Economics at Essex to Edtech co-founder

Phoebe Ng graduated from Essex with a BSc Economics less than two years ago. In that time, she’s completed a postgraduate degree, interned at a scale-up and is now co-founder of startup, Excelas. It’s been quite the journey in a short space of time, so we caught up with her to find out more.

What made you choose to study economics at Essex?

I took economics in my GCSE equivalent in Malaysia and had a really good teacher. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to take it at A-level and my interest grew from there. It has helped me understand how the world works in a macro and micro perspective.

Relocating from Malaysia was a big move, but the close-knit campus environment at Essex (hosting students from over 140 countries), offered the perfect "soft landing". It provided the international community I craved within a focused setting, ensuring my transition to the UK was a natural progression rather than an overwhelming leap. Looking back, Essex grounded me in exactly the way I needed to prepare for the fast-paced world of tech and entrepreneurship.

Your career really started when you did your placement year, tell us about it.

I had applied to about 50 to 60 companies, so it was quite intense. I found the Samsung placement simply by thinking: why not just apply to a brand I already know? I think I was the first Essex student to go to Samsung as a placement student!

My role was a Smartphone Product Manager Associate. I supported a team launching new smartphones. Day‑to‑day I made reports, including sales dashboards and forecasts, and put together quarterly presentations covering strategy, launches and more. It was really varied, and I had a lot of great opportunities.

How did your placement help with your plans for after graduating?

My placement gave me a new idea of where I could go. When I joined the company, I didn't really know what product management was, I just applied because I knew the Samsung brand. I got to talk to so many different people from so many different teams and it gave me an idea of what I want to do.

What came out of it was that I knew I really want to stay in tech. And that's what I've been pivoting into for the past year.

So what has the last year or so looked like for you?

I got an internship with Bright Network, which focuses on Talent Tech, in their Events team during the summer between graduating Essex and starting my Masters at LSE in Psychology of Economic Life. Now I'm a co-founder for ed-tech brand, Excelas. I knew that I was going to stay in the tech space, but I also really wanted to position myself between the analytical and creative side of things.

Tell us about your current role

I originally joined Excelas as a marketing graduate, but I quickly realised I was operating as a "one-woman-band", architecting our commercial funnel and operations from the ground up.

I asked to step into the role of Head of Marketing to reflect my ownership of the business's growth. However, after five months of building the company alongside the technical founder, he recognised that my contributions were foundational to our success and formally reflected my work in my title. That was the moment I transitioned from an employee to a co-founder, a move that aligned my role with the partnership we had already built in the trenches.

At Excelas, we’re helping teachers to mark their mock exams using AI. Currently, we're focusing on STEM, so maths and sciences, at GCSE level. We're in about 11 schools at the moment and are trying to expand into more.

It’s an interesting space to work in because ed tech is quite heavily regulated. I’m enjoying the different dynamic, especially the fact that it's B2B or B2G instead of B2C, like at Samsung. I’m learning a lot.

Being a co-founder at 25 in your first permanent graduate job sounds both exciting and challenging, how has the experience been for you?

I love it because every day, even every hour, is different. One hour I'll be coding up our website, the other hour I'll be talking to prospects, an hour later I'll be doing outbound marketing. It’s exciting because I get to do a lot of the different things at the same time.

There are hard moments too, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. There are often a lot of things on your plate at the same time, especially as the team is quite small. You have to handle a lot. If feels like 10 people's jobs at the same time. But having a lot of self-discipline and open communication helps with how I prioritise and learn what we can push away.

I’ve done the big corporate job at Samsung, and now I'm working in a smaller organisation helping build a business from the ground up. True entrepreneurship is about being absolutely obsessed with a specific problem, and honestly, I haven't found the one I want to dedicate my life to solving just yet. So for now, I am building my entrepreneurial muscles. I’m learning the mechanics of how to solve complex, real-world problems today by managing operations, building go-to-market engines, and navigating the startup ecosystem. That way, when I do find 'my' problem, I’ll already have the exact toolkit I need to build the solution.

You’ve said you’re not a huge planner, but do you have any goals for the future?

I don’t believe in rigid five-year plans, but I do believe in momentum. Right now, I’m deep in the trenches learning how to build a company's foundation. Once I've maximised my impact here, my next move is to tackle the Series A to B scale-up journey. I want to take the Go-To-Market playbook I'm building today and use it to help a team scale from 100 to 1M. I go where the friction is highest, because that's where the most growth happens.