Coding Change: Lessons from a Tech-Savvy Impact Maker

In this episode, Anna Haotanto, founder of Zora Health, shares her journey from finance to fertility care. She discusses her entrepreneurial path, starting with her first company focused on financial literacy for women, and later venturing into the F&B industry. Anna explains the challenges she faced, including a major setback when her company got hacked. She highlights the importance of self-love and a strong support system. The episode delves into her latest venture, Zora Health, which aims to destigmatize and make fertility care accessible. Tune in now!

Discussion Topics: Lessons from a Tech-Savvy Impact Maker

• Removing the taboo around fertility treatment
• Anna’s entrepreneurial journey – from finance to fnb to fertility treatment
• Starting a fnb business amidst the Covid pandemic
• Why the switch to fertility treatment?
• Women tend to doubt themselves a lot
• Self-love before mindless hard work
• Never complain, never explain
• Summing it up

Transcript: Lessons from a Tech-Savvy Impact Maker

Ritu G. Mehrish: Hi. Good morning Anna welcome to Rewrite The Rules. This is lovely to have you on our show. Welcome to our podcast, and just for our audience, I’m gonna do a brief introduction of Anna, So Anna is a founder of Zora Health, which is simplifying fertility care, making it more affordable and accessible for women around the world. With that, Anna, once again, Welcome to the show and tell us a little bit about your journey.

Removing the taboo around fertility treatment

Anna Haotanto: Thanks for having me Ritu. So maybe to give you a bit of background, I just found my third company, Zora Health. As we mentioned, actually what I wanted to do is to simplify fertility care, things like egg freezing and to make. Make it more accessible and affordable for women. It’s very interesting because I’ve never thought that I’d do this.

There are a lot of reasons for how I came to do this. To a lot of people, fertility is very taboo, there’s a lot of shame and a lot of guilt. And what we want to do is first change the conversation around it. And lastly, I think because fertility treatments are very expensive, we want to make them more affordable for people so that they can afford treatment.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Wow. Anna, you mentioned this is your third company, right? Tell us about your first company. How did you even start on this entrepreneurial journey?

Anna’s entrepreneurial journey – from finance to fnb to fertility treatment

Anna Haotanto: When I was younger, I wanted to be in finance. I could spend 10 years in finance being a banker. I was going to another bank, but I had some health issues. I have some pre-cancerous cells and I had like, I think for about six months my body was just breaking down.

Half of my face was paralyzed and I thought, I needed a break and during this break, I thought to myself what? I want to do something to give back. I felt very lucky, right? So my first company is Tech Savvy, which is Asia’s leading platform for women.

We focus on financial investments and career matters. So what we want to do is to empower women to achieve financial happiness. And what I found out was, a lot of women actually are earning more money. They are saving, but not many people are making their money. Work harder for them.

Like, I think there’s a lot of a lot of generational, Things that people told us, like, oh, leave the money management to your husband. Women are not good at maths, and a lot of these things, right? And I think that’s why, there’s a lot of fear, a lot of apprehension towards that.

And one of the reasons I wanted to start the new survey is that I first wanted to start with financial literacy for children. And I mean, my whole life I think my family grew up. We financially struggled throughout our life, and I remember when we were in university in oh 6, 0 7, things were very I think it was an economic boom.

My landlord was increasing the rent and my mom didn’t earn a lot. And I grew up, thinking like, I might get evicted out of my house. So, being 21 I told myself, my one financial goal is to buy a home for my family, for my parents. And I know, but I think it’s naive of me because I sat in class, I remember the class it’s entrepreneurship and business creation.

I sat down and I said, I’m going to buy a home before 30 and I dunno how to do it and, being naive, I didn’t realise how expensive housing is.

I think an HDB flat costs about 500,000 and I was. Thinking, how can somebody like me, so ordinary, achieve this? And so I worked out a plan, studying finance. I did a plan, and financial analysis and I think because I had such a burning desire for that goal, I saved most of my money in my early twenties when I was working. And I bought the home at like 28.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Amazing. Well done.

