How to shape product culture, from launch to Unicorn status

What's the secret to building and scaling a successful tech company? According to some of the top product-building experts in Southeast Asia, it's all about building a strong product culture from Day One. Setting strong product foundations looks different for companies at different stages, from seed to Series C and beyond, and must evolve based on the unique cultural environment in which you are building. Find out how businesses leaders from tech companies like Gojek, Lazada and more built successful internal product cultures.

maddie-gupta

Author

Madhulika Gupta

Antler recently held a roundtable discussion alongside Women In Product to understand the unique challenges and opportunities that come about while scaling a company in Southeast Asia and the importance of establishing a strong product culture from the earliest stages of company-building.

Banner image showing a panel of speakers involved in a roundtable discussion  concerning the challenges and opportunities when scaling a company in SouthEast Asia

From Esther Yanglan Wang, Regional Product Manager, Carro; Xuyi Cheng, VP of Product, Lazada; Sophie Jokelson, CMO & Co-Founder, Cove, and James Peacock, Head of Product, Gojek, here's what they had to say.

Build empowered cross-functional teams

According to Esther Yanglang Wang, Regional Product Manager at Carro (Singapore's newest Unicorn), building a cross-functional mindset is the true litmus test for a strong product culture. "From the discovery and design to the building and testing stages, all stakeholders in the company are encouraged to be part of the solution and feel ownership of the product," she says.

While scaling rapidly, Carro has worked hard to ensure that all teams feel knowledgeable about the operational side of product development, not just the tech and product managers, which Wang says helps to ensure that the entire company feels empowered to comment, iterate on and own aspects of the product.

Don't over-invest into a product role too early

For founders at the earliest stages of company-building, it is important to be thoughtful about when you make your first product hire.

According to Sophie Jokelson, CMO and Founder of PropTech startup Cove, one of the mistakes that early-stage startups often make is over-resourcing with a lot of expertise in product management too early.

It's tempting for early-stage founders to start building very complex products and doing a lot of the coding in-house by themselves from the start. It's a lovely thing to do to create a beautiful product, but because at that early stage you are still unsure of product-market-fit and are still developing your MVP, it doesn't make sense to over-invest into a product role until you have real clarity into what your longer-term product roadmap and solution would look like.

— SOPHIE JOKELSON


Instead, the responsibility of shaping product culture in the early days often falls to the CMO, as the objectives of the marketing and product teams become more intrinsically linked as the company grows. "Your role as both a marketer and a product manager is ultimately to shape the overall experience somebody has when they interact with your touch points, be they physical or digital," Jokelson says.

Define or redefine beliefs and objectives as you scale

For more mature companies like Gojek and Lazada, it becomes increasingly important to align objectives across different teams in order to deliver products in a fast and agile way. According to Xuyi Cheng, VP of Product at Lazada, it can get tricky when each functional team may have conflicting KPIs. "The sales team might want to increase revenue, while the marketing team focuses on bringing in more users and the user experience team wants to retain old users. It is so important to align so that everyone is on the same page about what should be prioritized when developing new product features," says Cheng.

Not only does having a strong internal product culture lead to a more efficient building process, it also impacts how the end-users perceive and interact with the product.

Be sensitive to Southeast Asia's cultural fragmentation

In Southeast Asia, it can be difficult to instill an internal team culture where people feel comfortable sharing blunt and open feedback, says James Peacock, Head of Product of Gojek.

Indonesian-headquartered Gojek (which also has big development teams in India and Singapore) has struggled with navigating this cultural environment as it has scaled.

I've found that in this part of the world, it's just not the done thing for people to speak up and voice their concerns. People keep cameras off and stay quiet, and that can make it quite hard for me to do my job effectively. Coming from a Western background, I really care about hearing from developers who are very different from me. If they think something isn't right, they are probably right and I want to know.

— JAMES PEACOCK

When it comes to assembling a team of product-builders and developers, James stresses the importance of hiring inquisitive people who will constantly be questioning why and what they are building.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Get the latest news and views from Antler’s global community

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Must-read articles from Antler

Browse our collection of founder stories, industry insights and latest startup successes from Antler Australia

See articles
Founder Stories
5 min read
Sharon Li & Vanessa Chen: Empowering employees to be their healthiest and most productive selves

“People sometimes think the emotional and professional are conflicting, but what we believe is when people love their organization, the emotional value will actually make them productive. It will make them give their full self to the organization and make the organization grow for the long term.” —Sharon Li, co-founder and CEO of CHOYS

Founder Stories
5 min read
Piet Hein van Dam: The seasoned data entrepreneur aiming to eradicate type 2 diabetes

Our content series "It All Starts with People" delves into the passions, motivations, and vision of the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with around the world. Bringing a clarity of vision to our latest spotlight is Piet Hein van Dam, co-founder of Clear, the award-winning digital self-help tool for diabetes patients.

Insights
5 min read
Unpacking the $80+ billion ONDC opportunity: India’s next startup catalyst

India's approach to unbundle payments made the world look up and take notice. Now it's time to disrupt commerce with the Open Network for Digital Commerce or ONDC. In our latest Theory of Next deep dive we mapped, researched, and reached out to every network participant live on ONDC right now.


And we're excited to share with you a comprehensive what could be India's next unicorn catalyst with inputs from Vibhor Jain (COO of ONDC), Sujith Nair (Founding member of Beckn Protocol), and founders building on ONDC!

Co-authored by Nitin Sharma (Partner, Antler) and Gokul Kumaravelu.

Insights
5 min read
Five steps investors can take to support more diverse founders

Despite growing calls to create a more inclusive venture capital ecosystem and remove the barriers to entrepreneurship, only a fraction of funding is raised by founders from underrepresented communities.

The first step towards change is quantifying the challenge. While in-depth research has been conducted about women founders and founders from ethnic minority backgrounds, data has never existed about tech founders from the LGBTQ+ community—until now.

Insights
5 min read
A record year for Europe's leading day zero investor

A look back at 2022, a record year for the leading day zero investor in Europe—showcasing investment activity and key predictions for the early-stage tech ecosystem in 2023.

Founder Stories
5 min read
Antler and Microsoft for Startups partner to back women founders

Antler is proud to join forces with Microsoft for Startups to support rising entrepreneurs—starting with 23 non-dilutive grants to women founders in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and North America—and reduce the barriers to startup success. Meet some of these founders.

Founder Stories
5 min read
Tanika McLeod: The educator empowering the next generation with an on-demand social learning platform

Our content series—"It All Starts with People"—delves into the passions, motivations, and vision of the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with around the world. In our latest spotlight, we spoke with Tanika McLeod, one of the three co-founders behind MinuteSkill, a Toronto-based social micro-learning platform that uses bite-sized content and knowledge-sharing communities to empower the next generation.

Insights
5 min read
Venture capital as an engine of positive transformation

Antler's second annual ESG and Impact Report shares learnings on how VCs can focus on creating sustainable value from the outset, and celebrates our portfolio companies' work in this space.