By SGN | 3 Jun 2024
Looking back, Jx sees how his career has led up to this point of becoming a founder.
“I always knew that I wanted to start something,” he says. Through his journey abroad in product management with tech heavyweights Dropbox, Lyft and ByteDance, he gradually took ownership of an even larger product surface area. Shortly after returning to Singapore in 2019, he assumed the role of chief product officer at Endowus, the digital investment platform that has amassed $95 million in funding.
Jx considers his time there a “tremendous experience that cannot be replicated”. “I was very privileged to be part of the Endowus journey for three years,” he reflects. “I learned a lot, built lasting relationships, and it gave me an insider view of the finance industry.”
Most crucially, he gained the courage to strike out on his own.
A niche problem to most
At Endowus, a key part of building a seamless user experience was working with banks and partners to digitalise processes and set up connectivity with these institutions. “Don’t forget, a lot of trading for certain financial instruments still happens via fax machines,” Jx says.
He faced the daily stress of ensuring millions of dollars were processed with zero error, lest users start wondering where their money was, should there be a lag in that connectivity.
At the same time, the gruelling experience opened his eyes to a promising business idea. What if there was a solution to simplify and streamline bank connectivity?
The problem occupied him day and night, when he went to bed and when he woke up.
“It’s an aspect that may seem boring or niche to most. It involves a lot of grind,” he concedes. “But I’m fascinated with solving technical problems. I’m fascinated with providing that efficiency, providing that accuracy.”
To find out if he was on to something, he spoke with nearly a hundred fintechs and banks, as well as SMEs from diverse industries, from F&B to education to manufacturing. As he suspected, companies across the board were bogged down by unwieldy bank connectivity. They struggled with manpower and efficiency issues in tackling the relentless slog of manual reconciliation.
Clearly, automation was the answer. “If you could automate all of these processes,” Jx explains, “you have a digital trail that will also improve auditability and reduce accounting fraud.”
This market need has been heightened by the rise of real-time payments, particularly in ASEAN, where the Regional Payment Connectivity Initiative currently enables bank-to-bank QR code transfers across the borders of eight countries.
Serving businesses of all sizes
As he shared his ideas with others, Jx drew the interest of fintech talent. This included several ex-employees of Stripe, a company he had long admired, who formed the founding team for his new startup, Acme Technology.
“People got excited because what I was sharing resonated with their past experiences and challenges,” he says. He points out that, while fintech companies often develop bank integration capabilities, they don’t offer these as a service to others.
Launched in January 2023, Acme builds APIs (application programming interfaces) that allow banks and clients to integrate their systems, exchange data, and facilitate real-time money movement. “You could think of our technology as the pipes or infrastructure that connects the bank to your back-end system and helps you run your business smoothly, everyday,” Jx explains.
As a unified platform, Acme simplifies the movement, tracking and verification of payments – whether received from customers or made to suppliers – across various countries and various banks’ security and connection protocols.
Within just a year, the team has managed to sign on big clients such as fashion e-commerce retailer Zalora, telemedicine provider WhiteCoat, and office cleaning firm Luce.
“Luce used to struggle with hundreds of invoices that took an offshore team a week or two to reconcile,” Jx shares. “With our service, they can reconcile a payment within minutes and fire off an email to acknowledge receipt.”
Small and medium businesses are also a key segment. “SMEs are the bedrock of society,” he says. “They are also the best in terms of providing valuable user feedback. Because of how resource-constrained they are, if your product can serve them, it can serve anyone.”
Looking ahead, Jx is excited to grow Acme along several dimensions: increasing the number of bank connections supported, taking on scale-up clients with a regional presence, as well as expanding the team.
“One thing that hasn’t changed since Endowus is my passion for building a world-class team and creating a great working culture,” he professes.
Value in working abroad
Working abroad exposed Jx to different business models – SaaS (Dropbox), marketplace (Lyft), ad-based (Resso) – and gave him an idea of the sort of platform he wanted to build.
“Being overseas also exposed me to the level of talent required to compete on the global stage,” he says. “When you start a company based in Singapore, it has to be a global company from the beginning.”
Acme’s core team similarly brings with them significant global experience. General Manager Rensyn Hooi used to work at Stripe in Silicon Valley, while founding engineer Sheng-Loong Su has worked at Salesforce in Silicon Valley and a BNPL startup called Smartpay in Japan.
“Venturing abroad is definitely an advantage,” Jx offers. “Besides experiencing different companies and cultures, you will be in a better position to catch technology waves. When I was in San Francisco, it was the rise of cloud storage, and then driverless cars. When I was in China, it was the growth of short-form videos and user-generated content.
“There is also something to be said for thrusting yourself into a new environment. When you’re overseas, you are more focused and able to make the best of your experience, both professionally and personally.”
The upside of uncertainty
Considering the challenging climate for startups and a growing family at home to support, Jx had to weigh the risks carefully before taking the plunge with Acme. While others might have waited until winds were more favourable, he sees now as the right time to build.
“Great startups were born following the 2008 financial crisis. The uncertainty now is somewhat reminiscent of those years,” he says. “And I firmly believe that the best companies are built in times like these, by the hungriest entrepreneurs.”
As a founder, Jx has had to brave countless moments of discouragement, when he’s been rejected by companies or doubted by friends. Yet, in Singapore, there are sources of support he can count on.
“This comes from the tight-knit tech community, and from institutions like Enterprise Singapore which helps not just startups like us, but also the SMEs that want to adopt our solutions,” he remarks.
Though boom and bust cycles are inevitable, Jx believes the impact of layoffs on recent casualties must not be diminished. “They’re not just a number. These are real lives,” he notes. “Every number represents people’s aspirations, people supporting their families.”
For those caught in such a situation, his advice is to take stock. “It’s a good time to do a sense check of: What are the skill sets you have? What are you going for? On the plus side, it allows a lot of people to think about taking a break or starting their own thing. You also see a lot of transplants of very experienced executives to a different sector like nonprofits.”
Opportunities in a maturing tech scene
Over the last five years, Jx has witnessed Singapore’s tech scene reach a new stage of maturity. More companies are hiring local engineering tech teams, and some former executives (himself included) have left to launch startups. This translates to a wider range of opportunities, in spite of the current downturn.
“If you’re technical talent, you have a lot of choices. You can choose to work in big tech, work for a local firm, or start your own,” he says.
As for global professionals, Jx underscores that Singapore is worth exploring, even if the cost of living is comparable to other global cities.
“Get plugged in, spend a few weeks or months here, attend events, get to know the community,” he recommends. “So many startups are hungry for advice and help from senior executives. It’s a great scene to explore, and a springboard if you have a heart for impacting the region.”
Interested in working in Singapore or starting a business here?
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Meet Jx
Jx is the founder and CEO of Acme Technology, a B2B fintech that provides streamlined bank APIs to automate money movement and real-time reconciliation. He was previously the Chief Product Officer at Endowus.
Connect with him here.
