5 Questions with John Tan, angel investor and edtech founder

IN over a decade angel-investing in startups, John Tan has lost tons of money but learnt valuable lessons, dealt with rogue founders, and backed some of the most recognisable names in tech such as Ninja Van and Chope.

Today, Tan runs an edtech company in Singapore called Doyobi. Its mission is to equip every child with the skills to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

In this month’s edition of 5 Questions, Tan tells us how his entry into the world of technology helped him find his life’s purpose.

1. Tell us about your work history and how you discovered that your calling was in the field of education.

I started in management consulting. Hated it. Lasted about three years. I didn’t want to be the guy telling CEOs what to do. I’d rather be building something myself. So I started a frozen yoghurt brand called Frolick with a couple of friends.

I got into tech by accident. My neighbour when I was a student in London started the restaurant booking app Chope. A couple of us decided to pool our funds together to invest in Arrif’s startup. He’s a smart guy, and charismatic too.

Now I’ve invested in close to a hundred startups in the last 11 years. Fortunately, I made a couple of good bets. In the early-stage investing game, a couple of winners will more than pay for all the losers.

I started Saturday Kids in 2012, shortly after I started angel investing. Initially, it was just a side project to get kids to learn how to code. I was hanging out with all these tech founders and figured there’s no reason why kids need to wait till college to learn computer science.

The first five years were very difficult. We were educating parents on why kids should learn how to create with technology. We got our big break in 2017, when Google asked us to run Code In The Community, the largest free coding programme in Singapore. I spun out an edtech entity called Doyobi (Saturday in Japanese) from Saturday Kids in 2020 to focus on helping kids learn life skills that will prepare them for the future.

2. What do you believe is the most absurd thing about how kids are educated today?

Where do I start? The entire education system is built on the premise that the average student exists. That kids know the same things, learn the same way, at the same age. It’s completely absurd. There’s no such thing as an average student. Why do we persist with a one-size-fits-all system?

The other thing about school is that it is almost entirely disconnected from the real world. When I was a student in secondary school and junior college, I remember constantly wondering how what I was learning in school had anything to do with the work people do.

This was 25 years ago, mind you. The world is changing much faster today than when I was a student. But schools have hardly changed. My kids are still doing the same Math problem sums I did when I was their age. Recently, I showed my four-year-old son how to create AI-generated art. He got the hang of it pretty quickly and made an AI-generated image of a car on a race track. Even four-year-olds are creators. Schools are light years behind where the world is at and what technology is capable of.

As an investor and founder, I’ve also seen first hand how unprepared young people are for the requirements of working life. Take something as basic as writing. Think about what you want to say, say it as simply as possible, and put it down in writing. So many people cannot do that. The same goes for other skills like critical thinking, collaboration, problem-solving etc.

I believe the purpose of education is to instil the joy of learning and help young people make their way in the world. Education as it is today does quite the opposite. Kids hate learning (some even have a phobia of learning) and come out of college completely unprepared for what life throws at them.

3. You’ve been angel investing for several years in US and South-east Asian startups — what are some of the biggest lessons learnt? One of your most notable investments is in Ninja Van. How did that come about and what are some of the most memorable moments from the early days?

In early-stage investing, it’s all about the founders. It took me a couple of years to understand that. I have many horror stories of founders I’ve invested in doing crazy things to bazooka the company. The most absurd is probably a Y Combinator founder who quit the startup I invested in to start a right-wing social network in support of Donald Trump.

These days, I hardly invest in founders I don’t know. They may be brilliant, but if they don’t know how to inspire the team, manage people, and do right by investors, I’m not getting my money back.

I invested in Ninja Van because I had invested in the team’s previous startup, a fashion e-commerce business, and I know them very well. I saw how hard they work, how street smart they are, and how well they work together, and I just knew they would be successful at some point. The question was whether I was willing to keep backing them. I had already lost quite a lot of money on their previous startup. Fortunately, I trusted my instinct and wrote them that first cheque to start Ninja Van.

In the early days, I was in the warehouse with the founders sorting parcels way past midnight. We would play keepy uppy* to stay awake. The first couple of Christmases, I had to drive around in a van delivering parcels. Everyone chipped in. I remember there was this one driver who went rogue and held our parcels ransom. I jumped into a car with the founders and we tracked him down eventually. He still wanted to negotiate. I started yelling at him and eventually he backed down. The Ninja guys told me later they have never seen me so fierce before.

*keepy uppy: a game where a ball has to be kept off the ground by bouncing it off your legs, chest and head

4. You hail from the same alma mater as some notable names in South-east Asian tech, such as Sea’s Ye Gang and Zopim’s Royston Tay. Did your paths cross, and were there indications that tech would be where all of you would make your mark?

Ye Gang, Royston and I are all ‘82 Chinese High/Hwa Chong alumni. I used to play street soccer with Royston. Always on different teams. Ye Gang, I don’t remember much of. There’s also Stanley (Han) from Koobits, (Ang) Jingjia from GudangAda, and (Chew) Shouzi from TikTok. I don’t think any of us had any idea we were going to end up in tech.

Perhaps Chinese High boys are just more entrepreneurial? A couple of years above me there’s Darius (Cheung) from 99.co and (Lim) Der Shing from JobsCentral, and quite a few years younger than me there’s Oswald (Yeo) and (Seah) Yingcong from Glints.

I think maybe part of it is that the school culture at Chinese High helps build confidence. Because we are an independent school, the principal would give us a day off for winning the track and field championship, gym championship etc. Something about that must have rubbed off on us. We just have that confidence and independent streak to want to do things our way.

5. What is one piece of advice you would give your younger self?

Be skeptical about other people’s definition of success. Many young people have been conditioned by adults in their life to take the path of least resistance, land a well-paying job, and be happy with “success”. This may work for some people, but it may not work for you.

Teachers, parents, siblings etc are cheerleaders. Don’t live your life according to somebody else’s definition of a life well-lived.

Decide for yourself what is important to you and what makes you excited about getting out of bed every morning. Or, as we like to say at Doyobi, be an original thinker with a sense of purpose.