A Venture Partner at Lightning Ventures (USA) and Founder of Rebit Labs (Singapore), Dr. Khushboo Khullar brings a decade of expertise shaped by her background in finance at Mizuho Bank and her PhD in Energy Security. She actively advises founders on go-to-market strategy and has taken the stage at over a dozen major Bitcoin conferences worldwide—contributing significantly to conversations around innovation, capital, energy and the future of decentralised infrastructure.
The Gap I Didn’t Know I Had
When I shut down my startup during COVID-19, I told myself it was timing. Bad market conditions. Wrong moment. But deep down, I knew the truth: I had poured energy into building without knowing how to build. I had learnt how to analyse a company’s valuation, but I couldn’t validate my own startup’s assumptions. I had passion, but no process or building blocks.
That gap haunted me and I knew that I needed something more. I needed to learn the mechanics of the founder’s mindset—not just read about it, but practice it under pressure.
What I Came to Learn
When I enrolled in the National University of Singapore (NUS) Master of Science (Venture Creation) programme, I came expecting frameworks, case studies and classroom discussions. What I didn’t expect was how uncomfortable the learning would be.
Lesson 1: Your Idea Doesn’t Matter Until a Customer Says So
When we first began the programme, I walked in confident—I had the real-world experience and the courses would equip me with technical skills to better succeed. However, unexpected and uneasy learnings surfaced as I journeyed through the programme.
Confronting painful lessons about myself occurred frequently; like despite having built financial models analyses for work, at the end of the day, they were analyses of situations based on data. Despite my best efforts, they would be assumptions and my assumptions were just that—assumptions.
One of the hardest pills to swallow was when I reflected on one of reasons why my startup failed. The lecturer would constantly reinforce that “A product/service does not have market adoption until the customers are pulling the product from you.” It was then that I realised I had spent months pushing my vision onto users, never stopping to ask if they actually wanted it. That realisation stung, but it was necessary. I learned to kill ideas faster. To test, measure, iterate—not fall in love with my own cleverness.
Lesson 2: Fundraising Is a Negotiation with Reality
One of the most awesome aspects of the programme was doing an internship with a startup within Singapore’s vibrant ecosystem. During my internship, I was involved in every call for fundraising with Dr. Andrew Wu, the startup CEO. I had thought that through these events, I would learn how to strengthen my presentation skills and pitch better. What I learned instead was: fundraising exposes every weakness in your story.
Investors asked questions that I hadn’t prepared for. They challenged our unit economics, our go-to-market assumptions, our defensibility. Some meetings ended politely; others felt like autopsies. However, Andrew never flinched. He’d refine the pitch after each rejection, tightening the narrative, sharpening the numbers.
What struck me most was his background—he had led an IPO before founding the startup. He brought corporate finance discipline into a startup environment, something I had never seen combined so effectively. Watching him balance conviction with adaptability taught me that fundraising isn’t about perfecting a pitch—it’s about demonstrating that you learn faster with every call for every little gap the ethos demands from you.
I soaked up everything that I learned from him. When preparing materials, I anticipated objections before they came. When refining our story, I focused on evidence, not enthusiasm. Data empirical, clinical, investigative or measured—anything that shows signal in the noise—is what helps create a direction to double down every moment.
Lesson 3: Diversity Isn’t Just a Buzzword—It’s a Competitive Advantage
My classmates came from China, India, Sweden, the Philippines and Indonesia. Different markets, different growth stages, different regulatory environments and different cultures. In the case study discussions, we’d debate the same problem from completely opposite angles. I saw people with backgrounds from different demographics, age and education skin the cat in ways unimagined.
One example: we analysed a fintech scaling strategy. My classmates from China talked about super-app ecosystems, scale and fast go-to-market. The Swedish contingent emphasised privacy-first design and sustainability as a moat. I brought market structure and emerging market volatility into the mix. The respect we had for each others’ opinions and slice of nuance in every argument brought out the well-curated process of NUS for each student’s professional background
At first, it felt chaotic. But slowly, I realised: this is what global entrepreneurship looks like. You can’t build a venture for one market and expect it to scale internationally without understanding these cultural nuances.
It taught me to design with adaptability baked in from Day One—not as an afterthought. Singapore by design generally starts and builds global startups from Day One. It is a default mindset to catch a plan for even the first customer survey. This wiring has been very different. It is a gift I never expected as a side effect of the global nature of Singapore.
The One Thing I Wish I’d Known Earlier
Structure doesn’t kill creativity—it channels it.
During my first start-up, I thought constraints would limit me. During my time at NUS, I learned that constraints force you to make better decisions. I was forced to articulate value proposition in one sentence. I was forced to choose one metric that matters. I was forced to listen instead of sell.
These frameworks didn’t restrict me—they gave me clarity.
What I Carry Forward
I still think like a banker when I evaluate opportunities: I model out scenarios, stress-test assumptions, calculate downside risk. But now I also think like a founder: I ship imperfect products, I iterate in public, I accept that uncertainty is part of the job. I use the ownership mindset, focused on getting value out more than anything else. Audience cohorts, their propensity to pay and their first minimum viable products are often more on my radar than analysis paralysis research.
That dual perspective—investor discipline meets founder grit—is what the year gave me. The difference between passion and execution is structure. The difference between structure and success is resilience. The MSc (Venture Programme) at NUS taught me both.