Did your father have his own business?
Basically, I am an SOBC, Singapore Original Born Chinese. My forefathers were from China. Then, my dad worked under British rule, then Japanese rule. He was a supplier for them, also in the area of logistics. I was still young then.

Did you help out in his logistics business?
No, but for me, I always use him as a role model. He taught me 'Failure is the mother of all success'. He believed in trust, integrity and hard work. But people took advantage of his honesty and cheated him, so his business was closed down. Later, he set up a small grocery shop. So I got part of my training there. Another thing he taught me was D N A. I will explain that down the line.

Did you think you might fail?
Never was that one word: F-A-I-L-U-R-E in my mind. To me, it is just that I have to learn. My logo is 'yes, I can ". That's all. Whatever thing I do, it's 'yes, I can'.

Between Astrans and the time with the MNCs, did you have any other businesses?
No, Astrans was the first one.

In this case, when you had Astrans in the initial startup, was there a lot of problems?
Oh yes there were a lot of difficulties. In fact, when I started up, I became nearly bankrupt. I was left with little money. I borrowed from my brothers. Quietly, I set up this company. Because of my relationship with my clients, one guy said that he would offer me money to help set up the company. But I believed that honesty is the best policy. Why should I take other people's money? With that, I negotiated with my clients. Why not you pay me when I do my work? And they did. And that is zero dollars earned. That time, also thankfully ROC did not require high setup fees.

But it was still terrible as for the first 3 years, no bank was willing to lend us money. Today, still no bank will lend you unless you have some form of collateral. It's a very sad thing. The Taiwanese are different. They always respect failures. They even have a Failures Club. If you fail 3 times, there will be people to pump in money to make sure you succeed. And I am going to set up something similar. Give me another 3-4 years.

Success is not just one year or two years. Anyone who wants to jumpstart some business and says I want to be successful by 2 years is unrealistic. That is really impossible, because you need to build your potential, then client list, etc…People need to know who you are.

Reputation is very important?
Yes. In Singapore, nobody knows me. It's okay, but those in certain industries like chemicals, trading industries do know me a little. You must have good brand when marketing, that's why. We have already gone to globalisation. Astrans stands for seven core businesses: air, sea, transport, rail express, air project, network, and 3rd party logistics. Having a good reputation is very important than having a good name, what we are talking about is integrity.

How was your business like in the beginning?
To get money from the bank is not easy. Business runs on cash flow. And it's not easy to get clients to pay straight on time. No MNC will pay you that way. For us, we have what we call our own survival skills. We talk to customers, we offer services and we meet their needs. We have 24 hr service and people entrust million dollars' worth of goods to you. People value you and we take care of them. Our track record is an error of only 0.5%.

That's a very good record.

Oh yes, we also go in line with quality management. We have ISO9002 certification.

Did you go through any troubles along the way?
For the first 3 months, I was running it all by myself with only one telephone line. For the lst 6 months, I took about 700 calls. 2nd year, I increased manpower to 2-3 people. 1 to 3 to 5, then to 7. I went through the late 70s, through the recession then to the 80s and 90s where they have the oil crisis and the dollar crisis. These financial crisis are the hardest times you have to face. You have to learn to live through them. Nobody can really help you go through.

Also, where people go, I don't go. I prefer to go against the norm. We still serve the MNCs even though we are only an SME. The trick is to find a niche market to serve. I always tell people we need to create a niche market to serve. It takes a lot of time to walk down the road of entrepreneurship. Success is not just how much money you make. It takes time to learn the traits. At that time, I was only about 30-plus. I ventured with people at 35. I started late. Time is precious; you'll have to learn to sharpen your skills along the way. For me, one of the qualities and attributes in our business is the 3 Ps in success. It starts off with a Positive mind, followed by Perseverance and last but not least, Patience. And then focusing, FOCUS. You must have a Forward thinking, Optimistic, Concentrated on core competence, Understand your customer well and Strive on. These are the key attributes. All these go through by training. SAF has given me some of that that training. In the army, you'll have to survive with nothing more than just food and water.

We must break away from the normal mindset. University studies are good, but as the Chinese say "Books are dead thoughts, but the mind is a living thing." Look at the kids below 5 years old. They are so full of creativity. Above 5, we are no longer as creative as there are so many things to do. That's why I learnt mind mapping. I discovered this technique three years ago. I always tell people, "You must have a map and have a direction to go. Be a master; everybody is a master in his own way." What I have lost in earlier years, I am regaining through the University of Society. Every year, I budget 4-5 thousand dollars to attend courses, such as MBA in a Nutshell and Accelerated Learning where I sharpened my own skills and master mastery. For instance, I learnt how to apply my graphic skills creativity to my own business. I anchored them together. To me, a picture speaks a thousand words.

