Sid Kongara is the co-founder and CTO at Growsari, a B2B e-commerce startup in the Philippines dedicated to helping small neighborhood mom-and-pop shops grow their incomes and manage their business.

He also co-founded Riktamtech, a dev team that helps startups with engineering, and Tigersheet, a powerful no-code platform to build business apps and workflows.

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

I guide a large group of very talented people working on varied problem spaces — engineering, geoanalytics, process and controls, data, cost accounting, and supply chain, to name a few— to mesh together and achieve a bigger goal... of improving incomes for an underserved section of society.

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

I am very hands-on across a number of things - including day-to-day operational and tech support. It helps me have an intimate understanding of what needs improving.

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

Being part of building something of substance from scratch is very satisfying. More so when you have an awesome bunch of people to do it with, who challenge and inspire each other to achieve fairly outrageous goals week-on-week.

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

I think the recent cohort of SEA startups looking to organize the blue-collar and gig work space can create massive impact at scale. It will be very interesting to see how it plays out in the coming years.

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

Don't chase buzzwords and job titles. Choose your early gigs for width of exposure and not money. Read voraciously. Figure out your toolkit and how you can apply it to any problem space. Be known for kick-ass execution or problem-solving (or both!) at anything given to you.

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

Aviation, History, Travel

🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

A Fish Called Wanda

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

Vanilla