Anna Haotanto: So that was my first company. I think we were in five countries: Singapore, Philippines, Hong Kong, India, and Vietnam. And what we and that in itself, seven years of entrepreneurship in the new survey have taught me a lot. I think in our second year while we are fundraising for Series A what happened was I got hacked. So, we lost everything. Thousands of articles, the only thing we didn’t lose was customer data, thankfully. And then, I think, I asked myself is this really what I want to do?

I mean, I was very distraught. It is as if your life’s work is gone, right? And I blame myself a lot. I thought that I was very incompetent and clearly, I’m not equipped to do this. And it was actually a struggle for me because I was fairly young then, I think 30 plus, 31, 32, and when I go to the office, I have to lead a team of 10 and show strength.

Sure that you’re a good leader, cannot be too emotional. Otherwise, people say that you’re a woman, and you can’t be too emotional. And then at home, I’ll just go un hinge. Like I’ll just start binge drinking and all that. I took a deeper look at myself and I asked myself, what is important to me? What’s important in the career?

Ritu G. Mehrish: And just before Covid, I started a second company. I met my business partner, five of us. Well, we started with the capital, which is an investment fund focusing on f and b. And what happened is we also have a company called Gome Holdings where we buy over the restaurants and scale them up.

Anna Haotanto: So when we started, we bought, for example, one of the brands when we bought the brand, it had only two outlets. I think now we have about seven or eight.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Wow. How do you go from there? Financial literacy career platform women empowerment to gourmet holdings like to f and b space. Like how is that switch?

Starting a fnb business amidst the Covid pandemic

Ritu G. Mehrish: I think, before I joined I was very hesitant because FMB is a very hard, tough industry. It’s 24-7. In most office jobs, you work from Monday to Friday, nine to five, right? And, but f and b, your busiest period is the off-peak hours. and during normal working days, we are still, in the corporate, right?

Anna Haotanto: So, I would say that I think I learned a lot on the job and actually, a very interesting fact is when, first, when we first opened our first two outlets in VivoCity, I think a month later Covid hit. So a lot of my friends always joke that you have perfect timing.

I think what was interesting is we I think we were at the right size, I think we had about seven outlets, so we were nimble enough to pivot, but not small enough to not have the resources, for what we did. So what I did was I did a lot of social media marketing, and influencer marketing advertisement online, and we pivoted the business from purely offline to online to deliveries.

But one thing that, one thing that whole period taught me was if you remember Covid. there was a period where there’s I, I think it felt almost like a reckoning. You knew something was wrong and. You just don’t know how bad it is. This was before the circuit breaker, right?

Ritu G. Mehrish: Yeah.

Anna Haotanto: What happened is I remember sitting down with my partners, and I asked, what is the worst-case scenario here? What do you think? And they said, shut down the whole business. I was like, oh, you mean like we don’t open? And they were like, no, like we just closed out and returned investment’s money I told my partners, I don’t mind if you don’t take a salary.

The only thing I ask is let’s not let anyone go because everyone. Has a family to feed. Everyone has their responsibilities, right? So if we can, either we all don’t take a salary or we just cut across the board and actually, I’m very proud to say that through Covid we didn’t let anyone go. We hired more people. We grew through Covid. COVID was very good with us because we did such aggressive marketing and our brand value grew

Ritu G. Mehrish: Nice, and now, coming to Zora Health, how did that come into being? What led you to Zora Health?

Why the switch to fertility treatment?

Anna Haotanto: So, last year I stepped down from the role I was still on the board, but I told my partners, look I think there was a milestone achievement that we did, and the. We planned to open more restaurants. I wanted to go back into tech because, at the new survey, I was very involved in the tech industry, tech role. And I started founding the Singapore FinTech Association for Women in FinTech.

I think throughout COVID I was very tired and I felt okay, maybe it’s time for somebody else to take the company forward and it may not be me. So by the time I stepped down, we had close to 30 plus outlets fundraised and we had five brands.

So that’s that and I decided I wanted to take a break, right? And we didn’t take a break. I ended up filming a Web Three documentary for Channel News Asia. So what was very interesting is during this time when I was taking a break, I realised that my body, the way I respond, and all that was very different from being.

