Dexter Ligot-Gordon is the co-founder and CEO of Swarm. Before Swarm, he co-founded Kalibrr, the first Southeast Asian startup accepted into Y Combinator.

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

I'm the guy founders ask to help get their startup idea off the ground—how to get into YC, refine a value proposition, and go to market.

My startup Swarm.work helps founders get referrals for awesome freelancers who can build and turn their ideas into products.

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

I think one of the most surprising things about my journey to becoming a tech founder was that I started as a public policy wonk in the City of San Francisco.

I moved halfway across the world to start my first company.

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

One of the biggest highlights of my career is mentoring people who come from unconventional places as they start their tech careers.

Some of them are the first in their family to graduate from college or pivoted from a vastly different career track to tech. They're now in key leadership positions in big companies or are founders themselves.

I love helping people strategize, learn, and get started on their journey.

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

I just came back from a tech conference in Eastern Europe, and one of the insights I gained was that culture is becoming a key differentiator in startups.

With the great resignation, reset, and attrition that has been happening with Silicon Valley firms, it's clear that companies are becoming more intentional about improving their culture as a way to retain great talent.

I believe that Southeast Asia has a very refreshing perspective on how communities invest in each other's success, which is something that Silicon Valley should be paying attention to right now. The future of work, is community.

Secondly, I think that crypto and decentralization will open up new ways of working and getting rewarded. It's like the "wild west" right now, but I think as the space matures, a lot of companies will emerge that will disrupt what "employment" means.

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

When I started my first startup, we had to start by training talent first. The Philippines was not really known for its startup ecosystem back then, and we were one of the earliest venture-backed companies.

We needed to build an internal ecosystem to train and a culture of learning to develop our talent. We also needed to build a network of foreign investors and sell the Philippines hard.

We had to learn a lot from our mistakes, but that ended up being one of the best ways to learn.

My advice for those starting out today: nobody who works at a startup has all the skills they need to make it. Embrace uncertainty, build a learning machine that evolves with feedback, and find good mentors.

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

Product Strategy

🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

Mythbusters

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

Salted Caramel