How shall I describe your business?
Well we do interior design, renovating and consultancy. We also have another group, which is doing product design and distribution that deals with building materials. We have not gone to the extent of designing a building. But we do consultancy work for some structural work for landed properties.

Family background:
My wife, she does work. She's currently teaching in a primary school. I have two kids the eldest being 3 years old and youngest 15 ms, my wife is currently on maternity leave.

How old is the company?
Started in Nov 95. That makes it around 7-8 years. I think at that point in time, the whole industry was healthy - the economy was good. People are generally queuing to buy houses. The property market was booming, so it became a good choice to move into interior design.

How supportive were your family? Your Wife?
So generally there are no family objections. Actually I had started up 3 years before that in an IT boom. At that point of time I wasn't married, so there were no other family commitments. SO life was in the fast track. You didn't have to weigh out so many things. I was just going full steam.

Children? What values would you want to pass on to them? Want them to continue?
If they do have the inborn skill, I would like to nurture them into this field. But then again I believe that entrepreneurs are born, so you must have the mentality to bring you through the trials and tribulations. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that they would become one. But I want to give them a good environment so that they can go into this line.

I think the traditional value of hard work and diligence is something that we can never do away with. We don't make mega bucks from the Internet any more. Many people have rationalized the fundamental attributes of business and have embraced it in a more realistic manner. So I would say that as we advance through the generations, doing business today is very challenging, as we have to keep abreast with technological changes. There are more things to digest now, so the value is to always have an open heart to keep learning and to be quick to assimilate new developments and keep abreast with it. These are the core values.

So what is your background?
I did not take the very elaborate academic path. I of course finished my A levels and I passed with a full academic certificate. I then went into the army. Then I thought about whether to further my studying in a university. My grades weren't that good, so the only option was in building and estate management. so it was a 5 year course and given my families financial difficulties, I knew 5 yrs was an extended period. And I didn't like the course. I turned to foreign universities…but they were all too expensive. So I decided not to study and immediately after NS I found a job. I also did an external degree program with University of London in Economics. But after a year I realized that it wasn't easy. I was doing regional marketing and there was a lot of overtime work. And I was missing out too many lectures and tutorials. I couldn't catch up. So I made an ultimatum and quit. I didn't complete the course but I learnt a lot.

After that how did you start as an entrepreneur?
I was with British Telecoms; I was dealing with marketing of global networks. About 17 moths later I began to realize I was doing technical stuff. It was about networks. Communication, connectivity. I was getting a little disillusioned with the process as I'm a person that uses more my right brain than my left-brain. So as much as it was called regional marketing but the very product was very technical and I didn't like it. So I decide to look for something else. At that moment the market was good and I thought I should step out. Eventually I felt that IT was a field that was closest to telecom and I could use some knowledge from British Telecom in my new business. So I registered and I started my own business. The core activities of this business were that we traded; bought and sold hardware. I assembled PCs and desktops. It was a lot of hands on work. But it was tough as in the beginning I didn't have enough capital to buy commercial vehicles so delivery was done through public transport and as the clientele grew it did not become productive. So I bought a used vehicle and I went on to even more. I approached corporate. accounts. I started with churches, something I familiar with. I sold computers to churches to missionaries overseas etc. About two years later, about the time the government was advocating the IT master plan, I thought I should ride this wave. So I started to write a proposal and I mapped out a whole strategy about how to sell IT education to schools. At that point of time the well to do schools had the funds but not the less well to do schools. My plans were to equip neighborhood schools with labs also. So I mapped out a plan and I approached many foundations. Shaw, lee etc. the response was quite good. Everything moved quite smoothly. All I had to do was to go to the school and tell them I was giving them a free lab and no cost to them. It was a big break through. We started teaching aides to enable the schools to makes full use of the labs. We got in 32 lecturers and had some of them write educational software programs and sold them to the school, they also taught the schools. We got approval from all the boards and the principal. We captured a large part of the market. We were the pioneers. It lasted less than 2 years. I started up went I was 21 odd. We had 5 partners but then there were a lot of internal conflicts, very serious conflicts among us, so we split up. A lot of us left and we left the operations to one partner.

So much for the first business.