In every business, you must have a mission and a vision. And you must be able to focus all the time. From there, you can do a lot of wonderful things: there's no right or wrong. For instance, look at this picture here. I planned it out on a mind-map and visioning IT supply chain management. Once you have pictured everything, there is no competition. Competition only lies in you. I pictured myself having many different roles. As a learner, and also a trainer, a boss because you have to teach your staff. You must always learn to be yourself, to think out of the box. I always use the 4 keys thing: Think, Improvise, Manage, Experiment.

With these skills in mind, we have come a long way. TIME, FOCUS, WEIGHT and SHARP.

I remember when we were asked to bring a live Christmas tree from the USA. Everybody said it was not possible. They even laughed at us. We showed them that they were wrong. It was an achievement for us. We had pitted against many people. Everybody's mindset was closed. But in December 2000, we successfully brought the tree in.

Isn't it very difficult to compete with the other big players?
In terms of network, they are definitely stronger. But because we are small, we are more agile. We are able to change and be flexible to new situations. For instance big companies figured the Christmas tree project would take them 5 people to complete and they felt that it was not worthwhile. But for us, we only needed one person to carry it up. Costing wise, we are also better. By the way, my dad had also taught me the meaning of D n A. To me, it is Discipline and Action.

When some people fail in their businesses, they either give up or take to drugs, drinking and such. What do you say about that?
Success is not just money. It's about passion. When you spell 'passion', it says 'Pass-I-On'. It is the joy of having a good job done and seeing your customers satisfied. This is the real satisfaction I get. Money is of course good, but there's always a saturation point. This passion is no ordinary thing. Why are the Americans so creative? That's because they are willing to spend so much time on things they believe in, even as long as 60 years! They can use their whole lives just to master a skill such as dancing. Our human lifespan is short, so I try to spend my time as meaningfully as I can. I attend Toastmasters, I manage my family and three kids, I manage my business and I attend courses. You must be good at time management, we have only 24 hours a day and 365 days 1 year.

Does that mean you must be good at multi-tasking?
Yes, definitely. Time goes very fast. For instance, probably ten years down the line, there'll be no more MNCs. They're now so big that they find it hard to control the costs. SMEs will move forward; they may merge or even combine forces. I have many ventures; we work hand-in-hand. You must be able to maintain and manage your costs. It is important to have proper plans. It can be five years, three years or even one year. For me, I'm 47 right now. Another 4 more years and I'll need to find a successor. I'll need to pass the trade on to someone else. My children are now 8, 11 and 13. In 10 years, the eldest will be 23. Whatever I have learnt, I'll teach them, because education is very important. I also learnt through Toastmasters that the important thing is to give and share. You learn to give and you share with your passion. Hoarding knowledge is no use. 10 to 20 years later, the knowledge will be useless. Already we are talking about digital and the Internet. In the past we used to have large warehouses, but now, no more! It all depends on how creative you want to be.

Do you have to make any sacrifices?
People see me having a good business but they do not know what price I have had to pay. For instance, in the early startup, I had to go for 3-4 months without pay. Therefore, I always tell my staff that I'm always the last person to get paid.

In this case, when you were leaving a well-paid job to set up your own business, where you are not going to have your paycheck for 3-6 months, did you expect that already?
Yes, in my mind, I was already prepared for the worst. In my first year, my family members were laughing at me. But deep inside, I knew I would succeed.

What did your wife say about that?
Well, in my life, there are three women. One is my mother, who is about 70-plus. She used to tell me, "Don't worry, try." My wife also stood behind me all this while. My little daughter especially used to tell me, 'Dad, try." That little word of encouragement was a source of motivation for me.

What did your dad say?
As usual, he had no comment. But he always encouraged me that honesty is the best policy.

Even after the one year in business, are there still ups and downs?
Yes, there were all kinds of problems. You see, I wasn't trained in management. I learnt management along the way, the hard way. But one thing I have to say is: No matter how hard it is, don't ever give up. You must have the spirit of enterprise. Don't ever give up.

I had a friend who had a battle with cancer. I saw him fight it till his death. With this kind of determination, you will succeed. Picture yourself succeeding.

