BackScoop's Amanda Cua on what makes a creator different from a journalist
What makes a creator different from a journalist?
On our latest Splice Pink episode, we spoke with Amanda Cua, a newsletter media creator in the Philippines. Her daily email — BackScoop — keeps you updated on the top stories in tech and business in Southeast Asia.
She doesn’t call herself a journalist for this one reason: “One big focus I have is distribution. And I don’t think that most journalists have that in their job description. How do I get this to more people? What kind of platform should I be using?”
Listen to this episode — it’s full of great insights. But stay for the reveal at the end of it. You wouldn’t guess her age from all this wisdom.
Hosted by Rishad Patel and Alan Soon. Produced by Alan Soon.
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The transcript
Alan: And hopefully this works. We haven't done this for a very long time. So Rishad, do you wanna kick this off?
Rishad: Yeah, I'm gonna do a quick, uh, our boiler plate intro. Hey, this is Splice Pink. Pink is where we have quick conversations with people across the global media ecosystem. There's creators, there's media startup founders, there's journalists, there's funders to all the tech data design folks.
Rishad: But that also includes tech biz newsletter creators, Amanda Chua! How did we even find you? Give us your best intro?
Amanda: I actually came across Alan on LinkedIn a while back, um, because of the work that you guys are doing. I actually followed him for a while and I wondered one day maybe would. Then lucky for me, one of the people who've been reading and enjoying BackScoop connected me to Alan.
Amanda: And now here we are.
Alan: That's so awesome to see, you know, I was really excited when, when I saw the, the referral come through on, on LinkedIn, you know, this friend of mine was saying, you gotta go meet Amanda. She's awesome. You know, she's got all these great ideas and she's a newsletter so, you know, it's not every day that you see a newsletter come up in this region or something as specific as yours.
Alan: What is your elevator pitch? Uh, how do you explain what you do?
Amanda: BackScoop is a daily newsletter that makes it fun and easy to stay updated with everything Southeast Asian startups and business. It's just really one line because that's really all we do. It's really simple.
Rishad: That is a quick elevator ride.
Alan: It's, it's amazing also that you have distilled that line almost to perfection. You started this in December, I think December of last year,
Amanda: August last year, August last year. I think it started taking off a bit more December, January next, last.
Alan: And what, what did it sound like when you, when you started it versus now
Amanda: it's pretty much the same.
Amanda: I just added the word 'fun' in the, in the middle. So when it started, it was BackScoop is a daily newsletter that makes it easy to stay updated with Southeast Asian startups. So,
Rishad: you know, I that's one of the things I noticed I have to say BackScoop has a voice. It has there's, there's a tone. There's I can hear it, you know, and I I've never met you before.
Rishad: Um, who is that person? Is that my nerdy techy friend who is that?
Amanda: Think it's just, if you work in the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem or just in any startup ecosystem, you have to really enjoy or have some passion for what you're doing, especially if you're early stage. If you don't think the company you're working at is exciting.
Amanda: If you can't talk about it with a voice, it's something exciting. Um, in your tone, then you're probably not gonna be working there very long. So the idea with the fun tone for BackScoop. We're telling you about another startup, like your friend who works here, who's telling you about his own startup that he's building, that he's working at or that he invested in.
Alan: And that's really quite amazing because you stumble on this as well. I I'll, I'll leave it to you to, to tell that story. Right. But this, this is an idea that you hatched while you were working at your previous employer.
Amanda: So I was working at Avion school, an early stage set up here in the Philippines. The Philippines setup ecosystem is very, very early.
Amanda: Um, if you went here in 2019 and you looked at the landscape in 2021 totally different place, like I have to say that. And I joined the last company I was in, in 2020 being a startup and. It was a coding bootcamp where I had to work with a lot of different startups as well. I was in that perfect space where I could actually interact with a lot of different startups in the Philippines, Southeast Asia and the west.
