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Director of Accenture's FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific Hui Jackson reveals the top tips to joining this exclusive accelerator that has helped raise $6.6 billion for alumni companies worldwide. Applications close 12 May!

Episode summary

Only 10 spots from 200+ applications. Zero cost, equity-free. Direct access to HSBC, JP Morgan, and UBS.

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In this episode, Hui Jackson shares her journey from founder (e-commerce startup Souk) to running one of Asia's most prestigious fintech accelerators. She reveals the three critical traits that predict startup success: resilience, clear vision, and ability to pivot.

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Learn exactly what it takes to get accepted, how the 12-week programme works, and why multiple alumni successfully pivoted from B2C to B2B after working directly with tier-1 financial institutions.

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Transcript

Jonathan Nguyen:
What separates successful fintech founders from the rest? Today, Hui Jackson, Director of the Fintech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific at Accenture, talks about the three critical traits that predict startup success.

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Hui Jackson:
Resilience, a clear vision, and ability to pivot.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
With only 10 spots available from over 200 applications, we asked Huey how to get into the accelerator, that has helped raise $6.6 billion in funding and gives founders direct access to financial giants like HSBC, JP Morgan, and UBS. Applications close 12th of May. Discover how this completely free accelerator has helped almost 400 alumni companies on their journey to change the world. And we're back for another episode of the Unsensible Podcast, where we talk to the unrelenting founders who are undertaking to change the world. And today we have a very special guest who is not a founder, but director of Accenture's FinTech Innovation Lab for Asia Pacific, the unrivaled Hui Jackson. And just for the record, Hui, how do we pronounce your name?

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Hui Jackson:
Hi, Jonathan. Thanks very much for having me here. My name is Hui, Hui Jackson. It's a Mandarin pronunciation. In Chinese, it means wisdom.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
There's a Vietnamese version, H-U-Y, Huy, which is pronounced with a high flat, mid flat tone. So it means something very similar. But anyway, this is not a linguistics class. We're here to talk about you and your program. So this is your first time on the podcast, is that correct?

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Hui Jackson:
Yes. So thanks very much for having me and giving us the opportunities to talk about the FinTech Innovation Lab to the founders.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
The first time on the podcast, the rule is that you must pitch. Are you ready, Hui? This is a very different side of the table for you to be on from your usual position.

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Hui Jackson:
Absolutely. I usually am on the other side of the table, hearing the founders pitching to us.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Here we go. I'm going to give you 30 seconds. Let's see if you can keep within that timeframe.

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Hui Jackson:
Thanks. The FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific is an annual accelerator program run by Accenture in collaboration with Hong Kong CyberPort and the world's top financial institutions (FI's). It's free to join and equity-free. It's designed to help FinTech startups to grow and succeed. You will get top tier mentorship, investor access, and collaborate with financial giants like HSBC, JP Morgan, UBS, to name a few. We are accepting applications now. Don't miss out if you are a growth stage fintech founders ready to scale. Apply by May 12th to bring your business to the next level.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
A little bit over 30 seconds, but you've got all the details in.

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Hui Jackson:
Yes, we have some very important details that I missed.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
That's okay. We've got lots of time. So here we go. While I was doing research for this episode, I discovered a little fact about you. And I noticed that before you joined Accenture, you were actually a founder yourself and you had an e-commerce business called Souk. What can you tell us about that?

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Hui Jackson:
Yeah, sure. So Souk is a online marketplace that we sell artisan goods from female artisans from around the world. That shaped my understanding and shaped my way of doing things. And now in Accenture, I am in the other side and I was telling the startups that I have done that and understand what you've been through and that's why I am so lucky in this position to try to mobilise different resources and networks to help you because that's what I didn't have done and so I want you guys to have it now. So that's, this is a great chapter for me.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Have you seen any parallels in what the founders are saying to you today in your role with your direct experience?

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Hui Jackson:
Like scaling the operations, securing the fundings, adopting to market change and also working, building a team. I think that's the parallels that I can relate to.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
So you've been at Accenture now for I think six years. Have you noticed any attributes that enhance success after they graduate from the program?

