Leanna Byrne

Do you remember finding out you'd won a scholarship to Wharton?

I mean, that's a huge deal.

Then came Citigroup, McKinsey, later Harvard Business School.

Looking back, what did you learn from those institutions?

What did they teach you?

So it sounds to me that Harvard Business School was the thing that gave you the push to become an entrepreneur because in another world, you could have stayed in those corporates like Citigroup, McKinsey, extremely well-known institutions.

Now, before U-Trip, there was another company.

Tell me about that first startup.

So where did the actual idea for uTrip come from?

You're listening to Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

I'm Leanna Byrne and today I'm speaking to Cecilia Chu, founder of uTrip, one of Southeast Asia's fastest growing fintech companies.

So you've got this great idea.

You go to Singapore.

Tell me about how you got it off the ground.

Did you ever come close to giving up?

Because that sounds very challenging, having to convince people to give you so much money.

200 rejections.

You have to have a thick skin to be able to go through that.

Was there any one rejection that ever felt particularly difficult or at some point it just becomes par for course?

You just you just keep going no matter what people say.