#29: Finding Clarity In Messy Situations
Ethan Ang emphasizes that success in entrepreneurship isn’t about perfection, but more about balancing emotional maturity and finding clarity in purpose.
Welcome to this week’s edition of SEAmplified! Your latest insights on Southeast Asian youths in 6 minutes.
🔥 Trailblazers
Trailblazers features young startup founders, social leaders, and cultural mavericks in Southeast Asia.Ethan Ang: The Key to Success
Forget perfection.
What if the key to success in entrepreneurship isn’t getting it right the first time, but embracing the messiness of getting it wrong?
Ethan Ang, 31, had his fair share of failed ventures before he founded Nodeflair in 2018.
He had a few short stints while in university, like renting out spaces to tutors and hardware tech. But neither worked out.
“My first real venture was a game similar to Doodle Jump,” he shared. .
But the app was buggy and it didn’t live up to Ethan’s expectations. Eventually, he stopped short of launching the app before enlisting for military service, because he felt that it wasn’t good enough.
Looking back, Ethan felt that that period could’ve been the perfect time to launch his game, but being too much of a perfectionist took that opportunity away.
This perfectionist mindset has been identified by Economist Thomas Eisenmann as a common issue behind the failure of start-ups.
Wanting to produce a ‘perfect’ product can often lead to delays and missed opportunities.
But it is because of these experiences that Ethan now has a different approach and understanding towards entrepreneurship.
There’s Never a Final Form
“It’s really just throwing out a minimum viable product, and then testing out whether people use it, and then just keep iterating the process,” he said.
While Ethan admits that he still struggles to fight against the perfectionist mindset, he feels that he has improved over the years.
Today, Nodeflair is a leading platform that connects tech talents in Asia with job opportunities and prides itself on career transparency through data-driven insights.
I was amazed when I learned about the meaningful work Nodeflair is doing, but was also intrigued by how the name came about.
Ethan shared that ‘nodes’ refer to points, or dots, and it represents the individual tech talents in a network. The hope is that with tech insights and career tips, Nodeflair will be able to let these talents shine.
It is heartening to hear the core purpose of Nodeflair and be part of someone's journey of growth and success.
But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
Since its conceptualization, Nodeflair went through many rounds of experimentation and changes to fit the needs of their customers.
They started as a traditional recruitment agency and tried a few monetising methods, such as through job ads and employer branding.
Through all these changes, the operations of the company have changed completely and are vastly different from how it started.
There were many challenges and there were a few times the business threatened to fail.
Hearing all these, I wondered how Ethan was able to find the right direction in all the mess, and still emerge victorious.
Making Decisions
When it comes to taking advice and making decisions, how does one decide whose advice to take?
“It’s tough,” Ethan lamented, “I think there’s a lot of people who will give you well-intended advice.”
Ethan used to care a lot about other people’s opinions, and when he did receive advice, he would try his best to accommodate and solve the problem.
However, perpetuating the version that everyone else wanted had an adverse effect on his well-being.
“I lost myself,” Ethan said.
He realized that there was no way to please everyone because they all had their own opinions on how things should be run.
Nonetheless, Ethan believes that wisdom comes from listening and collecting all the data, making sense of it, and making a decision knowing full well you won’t please everyone.
One of his biggest personal growths was in fact, learning not to care what others think.
“As a leader, you have to make tough decisions sometimes”, Ethan shared.
“If you care too much about what others think, you can end up making the wrong decision. It’s about knowing the right thing to do and then having the courage to do it, even if it’s painful.”
Ethan had made many difficult decisions in the past, from letting people off, to exiting the Vietnam market, as well as coming to terms with the departure of his co-founder.
But they were made collectively after much discussion and understanding that it was the right decision for the company.
That felt a lot like the logical and emotional part of us fighting a battle and I was wondering if Ethan has since found a balance.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a balance. Emotions come strong, especially for someone like me who is emotional,” said Ethan.
“But it’s about managing those emotions to make the best decision,” he continues. “Sometimes you have to fight against knee-jerk reactions and instead calm down before making a choice.”
Ethan admits that he’s an emotional person, and well-intended advice from others can sometimes feel harsh.
But parenting and marriage have taught him about leadership.
“I learned to handle emotions way better”, Ethan said.
Ethan shares that handling feedback from his partner or parents without getting upset while understanding their intentions is essential.
The same goes for him at work.
He’s an emotional person, but his teammates are very logical. So while they provide feedback with good intentions, it doesn’t always feel that way.
Better decisions are made when we pair this emotional maturity of listening with the wisdom to make tough decisions.
But in the midst of tough decision-making, there is also something else to consider – the clarity of knowing what we want.
Clarity of Purpose
“The clarity of knowing what you want changes with age,” Ethan said.
“But at the core, you want to be useful, bring value to people’s lives, and be paid fairly,” he continues.
But of course, knowing what you want doesn’t come easy.
“Before 30, try it all out. After 30, double down.” Ethan advises.
When I heard that, I initially felt that spending our 20s trying everything out seemed excessively long.
But I also realized that there is so much unknown out there and we would only find clarity when we give each opportunity a fair chance.
We also have to understand that everyone’s journey will be at a different pace.
For Ethan, he likes to go on long walks to run thought experiments, and sometimes it also serves as a way for him to temporarily run away from stressful situations.
These 5-10km long walks accompanied by the occasional podcast is also how Ethan can question himself and learn about his likes and dislikes along the way.
“Broadly speaking, I’m happy about entrepreneurship. I like what I’m doing. I like the challenge. I like the uncertainty to some degree.”
But Ethan also notes that he gets bored easily.
He manages by outsourcing work he doesn’t like to someone else who likes it. Because of that, his scope of work constantly changes with time, and he’s able to enjoy work more.
Ethan wants his work to be meaningful and to make money, while also contributing to his future. He’s therefore able to find the intrinsic motivation to continue working.
Ethan also realized the importance of his health.
“I tend to be less edgy at work when I’m healthy,” he shares.
With that, Ethan now places a lot of emphasis on his health.
“I track my body 24/7 with my Apple Watch, and I wear it to sleep too,” he shared nonchalantly.
I thought it spoke volumes about his commitment to his health, even if he has to juggle between the demands of being an entrepreneur and a parent at the same time.
Ethan’s journey highlighted that while failure and uncertainty are part of entrepreneurship, the key to success lies in having a clear purpose.
With a strong sense of direction, even the messiest paths can lead to meaningful and rewarding outcomes.
PS: Check out “3 Questions with Trailblazers”, where Ethan answered three random questions from us on our social media exclusive video series.
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