How did you get started in this business?
When working on a production sometime back, a few shows were cancelled and the actors were not compensated. Nothing was done to ensure that we had something to fall back on. That's what started me thinking about setting up an agency to protect actors' welfare.

What business was your father in?
My father was a policeman, then a contractor. Now he's semi-retired and is a taxi driver.

Did you consider going in his business?
It's my dream to be a taxi driver when I retire, because I like to talk to people. I believe people who live in cities, like Singapore and New York - cosmopolitan countries - are normally quite empty inside. Everybody is rushing so there's nobody to talk to them.

Because hopefully by then I would've made enough money so I can just drive because I like to talk to people. I can lend a listening ear in the short journey of half an hour or 20 minutes.

By 40, I would like to be a motivational speaker. Even if I cannot make it as a motivational speaker, then I can still do a one-to-one as a taxi driver. That's why I'm not afraid to fail, because at least I can still be a taxi driver.

Has your business always been located here?
I started the company with $2000 basically, as a sole proprietor. I started because I needed a manager. I didn't know how to negotiate with people and it's very hard to go around and say: "Eh I'm very funny, use me use me. Where got people like that right?"

So I decided to get one of my best friends. Her name is Soo Ann, she is my secondary school friend. I knew her when I was 14. Thereabout she was in the retail business. She ran the franchise of Ocean Pacific. Then there was some business problem with the brand name and they took back the franchise. She was contemplating whether to go overseas to further her studies or just take a break. Thereabout I just "conned" her into this lah. I shared my dreams with her about what I want to do for Singapore actors and the Asian actors. Because basically my dream is to see more Asian faces in TV and movies. The short-term goal is to see more Singaporean faces in regional productions around the world. Because the market here is too small. And honestly when you watch a lot of Asian actors in TV and movie, I believe the actors here are much better. I have a lot faith in actors here, which is why I do what I do. Because the market here is small, so its like the budget given is also smaller and cost of the actor they can give us is also smaller. Unless we can break out of this Singapore mould and get them to start going out.

We started with an office from a friend's warehouse - Trademart at River Valley, an undergarment warehouse. You have to walk through all the sample items on the left and on the right are all the boxes. Have to walk all the way to the last room - like a dungeon like that. I'll always remember the humble days. But I wanted it to be like that.

The office is about one table space. Rent was about $300 a month. Three of us shared the space - me and my two partners. That was in 1999. It became too squeezy. We all had to share one computer because we couldn't afford one for each person. We also used a phone fax. So if you send out something, it takes the whole day. 20 pages half a day gone already.

I'm trying to "export" our talent. I shan't mention how much, but, for example Hossan (Leong) did Hallmark's "Monkey King". How much he gets for a month's job is actually how much he normally gets here for a year. For one month and one TV program only. The budget is so big. It's my dream to have more of that happening in Singapore. More Singaporeans being seen on Hallmark, HBO, Paramount Pictures, etc.

In the beginning they were less receptive but now they're more open to the options that we can provide. There are a few reasons why I think Singaporean actors are a cut above the rest. Firstly, although all of them are effectively bilingual, they don't often earn what they deserve.

In this sense, Fly sort of acts as a commercial union to help them. We try to regulate the price, bargain for insurance, regulate the schedule, set the time limit for each day's filming, etc. It's quite appalling that the actors in America who don't act as much but because they join the union, they get things like royalties, weekly minimum wage, which, depending on what grade you are, is something between US$2500 and US$5000 a week. But here, you work for a whole month and you may not get that kind of money.

Yet I feel the actors here are more competent because we act everyday. People like me, Gurmit, Hossan...we act all the time. So there's no reason why we should be paid less. Even in that case, we have to work slowly. We cannot expect a big leap, so we slowly penetrate the market and we welcome them into using us. I just want the opportunity for them to be put on tape to be cast and then they will see the difference in the level of skill and technique. A lot of the overseas actors they have a lot of technical training. They have a lot of training theory and acting schools. I come from the school of practical magic, meaning to say that I've not gone to any acting classes. I've not been taught in school, I didn't go overseas to study drama or anything. It's a lot of practice and a lot of "feel" and instinct. A lot of actors here are like that. How many parents can afford to send their child away for drama classes unless you have a scholarship?

