The conversation that changed Willis Wee's early career did not happen in a boardroom. It happened at a McDonald's near the Singapore Management University campus, with Willson Cuaca, a co-founder of East Ventures. Wee was a student. He has since pointed to that talk as a turning point.
He had launched Tech in Asia on 1 August 2010, in his third year at university. The gap was obvious to him: global media barely paid attention to the startups of Asia. He could have gone to Facebook or LinkedIn after graduating. Instead he chose to build his own business.
A media business in a small, crowded region has to find revenue from readers, advertisers and events, and none is easy.
At the start, it was a media site, and then more. He developed Techlist, a platform linking investors and startups in the region. From 2012 the company ran conferences each year, mostly in Singapore, Tokyo and Jakarta. In 2015 Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin backed it, and about a year before its subscription launch it raised US$6.6 million in a round led by Hanwha Investment and Securities.
Then came the part that rarely makes the conference stage. In 2018, the company laid off staff, and Wee later spoke on a podcast about the mistakes that led to it. Around then he also launched a marketing agency and a paywall subscription (around 2017-2018). A media business in a small, crowded region has to find revenue from readers, advertisers and events, and none is easy.
In January 2024, SPH Media completed its purchase of Tech in Asia. Wee said he hoped to gain from a partnership with The Business Times. But the years after were not smooth. In July 2025 the company wound down its Indonesian-language product and cut 18% of its workforce. On 31 March 2026, Wee and COO Maria Li resigned, Terence Lee took over operations, and from April the company was merged into SPH Media's Features and Lifestyle division.
There is something poignant in the arc. A student who skipped the safe job built a regional voice in under sixteen years, and then handed it over. The lesson for founders is plain: the conversation with the right person, even over fast food, can matter more than a business plan. And a founder should know early what he is building toward, because the exit may arrive on someone else's schedule.