13. Building UglyFood, sustainability food startup after 12 years at Shell and MBA with Sean Goh
Sean Goh is the co-founder of UglyFood, Singapore-based food startup whose mission is to eliminate food waste and revamp the food ecosystem. UglyFood aims to make sustainability a part of people’s everyday lives. They operate in the fruits and vegetables space by selling excess or ugly produce, their own branded products, and sustainably sourced goods.
Before UglyFood, Sean spent 12 years across various role at Shell, a multinational oil and gas company. In between his time at Shell, Sean took a gap year to do his MBA in Hong Kong.
In this episode, you will learn how a senior executive in a big stable MNC like Sean transitioned his career switch out to building a sustainability-focused startup, Sean's advice for career switch and young folks starting out, value add of his MBA (Master of Business Administration) and which starting role in his career where he learnt the most from.
This podcast episode was recorded in July 2022.
Subscribe to bonus podcast content and career resources via ✉️ email newsletter.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(06:59) From Shell to Uglyfood
(08:17) How much does age gap between co-founders matter
(09:31) Strengths vs Weaknesses
(10:59) Builder, Opportunity and Timing
(12:33) Execution is everything
(16:18) One advice for career switch
(17:41) Age old question on passion
(18:30) How did MBA value add
(20:28) Learnt the most at this role
(22:51) Advice for young folks starting out
(27:20) How to find mentor
Social Media:
Kindly rate and review this podcast on social media / Apple Podcast. Your 2 mins spent will mean the world to us and will make the hundreds of hours spent producing this podcast all worthwhile. Consider subscribing and following the podcast wherever you are listening or watching from so you won't miss out on new episodes.
You can find and connect with us on our 🌐 website, Linkedin, Instagram, Facebook and watch (parts of) the conversation on
Support the showSubscribe to bonus podcast content and career resources via ✉️ email newsletter.
About the host John Lim:
John Lim has had an unconventional career by Singapore / Asian standards - with several career switches. He started his career in banking before co-founding a laser tag events company. After building the business from ground-up, growing the team to 20+ and running Singapore's largest indoor laser tag center, he joined an early-stage tech startup to lead business development across Southeast Asia. In 2019, he took a leap of faith to join the e-commerce industry, seemingly unknown sector, until a few months later when Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees.
While John finds himself lucky to have 'survived' the career switches relatively unscathed, he has never forgotten how it feels like to be at the crossroads of your career and life. Now, he has started this podcast - to provide the resources and perspectives he wished he had - and to help you make the most of your career to live your best life.
Join him as he speaks with unconventional career changers and risk-takers, taps into their experiences and perspectives and discusses all things career. Together, they will provide you nuggets of wisdom, inspiration and actionable insights to start living life on your own terms.