Once I was out of that, I asked myself what the next big boom would be. I decided that every day that there were so many people queuing over night for property launches. The most immediate thing after buying a flat was to furnish it. I think most Singaporeans are very house proud. So it was natural decision to make to go into interior design. That was the primary reason why I stepped into it although I was ignorant about how it operated. So I was a dare devil then! So I registered the business. What I also did was after rationalizing my needs; I looked for someone with the prior exposure to the interior design market. Through a common friend I was introduced to a man who has been in this field for 5 years. So we joint forces and formed this company. I contributed in the business aspect and he was good at the operations. So it was synergies. In the first year we were already making money.

I decided to take a more revolutionary turn .I advertised in the paper; to bring in a big group called design entrepreneurs. I did because I felt that if was possible for me to do it without formal training, as I had done it so I felt it was possible for other people to do it also. The following day I got a call from the Strait's Times' journalist because it was new term. So I met up with her and she did a write up on it. And I explained the concept to her. And the response after that was tremendous. We interviewed 80 people a day for 1.5 weeks. There were people with Doctorates wanting to join us. These people were not salaried but they were all entrepreneurs in the making. Because of the sudden explosion of personnel…we relocated to another kallang area. We had previously occupied another area in kallang, which was smaller.

Why kallang?
Hahah… ok… there are 2 reasons... one was because the rental was cheaper and kallang is an area that's not to far from the city area, not like woodlands and kranji and also because I'm familiar with kallang I have this sense of familiarity with it. That's how we got there.

Everything seemed rosy… company expanded etc, but the cost of operation expanded. But according to the law of proportion; with an increased number of people we should also have increased business right? But that only happened for 6 months. After that they were inherent HR problems and there was some issues of personal contention and there were operational issues that were not properly addressed. Everything just tail spun and went out of proportion. The business concept was good, but the foundation was not proper. In less than a year the whole thing came toppling down. There was a mass exodus of people…. lots of projects resulted in bad debts. There was excessive unaccountable expenditure. So from this whole event we came to realize that a revolutionary idea has to go with a proper foundation. That was a lesson learnt. But there was no regret. One thing proven correct is the instinct of an entrepreneur is many times inborn…you are able to identify any areas …new trends, but a good entrepreneur needs a good supporting staff.

Was there ever a point time that you realized that the business would actually be able to support you?
NO qualms that as long as the business is in operation that it would provide for the family. We have enough projects to keep us going. But the bigger questions like how to grow the business? How to make it a force to be reckoned with …those were the bigger questions that I faced with. We did not have any real concerns about how viable the business was.

Have you any plans for Retirement?
I have sufficient insurance policies. But I'm not a person that looks too far in the future. My strategies are more short term. I'm looking for mid to short term gains.

What qualities that make you different from some one else?
I was an employee myself earlier. There isn't much that is different. I can say that an employee is an entrepreneur in the making just that he hasn't stepped out. I was making a lot of preparations to step out as soon as possible when I was working as an employee. All along I was itching to become an entrepreneur. I was just waiting for the day to come. My mental structure carries some significance of that. How ever if you talk about a typical employee, the day-to-day tasks are more centered on fulfilling the expectations required from them on the job. As an entrepreneur you set yourself a benchmark and you go for it.

How did you decide to go into business?
Everyone goes into business for different reasons. I speak for myself. My family was not too well off. And I remember the difficult times we had to go through. But whenever we look at successful entrepreneurs there is a common thread and that motivated to perform in the later part of their lives because of some childhood ex. Although I didn't have through any traumatic childhood ex I do remember the times we were fin cash strapped, there fore I have a motive to become fin independent. I thought that since I didn't have a good academic qualification there was no way I could compete with the rest. So I thought to her than business there is no other way that I could excel. That is why I became and entrepreneur

What qualities must an entrepreneur have?
You Must be resilient. Great perseverance, hold realistic expectations…. You cannot hope to be millionaire over night. Other than that the other things that have been helpful in my entrepreneur walk is being diplomatic, tactful. Having a big appetite for learning, assimilation of new knowledge and information are important. The key thing is to be able to network very widely. Especially now as information is greatly available. The comp edge of many companies has been eroded in most ways, so you really need to network extensively to open your market reach.