So a lot of them here start from the lowest rung, working part-time, from bit parts, or they model and you get the exposure from there. So these people come with experience. Like Gurmit, he only got Phua Chu Kang after 10 years in the industry. After 10 years of hard work, then he gets something. Like Hossan (Leong), he was an engineer and started as a backstage crew for The Necessary Stage. Like myself, I was an audience warm-up for three years. And Allan (Wu) was a biologist.

There are a lot of talented people in Singapore and that's what I would like to do, to market the Singapore talent. Which is very in line with what the government wants to do. I hope there's more support in terms of training and more support in marketing, to get grants of some sorts. I'm trying to work on that, to promote the Asian actors to the States, Europe and around the world.

There's a lot of cost involved. The last time I went to the United States to just check on the market, I spent about $10k of my own money just to visit casting agents and talent agencies to see what the set-up is like. I went to Ford, Elite, ABC Networks... to see how they function. We took a little bit of what they do. I realised that we're very behind and I realised that in the States, if you're not represented by an agent, your application for a role goes straight into the bin.

So when we first started Fly, I had a lot of difficulties convincing people to get used to the idea of having an agent. It's different with a company, we have our own corporate lawyers, we have an accounts system and everything so everything is more in place. You also have more bargaining power with a company.

It's not like we're trying to make life difficult but we are trying to set things right and improve the standard. So the first three years, we had a lot of, "Oh you're with Fly, you have an agent one ah, ok lah I give it to the other fellow" and sometimes actors will waver but we have to keep instilling in them like, "Don't worry, you lose this one, we'll find you another one," because we have to believe in this. It's like me spreading a gospel, make people understand that this is the right way to do. And of course in between, I won't say we're perfect because we make mistakes. We learn along the way. We're fine-tuning and at least now we can say we have a mould already.

Why did you choose this location?
At first we only took the downstairs unit. I always wanted to have a shophouse office and then I bumped into this friend who's the landlord of this place. And the advertising agency (that used to be here) happened to be moving down the street to a three-storey office, which also belongs to him. He was just joking with me, like, "This place fengshui very good, the company come here small small then now very big already."

So I said ok, but I have very little money. I told him I only have this budget. He said, "Ok I will give you this budget for six months, but you be fair, if after six months you do well, you will have to pay the normal rate of (another amount)." So I said this is fair.

We moved in here, four of us, and another $2000 for the racks. We didn't have an accountant so all of us were doubling up and doing other jobs. We started moving in and after six months, we did quite ok so last year, we took over a unit upstairs because we grew too big. From three actors now we have about 50 actors under us and about 100 talents who're not contracted. Exclusively, we have about 50 of them.

So a lot of people walked in and out and we start to have a lot of documents after four years and a lot of accounts. And sometimes the actors want to have privacy and they want to talk to me. So the room upstairs is kind of like a meeting room for people and for interviews and things like that.

Did you have to get a license to do business here?
Yes we did.

May I see it to see how the government categorizes your business? What name do they give it?
There wasn't a category for this at that time, so we had to register as an entertainment company.

How easy was it to get this license?
No problems, because we had our lawyers do it for us.

How long do you think you will stay here?
We're actually looking at another place somewhere nearer to town, because we're getting more clients and it'll be more convenient that way. We may be moving out sometime in August.

Do you have any partners?
I have 2 partners - Marion and Soo Ann. I'm the founder of the company and I invited them to be my directors and shareholders.

Are they related? How?
No.

Tell me some stories that would give me an idea of the hardships involved in starting a business from scratch. What are some of the things you have had to overcome to succeed?
At that time I don't know if this business model would work. Everybody was telling me things like, nobody will need an agent, everybody's been freelancing, who will want an agent? A reporter even asked me, have you done a reality check, is there a market for it?