Amanda: So I got that, um, seat and to really seeing sort of the Philippines startup landscape explode because I started working with so many more companies. I had so many calls with companies phobias in Southeast Asia, and I would read the news every day just because I was also a salesperson who had to get my numbers up.
Amanda: and also just cuz I love reading the news and I saw, okay, well there are so many setups already here on these tech media platforms. I'm reading so many articles and I already really love reading because I would read everything down to like soda cans and things like that. But I'm not having fun reading this many articles and that says something.
Amanda: Then if you, I guess look a little deeper, that was 20, 21. It's like, you know, you read TechinAsia in the morning. and you read it in afternoon. You read it in the evening just to make sure you didn't miss out on anything. Right. But the, the problem is that only Singapore and Indonesia, really the developed side of ecosystem.
Amanda: So, what does that mean for the future? What that means for the future is that, you know, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, these countries are all gonna play catch up by their startup ecosystems. And one day when you wake up, um, you're not gonna have enough times to really go through the news, cuz there will be way too many articles from all of these countries and you're just gonna miss out on so many things.
Amanda: So you're just gonna get really confused and just not gonna have an enjoyable time at all reading and.
Rishad: So listening to you, I'm hearing that you did sales, you know how to code?
Amanda: I tried to learn how to code. Big difference!.
Rishad: okay. Big difference. Um, but how do you, how do you identify? Are you, do you, do you, Hey, I'm, I'm a creator or I'm an entrepreneur or I'm a journalist, are you even doing news?
Rishad: Is that what this is? You write, you say stories. Uh, does any of that matter?
Amanda: I think for me, I identify more, I think, as a founder than, than a journalist, because my job isn't about, you know, just turning out articles, making in-depth articles, things like that. It's the whole process. It's one. How do you write the best content?
Amanda: Um, based on the story, based on this information. So I also do a lot of research and I do that myself.
Um, and I write all of these stories, but apart from that one big focus I have is also on distribution. And I don't think most journalists, um, have that in their job description. So I also think about, okay, I wrote this article, how do I get this into more people's hands?
Amanda: Who are the best people to tap? What, what kind of platform should I be using? So I think I'm more of like a founder.
Alan: Yeah, that part of it is really exciting just because, you know, you are thinking of this as a, as a product that reaches an audience and it's your role, not just to create the content, but also to make sure it gets there to, to the right people.
Alan: Can you talk a little bit about your daily workflow? There's a lot of work that goes into this newsletter, obviously. And you do this on a daily.
Amanda: I guess this is how my day can be described in the morning. I go through my email, like every other normal, um, startup founder, probably. Um, after that, I time the rest of my day and look into the metrics from the past week and the past day, I always review it every single day.
Amanda: How many subscribers we got today? How far are we from our goal? Things like that. Um, then I also look into all of her social pages, just refreshing. Okay. What are the likes? What are all these things? Um, and then look at other ways that I can acquire more subscribers. And usually my mornings and early afternoons are spent, um, on direct efforts, sort of distribute the newsletter to get into more people's inboxes, just acquire more subscribers in general.
Amanda: And apart from that also have a few meetings. So a big part of my day is also spent, um, speaking to subscribers, speaking. Different founders, VCs, sometimes executives as well. Um, and just startup operators who are really keen on one max group and two, the Southeast Asian startup space and three the Philippines.
Amanda: So I think part of my work is actually involves sharing a lot about, um, the startup ecosystem in my country. Then the latter part of my day is spent on the day to day admin work. If I have any, just to keep the business running and then lastly, the writing. So I'll write the newsletter, usually in the tail end of my day.
Amanda: Um, The whole process end to end. So the writing the research up until, you know, putting it on the newsletter platform, putting it on the website and things like that. So when I wake up, everything's published.
Rishad: Nice. Is this your whole gig? Is this your full time?
Amanda: Yeah, it's my full time job.