I have put on about 15 kg in the last four or five years. I realised that I have P C O S polycystic ovarian syndrome, I thought that I was per menopausal, but everyone says too early. You’re too young. I’m 39, so not that young, and it can happen. So I was researching that, right? And I went Google, I went online and I was like, Hey, I think like all the symptoms. And so my boyfriend is a surgeon and I told him, I have all the symptoms.

And he was like, can you please don’t? Diagnose yourself with Mr so I wanna research this whole space. And I realised that again, this is exactly like finances set eight years ago when I first started, right? It’s quite taboo. People are all experiencing it. Nobody’s talking about it. And there’s a lot of, I think there’s a lot of myth and a lot of, misconceptions.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Yeah.

Anna Haotanto: There’s no one really doing or tackling the problem here. And I asked myself, what are people doing overseas? What can we do to actually talk more about it?

So over the years, I have spoken to more than a hundred women privately. I’m still not sure if I want to have children, but I’m so glad that I did it because now that you can’t travel, like at that point of time when all your personal liberties are taken, your choices are all taken away. I’m quite glad that I did it and actually wrote an 8,000 word article on freezing and all the research that I didn’t do, and I think the article went viral because people, women really resonated with it.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Wow. And that’s how you thought, okay, it’s time to start something here.

Anna Haotanto: I think I’ve spent my life wanting to debunk myself and also thinking how people or women can really invest in ourselves and the community around us, right?

Like for the new savvy. I think we wanted to help women to have financial independence. And now with fertility I will say that even though it sounds very different to me, it’s the same because we want to help women achieve fertility freedom, redefining what all of this means to them.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Absolutely. This is such an interesting story and such interesting insights. Because this podcast is about women leaders and it’s about, how the challenges of women leaders in different spheres of life, what have been some of the challenges that you faced from a lens of being a woman entrepreneur or a woman leader?

Women tend to doubt themselves a lot

Anna Haotanto: I think for me I question myself a lot and this is very obvious when I work with my male co-founders in my previous business, right? When I make a decision or when I think about something, I sometimes doubt myself a lot.

And I think this is very prevalent to most women. we suffer a lot from imposter syndrome, and I think even with my male friends, with my boyfriend, when I speak to them I can tell the difference in terms of either confidence level.

That’s one. Number two, I think I struggle with the balance. If I’m honest, I struggle a bit. I Struggle a bit with communication in the workplace. So for example I think when you’re a man and you say, Hey, go and do this, or something like that, people take it as it’s fine, you’re being authoritative.

I think I look younger and generally I’m quite a bubbly person. So when I say certain things like that in the workplace scenario, I’ve been told to stop being so aggressive, you sound very fierce. And I’m like, okay, I’m not sure if I’m actually saying these different things. So these are some things that I thought were very interesting.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Yeah.

Anna Haotanto: Going back to the first one, just questioning, so. Decisions double-guessing imposter syndrome, as you rightly said, is more common in women than men. How did you drive your inner narrative to get through that or to work through that?

Self-love before mindless hard work

Anna Haotanto: Okay, so you, I had this epiphany a few months ago, right? I think, when I was younger, I always worked very hard. Initially, I thought it was out of necessity because I wanted to earn some financial comfort and some financial freedom. And then after that, it became like I wanted to prove myself right. So, maybe it’s low self-esteem, maybe imposter syndrome.

I want to prove to people that it’s not just a one-hit wonder. I can do this. Like, I’m good enough. I’m not just lucky. I came from investment banking, right? And they used to have this saying, love and sleep are for the week. But last year I did a lot of reflection, a lot of self-work. And one thing I realised is I think a lot of self-confidence comes from first self-love.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Yeah.

Anna Haotanto: And also the love and trust from other people. So this time around is very different because when I started Zora, I wanted to be successful. But it’s because I know that I have the faith and trust of all the people who care about me, that care about me.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Wow. Was there any pivotal moment, any anecdote that you can think of, which kind of reshaped your thinking or your path?

Anna Haotanto: I will classify my journey in three parts. So the first part is really, I want to win at all costs because I need money, like I need financial comfort. The second part to me is always about being efficient, and I think that’s, Who I am naturally.

Because, growing up in Singapore, I wanted excellence. Right? And to me, when I look at people, I tell, I used to think as a manager, why don’t you understand? And if I have to teach you I’m spending more time teaching you. Right?