But I believe if you believe in something, somehow you will make ends meet. When I felt that artiste management wasn't bringing in enough money because so many of us were managing just 10 artistes, we had to change and set up an agency not just for stars. So what did very well for us was the economic crisis. It's opportunistic. During the bad times, everybody will cut away the Fann Wong, Zoe Tay, they won't have $50k budget but only $5k budget. It forces companies to be more creative with their budgets and not have to use the conventional well-known faces all the time.

In the economic crisis there's two ways we can do it, we can either tighten our belts or we try and find a market for ourselves. This was during the period where we found a market for the actors. And you never know for all the actors you may discover a gem and when the economy go up again they may be a star.

Basically I'm a very positive and optimistic person, which is also bad because I can mean I'm very stubborn. I don't believe in impossibility. I always try and I have a lot of faith. I believe that anything can be done if you put your mind and heart and soul and time into it. It's very hard for me to take "it cannot be done" for an answer.

On the other aspect, I've also learnt to be more flexible. If things don't work out, change. I'm open to changes. But if I believe I want to do something, if the goal is to see more Singaporean actors on international screen, on TV, on cable, I know I will do it. Even if it takes a longer route, even if I have to eat bread or whatever. My stubbornness can sometimes carry me quite far lah. (laughs)

What are some of the things you have had to overcome to succeed?
We were the first at the time so it was a lot of trial and error. We paid for our mistakes sometimes for trusting people too much, not having the proper paperwork. Or managing some people and when they get famous, because we don't have a contract with them, they just leave. So now the people we have, we will all offer a contract to them. We will also sometimes contract the wrong people. After we contract them, then we realise they're not so good. So now, we have a probation period for our actors. So we learn along the way and we get better and sharper.

The other hardship we had is with clients, like events and production houses and advertising agencies, who do not believe in having to deal with a corporation because they know they cannot get away with a lot of things. But eventually we managed to get them to come to Fly first, because it's the most efficient way to cast for talents. Before that they used to find people off the streets, who were not tried-and-tested. It took us a lot of time to get good people to join us. So that there's quality and people know that if I want to get the best in the market I have to go to Fly.

Tell me some stories of your best day in business.
When Beatrice won the Best Director for ST Life! Theatre awards. It makes me happy to see people realise their dreams. Not so much like how much money they bring in. To me, it's not how much this artiste can bring in but how much he loves his job and how much he appreciates us. There are some artistes who only make $10k a year then they have to find a full time job. But we still keep them because we know they just don't have the luck or timing but they're really passionate about their work.

One of the best days we held at Centro our 3rd anniversary dinner. All my artistes came and we had a show and we invited everybody who had helped us. I was very happy because I never thought I would come this far and I started with just a belief and $2000. Since then, it's grown to be a proper company and from three of us it's grown to eight staff. We also have 50 over artistes. We have a pool of freelance people. Not only do we give jobs to the actors, we also give jobs to the theatre people like backstage people so that sometimes their concepts can be developed.

Another best day was wooing Allan Wu. I just met him last year in July or August. For three months I relentlessly went after him. I knew this guy has got it. He's like, "I'm a model, I'm not interested to act. I've been to Hong Kong and I don't like this line. I wanna go back to States." Until I convinced him to give it a shot and through many actions of mine, he finally agreed and we managed to clinch an acting contract for him with MediaCorp.

What makes me happy is when my casting managers tell me which actor has got a lead part and some young actor has got a role. Like this new boy in Moulmein High, his name is Lawrence, he's a very nice boy and he's very young and I see a lot of potential in him. He got the Moulmein High role and now a lot of people giving attention to him because apparently he acted very well in the show and we get fan mail and all that. It makes me very happy to be able to make a difference and to be able to see that I can be part of somebody's dream.

