2018 Wrap up: Life will never be the same.
Last month marked a big shift in my last 3 years of life and I wanted to share it with you, internet.
Today we got the blessing of the biggest tech players in the world to support our vision.
1. GetLinks is blessed by Alibaba and Seek to champion the “adaptive work economy”.
3 years ago we started GetLinks, after few months trying to build the new Mobile Linkedin for Asia, we got absolutely no luck from investors and everyone were rejecting us.
One day we got on a fight with my co-founders, because one business model that could help us convince investors to invest in our community was “recruitment”.
I will always remember that day when I shouted and cried against my CTO saying “we don’t want to be another JobsDB!”.
Last month JobsDB invested in Getlinks. Because we were challenging their market shares, because we were different, because we believed the future is now and our platform is designed for the future.
The nature of work has drastically changed and it’s change is only accelerating. Digitalisation and the arrival of the 4th Industrial revolution has created a huge demand for tech talents, whilst simultaneously resulting in an even greater loss of jobs due to automation. We founded GetLinks with the aim of solving this rapidly-growing digital gap. Building a pool of talents that gets it. A community of talents that are “adaptive” by their mindset and skill-sets. We believe we can solve this by creating a platform that connect education with tech hiring, a platform that inform talents of their current market value based on their skill-sets and which skill-sets to learn for a talent to be seek as “on demand”.
Lesson : Creativity wins competition and time.
2. Awarded in Forbes 30 under 30.
During last 3 years, so many people were criticised my age, questioning who I was or what I was doing. Critics hurts but can make you stronger if you can listen and improve (blabla but yeah, real – it helps you “adapt”). This month we got awarded to represent the world elite entrepreneurs under 30. Forbes Award will probably not make us rich but that’s a nice mark recognising my team talent.
I turned 26 in February. In 2013, still student with ESCP Europe, after a short first trip in Shanghai for a Mission with EY, i applied to work for Alibaba as an intern.
After being rejected more than 4 times from Alibaba application process because I was foreigner, I got an offer from my friend who were just leaving an Ecommerce company in South East Asia. This is how I got the chance to work for Rocket Internet, in Lazada HQ, relocating in Thailand and learning online marketing, BI and advanced excel.
Few weeks ago, Alibaba invested in us and selected GetLinks to be part of their ecosystem to revolutionize Education and Recruitment (and Lazada got acquired by Alibaba).
Lesson : Determination can take kids to the moon, for real.
3. Our Adaptive talents platform met the World Bank.
What if having a job was about contributing to fixing the world biggest challenges?
I didn’t aim to be an entrepreneur. I have seen people died without leaving that much legacy behind them. This make you ask yourself what are you here for. For me, after working at Rocket Internet, choosing to do my own thing was just a simple time x impact formula thinking : how, where and with who can i make the most impact and make myself somehow useful to the world. I don’t think there is a right answer for that, nor a static answer. Anyone will find their own answer at one point of time and this is something that can perpetually evolve as people’s lives evolve.
Climate change, Unemployment, Education, Jobs… Many impactful challenges (19 sustainable goals in total actually) need a lot of help, talents and passion.
Last week, one World Bank executive flew from Washington and gave us a chance to meet him to talk about how Getlinks could help several millions of people to become relevant to the “adaptive working world”. How could Getlinks help millions of talents find their purpose in life while using their skills making impact is the question I’m now interested to work out an answer.
Next and beyond…
What shapes our platform will need to take to become the market network that solve both education and work problem?
In the next coming years, Getlinks will use technology to bring freedom of work to everyone by helping people to adapt their skills to what the world needs. Talents with the right skill-sets will become “on demand” and GetLinks will guarantee them to have the choice of how where, when and on what projects to spend their time. People will now will be given a platform to find their purpose, a platform to help them not build a career, but build their legacy.
Lesson : In this blog, over the coming months, i will try to tell a story that can inspire creativity, determination and purpose to those who read it.
