Chapter 1: From Daydreaming to Technology Businesses
Why Start a Technology Business?
I’ve spent decades building and working in technology businesses. For me, it has been a wonderful and fun experience. If I had to do it all over again, I might change a few of my business decisions, but I wouldn’t do anything else different!
It’s my goal as a serial entrepreneur, who others have deemed as being ‘successful’, to share with you my experiences. All my ventures have been started by daydreaming.
When I was young, I loved to daydream about what could be possible. I would see opportunities and apply my daydreamer’s mind to it, and create various possibilities about what could be done. Interestingly, while money was important given that I grew up in a poor family, it was never the most important thing to me;
it was seeing what I dreamt up coming to fruition that was the primary driving force. Thankfully, that was coupled with the need to make money which, in a way, funded my daydreaming and tinkering.
And in all these years of seeing innovation at close quarters, I’ve learnt that starting a business is about creating a need or solving a problem. I had a natural ability to see problems and daydream up solutions for those problems that I saw. I also daydreamed about how, from that solution, a whole business would spawn.
I would say to budding entrepreneurs that there’s always the temptation to get so attached to ‘building a better mouse trap’ that you lose sight of the customers’ needs and problems. That is why I always advocate starting by identifying a problem in the market place.
In this book, I will share a lot of my personal experiences, rather than solely base it on theory, to help get my points across. Remember, my goal is not to impress you, but to give you my experiences from the school of hard knocks, so that you can learn and profit from them.
So why start a technology business? In my opinion, a technology business is exciting because ideas can be quickly scaled up. A website meant for inter-college communication started by a bunch of Harvard roomies has more than 1.4 billion monthly users today. There is a lot to Facebook, but at its core is an idea that exploits the fundamental human need to communicate.
The key, I believe, to creating a good technology business is to ask yourself this question: ‘Do you have an idea that looks at an old problem in fresh ways? An idea that finds new solutions?’ Allow yourself to daydream up creative, crazy solutions. Don’t judge what comes your way, just note them all down. By allowing the creative flow of daydreaming, you can come up with powerful ideas that can be the seed of a great technology start-up business.
In the eighties, after college, with my training in programming, I started looking around and realised that mid-range computers were the current ‘big thing’. People were moving from the giant mainframe computers to mid-range, more affordable computing in those days. So we trained a lot of people who could build applications using a fourth generation language called Powerhouse.
Then I talked to the sales people in the industry. One of the things they said was that they wanted to build a document of everything they had done. I immediately saw an opportunity. At that time, I was a rookie at Singapore Computer Systems (SCS). I spent some time daydreaming as to how we could seize this opportunity. I dreamt up a way we could actually create a solution that could do all their documentation for them. I went back to my General Manager and said, “Look, I think I can build products.” Perhaps out of curiosity, my General Manager actually said yes to my initial idea.
I wrote (dreamt up) a business plan, and I was confident we could sell the solution. I was allowed to hire more people. In about four to six months, I completed a working prototype and brought that to market. My daydream had become a reality.
While setting up a business, you might dream of becoming rich and famous, and there is nothing wrong with that — but there must always a problem-solving element to it. Otherwise your dreams will be merely castles in the air.
Are Your Motives Right?
I’ve always dreamt of making things and selling them. I suppose the one thing that attracts youngsters today is the same thing that attracted me — an ambition which says, “I want to build something.”
You have to start somewhere. I have always tried to build something at every opportunity I got. As an undergrad in the early eighties, I tried to get people to pay me to build something and along the way I started building applications using Dbase 3 on desktop computer for clinics to manage their inventory, generate label for drugs, keep their patient records — that kind of stuff.
That was simply because that was a real problem clinics had; I saw the problem and came up with a solution. It became a relatively good business that gave me a good lifestyle in college.
When I’m creating something during my ‘daydream times’, the basis of my dreams is solving a real problem. You may not have to always clearly articulate your motives to investors. But behind every great business opportunity is a motive that says: “I will try to build something”. It’s important to get these basics right.
While this may sound like common sense, very few technology start-ups actually go down to the ground and do research about their customers. They simply think of a product and go and build it. The painful part is discovering months or years later that people already have a solution to that problem, or are not interested in solving the problem due to company politics or something else.
Do You Have the Skills?
I think it is important that people ask themselves, “Am I the type who can operate a business or the type who can start a business?” Because the skills are actually quite different.
A key question hovering around a new technology business is: Can you lead a team? Team dynamics are visible. Are people enjoying themselves being part of your team or are they rebelling? I can easily spot that. Are they prepared to die for you, so to speak, or are they prepared to walk out on you?
If it is hard to find people who have complete faith in their leader, then chances are the new business won’t go very far; because this is a stage when there is no time to motivate or mentor anybody externally. People must move forward and put in long hours. Once you can crack this, you are going to convince more people to put money behind you.
