We’re excited to announce that we’ve invested in BackScoop, a new content and community platform based in Manila and focused on the tech industry in Southeast Asia. Launched just three months ago, BackScoop has already gained over 1,400 subscribers for their weekly email newsletter.

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Founder & CEO Amanda Cua was previously the first employee and led growth and customer success at Avion School, a YC W21 software e-learning startup in the Philippines. Passionate about writing, learning, and the technology industry, Amanda noticed there was a gap in the market for high-quality and accessible content to easily learn about the dynamic tech sector in the region. We were immediately impressed that Amanda has carefully studied many of the top tech and business focused email newsletters like Axios Pro Rata, Stratechery, Morning Brew, and even successful niche examples like former Airbnb executive Lenny Rachitsky’s product management focused newsletter. She has exciting plans to bring some of the best features from these internet-native content creators to BackScoop. With her insightful and engaging writing skill and clear passion for the tech industry, we think Amanda is perfect to build this business.

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BackScoop is published via a completely free email newsletter  three times per week with each edition focusing on a curated selection of important tech stories from the region presented in a concise and engaging language with emojis, links, and witty gifs. Each edition can be read in minutes, so it’s perfect for everyone — from busy startup founders and VCs to startup enthusiasts looking to land their first startup role soon.  Amanda has already developed a strong voice and style for the content that feels like it’s written by and for the youthful and high-energy startup community of Southeast Asia. Amanda is planning to add a very carefully curated advertising business model in BackScoop - inviting only high-quality and relevant advertisers to participate and benefit from BackScoop’s very clearly defined and valuable readership.

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We are big believers in the potential of decentralized content creation to be a disruptive and beneficial force to democratize access to the world’s best content. As Ben Thompson often writes in his Stratechery newsletter, Internet technology has completely changed - meaning decreased - the economic costs of both researching “news” and distributing content to readers. This enables gritty and insightful writers to go independent as an individual or small team without the heavy resource requirements of a large traditional media company. This empowers a more meritocratic media landscape with “winners” emerging naturally based on popular appeal rather than dictated top-down by incumbent distribution advantages (TV licenses, capital-intensive printing presses, etc). Ultimately we feel this is a great opportunity for society and also an exciting business opportunity to support these new high-potential content creators.

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With all this in mind, we were already excited to invest in Amanda when we thought BackScoop was “just an email newsletter.” We love email newsletters. However, Amanda’s vision is even bigger with plans to not only share insightful and engaging tech news content about Southeast Asia, but also to build a community platform to support the people working and participating in the rapidly developing tech industry in the region. While joining a startup is a big risk anywhere, in Southeast Asia where the sector is less proven and family pressures to take a financially stable corporate job can be intense, there is a lot of value that can be created from building a vibrant community to support and connect people in the region who are passionate about technology. Amanda already actively communicates with her newsletter readers and has exciting plans for the expansion of BackScoop in the future with the strong unit economics of the newsletter able to fuel relevant expansions to build a powerful and engaging platform for the startup and tech community in Southeast Asia.

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We’re very excited to support Amanda and BackScoop and highly recommend you subscribe to BackScoop today. It is completely free to join. For tech companies’ HR teams, it’s also a great learning resource to help your employees grow.  If you are interested in having your business  be considered for BackScoop’s upcoming advertising opportunities, please reach out to amanda@backscoop.com.

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