Please describe the nature of your business.
I am in the educational and training business. My business provides training mainly for children, schools & our own tuition centers. Therefore I am more on education provider for schools and families. I started in IT Training in the earlier years and now we have training in more areas such as languages, math, science, IT and entrepreneur. The target market for the entrepreneur training is mainly for the primary, secondary and junior college students. The schools will let us know what their requirements are and what they want. Our business strength is we provide subject based training through activity and games to make learning more interesting. We provide hands on and experiential learning. So basically my business is divided into two parts. They are providing training for school such as extra curricular programs in terms of workshops, seminars and camps. Second part is the Adroit Learning centre, my very own tuition centre for primary and secondary students. This learning centre is more academic based. So both my business may seem to cater to same market but with different needs.

What made you embark on this venture choice?
Education has always been a passion for me. I desire to see people improve their life, to see people transform into a better person. Besides that, it was also because of my past experience. I was an IT software engineer. It was a very practical job and I found it boring. I would like to do a job that is more people oriented. Therefore I joined a company that provides training for schools. Through this job I build up my experience in creating and conducting training programs. I found out that it was interesting and something that I enjoyed doing. Working for three to five years, I realized that I could actually stand on my own and it is time to try out something more challenging. So I thought of opening my own business doing something different from my previous company, something that they do not provide.

How does your business work?
When I started to reach out to the market, I called up the schools, got to know the principals or teachers in charge. I will then introduce to them my programs proposal. And if they are interested, I will plan the second meeting with them to work on the requirements. We will then do up the customized training programs based on the requirements and send the proposals to the schools. Besides calling, I will send out catalogues for those schools that I have contacted before at every year end. We will email them our programs, call them up to explain our programs and this cycle goes on. Normally I will make the effort to go down personally to every school to advertise my programs as I believe in serving and direct contact with my own customers is important. This is to let me have a better idea of them and their needs.

Did you have the capital to start the business or did you have to borrow from someone to get started?
Initially my parents lent me the money to start up my tuition centre. However, I faced numerous challenges as tuition centre is located at the residential area so is bounded by the physical environment. Besides that, I faced with many competitions. Therefore, I started to target on students in school. That is three to four years later that I started this Edu21 Consultants. This business is not capital based. Once you manage to sell your ideas and programs, you get the deal and earn the money so it is of very low capital outlay. I have to use more of my brain to be creative always in order to move on and sustain in this business line.

Do your parents have their own businesses too? Have they inspired you in one way or another?
No. My mother is a housewife and my father is a technician. They do not really inspire me as they never agree to me starting up my own business. To them, doing your own business involve lots of risk, uncertain about the market and unstable income.

What was your childhood dream? When did you decide that you would strike out on your own instead of working for someone else?
My childhood dream is to be a teacher. However, I found that being a teacher will have lots of boundary to MOE rules and no flexibility. That is something that I do not like. I am a person who does not like to be bounded and I love freedom. After working four to five years, I started to get bored working the nine to five working hours. I felt that there is no challenge at all. That was when I decided to strike out on my own.

Why does someone decide to be on their own rather than join an existing company?
Mainly I would like to have my own freedom. I am the type of organizing, systematic and administrative person in the past. When I was studying, I planned outing and activities for my class. That more or less trained me to be very detail and confident in planning. Being on my own, I have more flexibility either in time or way of working as I do not have to be bounded by rules or neither do I have to keep to the nine to five working hours. Besides that, it is more adventurous, not constant as I get to try new ideas, can do things that I like even though that may involved lots of risk and loss of money.

Are there at any point in your life that you experienced a significant event (WW2, racial riots of the 1960s, the Economic Crisis of the 80s or 90s, SARS, new competition or shifts in market behaviour and trends) which affected or influenced you and your business that made you change the way you think and do your business?
My first business was in 1996 to 1997. I sold and supplies computers to schools. However, at that time, MOE started to distribute free PC to schools and that really destroyed my business and I was out of job. I then started my second business in event organizing such as bazaar and funfair. However, I found that it was not my passion and cup of tea. Therefore I decided to do something that I like which is education. That is when I started with tuition centres and subsequently to Edu21 Consultants. MOE started to pump in money to school which is an advantage to me. There is no major setback yet for the moment except for facing competitors. From all these setbacks it makes me think of what business can actually work, think of what had gone wrong and learn from the mistakes instead of giving up and lastly what to avoid so as not to face failure again.

What are some of the challenges in starting a business from scratch?
Lack of sleep! I really have to sacrifice a lot of my rest to work. Secondly is to find ways to manage funds by managing cash flow and finding money when necessary. Next is on how to get and win my first few customers. It was the hardest and most important thing to do as you have to find people and gain their trust. My first few customers were those whom I know from my previous company.

Who/What motivates you?
My senior pastor from City Harvest Church. He is a very accomplished and diligent man. He is a man full of visions and work very hard to achieve what he wants. He is inspiring and able to influence people around him. Secondly, Adam Khoo is another man that has motivated me to work harder. He is very passionate in teaching and a very successful man in life. Both of them have taught me the desire to achieve what you want and to reach your goals.