What about your worst day?
We've been accused of things that are not true. There was once we went for an overseas job. It was our first time so we negotiated with the artiste such that the artiste fee and the package price (air tickets, etc) is different. Then the artiste went over and said that we should only take 20% of the deal and pay for her air tickets as well. It was just a matter of misunderstanding in calculation but then she went around and said we cheat her money. And I know in my life I've never cheated anyone. It's not my principle or religion. Just because they think they are stars or they want to get out of the contract because they got offers from overseas, they try to find faults. These are heartbreaks. It's not so much the money. The money is very little, a couple of hundred of dollars only. I could pay her the money. It's just that the whole incident was ugly.

That's why from then on we're very careful with our accounts. Last time we don't even have an accountant. The manager also do the accounts. Now we have a proper setup, we have accounts, we have corporate advisors and lawyers. I realise we have to spend that kind of business money. We started just like a few friends getting together to do something, believing in our vision but it's now become a proper business and we're talking about expenses and stuff like that as well.

And there are also some people who get famous we terminate their contract because they think that after they become stars their egos come in. It gives me heart pains because I've spent a lot of time with these people. Basically I love people and to me, I give my heart. I don't just give my time. I give my heart and listen to your problems. But when times are bad and you turn your back on me. I was very affected initially but now I take it that I look at all the people I have worked with and there are good and bad.

A lot of heartaches. Sometimes actors don't understand. They like don't trust us and ask, "How come so little money?" I saw how my managers work and saw how they bargain with people, try to get $10 more, $20 more. It makes a difference. Basically $10 more the difference is just $2 to Fly because we take 20% from them, but we want to get the best deal and the best prices for them. A lot of times we always tell the actors. 80% belongs to you, so 80% of the effort should come from you. We can only help bridge the gap and lead the way and help the market. But ultimately whether people want to use you again, whether people love working with you, you have a reputation, it very much depends on you when you're on the job.

Some actors they just get jobs non-stop. And never stop working. Like Beatrice, Allan and myself. Some actors don't have much things to do. And they're all managed by Fly. So you can't say Fly is no good, because we have talents who have in 1 year done 5 series and you also have actors who have only done 1 thing the whole year. For myself, Fly hardly needs to manage me. They only do the negotiation part for me and manage my schedule, because I have a very tight schedule, from my business to my acting. So they just have to regulate the schedule. Last year I was working every day and I only had three off-days in 2001, because I was hosting National Day and I had 2MM and PCK. I did so many things.

Now that PCK has ended, I have some time and I am joining this Chinese program called "Discover Australia". It's like Amazing Race in Australia. It's Amazing Race meets Survivor meets Fear Factor. At the end of everyday you vote out one person. Whoever is left in the team at the end gets to share the pool money.

I'm also thinking of venturing into the Mandarin market.

Did you have the capital to start the business or did you borrow it from someone to get started?
I've been very fortunate because when I started acting I was still in insurance and still had some savings. Acting didn't pay in the first three years. Thank God the show that I'm in took off and I made a bit of money and the commercial deals came in.

The difficult point of my life is to struggle between acting and running and planning the business because I have no knowledge of business management at all. I learnt through mistakes and I talked to lawyers and I talked to other people and from there I learnt about expenditure and how to keep your budget and all that.

It's ok if you don't know things or have to ask. Don't have to be paiseh or act like you know all the time. People are more willing to share with you. Then you can learn. If pride comes in, you never learn anything. You have to have a learning attitude all the time. I'm an actor what, so if I don't know accounts it's ok.

I've learnt so much in this 4 years I don't think schools have ever taught me. Business plans, marketing proposals, press releases all these things I had to do on my own and study and watch other people and digest and form my own style. And also things like managing staff, human resource management, up to the point like leave, insurance coverage, bonus calculation, all these things I had to learn.

I also learnt through the lessons of trusting people wrongly and leaving everything to someone. And the end of the day, as the boss of a company you need to know and these kind of things you cannot sacrifice and leave it to other people.

No doubt you employ people to do but you must be hands-on and you must know everything that goes on in the company. It's not like I'm kiasu or what but I have to know what's going on.

Now I ask for monthly sales report and expenditure reports, monitoring it regularly is better than getting a shock at the end of the year and going, "Oh shit you mean we don't have money already." Now I look at cash flow and bank balances more closely.