Rishad: That's amazing. Yeah. How, how do you think about formats? Is BackScoop a newsletter business, or is it a media business? Could it be a podcast one day? Could it be an event?
I think right now it is a newsletter business, but on the greater scheme of things, it's really a media business, but I think. Working in the Southeast Asian startup space, you'll end up really becoming more than just the media business.
Amanda: If you're writing, uh, for Southeast Asians reps. I think that's one key thing. I think I can explain it this way. So right now, BackScoop is a daily newsletter that makes it fun and easy to keep up with Southeast Asian startups. And that was brought there because the fast, the startup ecosystem in the Philippines in Southeast Asia was so fast growing that people really needed to know what happened today.
Amanda: What happened yesterday, who expanded to this other country who got acquired. People had a lot of those question. People were looking beyond just their own home countries and trying to wonder what's going on everywhere else. And I think that was the underserved need brought on by how fast the ecosystem grew.
Amanda: And the next move for us is really growing deeper, um, into the Southeast Asian startup space, looking into one, but kind of content that we can provide to help people solve their problems and to… What other services, what are the, what are the other things that we can do to help people?
Is that just a service? Is that another platform? I don't know yet, but you know, working in this space as a media company, you're always brought in to do more. I mean, that's why I end up speaking to people about what's the Philippines, like or what do you think of this company and things like that. It's always more than just like publishing the news.
Alan: And how much of this did you already understand when you did this a year? Did you think it was just gonna be a newsletter?
Amanda: When I thought about this a year ago, I think I really just thought of it as just a newsletter. Right. I, I mean the business side is always there. I knew that a newsletter, um, was needed a newsletter that would summarise, um, everything going on in Southeast Asian tech.
Amanda: Actually, I think to clarify, um, Not really just a newsletter. I think I thought of it more as a media platform. So content focused, very content focused, whether that was just a newsletter or that would move into some website or app, but really just focused around news. What I didn't anticipate was the part where I would be brought in to do more, um, for crying out loud.
Amanda: Some people ask me, do you wanna be a VC scout? Do you wanna be a VC? And I said, oh, I'm actually really focused on my job here. . But I, I think it just shows you're really brought on to do more
Rishad: So I think it sounds like your audience is bringing you on to do more. It's it's almost like your audiences or your community is kind of assigning you.
Rishad: uh, um, you know, different roles, perhaps roles that you had no idea you were, you know, cut out for, or you know, of fit to do or even cared about. But I'm, so I wanna switch it back to your audience. If you had to person personify your very core listener, I well reader, uh, your customer, who is that person?
Rishad: Can you describe her or him to us? Who, who, who would it be? Who is this?
Amanda: These people are founders executives set up operators and VCs working in or interested in the Southeast Asian startup space. I think it's really that in a nutshell, I think it's hard to really bring in other qualities. Cause I think people who work in the set of space also have certain kinds of qualities brought on.
Amanda: So I think that simple sentence just really ties in everything.
Alan: You know, what's also remarkable about your journey so far is that you've, you've been able to find angel investors, uh, to buy into this idea early on. Did you go looking for them or did they come looking for you?
Amanda: I think initially when I started meeting investors, I wasn't actually looking for money at the onset.
Amanda: I think, you know, I was really just trying to start pitching and really learn how to fundraise, you know, it was just the start of the process. And so a few friends would introduce me to a few people. They knew, I think that. I think I just met my first three investors ever before we actually got an offer, um, to invest.
Amanda: So I was really at the start of the process and really just open to learning more about the fundraising side and all of these other things and maybe get an investment somewhere down the line, but not as early as I expected.
Alan: Yeah. Yeah. And that's quite remarkable because you've, you've basically secured yourself a financial runway to continue doing this, you know, for, for a while. At what point do you think you need to start thinking about, about revenue?
Amanda: I think for me, when I started the whole fundraising process, I really was clear on one thing. You know, that one, I could actually bootstrap this. If I wanted to, it's a newsletter, the costs are low, but, um, if you wanna scale this, I think you want one, a bit more money to help things grow a little more faster.
