Inspiration for business

When I was still studying in NTU there was this requirement to attend a few seminars in the final year. One of them was by two entrepreneurs giving their experiences.

The first one claimed to have won some award from MIT and pretty impressive credentials from all over. He basically gave a talk replete of catch phrases, jargons but very little substance. A few months later it was discovered that he lied about pretty much everything about his past. A fraud.

The other guy was more into the practical aspects of business and gave one good example of one of his friends who started up a small clothing store. Being a technophile his friend spent a big chunk of his capital on an automated inventory, cash tracking system when a shoebox could have done. We all had a good laugh at the lack of common sense, but perhaps it is a lack of experience in the industry? That friend of his wouldn't be making the same mistake again...

I thought, wouldn't it be fun to set up a business?

Of course, the real trick of the game is to find out what business to go into. In the beginning I was wondering, what are the kinds of businesses fresh graduates can go into. Internet Services? (mocca? another ebay?) Foods? (remember the graduate who sold chestnuts?) Selling aquarium related stuff? (one of my ex-colleagues). But I soon realised that something is wrong. You don't need a degree to do this stuff; If you really wanted to become a hawker, you should have quit at secondary school and sought apprenticeship with a master. Are people doing these things because they can't find jobs outside?

In any case, I needed capital, so why not look for a job outside first? Well, actually I didn't look for a job. The job found me. One of my supervisors whom I worked for during my Industrial Attachment during my uni days called me up. Well, he had a startup and it seems that he had problems finding people to work for him. I had nothing to lose so I joined him.

Well, that turned out to be quite a tumble, but it really gave me a big insight on running a business. To cut a long story short, it didn't turn out well, so I quit after a year or so.

I still hadn't found my idea yet, so after a much needed break of about 1 year, I contacted one of my friends in NTU for a job recommendation in one GLC. I turned up for the interview and immediately got an offer. Strange. Oh well, I was to stay there doing military projects for the next 3 years.

After a surreal experience in the business of killing - after all, machines of war (especially those expensive ones) tend to give out some sort of aura that stimulates awe in people. Having experienced an actual 500lb aerial bomb dropped from 4km away during a live fire excercise during my National Service (you could feel the shockwave even from there) the work felt a little addictive.

But military projects are cyclical. Projects don't come on continually, and if you're not on a project, chances that you'll be tasked to do support marketing and sales on bidding work. Come up with pricing, work schedules (now you realise why time estimates for completion are so wildly off).

Actually, that's where you find that, hey, you could do this component for cheaper than your vendors, or that the GLC could outsource certain things to you (non classified stuff). I had one business partner who complained that working with people there is such a pain due to insufficient information, but I remarked that the only reason why we're eating from their ricebowl, is their inability to get the thing done on their own. If their HR had spent more money to get more talented people, we'll be out of a job... In addition, GLCs have huge overheads and there are some small jobs that is not worth their time, and if you've maintained good contacts, you'll get something to eat from them.

So, with a contract in hand, I held my breath and jumped.

I don't see fresh graduates suddenly popping out to be my competition. My reputation is built up from years of slogging through crazy problems.

There was this inexperienced (but ambitious) engineer who thought that he could do a job that I had specifically mentioned that only less than a handful people (excluding him) could do in a reasonable time frame. The management gave him the benefit of doubt. He gave up in less than two weeks.

Okay, I found my lifeline, but I thought, there must be some form of innovation. That's why I wanted to start up a company of my own right? Not to eat from someone else's bowl, but to grow the durian tree until it bears (and drops) the fruit of my labours!

However, the inspiration was to come from a highly unlikely source. And that was after being rejected by a lady colleague. She was talented, hardworking, brilliant. Something you don't see often in GLC. Her language skills wasn't perfect but her technical skills were.

Of course I was upset, but then after one of those post-trauma self-reflection sessions I had, I suddenly hit upon a great idea. It was certainly not easy to implement, much research had to be done, but all the basic technical components are now mature. All it needs is a master to combine the elements together, a skill that I have honed to a bleeding edge. Again not suitable for fresh graduates. It's a secret.

So to end this monologue, it's all about getting to where you want to. Some people go for those iron rice bowl jobs and don't take any kinds of risks at all. I don't look down on those people, there are some jobs which require such a mentality, particularly in the QA and maintenance side of things. Just make sure that it's really what you want.