What inspired you?
I used to read a lot about Hong Leong…and people like that. I realized that gaining knowledge about them is one thing, doing it is another matter. I respect those people and they've gone through difficult times building their empire. I think you have to over come failures and get up after each one.

Did you require a License? Was it easy to get?
It depends on what you are doing. The first license that I applied for was to become a HDB licensed renovator. Because in Singapore the public housing is very successful and forms 80% of all housing. So we focused on doing HDB related project. So it was natural fro me to get an HDB license. Of course in those days it was different and more difficult to get the license because the rule is that if you are not a registered contractor you are not sup to be doing any renovations. Os there is this grey area….if I can't do HDB project then what project could I do? So those were the diff times when we had to find an alternative. So what we did was that I worked with another company that s HDB registered, but we had to share profits and it wasn't very fair. But there was no other way around it.

Under this HDB license we are not categorized actually…so basically they issue you a license and they renew it every year to ensure that you are fin sound and to check up on the reputation of the company. Then they will look at the rerecords to see if you have been charged of any illegal thing. So they are lots of things that they assess. They also check if you have topped up your medisave acc, if you've paid taxes. So all these things affect your license.

So today what do you do?
By 1997 we actually had to go through a 3 year period before we could become a licensed renovator. So I was pretty eager then..We had to find people to recommend us, banks to loan us money so the procedure was tedious…so what I did was that I submitted a lot of supporting docs so I got my license within the 3 year period. Exceptional case.

Do you have Partners?
In terms of registry I am the sole person who o holds 100% equity. But operationally we operate as partners we have a board of management…so everyone looks are various aspects…. e.g. design. Operations…etc.

The good thing was that I entered this business with physical assets like computer systems. Cap was i did have some savings. So with 100,000 we could manage.

Who is your biggest Competition?
This year we are making plans to expand our business beyond Singapore as well. Come up with something that we think will called a community of interior designer. And this community has the potential to expand overseas and is always linked to the Singapore community. So was always have representatives overseas but with in the Singapore comm. We being to accumulate more design practioners where everyone works interdependently and provides support for one another and no body is above one another… all these people are e entrepreneurs in their own n ways.

Who was your First customer?
Is a banker, Michael Tan…living off Holland road. I was only issued a part of his contract so I actually fulfilled this smaller bit but it was a good exposure. And he was very encouraging and pleasant throughout. The first commercial project was a pretty big organization was the excitement at that time. We completed one time we made a very healthy profit. And it was very fulfilling.

Can you recount any Stories of hardships you have had to face?
Many incidences and many I time I have felt like giving up. I have personally been through many hardships, I've gone through a moment were I was paying form y wedding, by honeymoon, I had finance my parents common property and I have to pay for my own matrimonial house. And on top of that my business was going through a very bad phase where we had a lot of bad debts. I remember the worst moments where I have done all sorts of jobs like plumbing...electrical work. Working over night. Going down to customers in the middle of the night. I really pushed myself to the limit…. that was really difficult. There were many temptations to give up.

Best moment in business?
Well that time in early 1998 where our entrepreneur scheme just came on. And the whole office was buzzing it was like a stock exchange and you could feel the sense of fulfillment. Suddenly we were the talk of the town. SO it was out of the mind. It totally crossed my expectations. I remember it all so vividly.

Any advice for all the wanna - be entrepreneurs out there?
I refrain from giving advice. Like Edison…Who says that 'young people don't' listen anyways' …but seriously, I think that business can be very hard but it depends on several factors some of which are very important. How good your business proposal is, also depends on how visionary you are. I have seen people who start off in business and then just close shop in a year. Because they go into business thinking they can make money. IF you don't 'have vision you won't last very long.

As we pick the final 38 entrepreneurs what qualities do you think are important for them to possess?
Its interesting to observe how these people revolutionized their business to provide their distinction from their competitors. E.g. eating bread is so common, but why the sudden popularity with bread talk, what is that magical touch?

So this is the interesting thing to see. This is of great importance and of course very much their business plan? Do they have a fall back option? Like Macs is the biggest real estate investor.

Will you be able to come to the ceremony and be comfortable with press?
Yes I will be comfortable with press
I think I will want to give to special schools. As the children are less privileged and I think everyone should be given some opportunity in life to have a fair chance of competing in life.