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Hui Jackson:
So from my experience, the top three attributes that increases startups chance of success are resilience, a clear vision, and ability to pivot when necessary. You will see there's ups and downs. There's a COVID and there's a VC winter and now there is all this trade war, you do need that resilience to deal with that. But also a clear vision that to say you can solve some of the pain points, you have values. And lastly but not least is that the ability to pivot when you talk to more clients and you see that actually if I do this That I might get to a better directions and I see those successful startups They actually told me that it's actually through this lab that we Realize that instead of doing B2C we should pivot to B2B they are now operating globally, serving tier one financial institutions, partners. So I'm really happy for them. I think it's that willingness to pivot. Some founders just say, my product is brilliant. My product is great. They're just trying to put a blinkers on, just trying to focus on improving their products, but not looking around what's happening, what the market needs or what can be better to serve the customer need. Some of them didn't last. So I see that the ability, the willingness to pivot is very important.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Extinction is the failure to adapt and evolve, right? So I think it's almost like a law of nature that you have to be flexible enough and have your eyes open enough to say, okay, actually, this isn't, this isn't working or, or the market's not asking for this and being able to move on.

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Hui Jackson:
Yeah, or what I did was really great, but then the market is asking for something a little bit different, can I tweak a little bit and then to meet that need?

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Yeah, because I guess the startups in your program, they're all scale-ups. So there is a need and almost a requirement by their investors to have massive growth. You know, you may be able to have a very good SaaS business. If you don't have investors, you bootstrap and you can have very steady growth. But, you know, the guys you're working with, the demands on them are like great growth in a very short period of time, right?

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Hui Jackson:
Yeah. Yes, so most of them, they do have investors, they are scaled up. So there is certain requirements for them to scale. But I think a lot of them is that entrepreneurial drive in them like they want it to do well.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
And the program itself, I think you mentioned it's 12 weeks, right?

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Hui Jackson:
Yes, that's right.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
So you get to know them quite well. How is the program structured? So it's a big time commitment. How do you guys structure the 12 weeks together?

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Hui Jackson:
This is a three-month program. You come in, the first week will be a very intensive back-to-school week. So we provide a number of workshops for our startup founders, including acceleration strategy, presentation skills, what to expect selling to large financial institutions partners, investor term sheet negotiations, ESOP, which is very popular content that the startup founders wanted to know. So we provide all this to help to prepare them to the next phase. The next phase is one-on-one FI matching and mentoring. So we will base on the interest from the FIs and the startups technology areas and we pair them together so they will have one-on-one mentorings. The FIs will show them what is the key stakeholders within their organisations. They will understand more how these organisations work and what's their pain points, how can my solutions help them solve the problems, or if there's new things that we can co-develop. So this is a really unique stage of this program, is that you really literally got the direct access to the world's top tier financial institutions and meeting their senior partners, senior stakeholders. So this is a really important part. And the third stage will be preparing for the demo day. The demo day is a grand finale of this program. We, all the previous stage is to helping them to present them in front of a large stage, in front of all these investors, ecosystem partners, government officials, regulators, and financial services industry, some senior executives are all there. So this is a good opportunity for them to present what they have learned and what's their plan forward. So that is how it's structured into these three stages. And another thing is that I want to point out is that during the program, you will have three types of mentors to help you. So we will have Accenture mentor to give you insights from the Accenture side of business and you will have FI mentors. So like I said earlier in the stage two, you were gonna meet the FI's senior executives. So they will give you some insights and guidance. One of my favorite example is that we were able to hosting a closed door meetings with one of the largest bank with all their senior stakeholders there different departments had coming together to listen to our startups presentation, their pitch, and also giving them suggestions that have you thought about that, have you thought about this, and maybe you need to consider... So it's a really, really great opportunity for the startup to learn directly from the target market. And the third force is the independent mentors. People like yourself, Jonathan, and coming from all different backgrounds independently, but with a wealth of experience to help the startups from different perspectives. So we have Jonathan coming to talk about the marketing strategies. I really loved about your workshops because you're coming from agencies background and you also work in one of the largest banks. So you got this insider and outsider's perspective to teach the startups perfectly, perfectly, perfectly. We also have partners from law firms to talk about the legal aspects. And we also have communication strategists We also have senior executives from successful startups who made it. They came back to just share their experience, how they made it, and their growth, their teething challenges. So it's a really nice way to learn different things. We also from VC talk about do and don'ts and the landscapes. We are really designed to help them grow and help them to succeed.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
That's what Ryan said as well. He said basically the FI's gave him direct feedback about changes to his product and that's what unlocked everything for him. He didn't realise that certain aspects of his product was blocking the pipeline.