I just wanted to hit goals. in fnb it was a very pivotal moment for me as an entrepreneur. So one of the things that happened was I was speaking to a friend and, I was saying, I’m very perplexed, right?

A lot of these things about managing people and you say, as a manager, if you are dealt with say, C players, or even B players. And you are complaining that it is your own failure because your job as a manager is to make sure that it’s like a football manager, regardless of the players you have.

You have to make them star players. This is, I think, like coming of age as an entrepreneur. I used to think that being an entrepreneur is about having success and having money. Having glory and recognition, right?

But I realise the point of being an entrepreneur is that you are responsible for the people that work for you. You are a team. you are responsible for their family and their livelihood. So it’s on you to make it work for them. It’s not just about money. It’s really about impacting people’s lives. in my FMB role, I grew a love for people, I will say that it’s a journey for me.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Nice, and also the fact that you recognized it and wanted to work on it, that itself, makes a point about being open to. To things or feedback or to inputs. Right. So, that’s good. I want to pivot back to women leaders and younger emerging women leaders whether they’re in the corporate world or on an entrepreneurial journey. What would your one or two pieces of advice would be, Anna, to them?

Never complain, never explain

Anna Haotanto: I think my first advice is never to complain, never to explain.

Ritu G. Mehrish: I think a lot of the time, we complain a lot about everything but. I think being a leader and being in a public or leadership position you can never please everyone.

Anna Haotanto: And to be honest, everyone will have something to say about you, right? So, unless those people are really the people who matter, I think sometimes you don’t have to explain yourself. You just have to work in silence.

Ritu G. Mehrish: So, I love that. You are now working with so many women whether they’re clients, whether they’re team members in general, is there anything that you see where you want to be like, oh, I wish women could change that thing about themselves or would change the way they’re thinking or the way they’re driving the narrative?

I thought that a lot of this I’m not sure whether the word is lack of self-confidence, right? But I mean, these are things that research has shown, right? When a man is only 60% qualified. They apply for the job. And when women are more than qualified, they still think that they’re not.

Anna Haotanto: I always thought it was for younger women, maybe in their twenties. But I realise that even with my friends who are in their late thirties, or early forties, A lot of us still feel that maybe we are not equipped to do it unless we are very, it’s a role that we have done.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Yeah.

Anna Haotanto: So I, I think that’s something that stood out for me

Ritu G. Mehrish: Right, that kind of brings me to another thing. because I’ve been speaking to a lot of women leaders who’ve had a great journey like yourself. What has been your experience of having, um, a good support system or a support ecosystem, has that worked for you? Just having the right kind of people around you?

Anna Haotanto: Yes, definitely. I think entrepreneurship is really hard. I will say that, there are really days where I just don’t want to get out of bed. So, having the right people, and I will say it’s different types of people, different groups of people.

So you have people who are like your mentors that you look up to and that keep you accountable, right? Or coaches that keep you accountable telling you. You need to do this. For me, what I really found very useful was also having fellow entrepreneurs, people who understand the journey and there are a lot, it’s a very supportive group community, right?

There are people that I go and say, look, I want to do this, and this is something that happened. What do you think I should do? Right. And then there are also people who really just sit down and empathise with you. It’s almost like a relationship, right? Like, so one thing that I learned was, when people come to me and complain I always ask them, do you want me to listen or do you want me to give advice?

You see, that’s quite interesting, right? We are kind of made to feel like we have to solve everyone’s problem.

Ritu G. Mehrish: We do. There’s that unsaid burden almost, to say, oh, we need to, if somebody’s sharing, we need to solve for it or we need to get involved and do something about it. As you look back, from when you started, when you said the first thing was to win at any cost, you had very solid financial goals and you worked towards them. Today, where are you now? How do you define success?

Anna Haotanto: I will say that now that I’m a lot more mature and still growing, I will define success in three ways. So one is the traditional measure of success, and I don’t think that I can run away from that, right? Like so, to grow my company, we want to help women across the world or Asia to redefine their fatality, and their choices.

So that’s one. And grow the team and make sure that the people that work with us are taken care of. My second one will be really to focus on the people that. I care about it. I think when people, when I think when people have catastrophic failures, you realise who are the people that matter to you and the people who will be there for you, right?