It happened before at the beginning and now I learnt from there and now I have monthly reports and I share the progress with the staff. If they do well I share with them. If they do badly I also share with them, "Hey last month we didn't do too well, what happened, let's look at the points".

I think it's a lot about positivity and encouragement, the way I lead. It's a lot by sheer faith. A lot of times things almost looked impossible. It's a lot of guts and hard work. I always tell them there's no short cut to success, there's only one word: "hard work". Not that I'm successful lah, but 1 day I will be successful lah.

Who competes with you?
Right now there's two or three other agencies, so the market's expanding. This shows that more people are believing in what we believe in.

There will always be competition but it depends on what you draw from it. If you use the energy positively, it can bring you to greater heights. We're moving out of Singapore, trying to expand. Now, we have a website, we have alliances overseas in Hong Kong and Taiwan. We have representatives there and that's what I do, to tie up business partners overseas. In Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia. When I'm not filming this is what I do. Plan how we can sell these people overseas. Ultimately that's my goal. They will run the local aspect, daily operations. I will head the overseas marketing.

Did you start as a businessman as a child selling things to your friends and family?
I always knew that I had a gift for selling. I didn't come from a very wealthy family so whatever I want I always had to work for it. And asking me to work at McDonald's, like $1.90 per hour, I will only earn $500-600.

Instead, when I was in Sec 3, my auntie got me this job to sell toys at Metro Far East. Apparently my sales was tops, even beating the full-time staff, because I was very good with children. Instead of just standing down there as a promoter, I actually set up my own corner doing storytelling and the kids have to buy the full set. It was in 1983 or 84. I made $1800 a month when I was only 15.

Even until the boss, a Caucasian, came down to see me because they were wondering who this part-time girl was, whose sales beat the full-time girls. I didn't even know it. So they came to watch me, and they were so impressed that they put me at the worst counter - OG at People's Park. The toys were a bit costly and they thought OG was a bit hard to sell because the market was more "heartland".

But even with that kind of market I still managed to maintain top sales. So every year they asked me to go back and for Sec 3 student, I made about $1800 so I could take care of my books, my bags, everything.

The training I got in school was at Outram Pre-U. I organised a lot of stuff. I was in Student Council and was the class rep. I hated to study but managed to pass my "A" levels and got quite good grades for my "O" levels. But I spent a lot of time organising Speech Day, Teacher's Day, writing my own script for assembly.

When did you decide that you would strike out on your own instead of working for someone else?
I was working for people up to a point that I realised that working for yourself is the best. When you work for people it's never yours fully. When I work, I always give 200%. But then when I get paid I am paid only 100% or 80% or 50%. I don't believe in that. I believe in fairness. I'm a very very fair person.

The reason why I joined insurance was that my boss told me that I am my own boss. If you work hard, you get more. That's why I worked in insurance for 7 years. But halfway through that, I wanted to do something that could touch lives and change things.

At first I thought I could make a difference in people's lives. You know insurances helps prepare for bad times, retirement and financial planning. But I would say a lot sales training and people skill I got from insurance. AIA provided me with a lot of training background in terms of presentation skills and how to study people when you interview them. So basically those skills will help me in my talent scouting. I used all my skills to woo Allan Wu!

And also things like integrity and dignity, I learnt from my boss in AIA. In insurance line there's a lot of, you know, they ask you to cancel your policy and buy theirs or whatever. So I learnt a lot about integrity from him.

So when I decided to come into this line I felt that this industry was very premature. Even less developed countries like Thailand and Indonesia have long history of entertainment which is more advanced. They have a system and they have had managers for the longest time. Over here we don't.

I started more on a personal thing, a manager to represent myself but as time went by I realised that there's more and more people who need this service - why don't I start providing this to them? When I first started I didn't how I was going to make money, I just knew there was a need for it. And so eventually we formed the events arm to create events for the actors to perform and to host. Or market the actors to advertising agencies to appear in commercials and that's how it all got started.

