Podcast Notes | Startup Talks: Alex Sy – The Basics of Starting a Startup

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Speaker Info:  Alex Sy is the Managing Director of Atlas Business Consulting & Mentoring  Services which is based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He has had over 30 years of hands-on experience in Senior Management, and is a board adviser in small and medium size businesses.

This podcast is hosted by Vince Loremia and Joy Garingo.

Vince is the  co-founder of Startup Island PH & the founder of Cleaningly – a tech driven cleaning services company based in Australia. He had also founded two startups: Tudlo Innovation Solutions –  a mobile and web application that was initially developed for disaster awareness and management, and Kallfly, an On-Demand virtual Contact Center marketplace, connecting businesses with experienced home-based call center agents.

Joy is the General Manager of The Company’s co-working spaces & shared office facility in Cebu. The Company was created by Zero-ten Park which is an award winning creative agency based in Fukuoka, Japan. The Company has 10+ spaces in 5 countries! Aside from co-working spaces, The Company Cebu also offers offices for rent in Cebu City & Mandaue City.

Intro:

  • How Atlas Business Consulting & Mentoring Started:
    • Alex named his company, Atlas Business Consulting & Mentoring, after his family’s business in Cebu, which is Cebu Atlas Hardware. He did this to honor his father’s legacy,
    • His passion & what fulfills him is to share his knowledge for the main aim of improving a business or a person.

Key Takeaways:

  • The first thing to ask people who want to start a business is what their purpose for starting the business is. Once they are able to identify this, it will then become their guarding principle.
  • In business, making money is the outcome of your action, not the goal.
    • The next thing to do is to build the foundation of the business. To build the foundation, one must know how they want to structure their business, the processes that must be in place for the business’ success, and the key metrics. 
    • In identifying the processes, business owners can then identify what the challenges of the business are.
  • For business owners, it’s difficult to start when they don’t have a mentor because they won’t have all the answers at the onset. So it is vital for the business owner to not be afraid to ask around, especially when you want your startup to succeed. External advice is NECESSARY when one wants to continuously grow.
  • The Hallmarks of successful start-ups
      • Solid Foundation = stable structure
      • Foundations is the most crucial part of the business 
      • Customer’s attention is a critical component in business. Businesses who focus on retaining their customer’s attention and loyalty tend to succeed more than those who don’t..
  • Tools Alex recommends to Start-ups:
      • Xero – to organize numbers
      • Any Customer Relationship Management tool – to monitor client relationship
  • Is it a good practice to get investors when you’re starting up?
    • Investors are great but it would depend on how the business was structured as to whether or not taking in investors is good practice.

Listen to the podcast episode on Spotify, Anchor.fm, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Pocket Casts, and Facebook.

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