Amanda: Um, and two, I think. This is a kind of business where if you bring really interesting key people to support you, you can actually grow a lot more. I think it's also part of the distribution, cuz these people sort of become your ambassadors in a sense, and being a newsletter and being the business that we are the kinds of investors that these bring this brings in.
Amanda: It's more than just your typical investor. It's somebody who actually enjoys the product. And that has been clear with every single person that we've meant that wanted to invest. They enjoy the product. They've actually made, made the effort to, for example, say, oh, I've been reading all of your LinkedIn posts or I've been, um, listening to your podcast.
Amanda: The VCs that I meet actually have been engaged with the product, whether they, uh, you know, whether they've just met me for the first time or not.
Rishad: So at this stage, you, you run the business, you handle marketing, you handle the product, you develop the product, you do some audience research, you're doing referral codes.
Rishad: Um, you're, uh, you are in charge of your production workflow. You're, you're experimenting with tools, you're amplifying and you're raising money, uh, and you've raised money. So obviously the next question. For me is at what point do you know, man, I need, I need another, I need to hire what's that what's that limit.
Rishad: What's that cutoff point?
Amanda: I think I'm really approaching that point right now. So now I'm really trying to look into a few people that are really interesting and try to understand more about people who might potentially wanna work with us. So that the time when the time comes that, you know, you really hit that point.
Amanda: Right? Yeah. I really need somebody. I already know those people. Are there sort of like how it is. Like with the audience now, like you have a lot of people who are there and are really willing to help, which is great. I think that's, what's nice about the business that we have cuz your, your talent pool is already in your email.
Rishad: that is true. You know, very true. And I want I'm, I'm kind of, I'm kind of wondering what. Direction, would that be, are you, are you looking to hire, would your first hire be somebody bright and you don't really care what they do? Or would your first hire be, you know, a generalist like yourself? Or do you want them to specialise in something who would that be?
Amanda: I'm not an expert on hiring cuz truth be told like this is my first like founder gig and I was only a manager of like, let's say two interns before. But to me, I think if I've learned anything from the. A few months, this building this, my, myself, I think the kind of work that back scoop needs are people who put in a lot of effort who are really persistent it's it's of course there's thinking, right.
Amanda: But I think at this stage it involves a lot more legwork, a lot more learning and a lot more of a generalist. So that's what the kind of person would look like. Somebody who's willing to transplant themselves across different functions and transfer that learning and synthesise that learning across those functions to do what they.
Amanda: Instead of having someone who's like siloed into okay. Just write or, okay. Just do this. Because at the end of the day, we're writing about startups and you're working in a startup. So whatever you're learning at the startup, whoever you're meeting in your job, it's all related to the task that you're doing.
Amanda: So I think you need somebody who is a generalist. What's in a lot of effort and time and can actually synthesise all of their experiences and learnings across the functions and across just being somebody who works in the, industry.
Alan: Just between founders here, um, we know how difficult it is sometimes to, to let go and to let someone take control of something as precious as this, right? Um, it's, it's interesting in your answer there, you didn't actually say what that role was and what you wanted that person to do. How do you think about that?
Amanda: I think for the role, I think initially I'd like the person to wanna have an understanding of the writing side. I think that's key. I think for the first hires would be someone more on the acquisition side and managing one, the subscribers and two, the ad partners that we're starting to, to bring in.
Amanda: I think that's first because at the end of today, I think what people need to remember also is that the newsletter, the writing is the product. And as much as you want somebody to help with the writing, as much as you want somebody to free up those maybe four hours I spend writing, you have to know, um, you can't just plug and play.
Amanda: Right? Um, maybe they will not do the exact same writing style as you. And I think that's, that's the challenge. So if you're willing to bring in a writer and if you wanna bring in a writer this early, you have to have that standard, um, writing. And I think if you bring in somebody and have them write as one of their first tasks, it's not the right.
