Honey Mya Win: Because we need to prove that this is going to work and...

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: We had that gut feelings that this thing would work, no matter what other people said.

 

David Madden: Silicon Valley likes to say that it’s making the world a better place, but that’s mostly bullshit.

 

The problems that most famous tech companies are solving aren’t real problems.

 

But in other countries — developing countries — there are entrepreneurs who are building things that are actually changing people’s lives in very practical ways.

 

That’s what this podcast is about.

 

I’m David Madden. Welcome to the Revolution of Necessity.

 

On this podcast, we share the stories of tech entrepreneurs in developing countries. These are people who are innovating in places where technology could genuinely make the world a better place.

 

This podcast is supported by Omidyar Network. Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm set up by the guy who created eBay, Pierre Omidyar, and his wife Pam.

 

If you like this podcast, please take a second to click subscribe and to rate us.

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If you’ve grown up in a country with very little technology and almost no access to the internet, how do you end up being a tech entrepreneur?

​

Today, we’re going to hear the story of two sisters from myanmar and how they got the startup bug.
 

Four years ago, Honey Mya Win and her sister Shwee Yee participated in the first hackathons in Myanmar. Today they’re running “Chate Sat”, the country’s biggest freelance marketplace - a platform where businesses and individuals can find someone to build their website, design their logo, translate their documents or whatever service they need. Chate Sat is one of Myanmar's most promising early stage startups.

 

I was in myanmar running an organization that supports startups, so i got to witness this journey. I’m excited to have Honey and Shwe Yee here today to share their story.

 

Honey and Shwee Yee, welcome to the Revolution of Necessity.

 

Honey Mya Win: Hello David.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Hello David, it’s me Shwe Yee.

 

David Madden: Let’s start at the beginning and talk about how you both came to be working in technology. Honey, you started your career as a telecom’s engineer, but how did that happen?

 

Honey Mya Win: Actually it was my dad, I was still attending school, huh, secondary school.

 

David Madden: And this here, is in Yangon.

 

Honey Mya Win: Yep, and my dad really want, want me to become like female technician, like a computer technician.  

 

David Madden: Why did he want you to become a engineer?

 

Honey Mya Win: At that time it was really rare, because all the, I mean, all the technicians and all this technology related, in this field, all like, almost everyone is male. So he want me to become, like, one of those very few female technicians.

 

David Madden: You have to tell me about your dad then. Why did your, why did your dad want you to blaze a trail...?  

 

Honey Mya Win: We didn't notice at first, but he's one of our, you know inspirational entrepreneurs, because he was like doing all sorts of things from stationary, um, shop owner, to, you know, building this purifying water bottle factory, all, all these kind of things so...

 

David Madden: So your dad's an entrepreneur?

 

Honey Mya Win: Yeah. He want me to become a tech geek.

 

David Madden: And did you like that idea? Did you think “ok..."?

 

Honey Mya Win: Yeah, I would like to try. So, in summer holiday we usually go to painting classes, you know, all these kind of, you know, classes full of kids. At that time I was really small, I mean maybe it's in sixth or seventh grade.

 

David Madden: So all your friends in high school are going to painting classes and you got to…

 

Honey Mya Win: Yeah...swimming classes…

 

David Madden: ...swimming classes, and you go to, like a networking school?

 

Honey Mya Win: It's a hardware training.

 

David Madden: Are there other 13 year old women going to this class?

 

Honey Mya Win: No way, no way, they’re like, a lot of them are like, 20+. It's really strange, almost my entire life I was being like the youngest one, youngest one in the class. They like really really took, take, took care of me. But it was strange for them as well having a teenager in the class. But I guess I did well and I knew how to, I mean, how this thing operate. I mean and what are the, what's inside it, right? CPU's, memories and you know, all these little things.

 

David Madden: Honey spends her summer holidays learning how computers work and how to connect them and make them work together. She’s into it and after she finishes high school in 2008 she spends two years in a technical college studying how to be a network engineer.

 

Honey Mya Win: What I really want to become was you know, to get these kind of certificates and diplomas here, and then go and work abroad.

 

David Madden: But Honey didn’t go abroad. She gets a call from her trainer.

 

Honey Mya Win: And at that time he told me that “you don't really need to go abroad, you know? because all these technology companies, they are going to come here”.

 

David Madden: Around this time the Myanmar government decides to open up its telecommunications market. There’s going to be new mobile network operators and telecoms engineers will be in high demand. Honey gets a job with the big Chinese company Huawei.

