21 episodes

Venturing through 90+ countries, we’ve discovered one commonality. From Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East to Eastern Europe, there are growing tech startup ecosystems transforming the world. Emerging market startups are generating market-creating innovations, leapfrogging Silicon Valley’s innovations, and solving local problems faster than governments.

Join us to hear from startup ecosystem champions, entrepreneurs and investors in emerging markets. We discuss what makes these markets culturally unique, local trends, challenges consumers and founder face, and the opportunities. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dianna-yau/support

Emerging Markets Startups Dianna Yau

    • Technology

Venturing through 90+ countries, we’ve discovered one commonality. From Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East to Eastern Europe, there are growing tech startup ecosystems transforming the world. Emerging market startups are generating market-creating innovations, leapfrogging Silicon Valley’s innovations, and solving local problems faster than governments.

Join us to hear from startup ecosystem champions, entrepreneurs and investors in emerging markets. We discuss what makes these markets culturally unique, local trends, challenges consumers and founder face, and the opportunities. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dianna-yau/support

    The Growth of Latin America’s Superapp ft. Rappi’s Product Lead

    The Growth of Latin America’s Superapp ft. Rappi’s Product Lead

    Rappi is one of the largest superapps in Latin America with over 15M users. The company started out as an on demand delivery service and today has become an everything store across Latin America’s population of 650M people. We’re joined by Rappi’s Product Lead, David Vanegas, who attributes Rappi’s success to their users’ creativity, and the company’s speed and obsession with user feedback. Tune into this episode to hear how Rappi acquired its first 250 downloads with donuts, and ways the company captures user feedback via Whatsapp to continuously innovate.


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    Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dianna-yau/support

    • 39 min
    Scaling Southeast Asia’s largest Superapp, ft. Grab’s Head of Product

    Scaling Southeast Asia’s largest Superapp, ft. Grab’s Head of Product

    Grab is the largest superapp tech company in Southeast Asia with over 250M downloads in a region with 600+ million people. Grab first started out as a ride sharing company but quickly grew into food delivery, payments and so much more. In this episode, we speak to Grab’s Head of Product for Deliveries, Zhibo Sun. Zhibo shares insights into Grab’s product culture, growth strategies and how the company has pivoted during Covid.


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    Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dianna-yau/support

    • 45 min
    Nigeria's Fastest Growing Fintech w/ the COO of PiggyVest

    Nigeria's Fastest Growing Fintech w/ the COO of PiggyVest

    Like many emerging markets, saving money in Nigeria was expensive. Then came PiggyVest, a free savings and microinvestment product, that's now one of the fastest growing fintech startups out of Nigeria. PiggyVest built a strong following and grew to millions of people by word of mouth. Seriously, check their Twitter mentions. We spoke to Odunayo Eweniyi, the co-founder and COO of PiggyVest, about the company’s growth trajectory and product culture.

    In the first 20 mins we talk about Nigeria's challenges and local culture that gave rise to PiggyVest. The last 20 mins is all about growth strategies and how PiggyVest builds a user obsessed product culture. Key takeaways for building a product loved by the community:


    Help users feel heard by including their ideas into your roadmap

    Give users a sense of trust, it can be more important than efficiency

    Building loyal users who advocate for the product will stretch further than traditional marketing tactics

    Pay attention to tweets that go viral on New Years eve, they may just inspire your next startup idea ;)



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    Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dianna-yau/support

    • 41 min
    Using Localization to Innovate with Bykea's COO

    Using Localization to Innovate with Bykea's COO

    Bykea is a ride sharing and delivery startup in Pakistan and the fastest growing startup in a country of 220 million people. Founded by serial entrepreneur Muneeb Maayr, Bykea is taking on the juggernauts Uber and Careem. The 5 year old startup is quickly growing due to its obsession with localizing the product to meet the needs of everyday Pakistanis and a “pounding the pavement” startup culture. In this episode we hear from Rafiq Malik, Bykea’s Chief Operating Officer whose passion for logistics and transportation enables him to run a tight ship while ensuring Bykea continues to experiment and grow every hour. Listen to learn:


    How Bykea continually uses localization to help them innovate and grow

    What helped Bykea grow quickly and be unafraid of the Ubers and Careems

    Ways to scale marketing in emerging markets



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    Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dianna-yau/support

    • 42 min
    Philippines | The Startup Islands

    Philippines | The Startup Islands

    Have you ever noticed all your Filipino friends seem to have family all over the world? That’s because so many of them have migrated all over the world in the last century. Hence when Filipinos return home to build a startup, they bring a diversity of ideas and experience from all over. In this episode, we explore the Filipino startup ecosystem with Diane Eustaquio, Executive Director at one of the earlier accelerators in the Philippines. She shares with us unique insights and growth hacks like, if you want to grow product adoption in the Philippines, it better first go through word of mouth by way of family and friends.


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    Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dianna-yau/support

    • 44 min
    Malaysia | How Malaysia’s diversity makes its startups excel at building global products

    Malaysia | How Malaysia’s diversity makes its startups excel at building global products

    Since its early days, Malaysia has been a key part of the globalization trend. Malacca, a city in the Malay peninsula, was historically an important destination along the Silk Road trade route. This meant its had a history of a melting pot of cultures. Today it has enabled Malaysian entrepreneurs to excel at building startups serving multiple regions of the world. A shining example is Grab, a ride sharing startup and the most famous unicorn in Southeast Asia founded by Malaysian entrepreneur Anthony Tan. On this episode we’re joined by Daniel Lim, who's been a pivotal part of Malaysia’s startup ecosystem since the dot com era in the late 90s. We uncover Malaysian startups that have had a global impact, the story of Grab, and how Malaysia has blended influence from the east and west in its startup ecosystem.


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    Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dianna-yau/support

    • 28 min

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