Five things to learn from working at food panda
Pawel Natreba, co-founder of foodpanda and former VP at Rocket Internet went to Malaysia in May last year to work on the integration of foodpanda and RoomService (which it required in early 2015).
The startup ecosystem in Malaysia is impressive in its own standards and witnessing the amazing growth of entrepreneurial activities, he decided to put the entrepreneur in him to use and thus Bfab was born.
Bfab is an online beauty and wellness marketplace. The startup recently received an undisclosed amount in pre-launch investment, led by Singapore-based VC firm KK. 500 startups and southeast Asia-focused multi-stage investor Captii Ventures also joined the round.
Heres what Natreba says he learnt from his journey- Rocket internet all the way Bfab-
An in-depth view of all functions and processes of an e-commerce startup which provides you with a perfect high-level overview and at the same time a comfort with detail-understanding how each function works, what are the drivers, what are the best practices and how to organize these functions.
Understanding and Managing people as it is a definite complementary for any entrepreneur whether you will like it or not and it will
become a ritual.
The key to success in any industry is teamwork and the business starts or fall with your people. You can also learn how poor HR strategy/attention can lead to disastrous issues. These are all valuable lessons you need to go through yourself.
Being in a management team gives you a basic insight and clear-cut view on the aspects which are more important to investors, which aspects are sensitive, where to focus in the beginning, how best to scale etc.
You sit together, you learn from each other, and you get an input/feedback from one of the best investors/startup builders.
You learn how to execute, execute, execute.
All your planning and strategies count for son little if you dont execute; execution being such an important variable in the success formulae. You have to get up and work it through your sweat in the field. On the same note, acting fast puts you at a clear advantage to your competition. Think quick, execute and bear results, start running if you can and on the way adjust the direction in which you are running, get your advantage and can change the direction to improve.
Being smart is obsolete without the factor working hard. It is a variable you can control and must use to your advantage. Without working hard, your chance of success is almost zero.
As is every entrepreneurs goal, Natreba isnt planning to stay inside the boundaries of Malaysia and has big plans for Bfab. But first, he plans to make it right in Malaysia.
One can obtain more information by visiting http://sdasia.co/ or https://www.facebook.com/SDAsia.co
