From tech noob to CEO of online marketplace

SINGAPORE — Six years ago, a moment of self-realisation struck Elisha Tan as she made her way home from class. “It’s quite morbid ... Suddenly, I realised that everyone in the train was going to die (some day), and all their memories and beliefs will fade,” she says.

That made her resolve to “break out of the routine of studying, getting a job and having kids and then die; and I am going to help people break out of this cycle”.

The 25-year-old is now the proud Chief Executive Officer of Learnemy, an online marketplace where users can take or give classes to people in their communities. Anyone with skills to share and teach can post an offer on the site — from guitar lessons to HTML coding — and interested students can sign up.

Thanks to that “epiphany moment”, the psychology major also went from “just (being) a cog in the wheel, to wanting to help people make a living doing what they like to do”.

After graduating from the National University of Singapore some two years ago, Ms Tan found herself back to class again — this time at a four-month programme at The Founder Institute, an American-based company helping to train tech start-ups. Lessons at the course included branding and fund-raising.

It was intensive and gruelling — “by the second lesson, I was the youngest and the only female student left. Imagine the pressure I faced!” she exclaims.

As part of the course requirements, students were required to incorporate a business, and thus, Learnemy was born.

Today, Learnemy sees 3,600 monthly visitors, with almost 100 instructors posting lesson offers. Learnemy will help match the users to their respective instructors.

Ms Tan admits that the website is not profitable yet, and while she did not want to disclose how much the website takes in monthly, she said recent earnings have been looking hopeful.

To date, Learnemy has seen some 420 users, or “learners”, matched to their respective courses. Not bad for the girl who had zero knowledge of anything tech.

When Ms Tan started Learnemy after graduating from Founder Institute, she wanted to get a tech partner on board, but failed to find “someone who shared the same wavelength as me”.

It was also around that time that she was awarded the SPRING Singapore Young Entrepreneur Scheme (YES) grant.

Eventually she “picked up coding from my friend”, and started up the first page of Learnemy — a static form for interested users to sign up for sports classes.

“I coded that entire page myself,” she says with pride. The page saw some 60 requests in only three weeks, she adds.

Even though she faced obstacles along the way, Ms Tan says the tech start-up scene is slowly evolving.

“It’s not as male-centric as it used to be, and we see more groups helping females who want to start-up,” she says.

Indeed, she ventures that being a female in the tech start-up scene is not the easiest journey. Ms Tan recalls having “to sound more assertive, and be less relaxed in my body language” when having to communicate with a group of male tech entrepreneurs.

When the going got tough, sometimes, a Facebook post was all it took for her to get help.

“(That’s why) I don’t think I am alone in (this venture), because there is a community of people out there supporting me,” Ms Tan says.

Indeed, she tells TODAY that the Internet and social media have been pivotal to her business, in helping to drive costs down and expand her reach.

While she is thankful for the opportunities she had while starting up Learnemy, Ms Tan thinks true entrepreneurship is still in its infancy.

She says: “The entrepreneurial mindset is directly clashing with the whole paper chase mindset. There are a lot of such programmes in school, but it will be just child’s play until the day people truly give up the chase.”

And while some have told her she was “brave” to strike out on her own, Ms Tan only has this to say: “I think fear is something you impose on yourself — if you were taught to fear (venturing into the unknown), you will.”