Alvin Ea is the Co-Founder of Haulio (Iterative Summer 2020), a Singapore-based container haulage platform, with the greater vision of connecting global trade to local first-mile transportation across ASEAN.
What has been the most surprising thing for you about being a founder?
That you are constantly pushed to your limits to become a better version of yourself. To start up a company as a visionary with just 2 pax vs scaling up to your first 20 vs managing a regional team of over 100 pax requires very different skillsets that might not be for every founder. The difference between a good, great and phenomenal founder is how fast he/she is able to adapt to the changes and requirements of the job as a founder, as the company scales and progresses.
What was the highlight of your Iterative experience?
Partners' weekly meetings. As the inaugural cohort in 2020, we were going through the roughest patch of our startup journey. Having to have to reorg, downsize, regroup and relook at our basics from scratch was already a painful one, but thank god for HK & BM who were there for us to guide us along our darkest days. Thank you for trusting in us because it is only during your darkest times when you truly see who are there for you, and Iterative was there as our reflection of ourselves by allowing us to simply be who we are without having to hide or conceal our deepest weaknesses and insecurities, it certainly helped me a lot to cope with imposter syndrome!
What is one thing that you would tell to your 10 year old self?
That it's ok to not know what you want in life - go discover yourself and be exposed to all possibilities and not restricting/conforming yourself to anything
Where did the idea of your company come from?
My Co-founder! He came to pitch me his vision of haulage and the funny thing was I actually said "No, it would never work" to him at the beginning! As a haulier myself for 5 years prior, I knew exactly the pain points of this industry but it was difficult for me to accept it right away because I was facing existential crisis! Should Haulio really succeed in their vision (which I've accepted it with open arms), my trucking company would be disrupted/eliminated. Instead of getting killed by others, how about I kill myself..?
If you could be an animal, what would you be? Why?
Phoenix - I love the Hunger Games
What was your dream occupation growing up?
Policeman - I wanted to catch all the bad guys and put them behind bars, strong sense of justice
If you had a superpower, what would it be and why?
To resolve world peace and stop global hunger
