Spirit of Enterprise

Thank you for granting me this interview. Now I'll be conducting the Spirit of Enterprise Awards interview with you. This interview's purpose is to get to know what you're doing in this line of business, to know more about you in person. I'll start my questions now by asking:

How shall I describe your business?
We're in the elevator business in the construction industry.

What business was your father in?
My father's is in hotel business, in budget hotel.

I see. Do you have any children in business?
No my children are all still schooling.

Yea what are your children currently doing?
My children both are... 2 of them are in polytechnic. The 3rd in Sec 3, and the last one in Sec 1

I see, so they go to school in Singapore or do they -
Yeah they're all schooling in Singapore.

I would like to know, has your business always been located here?
Yes it's always been in Singapore.

Why did you choose this location?
Because I'm brought up in Singapore, therefore I would operate in Singapore.

I see. What is special about it, I mean in Singapore, as well as your location for your office?
In Singapore, as Singapore is strategically well located region. We have very high quality reputation as in starting with Singapore will give you very high recognition around the region.

I see. Did u need to get a license to do business here in Singapore?
Yeah we have to.

And how does the government categorize your business - what name do they give it?
We're under small and medium enterprise.

Was it easy to get this license of yours?
No, you will have to be engineering trained to order to qualify to even apply for a license.

And that means you have to be a graduate in local university or any university for that matter?
If you're not a graduate then you must employ a graduate to be part of your employees

I see, and did you need something separate from the government to be at this location? This location? Yea this location, in Singapore as well, no?
There's no restriction for locality in Singapore or anything.

Ok, currently do you have any partners?
No, we're 100% husband and wife team.

Tell me some stories that give me an idea of the hardships in starting abusiness from scratch.
Elevator business is a specialist trade, and it involves life and death. So when you start up an elevator company, it's always a very high barrier entry in the market because customers in the market are very apprehensive of using a new brand. The obstacle to go into this market is tremendous.

Not only you have high capital involved, you'd also would have brand consciousness, you'd also would have safety consciousness and it's very difficult to even get one project when you first started. You'll have to probably buy at a very very low price, and a lot of assurances then you'll be able to kick start this business.

Thereafter also the second job will not come in easily. You'll also have to go through the whole same process of reassuring the few customers and if you can stay and survive and prove yourself, only then can you make a name in the market as one of the accepted suppliers of elevators.

Thank you Mr Gay, that was very interesting and very informative. Now tell me some stories of your best day in business
Best days in business?

As in the best time of your business that you have, your experiences, if you know what I mean…
I don't really understand the question basically, best time can be refer to so many things, if you can be specific . . .

How about the best period of your business?
Best period of the business would be the good times where economy is good, where there are plenty of projects in the market, such that projects are plentiful, competition is not so keen, and big companies are the bigger imported brands - they will go for the high end market leaving us with all the low end, where they have no capacity to take on and it's easy for us to pick up the job. So these are in that sense if you say, that part of the business in good economy times where find that we are very occupied.

I understand. What about your worst day? Your worst period of time?
Worst period is the same, when economy was bad, big players in the market, big brands are also competing with you on the low end market, as part of fighting for survival, even one elevator the big companies are fighting for their share of the market.

Ok so have u ever felt like giving up before, how many times, when does it happen and why?
In the initial startup stage of course you will feel very demoralized because people do not want to give you even if you're very competitive, people will jus give it to the other big players - more recognised more well established brand in the market.

But u have to persevere and continue to make yourself accepted in the market once twice, 3 times 5 times you're rejected u must continue to try to excel until when u have a breakthrough, and once u have a breakthrough your confidence level goes up, customer confidence in you goes up, everything will just fall in place.

I see. So initially when u started your business, did u have the capital or did u borrow it from someone to get started?
I planned to get started, so I actually saved up the capital from, while working for Multi-National-Companies to get capital from the bank, from friends, fellow relatives, because elevator business involves too much and very difficult for bank to extend any loan to you when you start up because you have no security.