Tell me about the first few customers and the first few years of business.
The first few customers were the most important and yet the most challenging group of people in your business. They will ask about what you can provide, can you do it or not and they will usually demand very detailed information from you. Therefore when I got my first few customers, I really work very hard for it. I met them almost every week to go through and discuss the projects with them and make sure I make no mistake. To me, first impression count and it set the path for your business. First few years were really toughest period in my whole life. I worked at least sixteen hours a day. It was a one man show. I was basically the sales person, the marketer and the operator, everything by myself.

Please tell me some stories of your best day in business to date.
My best day was when I closed a big deal. I have a target set every month according to sales volume to help me stay focus. My proudest achievement was last year when I conducted training for Queenstown Primary School. The school was trying to win an IT award for the past two years. I spent a lot of time during the school holiday working with them on a video, three weeks of 9am to 3pm. And it did pay off, they won third prize in the video competition. They had tried many years but did not manage to get so I felt proud for them and for myself when they finally made it. They came to thank me and I felt great. It is an achievement to me to be able to make a difference.

Do you recall your worst day in business? Have you ever felt like giving up?
The worst period was the first two years when I started off my business. I did not have many business and lost money. For example last year between January and February, I actually faced no sales at all. I did not know the cause for it as the past few months I had not face such problem. I felt like giving up but I believe I can do it. There is nothing I can do but to move on. I did pray a lot.

When was the moment you realised the business would work and support you?
The moment when MOE started to pump in more money to school. With schools having more budget, that will mean more business to me as school will plan more extra enrichment programs for students. So what I need to do now is to make my company well known and be innovative in providing more attractive training programs. I have to regularly look into my programs to reflect MOE changes in the education policy.

What are some of the things you have had to overcome to succeed?
I do not consider myself as a success yet. I have to overcome negative thoughts when I face with no sales. I have to tell myself to persevere on, never to give up. And also to spend less by cutting on budget whenever necessary. I have to sacrifice my sleep and time with friends. I would say that I really have less time to socialize now a day. Lastly, it is the criticism that I would have to face. Some of my friends will tell me to stop doing and give some negative feedback and comments. I will have to take that as some learning advice and move on in life.

What are some qualities that you feel you possess which differentiate you from someone who works for others?
I think I'm optimistic; I'm a very positive thinker. Even at the worst of time, I look at things in a different perspective to encourage myself to fight on. I’m also a goal getter; I work hard to achieve what I want.

To succeed in business, what qualities are essential? What are some of the secrets in making a successful business?
Some qualities would be positive thinking, perseverance and most importantly, integrity. Nobody will face ever smooth journey in life. What make you different is whether you are able to learn the mistakes and pick up from there to do even better and of course whatever you do, you have to be able to answer to yourself and others. The only secret to success is hard work. No one will work hard for you unless you work hard for yourself. You have to put in101% effort if you want success.

Who or what inspires you?
My dream inspires me to move on till now. My dream is to "retire" in three to four years time. Not retiring in the sense of not working and rotting but my business will be so stable that it is generating more business and income. I do not have to dedicate myself 24 hours to work. I want to have a comfortable lifestyle and able to do things that I like, for example community work and traveling other than working for money.

Have you ever thought of expanding the business in some way or in multiple locations? How and where?
This year I am intending to open a centre specializes in phonics reading for children age four to six years old. The objective is to train them to become independent readers. This is to provide more choices to my customers. I also plan to publish books covering my training materials and have them sell not only in Singapore but in Asia markets. This will be my plan for the coming few years.

What aspects of expansion would you like to see for your enterprise?
I would like to see my company's name covering the South East Asia market in terms of training programs and books publication.

In your opinion, how would you define entrepreneurship?
To me, an entrepreneur is one who dares to take risk, make things happen, able to overcome obstacles and persevere till the end.

To what extent does one's educational level help or hinder entrepreneurial-ship?
There are two aspects to this question. Education level is important as we need the professional knowledge to perform our job well. Other than our formal education, we also need other soft skills like interpersonal skills and ability to net work to meet real life challenges.

As we try to select the final 41 entrepreneurs, what qualities would you think a person should have to inspire others?
Success stories, honesty and inspiring

What are some of your own values in doing business and what do you like to pass down to others, particularly the younger generation?
My values are optimistic, hard work, no matter how hard things can be we have to persevere on and never give up.

What advice would you give young people who want to start their own business?
My advice is to start young as you have nothing to lose, to think out of the box and not conform to the norms.

Why the name Edu21?
It means education in the 21st century. My company logo bear the seed graphic meaning planting seeds for the children, learning from young and moulding them to grow up.

My Personal Comment
Mr Caleb Chan is very frank and humble in his account of being an entrepreneur. It is indeed very true that the first thing to success is the dare to dream. He is a man whom believes in freedom and that one should not be bounded by rules in life. I totally agree with him that we should start young in life as at this age we will have not much to lose and worry about. It was indeed a great experience knowing the life of this entrepreneur.