Clinton Chan is a recent Law and International Studies graduate from UNSW and a former General Manager of Textbook Ventures. He has been working as a product manager at Sonder since January 2020. We asked Clint about his journey in the startup world and the key learnings he has had so far.

What sparked your interest in the startup/tech world?

I fell into the startup and tech scene over the last few years. It started off when I was studying in Shanghai on a year-long exchange. At the time, there were a lot of VC-backed startups springing up in China such as the bike-sharing app Mobike. …

Akshat Agarwal is a recent Civil Engineering graduate from UNSW and a former Head of Events at Textbook Ventures. He has been working at startup generator Antler since November 2018. We asked Akshat a few questions regarding his experience and the key takeaways from his journey so far.

Antler is a global early-stage VC enabling and investing in exceptional entrepreneurs.

What sparked your interest in entrepreneurship and how did you find yourself at Antler?

After high school, I decided to do civil engineering at UNSW with a dream of helping to build a dam for the underprivileged. After some time, I was introduced to the General Electric Generator program where they taught corporate innovation…

Trevor Noah is an award-winning South African comedian and host of the Daily Show. In 2016, he released his first book Born a Crime, which became an instant New York Times bestseller, with over a million copies sold.

Born a Crime is a collection of stories from Trevor’s childhood in South Africa during the last few years of apartheid and the tumultuous period that followed. Being the son of a white Swiss-German father and a black Xhosa woman, Trevor was literally born a crime, during a time when interracial relationships were outlawed in South Africa. …

It’s extremely easy to only pay attention to the success stories in life- the people or the companies that triumph against seemingly impossible odds. In doing so, we often ignore the failures that fall by the wayside.

For every big success, there are thousands of failures. But the stories of failure are not as interesting as the stories of success, so they are rarely covered or shared. As a result, we forget the base rates and overestimate the chances of success.

This common logical error is called survivorship bias and distorts how we view the world.

The story of the missing bullet holes

During World War II…

During university, I have often worn my lack of sleep as a badge of honor. It’s not uncommon to witness a group of students competing to see who has slept the least in the last week, proving just how busy and hard-working they are.

However, reading Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker — Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley — was an eye-opening (or rather, eye-shutting) experience.

Supply chain traceability is becoming an increasingly fundamental feature for food companies, as consumers are demanding that their food is both safe and sustainable. For example, the 2015 E. coli outbreak caused significant image concerns for Chipotle, and the lack of transparency across their supply chain hindered tracing efforts. Additionally, food fraud costs the global food industry $50b annually, made possible by opaque supply chains (FIAL, 2018).

Blockchain’s value-add

Currently, food supply chains rely heavily on centralised information systems and manual paper trails. With blockchain, companies can digitise these processes and document each step of the supply chain on a shared ledger…

Blockchain refers to a public distributed data ledger made up of connected ‘blocks’. Each block represents a number of transactions whose origin and moment of execution are clearly identified and authenticated using asymmetric key cryptography and a timestamping mechanism.

A ‘smart contract’ refers to computer code that automatically executes an agreement on a blockchain-based platform. The Ethereum blockchain was purpose-built for smart contracts, facilitating a diverse range of applications. One such promising application is in the traditionally slow-moving insurance industry. In the near-term, smart contracts are likely to augment traditional insurance contracts by automating specific processes, improving operational efficiencies and…

It’s easy to think that the more work we take on and the faster we do it, the more successful we will become. But in doing so, we are falsely equating speed with progress. Just because you are moving fast does not mean you are moving forward. Slow and steady progress in one direction is much more meaningful than erratic progression in eighteen different directions.

This is neatly captured by a basic concept from physics: the difference between speed and velocity. Speed is a measure of the distance traveled over time. Velocity has the added vector of direction- how fast…