Tee-Ming Chew, Co-Founder of Seedly, Gives Strong & On-Point Book Recommendations
Tee-Ming Chew is the co-founder of Seedly, a Singapore-based fintech startup that helps people make smarter financial decisions.
Seedly’s mission is to simplify personal finances across the millennial generation. They can use it as a platform to manage their money, track progress, cash-flow, and learn to make smarter financial decisions, all in one place. They also have a community feature that allows users to crowdsource knowledge from peers.
Launched in 2016, Seedly quickly became the front-runner in the South-East Asia region, with over 300% growth in users since the beginning of this year. Last month (May 2018) it was acquired by the ShopBack group, with whom they share a common vision. ShopBack is a lifestyle portal that powers smarter purchase decisions, used by 3.5 million consumers across six Asia-Pacific markets.
Born and raised in Singapore, Tee-Ming is a passionate builder. His entrepreneurial journey started during his second university year, when he worked at ShopBack during his summer holiday – back then, it was an early stage startup and he was the first intern, getting involved in building the product from scratch.
Since then, Tee-Ming joined the NUS Overseas Colleges program and spent a year working in Silicon Valley, doing part-time entrepreneurship and talking to startup founders, all while studying at Stanford University. He worked as a software engineer for Pixlee, a user-generated content marketing platform headquartered in San Francisco. This experience offered him a thorough perspective on the entrepreneurial differences between America and Asia.
It was then that he also met his co-founder Kenneth Lew and they later worked together on a few startup ideas, before starting Seedly.
From Tee-Ming we found out what books he’d recommend and how they helped him change his perception. Here they are:
What’s your favorite book and why?
I would recommend Zero to One by Peter Thiel because it gives different perspectives on how to create value in this world.
Was there a moment, specifically, when something you read in a book helped you?
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal. It changed the way I think about product and helps you to be hyper focused on what matters rather than what is cool for your users.
What books had the biggest impact on you?
Rich Dad Poor Dad changed my perception on how to manage my personal finances. The Lean Startup and Zero to One taught me about entrepreneurship and management. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products taught me about product development.
What books would you recommend to youngsters interested in your professional path?
The Lean Startup to learn how to efficiently create a business by validations.
Links where you can follow Tee-Ming Chew or find out more about his projects:
- Seedly.sg
- Connect with Tee-Ming Chew on LinkedIn
- Seedly featured in Tech in Asia: ‘Seedly helps millennials manage their money – and Singapore’s ShopBack just acquired it‘
- Seedly featured on BBC: ‘Got a smartphone? Here’s how to make it smarter‘
- Tee-Ming Chew’s interview on Asian Entrepreneur
- Kenneth Lew’s article on Tech in Asia: ‘What a founder learned after running a hardware startup for 2 years‘
All books mentioned by Tee-Ming Chew in our interview: