Today on the show, we have Desmond Lim. Desmond is the CEO and co-founder of Workstream, a tech space hiring platform that helps business to hire faster, cutting half the time to engage, hire and onboard hourly workers. Workstream is in GGV’s portfolio. Before workstream, Desmond is a graduate of Harvard University and MIT Media Lab, and a former Product Manager at WeChat and an investor for Dorm Room Fund. He’s from Singapore. He splits his time between San Francisco and Utah. He also used to represent the Singapore National Youth team in basketball.
Hans Tung 02:00
I’ve known you for several years now. A I love your story starting off as a basketball player. You had a 15-year career in basketball. And you also captain, your high school team, the University team. And then you were selected for the Singapore National Youth team. love to have you share with our audience. So, your journey and the growth both as basketball player what percentage you play that kind of thing, as well as your experience as a captain, the lessons you learned in that process.
Desmond 02:32
Thank you so much Hans for really having me on this show. And it’s really my honor to be here today. Thank you. So jumping in about sports. And this basketball, I started playing basketball since I was seven years old, I really started playing in the streets. I just started to play like street ball with my friends back home in Singapore. The role I play was always point guard since I was very young, all the way throughout my whole career. And I think for me, I just fell in love with a sport from a very young age because there was so much teamwork, leadership and hard work. And to me, it was a way of how I express myself, my passion, and my hard work and grit, anything. Those are all things that I was able to learn from sports. From sports, I learned that if you work hard, you can do well. Maybe just to share a very quick story. When I was back in middle school when me and my team firstly, we lost every single game that we played, and I was then the team Captain, and it was so hard to ask my teammates to show up for training because no one wants to join a team that loses every day. Right? So, I will cold call everyone every single week, every single day to say and I will talk to their moms and dads. I will talk to a mom to ask them to get their sons to show up for training. Even to now I still know the house phone number of everyone because I was calling them so much every single day. After me trying to test it and caught him over a period of like one two years, my teammates start to show up. I think by year three, we won our very first game it was very hard, because our team was very weak. It was a very poor team. But slowly people started to show up. By year four, we won about three or four games. And by year five we were we were Singapore’s top four teams, because after five long years, and then finally on our sixth year we all won the Singapore High School Championship and I was the team captain and I took our school flat and ran around the whole stadium and when I leave the car, in front of my home school, that moment changed my life. I was just like, wow, we went from being the last in Singapore to the first over six years. It was very painful. It took six, seven years of training every single day for seven days. But it was well worth and that really shaped the way that I think about life about trying to work hard that things that are good take time.
Hans Tung 05:24
Yeah, but I know why you got into HBS. This is a very unique story.
Desmond 05:29
Thank you. It was very tough, but it was very fun.
Hans Tung 05:45
So I can probably guess your answer, but I still am sure you share a lot more. What are some of the things you learned from your basketball career that you currently go back to as you were starting out to build Workstream?
Desmond 05:50
Yeah, thank you. I think I’ve learned so much. And funny enough, like, I’ve been able to bring many of the things that I learned to put it as our company value. I will say there are two top company values that we love, which links it back to sport. One is actually humble and hungry. I really like to believe that on the court, when you play sports, it is not about how tall you are or how strong you are, or who you are. Because players who are not that good. They can see you win games, right? Even LeBron James can lose some games, right? So really on the court, everyone is fair. So you really have to be humble, and hungry, because every game is a fresh start. My coach, he always told me the ball is round. Everything can change in the span of a game, you don’t know what will change, you could win, but you could lose. So you need to be humble and hungry, and really focus on a game from the very start till the end. And I think point two that I learned was really like, which is our company value is actually one team one stream, which is teamwork, like something about sports, and something about this basketball is you need to play as a team to win. You cannot be the star and you will lose. I still recall in our High School Championship game, the other team had one star that was so good. He was really tall and strong, but they only had him. But we had a team of like 9 to 10 people. We were like, none of us were very good. But we all just quite good.
Hans Tung 07:26
None of us is superstar, but we work well together,
Desmond 07:31
So from that, I learned that the power of teamwork. That’s very hard to come by.
Hans Tung 07:36
Yeah. I love the fact that you mentioned LeBron James because I’m a big both Lakers fan and a Warrior fan, a Lakers fan since 1983. So, I mean, he did such an amazing job against the Warriors in the playoff, both in game one and you know, almost single-handedly win games in six by controlling the tempo. And then against Denver the first two games in the Western Conference Final this year, towards the end, he was shooting threes. He was tired. You could tell us that ankle injuries not 100%, so he keeps shooting three to compensate it. Then we miss, you know, end up losing both games in number. So even when you are successful, each game you just don’t know. And you got to stay humble and hungry to give you a best chance to win. Yeah. Your entrepreneur journey started even before Workstream. You started a Thai restaurant. Tell us a bit more about that experience.
Desmond 08:30
Totally. So I really founded my first business right after high school to pay for college. My parents, they are both hourly workers. My dad’s a driver. My mom’s a cleaner. They both only finish fourth grade. I’m the first to go to school and then come to US on my own. So, I found my first business it was this tutor to this student matching platform to pay for college. And when I was in college, I was really passionate about trying to just launch a business. And I founded this Thai food restaurant.
Hans Tung 09:00
So Thai food restaurant was your second venture. Your first venture was tutoring.
Desmond 09:03
Correct. And I think what happened was when I built my first business, I felt so good about it. I learned so much in a very short time. I was able to pay for college through that first business. I was earning more than my parents when I was age 18. And I was like, wow. I was teaching math and science. I really started from one-to-one tutoring. Then from one to one I started to be group tuition, 1 to 10 and then I started to build write notes. I started to create my own notes for my school. I was very thankful to go to the top high school back home. So, I will take final test papers from my school, print it out, brand it and then give it to every student. And then when my students start grouping, I will then start to match people. I will match my friends who are keen to be tutors with the students. So I think that was my very first adventure. And from that I learned so much about trying to launch my own business. And hence I launched my next business, which is this Thai food restaurant is called Treehouse in Singapore. So my restaurant and I found it, it was back in Singapore. So I found it actually, there was a space in my school, it was a pretty big space, they could seat about 50 people, I went to the school board and pitch them to leave that place to me.
Hans Tung 10:38
You already have a thriving tutoring business. Why would you want to start another one while still also in Singapore to do Thai food?
Desmond 10:46
Yeah, I think the tutoring business was great. But it took up so much time. There was a very hands-on business. I mean, food business do. Tutoring business took much of my time that I was like, hey, I wanted to stop doing that. And I wanted to try something new. And then I wanted to food business because I really saw this opportunity. In my school, it was a city campus where the cost of food was very high. As a student in school, I saw this market gap, that the price of food was very high, there was not enough space for my peers and friends to hang out. So I went to school to pitch them to turn this space into the restaurant. We even host events, seeing gigs, bands, catering. We have branched out into several kinds of businesses while I was doing school and I will say that back then, software and tech, it was not that big back in Singapore, it was 2007. There was like 16 years ago. So I didn’t know anything about software or coding or tech. And I was just like, I want to like launch a business. I want something that I can come into every single day.
Hans Tung 11:59
How successful was that business? How long did you run it?
Desmond 12:01
Yeah, it was great. I ran it for three years. I wore many hats. I had two other partners we ran with one ran the food side, one ran the marketing side. I ran more of the operations and this finance side. And I learned so much from that. It was really fun. I think we all made some money from it. It was not too much. We sold the business at the end of that three years, but I learned so much from it. It was really great.
Hans Tung 12:28
And you mentioned both parents are hourly workers. You also run a restaurant and a tutoring business that also had hourly workers as well. And you are the first generation in your family to make it to college and then to business school. What made you decided to come to the US for business school?
