JJ Velaz is the founder and CEO of Kosmo, the unified API for last-mile delivery in Asia. They help all kinds of businesses, from food marketplaces to e-commerce companies, easily manage deliveries and ship across Asia with multiple delivery providers — through just one integration.

👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

We are building an easy way for any business to deliver products to their customers.

🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

You can build things faster with smaller teams. Working at foodpanda before and Kosmo now, I realized how "bigger" often means "slower."

We are a small team, and that forces us to focus on what really matters. We can easily pivot direction when needed. Being a small team also allows us to have very close contact with all our customers and build a product that can really improve their delivery.

🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

Starting to build Kosmo. foodpanda was cool, and I am very proud of it since it allowed me to develop the skills and the network I have today.

But nothing beats building your own project to solve problems you understand very well. I personally feel alive when I take risks and face uncertainty, and I would not change it for anything else.

🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?‍

The rise of food delivery logistics has brought to the surface an opportunity to improve delivery across other verticals. People want things faster and with a great experience, but only foodpanda and Grab (a few players) were providing that.

This whole experience is moving to e-commerce. It is happening as we speak, and we want to accelerate that change across Asia with Kosmo.

💼 What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry?

Just do things. People overthink their careers when the most important thing is to be in an environment where you do things.

My first job at foodpanda was recruiting riders myself. I distributed flyers around the city, and riders came over to be onboarded by me. Talking to those riders all day allowed me to understand how things work on the ground.

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🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours?

I like talking with people about different ways to build businesses, especially against the logic of growth at all costs. I don't believe in raising for the sake of raising.

I believe in solving customers' problems and charging a fair amount for it. I believe in having a team as small as possible instead of as big as possible. In raising as little as you can instead of as much as you can.

I don't like it when people describe their business by the size of their team or the money they raised. Other than startups, I am very interested in all sports, but I am especially into football, tennis and climbing.

🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

Fight Club. By far.

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🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?‍

Vanilla. Especially the one from Apiary!