Workflow or die: OpenAI brings its startup playbook to Australia
OpenAI’s Asia-Pacific startup lead came to Adelaide with credits, a warning about viral growth, and a case for why the fundamentals of building a good business haven’t changed.
The SaaS apocalypse is overblown — but only if you own the right workflows. That was the message Thomas Jeng, who leads startup and VC relations for OpenAI across Asia-Pacific, brought to founders and investors at SouthStart in Adelaide this week.
Speaking at the three-day conference, Jeng drew a sharp line between incumbents that have embedded themselves deeply enough in their customers’ operations to survive the AI transition, and those that have not.
Canva, Notion and Zendesk, he said, have incorporated AI while leveraging existing distribution and data. Companies that do not sit that deep in the stack face a harder road. “If you don’t own critical workflows ... I think you might be in trouble,” he said.
Jeng was part of a small contingent that OpenAI sent to Adelaide for the conference, offering API credits freely — to funded and unfunded startups alike. On Tuesday, OpenAI announced it was tripling the value of API credits it offers startups from USD15,000 ($21,334.50) to USD50,000 and offering 10 complimentary ChatGPT business seats per company.
