Raffy Montemayor: Country General Manager Learnings, Classifieds Insights and Philippines Fintech Founder - E349

episode

BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English) not yet transcribed

▲ 0

Transcript

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet Upvotes decide what gets transcribed next — 0 so far. Sign in to upvote

More from BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)

What 500 Harvard Case Studies Actually Do To Your Brain - E729 55 min · 09 Sep 2026

The Truth About China's Competitive Advantage - E728 30 min · 06 Sep 2026

Itamar Novick: Where AI Replaces People, and Where It Does Not - E727 46 min · 02 Sep 2026

$70,000 Per Child: What Singapore's New Family Package Actually Changes - E726 43 min · 31 Aug 2026

The Next 3 Years Will Deliver 30 Years of Innovation | John Lin - E725 39 min · 26 Aug 2026

The Innovation Playbook of 3 Southeast Asian Founders - E724 27 min · 23 Aug 2026

All episodes from BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English) →

Report any issue

Source

Recorded30 Nov 2023

Publisherfeed.pod.co ↗

Handlerec:7818206

Show notes

Raffy Montemayor, Founder & Philippine Business Head of Salmon, and Jeremy Au discussed three main topics: 1. Country General Manager Learnings: Raffy talked about how his unintentional early experience at Nestle turned out to be pivotal in learning about sales, HSBC for marketing and his experience as an INSEAD MBA. He then went on to lead the Philippines market for Agoda (travel aggregator), OLX Group (global classifieds) and Carousell (regional classifieds unicorn). He shared his learnings on how to best operate as a country General Manager: embrace direct involvement in operations due to the absence of established processes, flexible strategy localized to the actual market, and effective stakeholder management by crafting strong business cases. 2. Classifieds Insights: Raffy explained the classifieds business model: building a user-driven content flywheel to generate organic traffic and achieve market leadership. He discussed the strategic choice and trade-offs between a profitable, smaller-scale operation focused on B2C segments like used car dealerships and real estate companies vs. a broader C2C focus which requires significant marketing investments without immediate revenue generation. He also discussed why and how Facebook is such a strong competitor and substitute. 3. Fintech Founder for the Philippines: Raffy expressed his deep connection to the Philippines, not just emotionally but also in terms of the business opportunities shaped by demographics, income levels, and digital trends. He shares his excitement for the Philippines' underbanked market and why he co-founded Salmon to build financial inclusion, craft a customer-centric experience and utilize technology to build a profitable consumer lending engine. They also talked about professional burnout, becoming a father and experiencing the twists-and-turns of a professional tech career. Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/raffy-montemayor Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VakR55X6BIElUEvkN02e Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4TnqkaWpTT181lMA8xNu0T YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JeremyAu Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/brave-southeast-asia-tech-singapore-indonesia-vietnam/id1506890464 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZC5jby9icmF2ZWR5bmFtaWNz TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jeremyau Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremyauz Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeremyau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bravesea Learn more about Fluid! Get in touch with Trasy, Fluid’s cofounder at [email protected]

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.