Desmond 12:44
I think there was several things. Through my first two business ventures, I was very clear that I really want to launch a business. I feel like that is the path that was very clear that I will take in my life. I had many friends and peers from high school and college who came to the US and learn so much. And I just kept hearing about it. I was just like, really? I was just a country pumpkin. I didn’t know much about the US at all. I still recall when I finish high school, I had a friend who got into UPenn, and she was very proud. She said, “I got into Penn!” And I said “Pen? Do you mean a pen to write?” I finished school from a top High School in Singapore. I didn’t know about Penn. I was like, what is that? So I think until I was age 23 or 24. I didn’t know much about the US system at all, because I was just not in the loop. But over the years when I was in college, I just saw many of my peers and friends come to US and learn so much. I kept read online and there were so many great companies in the US and great founders. I think the reason I came to US was coming from my thirst to learn. I was very hungry to learn. I think there was so much I could learn from people. And I made a path to work towards. They told me about five years to plan to come to the US because I didn’t have money. I didn’t have the knowledge. So on this path for money, I chose to work at a bank for three years I was with Merrill Lynch to get to earn some savings. I also got some savings from my prior ventures on a pot of knowledge I outreach to many current students in a top school in the US every week, I was sending emails, LinkedIn to say, can I talk to you? And I was so touched that there was quite a lot of students from Harvard, Stanford who talked to me as this immigrant from Singapore, so I learned from them through those conversations.
Hans Tung 14:54
You did this while you were in Singapore through international calls.
Desmond 14:58
I use Skype.
Hans Tung 15:01
So that’s modern technology.
Desmond 15:03
Yes. Back then I use Skype because you know. I think there was still no Zoom.
Hans Tung 15:12
So now I can see why you want to start Workstream. Tell me a bit about your experience at Harvard. What did your learned? And how did it prepare you to launch a tech venture?
Desmond 15:22
Yeah, I was so hungry when I first came to the US as a fresh-off-the-boat immigrant. I was so hungry. I thought I was drinking from this fire hole, you know, typical students, when you come to school, you take about four classes, at most five, and you’re so overwhelmed. I was on average doing seven classes every time. I was doing seminars, and I was so hungry, I cross take many classes from many schools. I was at Harvard, but I went to Harvard Law School, I took classes under Larry Summers and Cass R. Sunstein. I went over to MIT to do any CS classes. And I was also at this media lab. So I was taking CS 50, I was just doing so many cross form of classes, from CS to law, to public policy, because I was so hungry.
Hans Tung 16:12
HBS does not allow you take x number of classes. They also know that you’re cross registering these other schools. How did you let them allow you to take on so many.
Desmond 16:23
I went to talk to the school. And I asked them to allow me to take more classes. I was very scrappy about it. I pushed hard for it. I took classes not for the grades. My frame was very clear. I want to learn as much as I can to start a business. After school even throughout school, I was doing my own business too, which I’m very glad to share more. But I was very clear that I didn’t there was at least a couple of classes I took that didn’t count for credit. Like I took a class at MIT called How to make almost anything. We all do like 3D printing, 3D labs. We all created circuit boards. I’m not a software engineer, but I just went in, took the class for no credit, but I learned so much. And I met many very smart, talented MIT engineers through that same process. I was just so hungry.
Hans Tung 17:19
Besides all those classes you’re taking from all the different schools. You also start a business while you’re at Cambridge.
Desmond 17:29
Yeah. I find it like the on-demand moving business. It was called Quickfast. So basically, when you its like Uber, but for moving houses. So you press a button, and someone comes to move like a large packet for you. That company failed by I learned so much from it. We were doing it from the Harvard Innovation Lab. I learned so much from that process. I raised some early seed funding. And I built a team of like, 10 to 15 people. That was the first venture that I built in the US that I launch, which failed but I learned so much from it.
Hans Tung 18:05
Right. Got it. So by now you have done three businesses already.
Desmond 18:10
I think by the time I did, that was my third or fourth business. Like prior to that there was a couple of other things that I did when I was back in Singapore.
Hans Tung 18:18
So you never sit still. And now that your hire hourly workers, your parents, you grew up in that environment as well. And you use Skype. So you’re familiar with modern tech stack and communication method at that point of time. How did you decide that, out of all this experiences, you want to do the Workstream?
Desmond 18:42
Yeah, for sure. Thank you, Hans. So I think why do I start Workstream really trace back quite far back, I grew up in the vent of my dad. And he was a driver sending food and goods every single day for the past 30 to 35 years. And so there was a huge gap in terms of software built for him and built for this space, right? He would drive like two hours every other day. So he could be paid faster, right? There was just no good way for him to get paid. Similarly, when I run this restaurant was a huge gap in terms of really good people, software built for this space, what it is to hire manage on board, there was a huge gap. So, I think through this process, I feel like throughout my life, I just felt like there was a huge gap in terms of software built for this deskless hourly worker, and that truly deserve better software. Right. So that’s why me and my team came together to solve this pain point.
