Plenary Session with Local Entrepreneurs

Monday’s lecture was great, with several successful local entrepreneurs coming down to share with us their thoughts and journeys as entrepreneurs. I shall not regurgitate what they’ve said, but would instead share the key things that i’ve taken away/ been reinforced in from the plenary session:

– there is no one way to succeed
– there are many different reasons why people start businesses, and there is no such thing as which reason is the right or wrong one.
– perseverance is underrated
– company culture

There is no one way to succeed

Entrepreneurs will advice us based on their personal experiences. For Hoong Ann and Leslie, they were working for others for quite awhile before they decided that they wanted to do something on their own. On the other hand, entrepreneurs like Ash Singh seem to not subscribe to the notion that one should work for others first before branching out on their own. Ash Singh probably belongs to the true blue entrepreneurial type, having dropped out of school to found numerous successful businesses.

I think there are pros and cons to both sides of the camp. If you’ve been working for others, you’re actually being paid to learn. Along the way, if you’re astute enough, you are likely to build up a network of useful contacts who would benefit your future endeavours. On the other hand, it could also be argued that working for others would ‘trap’ you into the normal and conventional way of doing things. I know this is a sweeping statement, and there definitely has been more than enough cases that prove these otherwise. But, for argument’s sake, let’s leave it at that. On the other hand, if you’ve never worked for others your entire life and started a business straightaway, you’d probably have a very fresh and different approach to how things are and can be done. However, it might also mean that you might make stupid and obvious mistakes that a more seasoned worker would have been able to avoid. Again, sweeping statement, but let’s leave it at that 😛

Hence, i think it doesn’t matter what others say about whether you should or should not be starting a business. That’s probably what being an entrepreneur is about: going against the grain. Don’t try to fit the mould; make your own story, then let others dissect and tell stories about how you did it in future 😛

There are many different reasons why people start businesses, and there is no ‘correct’ reason

Chin Leng started SingaporeBrides.com because he understood, first hand, the trouble and hassle of preparing for his own wedding. In his case, he experienced a personal ‘pain’ and decided to do something about it, and hence came about the number one website in Singapore in its category.

For Ash, he probably saw opportunities in different sectors that he felt he could do a better job than others in, and hence dived head first into it. For example, i doubt he was hoping to solve any personal ‘pain’ by launching ShirtPal.com. I believe that it’s more of seeing that there’s potential for such a product, and then doing his best in offering customers enough value for them to buy from him.

For social entrepreneur Tong Yee, he saw a specific problem in a specific part of the education system in Singapore. He then went about changing it, and has been wildly successful in doing so.

Perseverance is underrated/ not given enough attention

There been a lot of hype about entrepreneurship in the media these days. They paint it like it’s all rosy and romantic. But can’t blame them too, i doubt these journalists/ media workers have ever started and ran something on their own. I think Hoong An did a great job in ‘dissuading’ the audience from starting their own businesses. I don’t think that dissuading the audience was his objective. Perhaps it was more giving the audience a behind the scenes look at entrepreneurship. Obviously, he knows how much shit one has to take when starting something on his own.

What isn’t portrayed in the media is the numerous cold, flat, in-your-face rejections an entrepreneur has to take when he is just starting out. How many cold calls the entrepreneur has to make. How the entrepreneur, and no one else, is responsible for every single aspect of the business; sales, accounting, marketing, manpower etc. How things will simply stagnate and freeze and not move forward one inch if the entrepreneur isn’t doing anything. How problems will creep up at 3am in the morning and the entrepreneur realizes that if he doesn’t fix it, no one else will. How the entrepreneur has to respond to each and every email/ complain in a nice enough manner, even though it’s clear the customer is being unreasonable. How, sometimes, self-doubt starts creeping in and messing with the entrepreneur’s head when things get rough. It’s no fun at all man. It’s true that sometimes, the entrepreneur will start asking himself, “is this really worth it?” BUT, probably what separates the men from the boys, as Hoong An puts it, is how the entrepreneur can persevere and make it through it no matter what is thrown at him.

Company Culture

Ash’s pointers on company culture were interesting, but i was hoping to hear more in-depth about specific things he does as the Managing Director of his company on a day-to-day basis. Sure, they have a swimming pool, they go for company outings fortnightly, and hit the gym together. But i was looking for something beyond this. I seems to me that these are external factors. Let’s take for example, Google. Yup, they’re known for their free gourmet meals, swimming pools, beach volleyball courts and stuff, but i think these are extrinsic factors. What are the INTRINSIC factors within Google that make them stand out, and how do they achieve that kind of ‘Googley-ness’? I think it has all to do with company culture.