By SGN | Updated 11 Feb 2025
“My wife and I are planners. So, we knew about fifteen years ago that we’d be moving to Singapore.”
While Serge did not know the exact details of how this ambitious plan would play out, both he and his wife, Lucy, knew that they wanted to raise a family outside of the US.
“Children are an important consideration. We wanted ours to experience living in different places, and view the world as a bigger place,” he shares.
“When, instead of experiencing things directly, you read about it or hear about it from someone else, you tend not to empathise with it. If you want to experience the world in a meaningful way for that, you must get on the ground and live there.”
The Belarus-born American entrepreneur is no stranger to experiencing life in a wholly new place. When he was eleven, his family moved to a sleepy Chicago suburb. And while his teenage years in a foreign country were fairly uneventful, the events of his early childhood served as a blueprint for his adult life.
The early makings of an entrepreneur
“Growing up in Belarus, the community was there to take care of you,” he shares. “When you leave your house, you’d see a row of quintessential Eastern European grandmas. They’d always say hello and things like, ‘Where are you going? How is your mother?’”
While Serge enjoyed a relatively stress-free childhood that revolved around education and outdoor playtime with friends, his parents on the other hand were contending with the dilemma of providing for the family and relocating in search of safety and stability.
“When the opportunity to move to the US came about, it felt surreal,” he recalls. “It’s a place you dream about; it’s the land of opportunity. You watch these movies about New York, Las Vegas, California, and so a picture begins to form in your mind.”
While his own decision to move to Singapore came from an empowered place, he could not say the same for his parents.
“Immigrant families just want to make sure their kids have a better life, no matter what it takes, which is an incredible mindset to have,” he says. “Which is why leaving Belarus was much more of a “burn the ships” moment for my parents. They felt like they needed to be that rock for us.”
Serge’s parents’ innate desire to give their children a better chance manifested in a passion for building things.
“Whenever I entertained the idea of starting a business, or building my own company, my parents would always ask if they could help in any way. They encouraged us and even offered to do the books – that’s how enthusiastic they were,” he remembers.
Unsurprisingly, Serge was bitten by the entrepreneurship bug early on. “As kids, my brother Max and I were always doing something. I started doing web design from a young age. It was early days when spinning letters and patterned backgrounds were all the rage.”
Three years into his corporate finance role at Microsoft, when Max asked if he would be interested in helping him run his solo IT consulting business, Serge was excited by the prospect.
Max had struck out on his own right after graduating with a computer science degree. “And coincidentally, I happened to be doing some reflecting on where I was spending my energy. The time was right!”
Serge realised that he spent most of his time reading and thinking about new business ideas across different industries. It became apparent that, at that time, working in a large company wasn’t the best fit for him.
Navigating a lifetime together
Before Serge had embarked on an introspective journey to figure out his next steps, he and his now-wife Lucy, were enjoying their careers. The duo met when they were nineteen, and at a time when Serge was at the intersection of several academic crossroads.
“I was all over the place as far as education was concerned. I moved from computer science to digital media, only to realise the latter was not for me,” he recalls. In contrast, Lucy was certain about her path in finance. The couple ended up in a three-year long-distance relationship with Serge completing a degree in Finance at the University of Illinois, and Lucy completing hers in California.
“A major part of our decision was guided by our idea of the kind of life we wanted to have,” he recalls. “Everyone was piling into investment banking, which was an exciting job with extreme hours. We decided we would both intern at Microsoft, in corporate finance. It was both a career and a life together.”
The duo entered a two-year rotational programme that would move them to new roles every six months at Microsoft in Seattle. “This was probably one of the best decisions both of us made – from both life and career perspectives,” Serge reflects. “Programmes like this are incredible for early graduates, because you’re exposed to such breadth in terms of how your degree can be applied.”