When I first started it was like these people are so talented but why are they paid so little? And why do so many people drop out of the acting line after a while and go back to their full-time job? It's because they cannot make a living. A lot of people. So it's always been my character, da bao bu ping (fight for justice) you know.

I don't like to be just a participant. I have to be an active participant. I'm always in committees. At one point in Pre-U 2 I was in 11 ECAs. I was Chairman of Aerobics Club, I was a school swimmer and I represented school for shot putt. I used to be quite a jock lah. A lot of guys liked me.

I love life. I think what will bring me far is not how much money I have, which condo I have or how many apartments I own. What will bring me far and what I consider a success is the fulfilment I get from changing the industry, and the friends and team mates who stayed by me through the years.

There will never be another pioneer because you are the pioneer. So I made the impact, I created history and that's what made me happy. We're the first English acting agency of its kind. You don't count the TV stations lah. To know that I can groom stars.

The first few years were very hard because I was very tired. I still have to do interviews and appear for shoots and programmes because I have to keep propelling the name of Fly you see. We don't have money to advertise so in my interview I share about Fly you see, for publicity purposes.

I created my own publicity so it's very tiring for me. We're looking at 20 hours every day and I hardly slept. But sometimes when the heartbreaks come in I wonder, "Basket why don't I just be an artiste? I make enough money as an artiste. I can go holiday when I'm not filming."

But then I will go to bed and I think, "But will I be happy? Will I have a sense of fulfilment?" So I think I lead a fulfilling life and I don't waste a single day.

It all started when my granny died and I was very diao er lang dang (aimless). And I felt very bad because she was the one who brought me up and I loved her deeply. At the time I was 27 and I told myself, this is the woman who brought you up and you owe your life to. She's dying and you've not done anything to make her proud. Actually I held her hand and I said, "You can go. I will not let you down."

One of the reasons she was holding on was because she was worried. She said I was always being bullied because I'm too gullible or I'm too kind. I said, don't worry about me. I promise you I will take good care of myself and I will do something to make you proud.

And I always share with people, sometimes the loss of a loved one can actually propel you to do great things. A lot of people get very depressed when they lose their loved ones. You can either take it positively or negatively. I took it that this person is so dear to me that I will always want her to be proud of me. So whatever I do is always for two reasons: I want God to be proud of me and I want my grandmother to be proud of me.

I felt that if you have the kind of aim to do the best, the money or the material things will naturally simulate themselves. I'm not rich you know. Because I spend a lot of money learning lessons or paying for my lessons. Trusting people, lending people money or investing in the wrong things. But those are valuable lessons and knowledge is something nobody can take away from you. The thing is I'm not afraid of failure.

This guy I met in Bali, he's a very successful businessman but he's very simple. He wore shorts and T-shirt and he retired in Bali. He owns the largest house there and owns 2 helicopters and carries hundreds of thousands of dollars with him because he doesn't believe in credit cards. Because he lived in the war time.

He shared with me the secret to his success: live simply, love life, if you're afraid to fail you'll never be successful. Go all the way. If you fail, try again and again. If you're fearless of failure, you will definitely succeed.

I only met him on a holiday but I just felt his words were so strong...from an old man who's retiring and who's been to the Vietnam war. He said: "If I die tomorrow, I'm prepared to go." Same thing for me when I do my business. When I fail, I will start something else. So I got the entrepreneur spirit from him. So I asked myself, how long do you want to sell insurance? Why don't you do something meaningful?

Plus the situation I was in because at that point of time I was doing insurance and acting and Ann was my manager. So I told Ann why don't we do this and make it into a proper business? And now we want to take this concept overseas, to Malaysia, Thailand, China. We're moving one at a time. In the next two, three years, there will be some expansion plan taking place.

I realise because I don't have this experience I will need to pay people who're experience to help me, either by giving them some part of my share. But I want experts to come in to generate business and make this a proper business. And also to help me realise my goal so I can have money to market people. Tie-ins and alliances to strengthen the strength of the company.