Why did you choose to go into the logistics business?
Because logistics is a service people require. If you are able to utilize your resources, you can do a good job at logistics. I have seen people with many warehouses and trucks, but they don't know how to use them. We need to learn how to be an effective coordinator. I also learnt to recycle materials. Down here, you see that I have plans to recycle whatever material we have.

Another advice I have for aspiring entrepreneurs is that they must constantly upgrade themselves. To do this, I read a lot. I gained many insightful ideas from those books and attend overseas seminars and workshops.

There have been TV interviews of some startup entrepreneurs and these people review that while it's all very well that everyone thinks that entrepreneurs just become rich and successful, they too review the dark side of entrepreneurship.

Sometimes, there are problems and issues when you are doing your own business, but the thing about handling them is that at the end of the day, you must be able to account for them yourself. Second thing: Not every entrepreneur wants to show off his money to the public. You may have heard of entrepreneurs who still drive second-hand cars, live in HDB flats and wear normal clothes. There's nothing wrong in that.

Do you have to prepare yourself mentally so that if one day your business just evaporates, you still can carry on?
I expected the worst to come. There's a saying: No pain, no gain. Any pain that I get during business is a learning step for me. But bear in mind this: You are in control of your own destiny. You have to carry on no matter what. For instance, you are in control of a car, not vice versa. You can take steps to mitigate the risk. You can choose when to drive fast and when to drive slow. But you can never see completely what's ahead of you. This is something you must expect. The trouble with most of us is that we tend to have the mentality that 'I must drive a big car with all kinds of precautions and gadgets fitted in that will prevent all accidents from happening.' But you still see accidents going around. So expect the worst to come. But again as they always say, "Failure is the mother of all success." People who can pick themselves up after failure are the ones who are going to succeed. Don't expect one day or one night for success. Some people spend twenty years to get to where they are today e.g. Thomas Eddison. It seems simple but it's not easy to do.

(Mr Chew proceeded to show a small video presentation of how he and his team brought the Christmas tree from the US to Singapore in December 2000. This process was covered by Channel NewsAsia.)

Oh, we talked to the Singapore Airlines and they were willing to help us. Initially they had many doubts but we showed them our track record and what we were capable of. A brand new airline carried the tree over to Singapore. We were with the flight. Remember the SQ 006? We very nearly went onboard that plane around that time, so we were probably were lucky. (laughs) By the way, we are the first to transport the Lexus car, back in 1989 . Look at this car in the picture. It cost a million dollars. We carried these cars for clients with big celebrities name.

What else do you recommend for people who want to be successful?
You've got to be fast and agile. For instance, when you're negotiating a deal with the client, you must be able to print out the deal complete with the terms and conditions right on the spot the minute he's okay. This is because the world we know is changing fast and there are no more borders. You must also be congruent, confident and committed. Starting up small is perfectly okay. The only problem is sometimes when we receive an order, the order is too large and we do not have the resources to handle it.

Do you have any role models whom you look up to in business?
I always admire people with passion. People like Jack Neo, celebrities like Slyvester Stallone. He had a speaking problem. How he overcame his speaking liability. Also people like Tom Cruise, how excited he was when he got the role for Mission Impossible. I also admire people like Sim Wong Hoo, Mr Dennis Wee.

Do you feel fear when you go out to carry these missions?
Oh yes, I do. But the thing you must do is to overcome the fear. Fear is false evidence appearing repeatedly. Convert the bad feelings to good ones. Then you have corrective action. Even Anthony Robbins has feared public speaking, let alone us. So it's up to us how we control our fear and destiny. Chase that fear to feeling, enthusiastic, active, response.

In the event that you are selected as one of the 38 winners, would you be able to speak to the press?
There should be no problem. I don't mind sharing the experiences.

What do you usually like to do?
I like to think out of the norm. I would like to set up a creative club for youngsters to help them think creatively out of box especially the ITE, Polytechnic students. I want to give my time to do the best I can, because life is short. You must look back with satisfaction. You don't have to go to too many things. Just choose one or two, and master it. If I had a guidance or good mentor in the past, who knows what I could have achieved today. Last thing I have to say is: Be thankful to your parents and family. Appreciate them and learn from them whatever you can. Remember MAP YOUR LIFE, Mastery, Anchoring, Preparing them for the future, Find and be yourself.

I think that's about it. Thank you very much for the interview.
Thank you.

Student Interviewer's Personal Comment