 

Her younger sister - Shwe Yee - has been watching her progress, but it’s not really her thing.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: My dad want me to go to the same part that Honey did, the thing is that I'm not interested in that computer hardware stuff at all. My favorite software is the paint. I, I like to draw. So I said that “I’m not interested in those hardware stuff” and I wanted to attend photoshop.

 

David Madden: And when you finished high school, what did you do?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: I tried diploma in computer art and we, I found out that I am more interested when I have to design the thing with the coding, this is where I started learning HTML. Rather than drawing with the software, drawing, designing something with the coding is cool, I think, it's because I write those codes and, huh, the design show up.

 

David Madden: In 2013 Shwe Yee gets a software job with a local game developer. soon after things started getting interesting. In 2014, two big international telecommunications companies get mobile operating licenses and set out to get the country connected.

 

I’m really interested in this. I’ve spent most of my life working in technology and startups, but in 2012 I followed my wife to Myanmar.

 

Now that the country was finally getting connected, I thought I might be able to help support the local tech community. I organized a hackathon: a 48 hour marathon coding event for software developers and designers. The goal was to build apps that would help local organizations doing important work.

 

Apparently it’s the first-ever hackathon in Myanmar and that’s where i meet Shwe Yee.  

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: When I was in the company, our managers said that “let's go participate in first ever hackathon”

 

David Madden: Did you know what a hackathon was when you went to this thing Shaw Yee, that you?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: No, I had no idea.

 

David Madden: Alright, so when your manager said “Okay you have to work this weekend we're going to a hackathon”, what did you think it was?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: I was excited for the very first time, to see that it’s a competition, like we have to work through 48 hours and let's give it a try together so, I was, it's like a team work. And I said “okay, why not? Let’s...” well, it’s new, and I was super excited.

 

David Madden: And the event was all weekend?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Yeah, it was all weekend. It was 48 hours straight. Teamwork is really strong I think because for us, we code with the team, but for other people they just came alone and they meet strangers there and make a group and work together, right away. So I was really really excited to see that. That was great, although we didn't win anything, any prize.

 

David Madden: But you still had a good time.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Yeah.

​

David Madden: The tech community loved the first hackathon, so later in 2014 I organize another one and this time Honey joins her sister.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: I was really excited to try it again but so that, uhm, at that time Honey said that “okay, I’m joining…”

 

Honey Mya Win: So yes, because she couldn't, you know, stop talking about it. At that time, it was like, she was like talking about this 40 hour coding thing and people are like, you know, sleeping there, eating there, coding there. So yeah, I decided to join her and the team, even though I don't know anything about coding or …In the registration, you know, form as well, there were like three categories. Like developers, designers and entrepreneurs. So I don't code, so I'm not designer, developer. But the entrepreneur thing, I don't know what that is I can't even pronounce it. But then I asked her and I, I googled it on the side, you know, you gotta pitch, you gotta pich to the, to audience about your solution and you got to present it and find the solution together with the team, so, okay, maybe I, I could be an entrepreneur so I just registered as an entrepreneur.

 

David Madden: The goal of the second hackathon is to develop technology solutions for local businesses.

 

Honey Mya Win: So what we chose was this vegetable box delivery service. And the thing is that they all do it manually, so they have like difficulties in taking orders and trying to summarize them and then arranging the vegetables to delivery on time. So, yeah, we decided to pick this problem and provide an ordering and delivery system.

 

David Madden: Had either of you ever ordered anything on the internet before?

 

Honey Mya Win: No, not at that time.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Not at that time.

 

David Madden: So how did you, how did you figure out what this should look like? There's almost no e-commerce in Myanmar in 2014. Very little.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Very little and there's no chance that we can order from overseas as well. So that we don't have any experience of online shopping or e-commerce, but the thing is that, the problem that he's facing, has to be solved technically as well as locally because our culture and our market is very different from what other countries.  

 

David Madden: It was a 48 hour hackathon, so 48 hours later, what did you have?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: We won!

 

Honey Mya Win: Yeah, we couldn't believe it but because most of the time we were like having fun, so they, they were like coding, and I was preparing slides and, you know, taking selfies. And we were making new friends and, I mean, the network, you know, the other developers are talking about the same problems, how we solve it, all these kind of things so...

 

David Madden: How did it feel, to win?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, because we didn't hope for anything, we just came here to experience this event. So it's unbelievable. At that time I was only a junior web developer, so that, I'm not a tech geek. And we don't have any online ordering system or online shopping experience, we are just all noobs, uhm, working together, having fun.