For Fly, besides the 20%, we produce events for the clients we will get production fees from there. Sometimes they come and ask for a certain artiste and we will just give them. But sometimes we sell them a creative or entertainment concept and crew. And we will put together a freelance crew and we will charge management fees. Some of the actors come from modelling agencies so we have to set aside another percentage for the mother agency. All these stuff I learnt throughout the years.

When you started what did your wife or family think?
My family of course first to object lah. They have been waiting for me for four years to be a millionaire and I'm still not a millionaire yet. But I think the business is quite successful because we have grown and we have now managed to convert a lot of production houses to believe that it's better to deal with agents and managers. The whole educational process to educate them to respect actors as a profession.

Basically my dad was quite cool lah so he was like whatever it's your decision lah if you fail you fail lah don't come and run to me. My mum was the one who was worried like, you're not getting young, you should spend more time looking for someone to marry. You should buy house, buy landed property. And I still live in HDB. You make so much money as an artiste, why do you want to put money to help people? But I told her, even if I die, I cannot bring the money with me to the coffin. But if I die and leave behind a legacy, it will stay forever. Fly Entertainment I pray, with God's blessing, that it will go on forever. At least we're the first actor's agency in Singapore. Basically that's my satisfaction.

What would happen if you got sick, who would run your business?
Actually I'm quite dispensable in this company. If Marion or Soo Ann get sick then we're in big trouble. Basically I'm just there, I will host event or coordinate stuff or look for sponsors or create ideas and concepts. My favourite part is coming up for concepts and ideas for an event. Like music and idea. Marketing is another gift I have.

We do launches for plays etc. Our edge is that we have a lot of artistes. If an event requires a lot of technical stuff, they will not give it to us already. But if an event's main bulk comes from the artistes' performance and script, we will do it. Then we will engage another event company to come in with us to handle it.

Like for CityLink Mall (event during Christmas), the whole CityLink Mall we got the scriptwriter and some production house to come in and help us. We used about 35 artistes and we made it interactive. So there's things happening at HMV. So you walk walk walk and suddenly this couple want to give birth in front of you and then you walk walk walk and you see this couple quarrelling about forgetting the anniversary and it all ends at the stage where they all got the presents they want for Christmas at CityLink mall. So there's a storyline. We call it interactive theatre. We come up with this kind of ideas and it makes me happy because we are doing things different. We're not just an event company that does D&D. We come up with creative ideas using the talent we have and creating jobs for them.

How does your business work?
There's two ways. Either we find existing talent. People like Weng Kee, Hossan, Beatrice...they are already established actors. To represent them and manage. We also have new people. We discovered people like Amy Cheng and Allan Wu. Models who are good-looking and we train them into stars.

Everyone of us, although the company is not huge, all of us we will just do the talent scout. If we see somebody we will just bring them down for casting. There's a casting person in my company, Ling, you saw her just now. She will screen them and every week she will present the new people for that week. Doesn't mean we will take. Sometimes one year we will take 5 or 6.

Last year we took quite a lot because we were in the initial stage of setting up the actor's agency. Because we started out as an artiste management only, and we realise artiste management is not cost-effective. We had to spend a lot of time for the 10 persons and the 10 persons don't bring in enough money for us to sustain the business. So at the beginning of last year, we decided to set up an actor's agency not for stars but just for actors and also to find new people.

What qualities that you have do you think differentiates you from someone who works for others?
Not afraid of failure. Strong belief in yourself. Be willing to learn and dare to fail. Also hard work and constantly upgrade. You cannot think that my business is doing well so I can relax. I cannot. Getting started was hard but its not as hard as maintaining it. Because a lot people see Fly and now they want to do so a few new ones come up. You have to maintain your lead so that people don't want to chase you anymore and give up.

This I learnt from AIA because when I joined AIA they were number 2 or number 3. After they got the market lead, they kept pushing and maintaining the lead and after a while people just gave up. Some insurance companies even left Singapore.

The other thing is good relationship with people, not just people in the industry but people from other industries. Like friends that I met through jobs, like some friends in advertising who use us before, and they taught me how to run a business. How to maintain and how to keep the costs low. So I learn a lot from these people.