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Hui Jackson:
I always tell our startups, if you're coming in with the willingness to learn, you can open up a lot of opportunities. If you're coming in with the aim to sell, then you will close off a great sharing opportunities. I think the chance is to using this platform to learn the industry, to learn those FIs as much as you can. And that can use to the next stage into your pipeline development, into your business development.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Like, I mean, you don't really get that opportunity to get that direct feedback.

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Hui Jackson:
Yeah, exactly.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Anywhere else, right? It's actually quite a strong value proposition. This is an extremely popular accelerator. I've heard something like 200 start-ups apply and 10 make it through. Is that about right?

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Hui Jackson:
Yeah, it sounds about right. And our New York is the most popular one. I think they have over 300 applications last year and only less than 10 made it.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Do you think that seeing that many startups a year has given you a kind of intuition? Was there any startup that walked in the door where you've gone, I think these guys are going to do really well?

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Hui Jackson:
In the interview day... Yes and no. So I can give you two examples. One example is a Beijing start-ups. When they walk into the interview room, they were like, "The language is a problem." You were like, "What are they doing?" But after the lab, they now they're getting really, really successful. The other good example is that when they're walking in the room, you're like, right, they're going to do well because of the founder, because his conviction, the passion that you can see from him, and he's very articulate about his vision, about his product. And you can see the room immediately like, "Oh, they have instant buy-in from that." So I don't see this like suddenly you walk into a room, you know that they will succeed. But a lot of time is that when you when you are with them for three months journey, you gradually, I gradually see some star qualities coming up. The star qualities are those founders, clear vision, the passion, and they really like a sponge that they really wanted to learn. And they've invested in building the relationship through the network. And I see those founders are more likely to succeed. They have this quality that that make people around them wanting to help them. You just see that drive in them, very sincere. And they just, yeah, I love what I do because I am very privileged to be in this position to support these amazing founders. It's just a really rewarding position for me.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
I think it's a very unique position inside a consulting firm, right? Not many consulting firms have these accelerators that spend so much time and effort on it.

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Hui Jackson:
Yeah, I was told that we are the anchor accelerator in Hong Kong. We're here for 12 years now and we seem we're the only one lasting that long. So we celebrated our 10th anniversary two years ago and we were looking forward to another 10 years.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
It's hard to get in. 10 out of 200, what can a founder do to increase their chances of getting in?

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Hui Jackson:
Yes, it's a very competitive program. We have a very rigorous selection process and we have a set of criteria which we listed on our website. So I recommend those applicants to take a look at what we're looking for. So besides that, if you can clearly articulate your value proposition, and you can tell us what's your unique selling point, your moat that you build, at least a POC with FS clients, I think that gives you a very good chance to stand out. If you can show that you've got a really good pipeline, a good scaling plan, that could also set you a very good light. And once you go through the scoring process, we will shortlist about 20 to 25 applicants to come in for an interview. And during the you have a very short time to present yourself. Be very clear what your propositions are, what's the value to the FIs, what's the use case, and what's the market potential. If you can provide those things, I think you can get a good chance to go to the next stage.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
And so who's in that interview? Is that Accenture people? Is that you? Is that like FIs from the industry? What can they expect?