 

David Madden: The company that needed that online ordering service is so impressed that it pays Honey and Shwe Yee to build it properly for them.

 

It’s just a side gig, Honey goes back to her job at Huawei and Shwe Yee goes back to coding school, but the excitement from their big win stays with them.

 

Honey Mya Win: This spark that we experienced is really amazing and we get to know that there are, there are a lot of problems to be solved in Myanmar. And then I got into it. I don't, I don’t know how but I just got into it.

 

David Madden: In 2015 Phandeeyar, that’s the tech hub that I created off the back of all that hackathon excitement, organizes a big nine day startup competition.

 

Participants have a chance to win thousands of dollars to jump start their business.

​

Honey Mya Win: There's this another competition, but there are no problems involved. So there you have to be creative solving your own problems. So we, huh, decided to come up with this idea to sell handmade things from housewives and…

 

David Madden: So you had an idea for an online crafts marketplace like...

 

Honey Mya Win: Etsy.

 

David Madden: Honey and Shwe Yee’s version of Etsy doesn’t win, but they do get an honorable mention. More importantly, the competition includes a week of workshops on the lean startup approach and they learn some critical skills.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: That’s the time where we were really out to the market, because we, we had to do the market research. So that we, we really took, we have to go to talk to that strange, strangers, complete strangers. So this is actually when we get out of the room. Yeah, because at the hackathon we just needed to stay at the room 48 hours straight just doing coding, but this time is different.

 

David Madden: Did you talk to potential customers?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Yeah, yeah.

 

David Madden: What was that like?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: At first, I was not there to do that because me, as a developer, it's not, it’s not the usual thing that developers do because...so but, for now, I have to go out to the complete stranger. For us it’s, we focus on women empowerment for our project so that we have to go to women organizations so that I have to talk to, not just to normal people, but to that, organizational level people. So it's really hard to get appointment with them.

 

David Madden: But you were determined, right? You didn’t, you didn’t take no for an answer, you’d, you’d just go and show up till you can get an appointment.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Yeah, yeah, that’s another exciting thing that we experienced.

 

David Madden: What was the most important thing that you learned at the start up challenge?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: It's the market, market conditions. For some products our market is still not ready yet. So that, when we do those market research, we found out that there is a problem but the, the way that we solve is, might not be ready for the market yet.

 

David Madden: Honey and Shwe Yee learn the importance of developing and testing hypotheses. They quickly discover that Myanmar isn’t ready for an online crafts marketplace, but the idea of building their own company has taken hold.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: After that startup challenge, we started tech solution provider called Technoholic. So it's just not a startup, it’s just a normal, small business.

 

David Madden: They start building websites, but they run into a problem.

 

Honey Mya Win: At that time it’s just, huh, two of us and we are getting projects from this hackathon client. There are other friends asking us to do their website but it's just two of us, so we have to find another developer, obviously. And at that time we don't have any capital. It's really difficult for us to hire someone when we are not sure we are getting the project or not. So we decided to go to hire some freelancers but there, there's no, there’s no platform for it.

 

David Madden: Not only is there no easy way to get freelancers, but there’s also no easy way for freelancers to get work. Shwe Yee knows this from her own experience doing freelance web development.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Since then I was interested in freelancing because I just finished my school, I just go straight to try to workforce. I don’t, I don’t meet too many people. So, in order to get the projects I have to rely on some of my friends. They bring in the projects and I do the projects. But the problem is that, I have to give like half of my payment to them.

 

David Madden: Half! You have to give half. That's quite a lot.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Yes, yes, but I was happy to do that at that time because I just want a portfolio for me and then I figured out that it's not right, because 50% of my payment it's not, not right. Something wrong.

 

David Madden: Suddenly, Honey and Shwe Yee have a product idea. Rather than just hire freelancers to help them do client service work, they should build a platform that makes it easy for anyone to hire freelancers.     

 

They use the skills they learned at the startup challenge to test their idea. Although freelancing is at an early stage in Myanmar it’s clear there’s an opportunity.

 

Honey Mya Win: There are a lot of Facebook groups. The people are searching freelancers on Facebook.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: They don't even say that it's freelancing, they just say that “okay, I need someone to do this part time or project based”, they don't even use that "freelance" word. They just say that they need it temporarily, so that people don't even know what freelancing is.

 

David Madden: A few of us in the community encouraged Honey and Shwe Yee to pursue their idea and they decide to put it out there.

