootcamps, he has this advice for having a strong foundation for early stage startups:
“Founders need to have an authentic connection to the ideas they are working on.”
“It’s important that the problem is real to you, and in your heart you care. If you do it for money, you’ll tend to take unecessary risks because all you’ll see is how much money you’ll make.”
His job is to coach entrepreneurs, a big part of which comes from empathising with them. There’s a lot of listening, asking questions like what success means and understanding the life of someone who builds something from scratch. With these go-getter personalities come a lot of stubborn types. “If they’re not disciplined to do the work, I’ll just leave them alone.” He’s all-out with support for his teams, but he doesn’t let them stress him.
In the JFDI Discover March 2015 Google group, Kai gets questions like: “What’s a multi-sided platform?” “What should be our long-term vision or initial early adopter story?” His answers are always short — mostly one or two sentences — that reads like a dictionary definition. He doesn’t claim that he has mastered the topic; he simply credits everything to the love of learning.
“Kai makes time to ‘sharpen the saw’ – one of the 7 habits of effective people,” Meng Wong Meng says. “He is one of those who keep on learning and growing, regularly stretching himself beyond his comfort zone.”
Kai is fitting to be the Program Manager — he possesses the valuable combination of discipline and organisation needed to track hundreds of applicants, teach dozens of teams, and manage a handful of staff. He’s still learning to be comfortable with public speaking — he’s an introvert — after all. But the hardest parts of his job are also his favorite: “Everyday, there’s always something to learn, something to read about.”
An ordinary bloke would falter at the kind of pressure a program manager handles everyday. Fortunately here at JFDI and our bootcamps, we have Kai.
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Thinking of starting your own business? JFDI Discover will help you find out if you really want to be an entrepreneur. It will reveal if your team is aligned to deliver results. And it will show you how to solve a real problem for customers who are willing to pay thus moving closer to a “problem-solution fit”. Join JFDI Discover, starting April 3 2015.
Crystal Superal is the Social Media and Content Marketer at JFDI, the #1 business accelerator in Asia. She finished her Multimedia Communications degree while playing golf for a San Francisco-based art school. She currently lives in Cebu City, Philippines. For her thoughts about tech and lifehacks, follow her Twitter @crystalsuperal.