The difference between me and someone who works for others is that I love to learn and I love to try new things. I love to experiment and I love to create things. So the spirit of building something from nothing gives me a lot of satisfaction like planting a tree or flower and you see the thing bloom. Wah, shiok. Like getting Allan and putting him on TV and seeing him getting voted for best newcomer. And then the fan mail coming to the office and people want him to endorse their products. From the beginning to the end the sense of satisfaction is there.

The thing is, even if I'm working for people, I have 1001 ideas. Like at Bloomdale although I'm the sales manager but I want to do the marketing manager's job too. Like come up with all sorts of new ideas for them. Kaypoh lah. But the kaypoh nature quite useful.

Same thing for Ocean Pacific (my 1st job) where I was the sales supervisor. I will dabble with the display give ideas and same thing for AIA. I always give skits for the training programmes and come up with suggestions. I'm not just a worker.

Although I am just an "A" Levels student, I learnt a lot more things than people who went to University because I just keep trying and I've been very fortunate because whenever I want to try I've met bosses who've been very supportive of me. I may get it right sometimes I may get it wrong sometimes but if I get it wrong they know it's a calculated risk and that my intention was good. Maybe if I do badly it's $20k loss but if I do well it's $50k come in. So they give and take and I learn a lot from that.

What would you advise young people to do today in starting a business?
You have to know a business well enough and you have to spend a lot of time in the first two years. It's like labouring a child. Even if you are successful initially don't be complacent. You must always get better until its stable.

Always acknowledge teamwork. Fly will not be where it is without Marion and Soo Ann. Some staff come and cannot take the long hours. Because sometimes artistes have launch at night and sometimes you have to chaperone the artiste on weekends for shows or interviews. Some people don't like the hours. You must always show your appreciation and I realise sometimes I forget and people think, "Wah, I so mai ming (work hard) for you for nothing."

I really learnt that you have to be very appreciative of every single person who helped you. That's why when we had the (anniversary) party we thanked even the first few customers we had, like Canon and MediaCorp, who took the challenge with me to start using people outside of MediaCorp. Now you see my actors in Moulmein High, First Touch and Spin. Celeste Chong and Fiona Xie used to be managed by us. People like MediaCorp and MediaWorks are very supportive of us and I'm very grateful for that. It took a while to educate them but now they're more receptive.

What do you do about retirement funds? You just save on your own?
I pay a lot of money for that. I want to retire when I'm 45. It's my dream to retire by then. One reason why I don't buy houses is that it's very volatile. Basically what I bought is long-term unit trust and insurance coverage. I think insurance is very important because of where I came from. I strongly believe in it and when I got out, I actually bought more insurance. Because when I was in AIA I got a lot of coverage for agents who do well. I left all that because I felt I wasn't being fair to my clients. If I can't give them my full attention, so I gave them to the people I brought in to AIA and handed them over to them.

Who do you admire in business? Who do you admire in general in any field?
My mentor is actually my ex-boss at AIA, who has taught me a lot. His name is David Ong, who's the regional and company manager. When he took all the young kids into the agency, I saw how he motivated the people. Even till today we're still very good friends and he's my constant mentor.

The other person I really admire in this business this guy called Wong Toon Keng. He was my fencing captain; we used to fence together. He was actually an MIT scholar but he broke his bond and set up his own companies like Silk Road Ventures and Asia Online.

When he started his business I saw how he worked. It was also timing and he had foresight. He's always believed in venturing out and by 28 or 30 he was already well known in Silicon Valley and when he was in Singapore he was already heading a team of 100 people. I saw in his office just him and his two partners. I think he played a big part in bringing the Internet to Singapore. I think he had to pay a big amount of money to break his bond, but it wasn't to join another company but to pursue his dreams. And he had to spend the next two or three years to pay back that money.

I really admire people who dare to dream, have the courage to believe in their dreams, and most importantly, who fight to realise their dreams.

Student Interviewer's Personal Comment