 

They use every chance they can to get feedback. They apply to a regional accelerator program, they enter a startup pitch competition.

 

Honey Mya Win: For us we don't really, uhm, know, actually know how to operate this, you know, this business. So we just thought they could give us some advice about share them this idea. So we go and pitch, not only there, we go and attend events, talk to people and share this idea.

 

David Madden: Was this a common thing in Myanmar in 2016 to, to run around and tell people your ideas?

 

Honey Mya Win: I don't think so.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: No.

 

Honey Mya Win: Still, still now people, uhm, especially like Myanmar people, they are like secretive about their ideas.

 

David Madden: So why weren't you secretive about your idea?

 

Honey Mya Win: Because, uhm, if, if we are, I mean, is, even if it is only, if it’s just two of us know this idea, then that won’t work work obviously because people have to know about it to use this and, uhm, people have to know that it exists.

 

David Madden: Weren't you worried that someone might “steal your idea”?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: We do, actually, yes, but there’s no other options.

 

Honey Mya Win: Yeah, and the main thing is we're the ones with the passion to, to, to transform this idea into a real business. Even if someone is going to do it then, they won't, they won’t be thinking about all the, all these other prospects that we’ve already thought about. Yeah.

 

David Madden: Honey and Shwe Yee get valuable feedback, but they realize that if they’re serious about this business, they’re going to have to do it full time.

 

Honey Mya Win: I realized that, maybe we don't focus enough or we don't work enough and that's when I start thinking about quitting my job.

 

David Madden: This is a big decision. Honey is a telecoms engineer and telecoms is the hottest thing in Myanmar, it’s booming!

 

Honey Mya Win: It was, huh, really difficult for me to actually quit my job, you know? I, I was like working probably like till 8 or 9 at night, and then I came back home and then I was with Shaw Yee up until like 1 or 2 in the morning. At first I was enjoying it, double career, but it's really tiring and it’s, I don't think it's good for both.

 

David Madden: Honey and Shwe Yee are at a crossroads. They have an idea that they’re really excited about, but Honey’s work and their family are telling them not to do it.

 

They know they need some help to make their idea happen. It’s their first startup and they’ve got no money.

 

As it happened, at that time in 2016, my organization Phandeeyar is launching Myanmar's first-ever startup accelerator.

​

As that startup competition in 2015 had shown, there are literally hundreds of young people like Honey and Shwe Yee who want to create their own startups.

 

Phandeeyar accelerator is a six month program to give them the funding, coaching and network necessary to succeed.

 

It’s exactly what Honey and Shwe Yee need.

 

Honey Mya Win: We don't have much network, we don't know a lot of investors, we don't know a lot of people doing startups. And, uhm, most, most importantly, we don't know someone who could guide us.

 

I was like “even if we don't get into the program, I'm going to quit” you know?.

 

David Madden: Wow! So you were really determined. You'd, you’d already made your decision.

 

Honey Mya Win: So yeah, I’m going to focus on this thing and…  

 

David Madden: Why were you so determined to, to do this business?

 

Honey Mya Win: Because we need to prove that this is going to work and...

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: We had that gut feelings that this thing would work, no matter what other people said.

 

David Madden: You’ve already pitched this business twice. What did you, what did you do differently the third time?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: We improved a lot, because, whenever we participated in a competition we got that feedback, that feedback is really helpful. We tweak it, we change it and we, we modify it. We, we participated in another competition again, we got the feedback, huh, new feedback and we tweak it again. So this is, huh, like, this is the third time.

 

David Madden: Did you think it was going to be third time lucky?

 

Honey Mya Win: Yeah. Both of us spent hours just to prepare for the pitch and everything. We put in our full effort in it, so we believe that this time will be, we could, we're going to hit it.

 

David Madden: Finally their hard work pays off.

 

You've been working away at this business, for, for, for a little while, but now you’ve, now you’ve really got a chance to, to go at it. You've got some funding, you've got mentorship, you're in a space with some other startups. But there are challenges.

 

Honey Mya Win: Hm, yeah.

 

David Madden: What, what are the big challenges you faced in those early days?

 

Honey Mya Win: It's, huh, getting into market and actually asking people to use your platform, use your, you know, product.

 

David Madden: So when you say it was the market, Honey, was it getting the freelancers? was it getting the companies to post the projects? what was the, what was the hard bit?