Amanda: It might not be the right thing. I think it would be great for somebody to have experience on the other sides, like the acquisition side, the legwork, while simultaneously immersing themselves in the business and seeing the writing come up and then maybe one day they'll actually be ready for it. And it would be 80% of, for example, the way I write or even maybe a hundred percent.
Amanda: So I think that that's the way I see it.
Rishad: This is amazing to us and the reason where, where, you know, you can't see us obviously. Uh, but we're, we're smiling away. A and I, you know, we are two old guys who, who make a living doing splice, which is kind of trying to teach journalists and folks in media. You know, the things that you are doing, the things that you speak so easily about, you know, business, audience, distribution, acquisition users, you know, It's so refreshing to find somebody that we're learning from, you know, we've been doing this a long time.
Rishad: Alan's been doing it for two and a half decades. I've been doing it for two and a half, whatever, you know, it's and it's fantastic to, to hear this and to learn from you. I think we should wrap, uh, if, if we have no more questions, but I have one last thing before we go, Amanda, like, how old are you again?
Amanda: I'm 20. So I turned twenty in February this year..
Rishad: Nice. ,
Alan: That's, that's really incredible. Um, you know, to think that you started this when you were 19, that is just simply mind boggling. Um, and to everyone who's listening on this, uh, podcast, you know, we wanted to, to hold this back just because, you know, it's, it's so amazing and we just didn't want to make this about your age, but it is about your age because you know, all this stuff.
Alan: You know, all the stuff that we've been trying to teach, uh, media entrepreneurs all around, you know, for, for years now. Uh, and as, as Rishad says, you know, this, this process, this thinking has come so easily to you. It seems. Um, and that's really wonderful.
Amanda: I think, I think just to add also when I talked about like the, the first hire, the writing process and the selection also depends a lot on your understanding of the startup E.
Amanda: Also your understanding of the readers. And I think that's why you also have to interface a lot more with the people who are actually reading the, the people that you're bringing in as subscribers, the people that you're meeting as subscribers and the ad partners. Um, so I think that's also key about like why in off the top of my head, like the first hire, wouldn't be necessarily a writer it's because I think you need that contextual understanding of the, the reader.
Amanda: And the market before you can even choose to write, because you'll have a really hard time selecting the kinds of pieces that you'll be writing about and even selecting what will be in the article. If you don't understand those parts. Because things don't distribute. If you don't like pick the right topics to write about.
Rishad: Yeah. I liked hearing you say, you know, you wanna, you want somebody who's able to understand what they're writing about after meeting the subscribers? Not a lot of people talk about meeting their subscribers or meeting their readers. It's something we try to do. It's something that we try to teach and I love that you just talk about it.
Rishad: Like it's. Something you take for granted, you've gotta meet the people that consume your product.
Amanda: Because one thing I found out was that when you speak to the readers, they actually tell you which articles they liked or not, or which sections they liked or not. And that helps so much, it makes my job easier too.
Amanda: Right. And then you slowly realize, okay, this is the kind of article that's useful to people. It's not about selling out. It's not about, okay, I'll write about this. So it'll be viral. When it's like not high quality, it's really about picking the right topics because it's as valuable for people. And that's why it's shared
Alan: You are so inspiring for us, Amanda. Really appreciate you taking the time to, to have this chat with us.
Amanda: Yeah, I appreciate being here. I remember when I came across you guys, I was really inspired. Just looking at your LinkedIn profiles. Aw.
Rishad: Listen, uh, this is a wrap for this episode of splice pink. If you like this podcast and you wanna get more, please subscribe.
Rishad: Get in touch with Amanda. Have her hire you better yet. Share this with someone. Uh, we're on splice media.com. Thank you, Amanda. Thank you so much. Thank you. I feel like we have, we have some more conversations, uh, to have with you at some point. So, so let's do
Amanda: that. Yeah, I think so, too.