Hans Tung 19:41
Yeah, you found a company you mentioned we found the company in 2017. And now you have many impressive logos such as McDonald’s and Taco Bell’s and so forth. And when we did our due diligence, you also had some of your earliest customers say many great things about you. And when you are starting out, you’re very earnest, you’re very hard work. gain. You’re very hungry. You’re very humble. All that made it easier for the smaller chains to take you on. How did you break through with your first big client? Or is it just based on their past successes with smaller clients or something more they want to see from you before they’ve been willing to give you a break?
Desmond 20:15
Yeah, no, that is very helpful. I will really start by sharing that how we learned our very early customers was when I was based in Palo Alto, I will go door to door around Palo Alto to talk to many customers going up right to their front and talk to the GM to ask to talk to this owner. That was how I sign up the firsthand customers in a way that don’t scale. From there, I quickly build up like a sales playbook on how to scale them. From 10 to 50. Then I was able to hire my first two sales rep, then we went to maybe the first 100 clients from there on, and how do we learn our first big customers, which was Jamba Corporate, what happened over there was, we had sign up many early Jamba franchisees, like the very first time we sign was the one at is Stanford, who today is still very close client and close partner. His name is Steven Melt. So Steve and me, we are still very close friends. So I went to him when we have barely this wireframe we have, we have no software and say, I have this wireframe. If I build it, will you buy it? I say yes.
Hans Tung 21:27
Is there no other solution he tried?
Desmond 21:29
No, I think he didn’t know of anything else. Like he was just like, wow, I mean, this is back in 2017. I feel like the whole hourly space grew quite a bit in the past five years. But I think six years back there really wasn’t many tools that he could use. So, he waited patiently for me and our team and later build it. I went back to my co-founders and say, hey, build this and he will pay.
Hans Tung 21:54
This is text-based hiring.
Desmond 21:58
Correct. And then he paid us, so he was our first Jamba client. And he was very happy about it. And then he went through this word of mouth to kind of put us in touch with three other Jamba owners. Then they were all around the whole bear and through that we slowly grew from one to two to four to five Jamba owners then that there was one day there was a big Jamba owner, her name is Tara Linstrim, who wrote a big email, a two-page-long email to the whole Jamba brand. I didn’t ask her to do it. Yeah, she sent the email to everyone. And then started everyone said to come in and then Jamba corporate call me and say hey, what is going on?
Hans Tung 22:41
What are we doing? What’s our franchisees want you?
Desmond 22:45
Yeah, Correst. So I think that was the path we really went like, bottoms up from the very start to get our first few owners and that landed us to the very top?
Hans Tung 22:53
Now you’re working with over 170, 180 QSR in the US. How you think about servicing more? More SMB market? More than the S-side or M-side? And how do you think about it?
Desmond 23:08
I would say that both are very crucial markets for us. I think we do well if any of the larger corporates right from the top signing this, punish it from the largest corporates and then going then on to sign up many of this franchisee? So, we actually strongly like, believe that you need both the medium size, but you also need the smaller clients to create that so called groundswell, you know, for the client base. So both.
Hans Tung 23:35
Okay. And then you’ve built a cross border team. Not only have people here in the US, but also people in Asia. Why did you want to build a cross border team when doing a startup? It’s already so hard in one place. And what is your sort of competitive advantage, your secret sauce to make a cross border teamwork?
Desmond 23:55
I think today, we have like three to four hubs across SF, Vancouver, Singapore, Philippines and Utah too. I think what happened was that me and my partners, three of us, we all actually immigrants, I’m from Singapore. So I think from a very early day, we just saw that that was our age, there was our strength to know several markets. I think in our first 10 teammates, we just had teammates from quite a few country like we were in each hub. From the very early days, I would say in the past few years, we have now moved into the same hub, we have a hub space strategy today, but it was in our company, DNA from that to build hubs of strength, like for example, and Utah is our sales marketing hub. Philippines is our customer support and Customer Success hub. We have very strong hubs for each of our teams.