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Hui Jackson:
We will have a judge panel includes Accenture subject matter experts, also from the FIs subject matter experts. So it's a combination. So we wanted to make sure that it's It's all a very well thought out decision that it can address both the need from the FIs as well as Accenture.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Well, we're looking for secret tips for our listeners. So we'll see.

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Hui Jackson:
I think I gave a really good tips earlier, but yeah, it's not just up to me 'cause we have a number of judges. I think you can expect about 20 judges in the room during the interview day, 20 to 30 judges. Yes.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
So you better want to be well rehearsed and well practiced. You definitely don't want to just walk in there and like think you can wing it, right?

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Hui Jackson:
Yeah, you can't wing it. We allow some virtual dial-in for the interview day because the nature of the applicants coming from all over the world. So sometimes they call in. Yeah, just get your... get your tech sorted before you do your presentation. Because we have some examples in the past that they call in remotely and then there's a tech issues and then time's up, then you just lost a chance to present yourself properly which is a shame. So we always suggest that coming in in person, if you made it to the interview day, coming in in person, that kind of in-person connections is just priceless.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Yeah. So I want to accentuate this point. You guys are based in Hong Kong. You're based in Hong Kong, but this is not a Hong Kong-only thing, right? You want applicants from all over the world. Is that right?

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Hui Jackson:
Yes. So there's two aspects of it. So first, FinTech Innovation Lab is a global initiative run by Accenture. So we have New York Lab, London Lab and the APAC Lab that's based in Hong Kong. But when you apply for the APAC Lab, you are expected to come to Hong Kong at some point in person because a lot of our mentors, our FIs are based in Hong Kong. Another aspect is that we are not just accepting Hong Kong startup founders. We are accepting startups from all over the world. So over the years, we actually have about 39 countries of origins for the applications. A lot of our alumni is actually from US, UK, France, Israel, Australia, Singapore, we have India and Korea, mainland China as well. So you can see it's a very international in terms of the makeup of our startups.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Well, I have one last question for you. So there are no doubt trends each year about the types of startups that apply. So last two years, probably AI, AI, AI. What are you seeing this year so far?

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Hui Jackson:
Still very much AI, AI, AI, a lot of them using AI technology to solve various business problems. We also see some Web3 companies coming in to try to help to bring the traditional banks into the blockchain, into this Web3 technology. Also see some ESG companies, that's what I see so far. We also have some risk management, compliance management kind of startups applying this year. We really wanted to open up the net wider, so we're also looking for cybersecurity, we're looking for embedded finance, we're also looking for operational efficiency. So to the startup founders out there, if you fit in any one of those descriptions, please apply for this program by 12th of May.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
So are there any, I know I told you this was going to be the last question, but I have a follow-on question.

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Hui Jackson:
That's okay.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Is there any gaps in the future?

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Hui Jackson:
In the past, we always see that there's a small gap in the insure tech, mainly because there's not many insure techs that's applying for this program. We always wanted to see more insure tech. The reg tech, we always see a lot, so that's good. Reg tech is very important for us, compliance, risk management, these are good. We were trying to find some startups in the quantum space, but I think it's going to be really rare to see any quantum startups that would be there to ready to join this program. But yeah, we are yet to see. We still have some time to accept applications. So if you guys are in that area, please do let us know. Agentic AI is something that is very hot topic right now. I see a lot of our clients are looking for these kind of technologies, applications. So, and I see a few Agentic AI's applications coming in as well, so. We'll see.

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Jonathan Nguyen:
Well, thank you very much for your time. And I will just do a quick recap here. So applications closed 12th of May. We've got a short link available for those listening via audio. It's UNS.SB/FILAP. We'll also put it in the show notes. There's a QR code on the screen for anyone who is tuning in via YouTube. So thank you very much to Hui for joining this podcast. If you found this valuable, please do give this video a like. And if you're listening on your podcast platform, please do give us a five-star rating. It really helps us grow and scale the podcast and get more people like Hui on the show. And on that note, thank you and we shall be seeing you again in the next one.

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