I see. So who competes with you in this business?
Our business we compete with all the big companies like Otis, Fujitec, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Tyssen, Goldstar and many others.

So have u ever thought of going in business with them to make a bigger business?
Kone Elevator from Finland has come and talked to us to buy over us, but again, maybe give them market value of our company, they just feel that it is not worth their budget

Did you start as a businessman as a child selling things to your friends and family?
No I don't I started out as a professional.

When did you decide that you would strike out on your own instead of working for someone else?
12 yrs ago when I reached managing director working for General Electric, and at that point in time, I cannot be promoted anymore further because the top man in General Electric has advised me that being an American company, they will never bring in a local CEO, and advised me to start out on my own.

I see. So what time of business is general electric? Is it the same as …
They're doing the same thing, but they're doing more than that. They're doing lamp signs, traffic light, medical, electrical, naval, armory and all - they're very diversified company.

Ok, when you started what did your wife or family think?
They are also very worried, because they do not know the confidence level of the particulars, because they're not you. So you have to know yourself, whether you can make it, and therefore make your own decisions. Your family members cannot decide for you because they do not know where are your strengths, what are your worries.

I see. The different stages of your business from the beginning to now. What have you gone through? Are there any points in your business life experienced something so significant e.g. war, racial riot, economic crisis, new competition, shift in market behavior and trends that affect or influence your life and business that make you change the way you do business and thinking?
All through these 12 years of cause there are a lot of external factors that influence a particular state of mind on the individual's subconscious. For example economic conditions goes from good to bad, while in good times you behave differently - there's plenty of job, you pick and choose, but in bad times you'd have to change your marketing strategy, reduce price to be more attractive because the big companies are also making themselves likewise.

So we have to improve by making ourselves different from them by improving service quality, improving all other optional features that we can provide at low cost, and other changes in the market conditions.

All through these 12 years there are other smaller players coming into the market, they are also threatening us, but like I said, lift business is very difficult to enter, there's a high trade barrier. These small companies that come in they can only probably take a share of the maintenance market but not in the real sales market, by providing cheaper maintenance rate and actually take away some of our maintenance revenues that are coming from our old parts.

You have kids right?
Have they ever given you advice on the running of the business?
They are too young to give any advice at this moment.

What are your own values in doing business and what do you like to pass down to your children?
Business acumen cannot be passed down, it is actually, you have to learn the ropes, the hard way.

Will any of them follow you as business owners?
They're still too young, not relevant to talk about it now.

Supposing if you got sick, in health, who would run your business?
We have in place project engineers, managers, chief engineers with the system itself running, develop it to have one man, to depend on one man, that man is not available, the whole company would collapse. The system is very skill oriented, so everybody has their own individual task to perform, and it's not - as in the company does not survive on only one man running the whole show.

I understand. So how does your business work? You get a commission on goods you buy or are you on consignment?
Well our business is basically very adept. The way we design the system, we buy the components, we put them together, we have to test it and commission it.

What qualities that you have, do you think differentiates you from someone who works for others?
Basically someone who works for others they are not a risk taker, they're more conservative, they dare not to venture into the unknown. The difference between myself and another one who works for somebody is that, we have already seen the difference phases in the working life. We have attained the highest in our career ladder. So there's no more challenge for us to work for somebody. At this point in time we feel that the only thing left for us to intrigue us is to strike out on our own, into unthreaded territory.

Ok then tell me why does someone decide to be on their own rather than join an existing company?
If you were to join an existing company there's no difference between working for your old employer. So as far as we look at it, hopping from one employer to another employer - the daily routine is the same. So the next level for people like us will be to strike out on our own, to be venturing into something that is more challenging and something that is different from all these years that have been doing. So we venture out on our own.

What qualities does it take to succeed?
To succeed on your own, you have to have self discipline. You have to know the market, and most important of all, you must be able to practise the art of being tolerant of all different kinds of customers. Then you should be able to succeed.

That's well said. How old were you when you first realized you wanted to be in business on your own?
When I first realized it was sometime in…at the age of 34.