I think a lot of times there are a lot of very nice people, but they are not there when you need them. So I, and I will say that, when it comes to finances, right? A lot of people think that, Hey, having a lot of money means I have bought multiple properties in Singapore or right.

But the truth is, having money, having success, and financial success is redefining your life and providing the kind of life that the people that you love want. So, for example, maybe I still want to work, but I only want to work two days a week, right? So I think defining that is very important. And realising that, that’s what money gives you. It’s not just the material things.

Ritu G. Mehrish: I like the way you defined it. Looking back at your younger self, what is one piece of advice you would give her?

Anna Haotanto: Can I say buy Bitcoin? I’m joking.

Ritu G. Mehrish: You can, of course, if there was Bitcoin, then yes.

Anna Haotanto: I think a lot of times I will say that there is a lot of advice that you will read. So for example, make time for your parents or whatever. Like, you know what people say when they’re on their death they’re dying, right? But I do think that a lot of advice you need to experience it yourself to really. Fully understand that. So I will say that if I look back at my younger self, I will say that I think I should be patient.

Because I’m naturally a very impatient person with myself, with the things that I want to achieve, right? So I just wanted quick and I just wanted to do it myself. Yeah. But I think a lot of it takes time and just be patient. Surround yourself with good people to build you up. Yeah.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Great. Any other piece of advice that you would have for our women listeners here?

Anna Haotanto: I think that a lot of times we talk about how little, gender pay gap, gender funding. Right and a lot of this and, boys club. But I, one thing that struck me over the past few years is how uh, a lot of women who are in positions of power or who are successful, they try to build tables for other women.

And make sure that other women get a seat at the table. Very supportive, whether we help each other through advice, introductions recommending people. So I, I think the last thing I want to say is, as a woman leader or as an, when you’re climbing up this ladder, always remember to give back to other women and try to help other people along the way because That’s the only way we can all bridge that difference within.

Summing it up

Ritu G. Mehrish: Correct. That is so wise. That is such good advice because I know there is, sometimes I hear this murmur or this thing, oh, like women don’t support women enough. Or women pull down women, I don’t know. I don’t want to get into whether it’s true or not.

I mean, we don’t need to be a CEO to support other women. Whatever level you are, you can always support women around you. Like, as you said, refer to them, introduce them, and open your network. But absolutely, I think collectively, we, as women try, we just need to do.

Or get better at it. I think we are just reluctant to do it. Not that we don’t have the right intention, but maybe we can get better at that. I think that’s a really good point that you’ve made. Anna. As we wrap up, I do want to share some of my key takeaways. There were, there were a lot of them for sure.

The first one that stood out for me was, which has been the theme of your, of all your all your startups is debunking myths. I think sometimes that is so important because a lot of the time, whether it’s cultural, whether it’s society, whether it’s just hearsay, things get things right like women are this, women should do this.

Like a lot of myths floating around and I think debunking myths is powerful. That stood out for me. So that’s one of the key takeaways, the second one I stuck out, which stood out for me was that being a woman, of course, can have a little bit of impediment, but it’s also an advantage, right?

It can also be an advantage and as women leaders we can leverage that advantage and sometimes I find we don’t do enough of that. So leveraging. The fact that we are women leveraging that to our advantage and to our benefit. I think that was my second key takeaway.

And the third one is, you can’t please everyone. I think again, genetically we are wired a little bit too, to try and please or be people pleasers. But you’re right, you rightly said, we can’t be pleasing. All the people all the time. There’s a saying, we can please some people, but sometimes we can’t please all the people all the time.

So, those were three things that stood out for me. And the last one, as you said, is that we as women leaders need to create the table for other women around us. So thank you so much, Anna. It was such a pleasure speaking to you and all the best for your journey and for Zora Health. Thank you.

Anna Haotanto: Thank you so much for having me.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Really enjoyed our conversation.

Our Guest: Anna Vanessa Haotanto

Award-winning entrepreneur, investor, and thought leader in entrepreneurship, technology and leadership. Possesses over 15 years of experience building and scaling technology startups, international restaurant brands, M&A execution, and founding Asia’s leading financial literacy platform for women and wealth management.