 

Honey Mya Win: Hm, at first it was, uhm, it’s like getting the right freelancers for the clients. So, we, we have this client who would say that they would, I mean, he would post projects on our platform once we launched, so he post a project and we really hurried, you know, and find the right freelancers for…

 

David Madden: Do you remember what the first project was, that was posted?

 

Honey Mya Win: Huh, that’s a translator.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Yeah.

 

Honey Mya Win: Yeah. Translation project.

 

David Madden: And did you have any translator freelancers on the platform?

 

Honey Mya Win: No!  

 

David Madden: So you hit your first job and you've got no freelancers to do it. What do you do?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: We go out in every single channel that we could use to reach out to the translators.  

 

David Madden: And you found some?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Yeah.

 

Honey Mya Win: Yeah, we did.

 

David Madden: What was it like to go to these companies in, in Myanmar and, and pitch them your, your product?

 

Honey Mya Win: It’s hard because...

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: It's a nightmare.

 

Honey Mya Win: Because what we target is for the local small businesses and startups. So for the startups, they understand what a freelancing platform is, they understand what benefits they would get, but to get out to this, you know, real customers and real small businesses is, uhm, hard for them because they are, even if they are using like part time or freelancers, they don't know that they are using it. Again, it's a website, and people with very little technology knowledge all they know is Facebook, it's the internet for them so...

 

David Madden: So how did you convince them Honey? I mean, it sounds pretty tough.

 

Honey Mya Win: When you are thinking about someone to get a job done in like a few hours, then we just give, uhm, provide them the value that we could give them: freelancers that we have and the skills that we, they have, they could solve it.

 

David Madden: And was there a particular moment that was really, was really really bad?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Yeah, a lot of moments.

 

David Madden: Tell me your worst moment.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: When my server went down. It goes...

 

David Madden: Okay. So Shaw Yee, you, you're the developer, so you take on the role of, you’re, you’re taking the CTO role, you’re the head of product, head of technology.

​

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Yeah, my server just went down whenever there's, a pool of users came up, so that, uh, there were times when I had to work through the night.

 

David Madden: Did you know what you were doing?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: No.  

 

David Madden: So how did you figure out what to do?

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Well I had to do it, because it was just me. So I had, I had to do that. That's the time that I learned a lot. Me freelancer, developer and junior web developer, is now handling the server and stuff…

 

David Madden: It must've been pretty bad. The site’s gone down and you’ve got...

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Yes, yes. I have no idea of what went wrong.

 

David Madden: Yeah.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: And there were times that I just wanted to scream and then cry it out.

 

David Madden: Honey, do you remember a moment that was, that was, that was really hard and...?

 

Honey Mya Win: At first when we got into the program there were like four team members, two of us and the other two members. And then we tried to hire some more. There is this one time all of them resigned. So it’s back to two, you know, and it's like starting all over again and...

 

David Madden: How did that feel?

 

Honey Mya Win: Huh, it’s horrible, because freaking it's just two of us doing all this operation and finance, fundraising, and, what else, everything.

​

David Madden: It’s not easy but at the end of the 6 months, their freelance marketplace has got real traction. They have over three thousand freelancers on the platform and over 500 companies looking to hire.

 

The program culminates with a “demo day”: a chance to pitch a room full of investors.

 

Honey Mya Win: All of us are preparing for demo day for like 6 months, we are, huh, preparing for it. And the main reason we, we are, we are doing is to prove to this audience that we, it's not just an idea, it's like a working idea and we need to prove with our key metrics and numbers. In 3 minutes we have to convince them of what we have done in 6 months.

 

David Madden: At the end of the demo day, the judging panel declares chate sat to be the most promising startup.

 

More importantly, Honey and Shwe Yee also meet an investor who’s excited about their business. a few months later they close their seed round.

 

The next phase of their startup begins.

 

Has it been hard building this, this business?

 

Honey Mya Win: It's, it’s hard and it's harder being a, a woman leading the business as well. For example, we got, we had a chance to have an appointment with a client and it was at a bar at night. They were like really rude at us, and then we would like, smile at them, and then...

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: Hm, they were joking about our business model...

 

Honey Mya Win: Yeah.

 

Shwe Yee Mya Win: ...but what we could all do is just smile at them and say “okay”. With my own emotion, I could’ve just spitting water on his face because, because we were presenting our project, we couldn’t do, we shouldn't do anything rude, although they were very rude to us.

 

Honey Mya Win: If it was like, you know, two men presenting this platform, they won't, they won't, they won't say such kind of things to, huh, to us, but because, because we were women they, they treated us that way.