Podcast: Hard Truths by Vertex | Episode 11 - Truths about Automating and Growing F&B and Retail Businesses in Southeast Asia with Wai Hong Fong, StoreHub

Elise TAN | 17 May 2023

How do you adapt to the ever-changing market dynamics and evolving needs of businesses when it comes to achieving product-market fit? How do you build a business serving clients that operate on thin margins in a competitive environment? And how do you ensure your business remains resilient against client churn and funding challenges?

In Episode 11 of Hard Truths by Vertex, Wai Hong Fong, the co-founder of StoreHub, reveals the hard truths he learned in building a successful business that caters to F&B and retail businesses.

Tune in to HTBV11 to find out!

Our Guest

Wai Hong Fong is the co-founder of StoreHub, an all-in-one technology platform that offers an ecosystem of solutions ranging from a cloud-based POS system to QR-based table ordering, loyalty, customer engagement, and many more. This platform helps restaurants and retailers throughout Southeast Asia automate and grow their businesses.

He also built OZhut, an Australian multi-niche online retailer, before creating StoreHub. In 2011, while running OZHut, he was recognized as Melbourne's "Top 100 Most Influential People" by The Age Newspaper and Australia's "Best Young Entrepreneur" by StartupSmart.

Wai Hong describes himself as an accidental entrepreneur, a geek, a foodie, and a gamer for life. He is passionate about creating profitable, purpose-driven businesses and believes that the methods used to do so should be characterized by honesty, modesty, and generosity.

In This Episode

(00:55) How StoreHub got started

(04:25) Hard Truths about F&B and Retail

(06:43) How they create a scaled marketing and sales process

(09:55) Early days of Storehub

(12:18) Meeting his co-founder and CTO

(14:27) Meeting Vertex

(15:41) Hard truths about fund-raising

(18:06) How Vertex is different from many other VCs

(20:00) Product-Market Fit isn’t a static thing

(22:15) How StoreHub launched a food delivery business in just 48 hours

(26:06) Being resilient to funding challenges

(28:57) Building a pro sports team culture

Links

Notes and Full Transcript for Episode 11.

Listen on Apple, Spotify and Google.

Or watch our other episodes here on YouTube.

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Your Host

Elise Tan is the Director of Communications and Community at Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India. Prior to joining Vertex, she has had extensive experience in investor relations and partnership at global venture funds and accelerators with more than $100m in AUM. Elise also currently runs a Southeast Asia-based startup community of nearly 800 entrepreneurs called the Asia Startup network and actively supports their startup journey through panels, meet-ups, and mentoring programs.

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Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India is a pioneer in investing in tech start-ups in this region and has helped to build a number of unicorns. In this podcast, we seek to share and uncover the Hard Truth - raw, unfiltered insights and venture capital knowledge from across Southeast Asia and India. Tune in to learn from leading founders, innovators, venture capitalists, and industry experts in the region and to gain industry insights from those in the know.

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