CS3216: 6 stories from 6 entrepreneurs

It was a good session last night. Prof Ben managed to persuade 6 entrepreneurs to come and give stories that are authentic.

Chin Leng (singaporebrides.com)

Chin Leng shared about how he struggled for almost 2 years. He originally got the idea for the portal when he was getting married, and he found it a very stressful experience to go to 50 - 60 wedding agencies just to compare prices and packages. Therefore, he had the idea of putting all the information online, while charging listing fees for advertisements. This was in 2000, the era of the 56.6kbps internet.

Those 2 years were so bad that he was literally down to the last few hundred dollars in his bank account, and he still had bills to pay. He also had to reassure his wife that everything was okie. To save money, he drank water from public taps and bought mineral water that was not chilled, just to save 15c. He also walked from place to place for meetings to save bus fare.

He even had to make free websites from his clients, as they were all small businesses with traditional bosses that did not understand the internet. The dot.com crash in 2000 - 2001 was also a huge negative factor for Chin Leng, whose idea of selling online listings sounded like a scam.However, the websites turned out to be a great marketing tool. Once a shop had a website, other competitors would suddenly start asking Chin Leng to make websites for them too. He also helped them fix their computers and clear their computer of viruses. He also helped them register their domain names and apply for web hosting.

He also shared stories of how he got rejected. Sometimes, the bosses would just turn around and "show him their backside, without giving him a chance to talk"(his words). Some employees would also push him physically out of the shop and close the door in his face.

Chin Leng also shared that he was a lousy student, so all those rejections compounded his feeling of depression during those years.

He also shared how 2 of his former clients became copycats, and how SPH tried to muscle in on his market.

However, he really believed in the idea, and slowly made progress. Today, SingaporeBrides has about 50% of the market. The next competitor has around 5%.

Very humble guy, and able to laugh at himself.

my take
I asked him a few questions, as I think I will be facing the same problems. I asked him how he managed to talk to the traditional bosses, in order to change their mindsets. He said that you must use proper analogy. To explain domain names and web hosting, he told them that it was like registering with ACRA and opening a shopfront, but in the online domain. Once the bosses got it, he would get the business.

I really like what he shared. This had one of the largest impacts on me, especially the part where he was really going broke. (Wow.. it started 10 years ago!)

I wonder what role his wife played throughout those years. Really solid marriage.

I think Chin Leng probably ate the most pain through his journey.

Hoong An (hungrygowhere.com)

Hoong An had a very good presentation entitled: "Why you should not be an entrepreneur"

He was also one of the few who emphasized the importance of the media and building up a network of contacts in the media. His lesson is that you must suit your story to the angle that the journalist wants to write about.

Hoong An also shared how he imagines himself to be a cockroach, unkillable.

He also emphasized that sometimes, you just need to be in the right place at the right time. Sometimes, he was rejected from events that he tried to attend. However, many of his biggest deals was over casual conversation during events.

These are the headers from the 7 slides:

1. You give up too easily

2. You have no business plan

Note: He does not mean a formal business plan, but a document sketching the steps

3. You plan too much.

Just Run The Business.

4. You hang around people just like you.

A soccer team with 11 strikers/goalkeepers will not win.

He would rather work with someone who disagrees with him, but can get the job done, rather than someone who he can get along with, but cannot get the job done.

5. You cannot make decisions.

A wrong decision is better than no decision.

6. You lack working experience and capital.

Sure die. (more or less.. )

7. You have no faith.

Likewise, he shared about how the 1st year's revenue for hungrygowhere was $4,000, when they had 4 founders. That's $1,000 per person per year.

Funnily, he met Chin Leng when he was just starting hungrygowhere. Chin Leng obviously ignored all the rules. Hoong An's reaction was:"Wah, like that also can ah..." Chin Leng was very inspiring to Hoong An when hungrygowhere was going through its first year.

my take
Obviously, Hoong An understands the media angle very well. I need to start learning how to talk to more people and to grab their interest quickly.

Tong Yee (School of Thought, under the Thought Collective)

Very thought provoking social enterprise. I think Tong Yee's sharing had the most impact on the audience, as he went straight to why the education system needs change.

Tong Yee's sharing was very interesting to me. Obviously, it's a very rare social enterprise that's doing very well. His tutors are being paid easily over 1ok/mth (please see below for more details).

His tuition agency achieved 55% A for GP. That beats any junior college.

Tong Yee also shared how he was a lousy student, but found his calling when he became a teacher. He discovered that he was a good at teaching.

Tong Yee also shared about how he was very shocked by his students. The most shocking incident was when a student actually told his teachers in school that they need tuition at School of Thought. When Tong Yee heard that, he was like "What?". However, the teachers willingly signed up for 1 year of tuition at School of Thought, and their feedback was that they finally understood why the student made that comment.

Tong Yee also shared about the transformation in his students. 2 of his students were awarded the PSC scholarship not because of their grades, but because of the maturity that they showed during the interview. When PSC tried to find out why these 2 students were so special, they realised that these 2 students were from SoT. Therefore, SoT is now exploring collaborations with PSC.

The Thought Collective also publishes a general affairs magazine that is solely dependent on subscription. This gives them freedom from corporate advertisers who want to target the 14 - 18 yr old market. However, they have actually thought of alternative advertisers that would also add to the general interest quotient of the magazine, such as government agencies (scholarships), NGOs and embassies (education fairs?). Currently, they have 32,000 subscribers.

Regarding the structure of the Thought Collective, Tong Yee shared that the Thought Collective consists of ThinkTank Publishing, a cafe called Food for Thought and ThinkTank. They grew laterally, not vertically, which means that each company is actually an independent company. This structure had unexpected benefits, as the staff could actually tailor their working hours and job scope to work at 4 different companies at the same time. Effectively, they could design their dream job.

