Kelvin Teo of Funding Societies turned a classroom idea into the largest SME lending platform in Southeast Asia. We break down the specific frameworks he used to vet the idea, de-risk the launch, and raise $58M.
Many founders start with deep domain expertise in a product or technology. Kelvin Teo, cofounder of Funding Societies, started with a different superpower: thinking like an investor. Before starting the company that would go on to lend over
billion to small businesses, Teo worked at McKinsey and the private equity giant KKR.
This experience is a massive, often overlooked, advantage. Working in consulting and private equity forces you to analyze hundreds of businesses from the outside in. You learn to spot weak market structures, analyze unit economics, and identify operational leverage. It’s a crash course in what makes a business truly defensible and valuable, long before you write a line of code.
You don’t need a KKR pedigree to cultivate this mindset. Start by analyzing public companies in your space. Read their shareholder letters, listen to earnings calls, and break down their financial statements. Ask yourself:
- What is their core business model and unit economic engine?
- What are their stated moats? Are they real?
- How does the market leader defend its position?
- What would it take for a new player to disrupt them?
This analytical rigor is the foundation for building something that lasts.
A Three-Filter Framework for Your Startup Idea
While at Harvard Business School, inspired by Peter Thiel’s Zero to One, Teo and his cofounder Reynold Wijaya developed a simple framework to find a world-class idea they could import from the US to Southeast Asia. They weren't just brainstorming; they were filtering opportunities through a rigorous system.
Most founders get this wrong. They fall in love with a solution, a technology, or a vague sense of "passion." Teo’s approach was different. He focused on the anatomy of the problem itself.
Filter 1: Are you obsessed with the problem?
This is more than "passion." It’s about founder-problem fit. Could you work on this for 10 years without a massive financial outcome? Do you understand the nuances of the customer’s pain so deeply that you can build a solution they can’t live without?
For Funding Societies, the problem was the massive credit gap for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Southeast Asia—a problem Teo understood viscerally. Banks weren't serving them, leaving a huge engine of the economy starved for capital. This was a problem worth a decade of his life.
Filter 2: Is the problem genuinely huge?
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