Hans Tung 24:52
That makes sense, you know, back in 2017, 2016 timeframe, when you start thinking about starting up a work stream, the top back there instead, you know, arrival of robots will take over, render the blue-collar workers very obsolete. You know, six years in hasn’t happened yet. With arrival of ChatGPT and Chat GPT4 now, people worry that if you were a copywriter, your artists, your job could be eliminated or at least workload may be reduced by LLM and generative AI. So how do you think about AI and automation and will impact your business going forward?
Desmond 25:30
Yeah, we strongly feel that it will go hand in hand, I feel like AI and humans will always be partners, even more so in our space. I feel like this LLM and Chat GPT, have a higher chance to take take away jobs from people in tech and who work in office, then from this so called blue color space, because there’s so much details how to start a fryer, how to clean the floor, how to wash the dishes, there’s so much details, that it is very hard to do every single thing very well. For the next 5 to 10 years. Maybe in 2030 years, the world will change. But I firmly feel that they will be partnership. I think software tech and AI will always partner with humans, so that humans can keep going outwards to do things that are like this better.
Hans Tung 26:24
As you evolve from running a basketball team, when you’re young in Singapore, to running a tutoring service, Thai restaurant and other things in Singapore and coming to the US and starting companies while you’re at Harvard, and then it’s SF. How has your leadership style changed across these different geographies and different industries?
Desmond 26:46
Yeah, that is a very good question. I think my leadership style has always been that of this so-called servant leader. I’ve always tried to like to serve my teammates, serve my fellow team players. That has always been my style. But I do feel that as I move from sports into running these companies, my role has evolved more from that of a player into a coach. I feel that when I was on a call, I was able to do layups and scoreboard and pass the ball I was able to write really impact things very, very well. I was able to do that when this workstream was still fairly early, up to about 30 or 40 people. But as you have now scaled to about 250 people, we are still very early, but I found that my role has evolved from a player to a team captain to really more like a coach today. I really have to, like so called empower my teammates to do better.
Hans Tung 27:41
Well said. You came here as a first-generation immigrant, like you said, and you did your first venture backed venture without having work in a big tech company in the US before you’re able to raise quite a bit of money. And we have very good investors like Founders Fund and then folks with a lot of experience in enterprise space to invest in you, then obviously, you have GGV capital as well. I mean you have been able to raise funds well, every time you did it. How were you able to pull that off? And what did you have to do?
Desmond 28:24
Yeah, I think first of all, I really want to thank folks like you Hans. You really took a chance on me very early on back in series A. Thanks to you and our team at this GGV, who took a very early chance on me. Thank you.
Hans Tung 28:39
You’re very welcome. I am very happy to be part of your journey,
Desmond 28:43
Thank you. I think the second thing was from a very early time, even when I was back in Singapore, even more so when it came to US. I think I was very lucky when I first came to the US because when I was living in Cambridge. I was living in the dorm rooms with many of my peers from MIT and Harvard. They all went on to come out to the Bay Areas to be in venture or to be in tech, and many of them were the younger partners in many of these funds. So, they were my first point of contact into many of these funds when it first came out to the bearer. And I think I’m quite a social kind of person. So I kept in touch with many of them. I never tried to pitch them for funding, but we kept in touch. And I was always sharing my vision and my thoughts. I think there was how I made my first layer of friendships. You know, I think like, for example, one of my close friends, Michael Moss, he was my teammate back from Harvard, and he went on to run a fund for Joe Montana who is the famous quarterback player for the US. So, Michael and Joe came in my very first round of funding. And when I came up with raise my series A, Michael put me in touch with 40 funds overnight, so I was very thankful that people like Michael, like you and Lan from BSV. You’re really helped me to open the door to many other funds. So I think I was very thankful to have met many friends first from school, and then from many of my early partners, in my first round of funding. You have really helped me to put me in touch with many folks from this series A.
Hans Tung 30:33
And obviously, you’re presented, you have thoughtfully show how big the market can be, and why it is yours to win it. Obviously, with success like Tony Xu, and Eric Yuan helped to set that AAPI founders and CEOs can do very well. So, speaking of AAPI, you know, May was the month of AAPI Heritage, and you obviously one of the most promising AAPI funders coming up. How do you guys think about your heritage? And how do you celebrate it? Or how do you leverage it to help you to achieve the vision that you want? The mission you want forward.
