Katrina Rausa Chan is the Executive Director of QBO Innovation Hub, a public-private initiative she launched in 2016 to develop the Philippines' startup ecosystem, and IdeaSpace, a leading corporate accelerator and early-stage fund.

She leads one of the most active startup enablers in the Philippines, accelerating the growth of a combined network of over 700 Filipino startup ventures across stages and industries through various programs. 

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

QBO is all about building a globally competitive startup ecosystem in the Philippines. Our main job is to support startups and help them scale and succeed, and we conduct over a hundred startup programs a year (probably the most in the country) including mentorship, pitch events, and the longest-running accelerator in the Philippines among others to achieve this.

Our name is inspired by the "kubo" which in the Philippines is a symbol for "bayanihan" or teamwork. In that spirit, we work in close QLLABORATION with the government, corporates, investors, universities, and other players, for QMMUNITY and other ecosystem-building efforts. 

This runs the gamut from organizing large events such as Philippine Startup Week and other activities to inspire entrepreneurship throughout the country, working with students, drafting research or policy briefs and even helping other incubators to set up.

Last, but not the least, we invest in early-stage startups (typically pre-seed to A) through our VC Fund.

For someone totally outside our industry though (and this has worked for my non-tech relatives), it usually does the trick to ask them to watch the "Start-up" K-drama—there's a local version now too. We basically function like the "Sandbox" and VC there, but definitely less romance and conventionally attractive cast members. 

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

I was the very first intern at IdeaSpace as far back as 2012! I initially saw it as a fun volunteering gig, long before I was invited to join full-time, and never imagined I would end up co-founding QBO, and even leading the IdeaSpace organization!

What might also be surprising are the things we used to do back when the startup space in the Philippines was still super nascent. We would hand out free t-shirts to people just so they would submit an idea to our accelerator, or publish a photo in the broadsheets so our founders' families would know that the program wasn't some kind of scam. 

Even now, there are still people that mistakenly think they have a startup just because they opened a restaurant or franchised a store in the last 6 months. These days startups are a lot more mainstream and "respectable" than when we started. 

We're seeing a lot more success stories too, not just in the usual places like Silicon Valley or China, but in the Philippines and across Southeast Asia as well.

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

Starting QBO, and seeing what it has become is definitely the highlight. I always had a patriotic bent and wanted to do something for the Philippines, but never imagined I would help spearhead the country's national startup program as a twenty-something female that hadn't even launched a startup herself (yes, I did experience some setbacks but that's a long/different story!)

In my early days with IdeaSpace, for what was then an annual intake for our accelerator, we'd get 1000+ applicants, for 10 slots. While we could technically say we were more selective than Harvard or YC, it was also obvious that there were scale limitations. 

There was a lot of potential in the local community we couldn't really do much about working alone. I could only imagine back then what we might achieve if the Philippines had the kind of startup support infrastructure similar to what I'd seen in other countries, where funding, networks, and government support were readily accessible to everyone.

I'm super proud that QBO has grown to be the largest QMMUNITY of startup founders in the Philippines. The public-private collaboration, not to mention all the effort our amazing team has put in, has really allowed us to extend support to founders throughout the country and helped to make the broader PH startup ecosystem more awesome, and on its way to reaching its full potential. 

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

Everyone in our industry is by nature, predisposed to talking about visionary concepts—these days, it's generative AI, web3, and bio-hacks to live forever. I do find these interesting and will continue to watch closely.

That said, as a PH investor, I've always been a fan of more grounded "real problems". I think there are a lot more places in the world that are like the Philippines than Palo Alto, and in these huge emerging markets, I believe the biggest areas for opportunity are things like education, health, food-agri, environment, and the creative economy. 

I believe there are still really big, fundamental, maybe even basic or unsexy problems that tech and startups can help solve, and that's what I'm most excited about, and in a funding-winter environment especially, I think more investors are sharing this 'back-to-basics' view of looking at fundamental issues and profitability vs. hifalutin concepts and growth at all costs. 

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

I'd say just go for it! It won't always be super easy, and almost never goes as you expect, so it's important to just start, to stay open, and to keep learning along the way.

As an investor, I also like to say "traction speaks louder than words". I've been pitched a bunch of ideas that I thought were silly but over-performed and that customers really loved, and vice versa where I thought it was a great idea and fantastic tech but the timing wasn't right, or the market didn't seem to agree. 

It takes some humility, but at the end of the day startups are there to solve a problem, and it's the customers that are the final arbiter of whether or not they deliver value. 

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

Boring answer because it's my day job, but probably Philippine startups—they are awesome and so underrated!

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🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show? 

Right now, I'm watching Succession, and Ted Lasso, unfortunately, both are in their final seasons!  That said, my favorites change all the time!

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

I'm actually more of a gelato person and enjoy things with thick texture and some crunch—think straciatella or gianduja. That said, especially in the summer, I'm also a fan of some Filipino scoops, like Milky Way's ube (on halo-halo), or a refreshing kalamansi sorbet.

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FYI. We’ve edited this interview for clarity.