What is the most surprising thing about you that most people don’t know?

I am very driven by movies. For me movies are one of the ultimate forms of expression. More than the movie itself, I like to take a step back and look at what inspired a producer, how the movie was created.

I used to host a Startup TV show, I did that for 2 years, that was fun. But it was mainly about funding and pitching to VCs, which is natural when the ecosystem just started growing. For me personally I would like to focus on the journey founders take when building the companies, and the culture within their organizations.

What are the most important decisions you made in your career?

My upbringing was designed to prepare me to get a scholarship to then go and work in a large company. I got the scholarships, but never worked for a big company. In 2006 as part of the National University of Singapore’s overseas college program, I went for one year to Silicon Valley where my perspectives changed a lot. Once I was there I was exposed to start-ups. I didn’t have the intention to build my own company when I came back to Singapore. e27 grew out of an interest to build the startup community. We had money [to last] for 6 months and we decided to try and make e27 into a company.

What will be the most valuable skill for your profession in the next 3 years?

You’ve got to learn how to un-learn and re-learn again. Things are changing very fast, you can choose to complain about it or you find a way how to get involved. I forced myself to download Snapchat and learnt how to use it. I did the same with the Pokemon Go, even though friends and family were casually mocking me for wasting my time. If you don’t force yourself to understand what the world is doing now, you just fall behind.

Tell us about your worst professional mistake and how did you overcome it?

Not listening to myself when choosing my Bachelor's Degree. Though I wanted to do computer science, I was advised against it. Luckily in the end I did go for engineering, but I would have been much happier doing Computer Science.

What’s your biggest ambition now?

A lot of my goals are structured around the company. The most important one would be to execute our mission most effectively. Currently we are helping start-ups through media and events. That’s not enough and our goal is to find a way to evolve and be more efficient. And we are exploring a lot of different ways to do that.

On a personal level, if I do become financially independent, I would take time off to climb mountain Everest. That’s what I always wanted to do.

Can you recommend any recent books that have influenced or changed the way you work?

Though I am generally not a book person, one of my favourite books is Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull, co-founder (with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter) of Pixar Animation Studios. It explores all the ups and downs and the successes and failures one goes through during a creative process and that this is completely normal. To me, it teaches how to deal with adversity.

Another one which is very good is Principles by Ray Dalio. One of the most important parts of this book is how to set goals. He explains that first you need to focus on what your goal is and only then figure out how you are going to achieve it. Most people get stuck because they don't know how to separate these two things.

What talks such as TED or podcasts do you listen to?

Most of the podcasts I follow are not professionally driven. If I were to follow one podcast, it would be Tim Ferris. From a business point, one of the videos I share with my team is “How to sell combs to the monks”. In a nutshell it is how to make people believe that something they don’t think they need could impact them in a positive way, and could be valuable to the general ecosystem they are part of.

What industry columnists, blogs or influencers should we bookmark right now?

I mostly consume content through my social media channels, what’s interesting to me at this point of time.

Some of the most interesting blogs are:

• A16Z.com by venture capital founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz
• Joi Ito a blog by Director of MIT Media Lab
• Stratechery - a blog about technology with a focus on business and strategy by Ben Thompson
• To read about books a blog by Bill Gates - Gates Notes
• The Information - a new tech media website, which is not free, but has very in-depth information and reports

What are you going to learn in the year ahead?

I need to learn about change management. How to inspire my team to evolve, unlearn what they are doing and learn how to do new things. If something is not right, it doesn’t mean it is wrong. It means there’s a better way of doing it or there’s a different way to think about it. It is important for my company now to figure out how can we do things the best possible way. The key thing I am telling my team is that “I don’t know”. [Saying this] is perfectly fine. We need to test things. We need to continue to hypothesize, test, change and evolve.  How to take an entire company to evolve – that’s my learning for this year.

On a personal level, I want to continue exploring diving. I want to transition from recreational diving to technical diving.

Follow Mohan Belani on Twitter @mohanbelani or Facebook