To this day, he remains in touch with the people he met during his time at Microsoft. “I’m grateful for the huge investment and bet the company made on us. I met life-long friends and mentors there,” he says. “Since that time, it’s been a dream to enable this kind of an experience for others when they are finally able.”
Making the transition
During the following 12 years, Serge help co-found, scale, and sell two vertical SaaS companies, Club Automation and RevenueWell, prior to the move to Singapore.
Once a builder, always a builder. Serge is a big supporter of the entrepreneur community and needed to find a new way to be a helpful part of one here.
Looking around, he found that many peers were drawn to the idea of becoming angel investors and investing in aspiring companies. This was a course of action he was not immune to either.
Over time, he realised he had to become more methodical in his approach to evaluating companies. “Everyone has great ideas – but how do you determine which models are sound, spaces with durable moats, who to bet behind, and what to steer clear of?”
Serge also found himself engaging with these newly forged businesses very differently. “Some simply wanted a cheque, because they had everything else figured out. Others were seeking a partner to figure things out with,” he shares.
“Energy-wise, I was much more excited to work with folks in a more hands-on way, side-by-side, rather than taking on a purely venture capital-style role. I wanted to more directly help focus the ideas and execution toward a good match between the entrepreneur and a big need in the market.”
Around this time, Serge and Lucy began to zero in on their decision to move to Asia, their choices split between Singapore and Hong Kong. Eventually, the former proved to be a better choice given the couple’s family circumstances and, in mid-2023, they made the move.
Collaborating to create a venture studio
“This is probably a really boring answer, but we knew exactly what we were in for before moving here,” Serge mentions, when asked if he experienced any culture shock after setting foot in Singapore. “We felt at home after only just a handful of months of having been here.”
The people of Singapore also welcomed Serge and his family right off the bat. “We had friends here before we moved. They helped introduce us to others and quickly we had a little community going,” he shares.
Serge has also relied on educational and professional networks to meet new people; in just a matter of months, he has already attended over 300 coffee chats, making the most of educational and professional networks to meet new people.
“We took part in college and company alumni communities as well as our daughter’s school,” he mentions. “Jonathan, Terri, and Ian at Singapore Global Network (SGN) also took me under their wing a bit. They’ve been great at both including and introducing me to many great people here. It’s an amazing crew.”
“Most people are aware of venture capital and private equity,” Serge notes. “Our venture studio BDV (built:different) is a bit, well, different. We are both a company co-founder and a pre-seed capital provider. We originate our own ideas and work with entrepreneurs to validate theirs, support marketplace launches, and continue to guide them to scale up their business.”
At present, in addition to a network of mentors and advisors, three people are involved besides Serge himself: fintech operator and investor Huey Lin, GTM leader Thomas Jeng, and lawyer Peggy Wang.
“The four of us bring different strengths and capacities to the table,” he shares. “We can talk for hours about anything under the sun – philosophy, life, business. It’s important that the group is strong professionally, but also enjoys that we like spending time together.”
“Thomas’s perspective, especially on adapting Silicon Valley thinking for Asia, has been particularly enlightening.” (For those interested in his insights, be sure to check out Thomas’s article here.)
While still in its early days, BDV is positioned to build 16 companies over 5 years, focused on two themes: reducing friction for cross-border businesses and tech-enabled high-stakes services. “Companies operating in more than one country come with a Pandora’s box of challenges and complexities,” he explains. “Usually, it’s to do with regulation, compliance and flow of information, people, money and goods.”
However, the why behind each BDV partner’s motivations is deeply personal. “All of us have lived in different parts of the world, and in our own ways, have seen how the world can come together, only to be pulled apart,” he explains.
“We want to do our part by helping founders build meaningful B2B companies that make the doing of business simpler across borders. Built in Singapore for the world.”
Meet Serge
He traded in his 9-5 to pursue his real passion – helping companies achieve extraordinary growth. As a part of the venture studio outfit BDV, he is on a mission to help Singapore-based companies thrive in an increasingly fragmented world.
Connect with him here.
