Entrepreneurship: Separating myth from reality

For youths entering the working world, the idea of starting their own business can be appealing.

But what is it like being an entrepreneur? Five entrepreneurs will offer insights on how they started and the challenges they constantly have to overcome at a Oct 24 forum co-organised by TODAY and NUS Business School’s Think Business.  Here, three of the panellists who will be at the forum share how their entrepreneurial journeys began.

Vishnu Vasudeven, co-founder and Chief Development Officer of global relocation platform Moovaz

I’ve always had the entrepreneurship bug in me and started my first venture, an online bespoke tailoring platform, straight after finishing NUS Business school.

REIZO was borne out of my passion for bespoke fashion and technology. After it was acquired in 2012, I shifted my focus to the international relocation industry where I founded Tech Asia Logistics, a sub-contractor servicing some of the largest relocation companies in the world.

What quickly became obvious, was that the relocation industry was stuck - processes were highly manual and there was an extremely limited degree of digitalisation and automation.

After several discussions with former NUS classmates - all of them experienced entrepreneurs - we decided the time was write to develop the technology ourselves to make moving simpler and stress-free. The result is a Moovaz – a business that has so far helped more than 10,000 professionals and families relocate.

One of the biggest challenges for young businesses is attracting and retaining talent. You can have the best and most innovative technology, but to cement your competitive advantage you still need great, high-performing people behind it.

One thing I and my co-founders at Moovaz believe is that in a world of constant change, adaptability and agility are key. That means investing in and empowering a strong and united team, giving them the skills, resources and knowledge to drive the business forward and develop themselves at the same time.

As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to become disorientated by the hundreds of different tasks demanding your attention every day. That’s why it’s important to always refer back to your “why” – the core purpose and inspiration for starting the venture in the first place.

Having that focus on a common goal is what unites our team and keeps us going.

Kavita Dasgupta, founder of bedding and textile brand Feroza Designs

I started my entrepreneurial journey when I was working at a large multinational in Singapore. It was two years after I graduated with an MBA from NUS Business School, and it was exactly the sort of job I thought I would be doing: stable, big, corporate.

But the seed of an idea had taken root in my mind, and it just wouldn't go away. And so Feroza Designs, my bedding and textiles brand, was born.

I designed my first collection by working nights and weekends, while I still had a day job. I knew exactly what I wanted the products and design to be, and I spent many weeks scouring the internet and then markets and block printers in India to bring my vision to fruition.

When I started, I didn't think about how to scale or where I would find my ideal co-founder.

I didn't anticipate the long hours, the emotional and financial rollercoaster it would be, or the loneliness that would come from being a solo business founder.

There are many lessons I’ve learned from my entrepreneurial journey. Here are three of them:

1. Trust your gut when making decisions. No one knows my brand better than me - I have focused on every last detail and have a very clear idea of what the brand is. I used to reach out to people and ask what they thought of certain decisions – and when their input was different from what I had in mind it would knock my confidence. But I always ended up following my gut and it has served me well.

2. Sometimes you have to put aside what is not working, even if it costs you, and start again. I had hired a very costly company to create the website for me. It turned out to be my worst mistake as I lost control of the store’s backend, meaning every change I wanted to make, however small, had to go through them – and for a fee. I ended up taking it down and creating the website myself from scratch on Shopify.

3. Don’t listen to the naysayers. When I first thought of starting this business I had so many people quote me statistics on how so many small/new businesses don’t survive, how I should do a ‘beta’ or a full market analysis before launching or find a partner who has done something like this before etc. But if you have a strong concept and a passion for it – just do it!

David Pong, CEO & co-founder of social enterprise WateROAM

Four years ago I gave up two jobs in estate planning and financial advice, as well as a food start-up, and took the plunge into the clean water industry.

Teaming up with two friends from NUS, we founded WateROAM – a Singapore-based social enterprise that aims to bring safe drinking water to poor rural communities and people in areas hit by disasters.

Building on our education in environmental engineering and business management, we developed a lightweight, low-cost filtration system as a sustainable alternative to bottled water.

Since then, our filters have been refined, redesigned and field-tested, making them as lightweight, quick to install and easy to maintain as possible. To date our filters have provided more than 70,000 people across 21 Asian countries access to clean, safe water.

But there is still much to do. Around the globe two billion people in the developing world still drink from water sources contaminated with sewage.

And there are many other pressing challenges too, including food insecurity; access to clean, sustainable energy; reliable infrastructure and even access to finance, justice and accountability,

In Singapore, the availability of high standards of education has given us many skills and nurtured a growing spirit of innovation. What we want to show at WateROAM is that these can be powerful forces for social change, tackling poverty and uplifting communities.

Having observed the daily struggles of people living in villages across Asia, we know that there are many more needs that can be solved through innovative products or services.

The possible solutions can come from any of us and change can happen rapidly when we are willing to focus our talents, skillsets and ideas to reduce inequalities and tackle the challenges of sustainable development.

For me, the biggest lesson from my entrepreneurial journey is that when we choose to dedicate ourselves to solving global challenges, innovative ideas emerge with the power to change lives.

The forum Entrepreneurship: The Hard Truth will be held at NUS Business School on Oct 24 from 3 - 5 pm and is open to the public. Attendance is free, and participants should register here. Besides Mr Vishnu, Ms Dasgupta and Mr Pong, the other two panellists are Diana Changhy, founder of boutique sports brand Yumi Active and Marcus Tan, co-founder of online marketplace Carousell.  All five are NUS Business School alumni.