Did your family and friends encourage you?
Yes of course. You get the encouragement from the market customers who know us, it is only from there that you feel confident to strike out on your own.

When was the moment you realized that the business would work and support you?
That will take about 5 years from the day you start on your own, then you realize that your business hits the point.

Tell me about your first few customers and first few years of business.
The first few customers are basically are very 'long time friends'. Customer become friend. These are the customers that I said when I was working for my existing employer. Through years of trust they believe that you can do it. It's not the big company that you represent, it's the personality that makes a person. So knowing your personality, the customer believes and trust in your personality, to allow themselves to be used as a guinea pig to be used for your new company.

What would you advise young people to do today in starting a business?
Who is your role model and mentor?
If young people today were to strike out on their own, I would advise them to really do a proper market study before going into anything because the path ahead is gonna be very difficult. If you make it will be very very sweet, but out of 10 less than half can survive through first 5 years. We do not have any mentor actually, to look at, basically we're the pioneers. All the other people that strike out on their own are basically very very old, and are not in our age group, so we cannot do any cross referencing with them. I believe in the young people that are going to come out and strike on their own. In time to come they will also have the same kind of experience with us, all those people who strike on their own will not be able to get any reference from the early days entrepreneur ,maybe they're too old to give any of these advice. Market condition has changed also by that time. The experience they get last time and now is totally different.

That is very interesting. So regarding retirement funds, what do you do about them? You just save on your own?
As an entrepreneur we don't have retirement fund. Because every fund we have is ploughed back to the business.

Did you ever think of expanding the business in some way or in multiple locations?
Yea, we are actually thinking of venturing out into the regional market. We have Sri Lankan representative selling on our brand name, and we're now having some discussion with people who are interested in doing the same business in Myanmar, Bangladesh and even China.

As we try and pick the final 38 entrepreneurs from all the people we interview what qualities would you think a person should have to inspire others?
Never say die attitude. So, in any venture that you try, you must be prepared for the worst. You must be prepared to fail, you cannot go in and not able to fail, get yourself ready to fail, then you shouldn't try out and venture out on your own, because more often than not you will fail, you'll never pass, never succeed on the 1st try.

That's very true. So if you are chosen as one of the 38 winners will you come to the ceremony to be honored?
I'll be privileged to do so.

Thank you. Will you be comfortable with the press and TV asking you many of the same questions if you are a winner?
We would gladly welcome them to, to share our experience.

Do you have any objection to this interview being posted on the Community Web Site or published in the newspaper prior to being chosen?
No, I don't think - everything we said is truly from our heart, and we will also like to share with new, would-be entrepreneurs.

Thank you. If part of the Spirit of Enterprise is a scholarship given in your name directed to any school you would like to give it to: any idea now where that would be? You don't have to decide now, but if some day you are asked - any ideas? Primary School, Secondary, College, Technical or University?
I'll direct it to the technical institute.

Why is that?
Because basically these are the people that aspire to, these are the people who all the more want to be entrepreneurs.

Who do you admire in business?
I didn't give a serious thought on who are the business men in the market that we admire. Basically we're busy struggling keeping ourselves afloat, surviving through this hard time, we have no time to think of who are the model entrepreneurs.

What are your thoughts on the "secrets" to having a successful business?
You must have the right product at the right time, when the market requires such a product, and a good marketing strategy.

Do you have a suggestion for someone else we ought to interview who you think has an interesting story to tell?
I would recommend some of my business counterparts who are building architects in the engineering society. These are the people who also struggle on their own and make it the hard way. And they are also another good example of striking out on their own. You can hear their different stories and different trade.

Before I go is there any other story which you would like to tell me?
Basically for any would-be entrepreneurs the most important for them to do is they must remember: business is a gamble, and when you gamble, you must not gamble what you have as for your daily livelihood, so that when you fail, you will not be stripped to nothing. That is the basic, very basic stepping point that you must know before you take the first step.

Thank you very much Mr Gay. When the interview is written I will show you a copy for accuracy before we post it on the Community Net site. Thank you.
Thank you for your time today. I appreciate it very much. Ok thank you.