Fakhri Guniar is the co-founder and COO of Eten Tech, a supply chain management solution for F&B businesses that helps them make more profit.

Eten Tech has received pre-seed funding from Antler and Iterative. 

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

Imagine you have to handle thousands of perishable ingredients scattered in hundreds of locations using only Excel and chat, or otherwise you are losing money from lost sales or wasted ingredients. 

We are making it easier and better for F&B businesses to do that.

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

From the outside, F&B businesses seem to be the easiest business to start, which is kind of true because you can start with very little cost from your own kitchen. 

However, cooking good food doesn’t translate automatically to a good F&B business. Only 20% survive within the first few years of their operation!

On the personal side, I tracked movies that I’ve watched and I’ve watched 1000+ so far.

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

In my previous job, there was a dumpling seller who was previously only selling it from her own kitchen, rolling the dumplings by herself with her mom. We helped her to expand her business to 50+ locations, built a mini dumpling factory, and hired some staff to roll thousands of dumplings every day. 

Knowing that what we do is very impactful for her is a very satisfying experience for me. Unfortunately, a lot more people are not thinking of growing yet as they are still struggling to survive with their businesses, and that’s why we started Eten.

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

It’s hard not to notice the conversation on Generative AI when it’s all everyone is talking about. ut I also saw that many more vertical-specific solutions are on the rise in SEA, which makes a lot of sense knowing that there are nuances in every industry that generic-industry solution cannot solve.

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

You can’t build a solution without understanding the problem, and the only way to understand the problem is by talking to the ones having the problem (or facing the problem yourself, but you also need to make sure others are facing it too, so you still need to talk to them).

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

The ins and outs of F&B businesses and all about movies!

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🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show? 

I love a lot of movies but my top 3 picks right now will be La La Land, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, and The Batman.

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

Banana Frambozen, so far I’ve only found it in the legendary ice cream parlor in my hometown!

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FYI. We've edited this interview for clarity.