Unfortunately, Tong Yee revealed that his model is highly unscaleable, as it's dependent on talent. Teachers who share that special something are hard to find. Similarly, each business is highly dependent on the founder.

Tong Yee also shared that they made a lot of mistakes. Going into the cafe was not very smooth at the beginning, as they had no experience. It took them a long time before they could break even and make a little profit. Similarly, they also failed with offering national heritage trails, as they ended up competing on price, and not differentiating themselves with their advantage which was quality of content. Their main competitors in the competitive market were 3 travel agencies.

my take

Tong Yee also shared that he's very good at reading people. I wonder how much can this skill be trained/practised.. Hmm. I'm obviously lousy at it.

Tong Yee also shared that in the long run, dollars and cents might cloud your initial vision, so it's necessary to revise your course regularly.

I came across the website of School of Thought about a year ago and was quite intrigued. Really great to meet the founder in person. I found Tong Yee very passionate about social causes. I think it's very true that any social enterprise should have as its end goal the eradication of itself, which means that it solved the problem.

I'm quite interested to find out what's their teaching pedagogy and whether it can be applied to other forms of coaching. Does it include the concepts in "Flow"?

Why did the students have such transformations? If his school's intake consists of students who did not do well in their A levels, then he has saved a lot of lives by giving them back their self-belief. Singapore's education system rarely has second chances due to its efficient sorting and classification. How much hidden potential have we lost? It's not even brain drain. It's really time to change the education system, cause it's no longer a manufacturing economy.

Ash (Interactive SG, turbanizer.com)
Ash was the only foreigner (Canadian). He brought out some different perspectives. For him, he emphasized on investing a lot in company culture and fit.
He also made a very good point that sales solves everything.

(once you hear that he founded turbanizer.com, you can't help but like Ash.. haha.. )

He also seems to understand the consumer market very well. For example, he started sg.shirtpal.com, and in its first month, it was making revenues of 30,000 Canadian dollars. Not bad for a team that only started developing the website 2 months ago.

Ash also said that he only took money recently, since it's other people's money. However, he only takes "smart money", which means that the investor must not only be able to provide money, but also open necessary doors. In shirtpal, the investor also managed to settle the shirt production factory in Thailand.

Ash - "SALES!"

Ash also advised strongly against middleman kind of businesses. It's too easy to get squeezed out by partners if you don't offer unique value.

I heard a comment that although Ash is friendly, people got the feeling that they were being sized up quickly when talking to him. I'm not sure about that and why people had that impression, but he is a good talker and very charming. I think the salesmanship abilities of Ash probably explains the SGD$7 million revenues..

(How to size people without being detected? haha.. Dunno leh. Sia lah, I suck at this man..)

Leslie (Redsports.sg)
Leslie made a very interesting point about being debt-free, before starting his business. That was very important to him, as he had 3 kids, and wanted to be able to maintain his spending.

Leslie also shared that his working experience in various MNCs allowed him to practise and hone his skillsets. For example, he picked up video production, sports-related marketing, photography, editorial writing on the job. In fact, he was working as a full-time freelance photographer before starting RedSports.

my take
Leslie is interesting, because he has a lot of liabilities and responsibilities when he started. I'm not very sure how he made the decision to do it when he had 3 kids.

Maybe I should have did the final project for him, since I seem to be the only active sports person in the class.. (although I still don't know how to code for nuts). I just get the feeling that whenever he talks, the audience just can't seem to connect. Sorry for the general stereotype..

Oh well, after this month of school, then I can replan my time.

General - Funding
All of them either used their own savings and just survived very leanly until they made it.

My question to all of them: What is your compensation plan for your top employees?

I had the chance to pose a question. These are their responses.

Chin Leng: I have an employee who has been with me for very long. I recognize her contributions and I pay her 3 months bonus. Including the 13th month bonus, that's 4 months of bonus. In addition to that, I also pay more than the average for her. I also allow her the flexibility to work from home.

I also don't pay my wife =)

Hoong An: Every employee that joins us has to take a pay cut. That is to ensure that people are really buying into the vision, and not just joining just for the job.

The reason why this is a strict company policy is because previously, we lost 2 programmers who were working with us just for a few hundred dollars more.

Tong Yee: We cap our maximum salary at 14 - 15k. To us, that is too much money for a person. We also tithe 10% of our profits (revenues? Was unclear about this).
Ash: We pay easily close to the top 15% of the market rate. We also expose our employees to our biggest corporate clients like Nike, Skype, PayPal, so that they really learn a lot. We try to compress 2 - 3 years of experience into their first year. We also focus highly on culture. We organise regular gym sessions and fortnightly company outings. Our sales people also make 6 figure salaries due to the generous commission rates.
Kwek Loong: We pay more, because startup grows exponentially, not like well-established companies. It's only natural to pay more than the market rate, because they are really doing more work.
Leslie: We work with freelancers and volunteers who believe in RedSports' vision of Sports for Singapore. I give them a lot of exposure and training.

All mentioned that good employees needed space to grow, and good employees learn very fast. It is sometimes not a waste to allow people to leave, as the alumni make good referrals. However, compensation is very important and should be proportional to results/contributions.

-- Notes --
Paiseh for missing out any points! I only took down the points that had impact on me and caused me to think through some of my own thoughts.

There is lack of analysis because this post is too long, and people who went for the session probably don't want to read this. This is more of a reminder to myself =)

I found all of them very down-to-earth and friendly =)
(Kwek Loong arrived late cause he had a business meeting. Hence, he did not have time to share much.)