Hi there! πŸ‘‹

My name is Sidney Ng, currently with the Startup Strategy team at Amazon Web Services! Ex-growth operator in two early / growth stage B2C startups in Asia - where we were juggling creating product market fit with unit economics, balancing supply / demand / customer elasticity challenges and daily operational fire fighting (oh what fun!).

Documenting experiences, experiments and thoughts on startups, marketing, productivity, human optimization, and the human experience (it might border metaphysical - we'll see). Serving as channel for accountability to "ship my work"

Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer


My Story So Far

I studied 🧬 Biotechnology 🧬 (Asian parents 🀭) as an undergraduate but always knew I enjoyed Marketing (I was one of the crazy kids who used to read and be fascinated with long form ads appearing on comic books in the 90s).

Professionally - I started my career in an oil palm plantation 🌴 as a Planter before getting bored of routine work - moved to the Research Centre as an Agronomist and was a pioneer with Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). A university mate advised me to "follow the money" πŸ’΅ πŸ’΅ - and I joined the Standard Chartered International Graduate program. I did my rotations within Mortgage, Collections, Wealth Management, Branch & Distributions before securing a role with Mass Market & Emerging Affluent Segmentation.

I made my first dive into the world of startups (before startups were cool) and joined Rocket Internet for the opportunity of a lifetime to build and launch foodpanda in Malaysia (Employee #2) where food delivery wasn't a thing. Wore multiple hats (we were the poorer cousins with limited funding!) including marketing, partnerships, sales / biz dev, and operations. I got to TV, radio, newspapers and was also part of Tatler's Top 40 Under 40.
As the last mile delivery space was heating up, I joined honestbee (now defunct), a Series A grocery delivery startup as Employee #1 in the Malaysia office. Hired the pioneer team, secured the first 6 vendors, and set up the operations before moving to Singapore where I joined Konica Minolta Innovation Centre as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. I was leading the F&B / Hospitality practice in developing solutions with a few local Singapore startups.

I then took my next plunge to world's biggest startup Amazon, as they were launching their crowdsource delivery service in Singapore - Amazon Flex. But as I have always had a soft spot and passion for Startups, I moved into a Strategy role with AWS for Startups in ASEAN - powering startups of today and tomorrow on the cloud.


My Learning Journey

I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge πŸ“š - I enjoy consuming knowledge in all different glorious shapes and forms: books, e-courses, Podcast, Audio books, etc.

I have done the following certification programs in my quest of personal improvement (my wife thinks I am crazy to still subject myself to more "studies" after tertiary education) :

Quantic EMBA - the future of education! I joined this as I was interested in the business model (they are actually in the recruitment industry) and I was feeling a bit intimidated with the INSEADs and top tier MBA colleagues I had at Amazon (who as I learnt after 6 years+ usually lasted just 2.5 years)

Seth Godin's altMBA - an 31-day online leadership workshop that celebrates our shared humanity and provides students with the skills they need to be impactful leaders and make meaningful change.

Venture University (Spring 2022 - Cohort 24 Asia Pacific) - as I was interested in learning about how VCs think, evaluate startups and get deal flow for promising startups. The program was very hands-on where I spoke to and evaluated almost 30 startups.

IdeoU Human Centered Strategy - to supplement my work with AWS Startup Strategy. The online program was broken down to Activating Strategy and Designing Strategy.

SOMA Breath Instructor Level 1 - took this up during COVID and really enjoyed the breathwork process. SOMA Breathing is a groundbreaking breathwork meditation technology combining sound, breathing, and movement proven by science. I truly believe that wellness will be the next big wave. To date, I am currently the only certified SOMA Breath Level 1 Instructor in South East Asia.


I have always seen myself as a Pioneer vs a Settler and live by the OnePlus motto "Never Settle"!

As such, I have an eclectic set of interests including Marketing, Startups, Technology, Personal Development, Human Optimization, History and the Human Condition. Current set of interests will be reflected on the Now page.

I am currently based out of Singapore πŸ‡ΈπŸ‡¬ but proudly born and raised in Klang, Malaysia πŸ‡²πŸ‡Ύ (not forgetting my ghetto roots!)

I live with my wife and our adopted black cat πŸˆβ€β¬›.

When I am not writing narratives, reading or fudging with Excel spreadsheets -
I moonlight as a Productivity & Growth Consultant.


Contact Me

Email me: hello AT sidneyng DOT com

Twitter: @SidneyNg (I have not been posting for a long while)