Be aware of your core capabilities, your natural strengths. These are not easily replicable. Investors will want to see that ‘spark’. Some guys know how to convince people and overcome obstacles. Others are very meticulous, and don’t say ‘no’, but get the work done. Be clear about what you are bringing to the table.
For me, I know that my strength has always been in daydreaming and coming up with creative, workable solutions to problems. My core area of expertise has always been in databases and data analysis. In my 30+ years of business I have always stuck to my strengths and found people to help me in areas that I am weaker in.
Gain a self-awareness to know where your strengths and weaknesses are. Focus on utilising your strengths and look at outsourcing areas that you are weak in. In some cases, you may want to get the necessary training to overcome the areas you are weak in but are essential to the future of your business.
Are you prepared to support your business?
When I’m looking for funds for a new venture, here’s some of the questions I ask myself: When do I start asking for money? I put myself in the shoes of the other person. When will that someone be willing to part with his or her money? When will I agree to give my money to someone? This gives me a good estimate.
The people who you trust the most are most likely to fund you first. This means friends and family. If you cannot get past people who trust you unconditionally, then your idea probably won’t fly and you really have to go back to your drawing board and address their objections first.
Assuming you are past that point, start developing your idea further, till you reach a stage where you need to reach outside your friends’ circle for money. These other people will tell you: “At least show me a customer, or at least show me a prototype, or at least show me some market data.”
The key is to be ready with the answers. I always do my homework. And if they still say ‘no’, then I ask for the reasons. Never leave without knowing why. Is it because this idea doesn’t make sense to them or is it that there are ten other people already doing this? If it’s the latter, it’s not necessarily a closed chapter; I just have to find what I can offer that is different from the ten people - my USP, in other words.
USP stands for unique selling proposition. It is what makes you different to everyone out there.
To create your USP, you will need to ponder upon this question: “Why should someone buy from me instead of from anybody else?” The more thought you put into this, the more unique reasons you can come up with, and the stronger your USP will be.
In fact, set aside some daydreaming time to dream up how you can be unique. Better still, dream up how you can be so unique that you are remarkable, and people talk about you and your product with excitement.
Do You Need to Quit Your Job?
I always believe that if you can work within your means on weekends and evenings with like-minded people to solidify the idea, then that should be the way to start. Don’t make the mistake many novices make. They quit their full-time positions and end up having lots of stress due to financial pressure. Eventually they give up on their idea.
Do the math beforehand. How much savings would you need to sustain yourself and your family for, say, one year?
There’s a slight difference between ‘I wish I could invest but I have no money’ and ‘I think the idea works’. It boils down to demonstrating your conviction. Say, I’m asking money from a General Manager of a listed company. And he agrees. Now, to become General Manager the person must have got sufficient judgment to ascertain whether he’s throwing money away or there’s some chance that it will bring him returns some day.
That is a good indication that your concept works if he or she says ‘yes’ to invest with you.
After this point, once you’ve got the initial funding, your first bite, you’re already being paid now — so you don’t have to do any other work. Forget your old job. Concentrate on the new business.
So work on your concept on a part time basis, until you get some serious funding or generate sufficient cash flow from your business. Then focus on growing your start-up on a full-time basis.
The initial months of your new business are crucial. You and your team will work late nights from a tiny office. Tempers will fray. The future will be uncertain — but full of possibilities. It is in these heady months that your business will take shape. Give yourself that chance.
The Importance of Daydreaming
For me, I believe that daydreaming has brought me all the successes that I have as an entrepreneur. The exciting part is, you don’t have to have 30+ years of experience in daydreaming like I do to be a good daydreamer.
In fact, most young people and school-leavers are naturally great at daydreaming. They have dreams about how their lives might turn out and what they want to achieve.
The sad thing is that from being young, we are conditioned that daydreaming is bad. Perhaps you might have got scolded or reprimanded for daydreaming. You might even be told that you were wasting time. Possibly, your peers might even have laughed at you in class while you were daydreaming away!
However, times have changed. The ‘doers’ are the ones who are increasing getting less money and more stressed – and, in reality, creating less value for society and the world at large. Dreamers are the ones who seem to be creating change in the world, dreamers are the ones who are the most highly paid, and they are probably enjoying life a lot more than the ‘doers’.
Elon Musk and Richard Branson are daydreamers; they are changing the face of business. Lee Kwan Yew was a dreamer, he changed the fate of a small, backwater into one of the world’s most advanced nations.
Dare to daydream. Dream of ways you can solve problems and set to work on them. This is the foundation and formula I have used and it has never failed me.
So before I share with you my journey, lessons and many insights, I want to encourage you to release that daydreamer within you again. The daydreamer in me has helped me create many successful start-up businesses, and it could do the same for you. Perhaps it could help you create bigger and better businesses than I ever did. If that eventuated, then I will have achieved my dreams with this book!