Desmond 31:11
Thank you, Hans. I sometimes will tell folks that I’m very thankful to be in the Bay Area to be backed by many of the top I call them so called Asians mafias who are back meet. So other than you, Eric was my first check in. So I met Eric back in 2015, 2016, when zoom was a Series C Company. And I call email Eric to say, can we meet up, Eric spent one hour over lunch to meet with this Fresh Off the Boat guy who came from Singapore came to the Valley. We became friends. And when I came out to build my own company, Eric said drive down to zoom. I drove down and he handed me this 35k check, which I still keep in my wallet every single day. Seeing how Eric was able to do so well, in the US. I was so touched by that. And during series A. Back then, Doordash hadn’t went public, but only was so helpful to me in terms of thinking about how to build strategy, how to grow being in the same space, as me. So I always say that very thankful to Eric, Tony, and to you for this really taking a chance on me. So I love your question. I’m so thankful. I feel very proud. I will say that since young, I felt very proud of my roots. And I think that’s truly hard if you if you’re very humble and very honored. I still recall when I talked to Eric, in the very earliest. I asked Eric, how do you feel about being ancient immigrant as founder, Eric told me two key points. One was, it is a huge strength. First of all, you are going to work so freaking hard. It is in your roots, you cannot not work hard. Secondly, you have two to three, diverse culture that is very rare that you have that few people have. And that is truly high. If you I feel very humbled and proud to be who I am of my roots, you know, to really be here today.
Hans Tung 33:16
The next section of the last section is a quickfire session where we ask you two or three questions and just share whatever is on top of your mind when you hear the question. What’s one habit that has changed your life?
Desmond 33:32
I play sports every single day.
Hans Tung 33:35
What was something you have read recently, or heard recently, that you would recommend to other founders.
Desmond 33:41
Funny enough, I just read a book on your favorite player. LeBron James. I just read the story of how he came from such a challenging background to where he is today. And he’s still so humble.
Hans Tung 33:55
I do like it LeBron a lot. But I think that you know, throughout my time as a sports fan, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryan, also are very impressive stars I grew up watching that then when it comes to football. Joe Montana is amazing story. So, I’m glad that he’s investor in your company. If you’re going to have dinner with three people from anywhere at any time, who are they be and why?
Desmond 34:21
Yeah, I will share three names. There’s a bit different from the norm to be more fun. For me, it is Bill Russell. I’m a huge fan. I watched a movie on him about how he was very part of the movement for the black people who went on to become stronger. And he was such a great team player. He never scores much, but he helps his teammates to play well. And I was so impressed by his strength and by how he plays and how he gave back.
Hans Tung 34:59
he’s also very humble. He is not as someone who’s very flashy, that’s someone who’s very showy. So I can see that you guys have alignment of values.
Desmond 35:07
Yep. Second one is a very fun one. I would love to meet Andrew and Peggy Cherng who founded Panda Express. I’m a huge fan of them. If you know them, please do me in a touch for the finest dinner.
Hans Tung 35:19
Yeah, they’re very impressive.
Desmond 35:26
Yes. I really love that story of how they came to US and just built this panda in for 10 years and grew into this huge business,
Hans Tung 35:35
Everyone loves. Everywhere you go, especially museum parks, this always filled up so it’s very impressive for them to do that. So that’s true.
Desmond 35:44
Yeah, my third one will be this founding father for this. Singapore who have passed away, Lee Kuan Yew, I was able to thankfully go for one of his talk. I think more than like 15 or 20 years ago, I sat in one of the talks and even at age of like 87, he has so much power and is so sharp. You know, I was very thankful to be part of that.
Hans Tung 36:14
His autobiography is one of my favorite things to read.
Desmond 36:19
Yes, I’ve read like, I think three or four times.
Hans Tung 36:25
Great. That was very fun. Such a well done. And thank you. That was great for me as well. So I really enjoyed it.
Desmond 36:33
Thank you, Hans. It was so fun. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.
Hans Tung 36:37
Absolutely. Take care.
Desmond 36:39
Sounds good. Thank you.
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