'Too many similar "me too" companies and solutions in AI,' says tech investor Joel Neoh

The abundance of channels, data and AI tools has made marketing more measurable than ever. But for entrepreneur and investor Joel Neoh (pictured), that does not necessarily make building a consumer business easier. If anything, it makes knowing what not to do more important.

Speaking during the opening session of day two at DMA Singapore 2026, Neoh, founding partner at First Move, a founder-led venture capital firm backing more than 50 startups across Asia in consumer and AI, argued that sustainable growth starts well before performance marketing, brand building or the latest technology.

It requires a product strong enough to generate demand, a clear sense of where consumer behaviour is heading, and the discipline to concentrate resources where they can have the greatest impact.

Drawing on his experience building and scaling businesses including SAYS.com, GroupsMore (later acquired by Groupon), and Fave, he typically puts the product first. In his view, a weak proposition cannot be overcome by marketing alone, as “no marketing is going to be able to salvage and to grow it sustainably.”

For Neoh, marketing should ultimately become part of a mechanism that makes the product itself easier to generate momentum.

Ideally, the marketing that we do adds into a product flywheel that creates almost an automatic growth.

Follow where consumers are going

Neoh’s own career illustrates this adaptive approach.

He began with SAYS.com in 2009, building a digital publishing platform that eventually reached five million readers. But the scale of its audience exposed another problem - there was more advertising inventory than the business could sell.

That prompted a move into commerce through coupons, before his experience running Groupon’s Asia Pacific business led him towards another regional gap: payments. The progression was less about following a predetermined career plan than recognising where consumer behaviour was shifting and moving with it.

“One of the things as a founder is following where users are headed,” he said. 

“At that point in time, we were very early in 2008, when consumers were getting online to publish content and also to read news online, so we were there in the early days.”

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Today, Neoh sees another major shift underway as consumers increasingly interact with AI-powered tools and platforms. But unlike the early days of SAYS.com, when the direction of travel was clearer, he said the AI market is already crowded with companies pursuing similar opportunities.

There are a lot of similar ‘me too’ companies and a lot of ‘me too’ solutions today, because it’s so easy to build something… but the winners are maybe not too clear yet at the moment.

For Neoh, therefore, following consumers does not mean simply chasing the latest technology. It means identifying where behaviour is genuinely changing, then determining which problems are worth building around.

The case for channel concentration

At a time when brands are expected to maintain a presence across Meta, TikTok, YouTube, marketplaces, search and emerging AI interfaces, Neoh argues that growth can sometimes come from doing less, not more.

Rather than spreading resources across every available platform, brands can build a stronger advantage by concentrating on the channels where they have the greatest potential to win.

He pointed to IM8, the consumer health and supplement brand he co-launched with David Beckham, where most of its revenue comes from Meta, according to Neoh. The brand does not sell on Amazon or in retail, while its TikTok presence remains minor.

“In fact, the first six to 12 months, we only focus on one channel, and we try to work with the best people for that channel in the world.”

The approach is not simply about limiting the number of platforms, but about understanding what makes each channel distinct and building enough expertise to compete effectively within it.

Sometimes you think of social media as one, but every channel has its own nuances, and sometimes you need to work with the best in the world to win in one channel before moving to another.

That focus also connects to how Neoh thinks about organisational flexibility.

At IM8, the company brought in specialists across conversion-rate optimisation, performance advertising and AI-generated content, assembling expertise around the problem at hand rather than working within a fixed organisational structure.

With AI, the generalist may no longer be enough, and trust becomes crucial

AI is also changing Neoh’s view of talent. For a young company, he sees value in people willing to operate across functions and tolerate the uncertainty of building from scratch. In larger organisations, however, he believes specialist expertise is becoming increasingly important.

“Back then, maybe there was a bigger appreciation of generalists, but AI today is the generalist.”

As AI absorbs more generalist capabilities, Neoh expects organisations to place greater value on people who can solve specific problems at an exceptional level.

The same thinking applies to AI adoption. Rather than implementing AI broadly because leadership wants an “AI strategy”, Neoh advocates applying it to the company’s biggest constraint.

For IM8, that meant focusing on conversion when the company was already generating millions of visits.

“We were trying to find the best CRO in the world for that. Then we opened up a platform, and eventually we picked one that came in to vertically fix that conversion problem.”

Despite the emphasis on technology and performance, Neoh’s approach to IM8 also shows where human credibility remains difficult to replicate.

The brand worked with athletes, trainers and scientists to establish trust around a product consumers are expected to use every day. Its relationship with Beckham, Neoh explained, began through Beckham’s trainer, who tested and used the product before Beckham became involved.

“We knew that trust is number one, so we had to work with the individuals that need the best performance on a day-to-day basis,” he said.

Building in an uncomfortable market

For all the discussion around AI, channels and growth metrics, Neoh’s broader message was about navigating uncertainty.

He believes the environment for Southeast Asian startups has become more challenging than it was a decade ago, as capital and technological innovation have become increasingly global.

His advice to founders looking to build in AI was direct:

“I think one thing would be buying a flight ticket and getting yourself out there.”

Neoh suggested spending time in the US or China, where much of the current AI innovation is being developed, rather than attempting to build entirely from the region.

But his closing point was less about geography than choice. When asked how he deals with the discomfort of building and investing across uncertain markets, Neoh rejected the idea that there is one correct path.

I don’t think there’s right or wrong. We make choices that gravitate close to heart.

For marketers and founders, the lesson is that there is no fixed playbook for navigating an uncertain market. 

Priorities change as a business moves from finding product-market fit to scaling what works. The challenge is knowing what matters now, making the trade-offs that follow, and putting enough focus, talent and resources behind the choice to give it a chance to work.

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