Q 1. Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
Ans: We are a home-grown Singapore corporate services company providing professional corporate services, guidance and advise to new start-ups, entrepreneurs, foreign businesses owners who are interested to establish their business here in Singapore but have no idea how to do so or got confused by billions of content found in websites they found in the internet.
Our expertise includes market entry advisory, incorporation of the legal business entity, on-going back-office support (accounting, immigration, HR & Payroll), tax and holding structuring, and manage all corporate compliance matters with the relevant tax authority and governing agencies so that our clients can focus on the commercials and let us worry about the rest.
We are an experienced team of certified professionals who have been working in the industry for more than 15 years at least. These includes certified professional accountants (CPA), chartered accountants (CA), company secretary, certified tax advisors, HR and payroll specialist and certified immigration specialist, meaning your establishment is already backed by a team of professionals since day one.
Q 2. Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
Ans: I am a Bachelor degree holder, certified compliance agent, market entry advisor and a very seasoned regional business consultant. I worked for a number of global professional services companies in the past, helping businesses from different industries worldwide to establish their presence in Asia. Even if I don’t have the answers, I know where to get them for you so to keep things progressing.
Unknown to most, Singapore is a major and the most critical first step when Asia is your target region. I have helped startups, entrepreneurs, large SMEs and MNCs in their initial first step into Asia via Singapore, and eventually guide them expanding into other Asia countries leveraging on a proper strategic structure from day one, avoiding all pitfalls. Some of these companies are worth at least 100 million USD now.
Q 3. What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)? How did the idea for your business come about?
Ans: After helping hundreds of businesses succeed in Asia for the past 10 years, I was particularly inspired by my own clients’ achievement and courage in doing everything they can to achieve their goals. Through some of the success stories, I uncover the secret formula that you don’t need to do everything but focus on what you enjoy and do best. That’s when I gather a few like-minded professionals who also enjoy the same inspiration in helping others to start this company. We want to help startups and businesses in the early stages, that is when they need the best and most accurate advice, guided in the good hands of experienced professionals.
Q 4. What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Ans: 1. Focus, sacrifice and dedicate all you can to ensure you put in your best into your business.
2. Motivate yourself and believe that your business will be successful.
3. Be flexible and nimble, you know what you do best, but do not ignore what the market is telling you.
Q 5. What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans: 1. The ability to understand your target market or client segment.
2. The humbleness to ask for help when its simply not your area of expertise.
3. Know what and who to leverage on to ensure you get there.
Q 6. How many hours do you work a day on average?
Ans: Start my day early (7:30am) and mostly target to end at 5pm. I do work late into the late hours at time due to the geographical location of our clients from different time zones. General rule of thumb, I shut down my laptop when I am sure that I am not holding any colleagues, or clients, behind if there are action items on my plate that requires my attention. There are times that I am free the entire day which is a good sign that everyone I am supporting are progressing well and according to plan.
Q 7. To what do you most attribute your success?
Ans: My past exposures in the other global companies I work for, and the exciting clients that I work with every day. That’s where I gain my most valuable experience, and affirm my expertise when my clients are successful.
Q 8. How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Ans: Digital is key to my marketing strategy on top of client referrals, these two are my most successful form of marketing. One is to tell my target audience who we are and what we do at a global scale. The other is your own satisfied clients promoting your business for you, affirming your expertise.
Q 9. Where did your organizations funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?
Ans: No investors for now, this business is self-funded by myself.
Q 10. What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
Ans: Ensure you deliver what you preach, never lose a client due to your inability to deliver what you promote. Once the trust and understanding is there, that partnership/relationship will ensure sustainability that most businesses yean for.
Q 11. Where you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
Ans: We will operate in countries where our clients are expanding into. First target region of focus will be Southeast Asia, which is deemed to be one of the most complex region in the world. Company employee size will at least quadruple by then.
Q 12. Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
Ans: I admired most firms who cleverly identify market gaps, extend their business reach leveraging on data and the resources they can get their hands on and develop a unique long-term solution that create a lasting impression. The company I admired most is Grab and Alibaba. They both have similar starting concepts that eventually grew into an empire of their own.
Q 13. How important have good employees been to your success?
Ans: Absolutely important to not only have good employees but also employees who believes in the company’s goals and trust the management in doing what they do and why they did it. Only then, everyone will have an aligned mindset and common goal in doing their part to bring the business to where it should be.
Q 14. How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
Ans: Only if we identify that there is some similarity to what is available in the market whereby we can’t do much to differentiate the idea from others, then there is no purpose to insist and make it work.
Q 15. What motivates you?
Ans: When my clients thank me or my team personally with an email of appreciation. That affirms our effort, knowledge, and expertise all over again. It refreshes the tired mind and physical toll instantly.
Q 16. What are your ideals?
Ans: The idea is to build an Eco-network of like minded specialist worldwide who are willing to help others to be successful without focusing on how much money they can earn from each question. This is truly a toxic behavior in our industry which I hope to stop.
Q 17. How do you generate new ideas?
Ans: Listening and monitoring the behavior of my competitors and how my target audience reacts to them. That’s when I know what is working and what to fix. Knowing the external factors influencing the success of my target audience helps as it gives me a perception of how else can I help my clients further and value add in the partnership.
Q 18. How do you define success?
Ans: Success is when your team is enjoying their work everyday and client’s walking through your office door smiling. That’s when you know your business is in good hands and your clients are feeling the impact first hand.
Q 19. How do you build a successful customer base?
Ans: Always find time to touch based with your client and keep them as close as you possibly can. Always find out how else can you add-value to the engagement. I deem a customer base successful when your clients entrust you with more important work, getting you involved in their business plans and future.
Q 20. What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Ans: You decide your pace and goals, not hitting a KPI set by an employer that pays you a fixed salary. As an entrepreneur, you have an unknown drive and anxiety that is infectious, even strangers around you can sense it when you walk past them.
Q 21. What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Ans: Securing that first client’s account who is a total stranger to you and the firm. It is not only satisfying from a commercial perspective, but you know that client who trusts you is in good hands.
Q 22. What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
Ans: The goals and personal comfort zones are wider different. The risk factor that an entrepreneur needs to go through, and the level of responsibility involved when people committed themselves to support your goals are massive. You need to have courage and brave it through to take that initial first step. Without that courage to live your life differently, nothing will change.
Q 23. What kind of culture exists in your organization? How did you establish this tone and why did you institute this particular type of culture?
Ans: The culture is simple, open conversation always regardless of rank and position in the organization. Everyone is an important asset to the company and contributing in their own area of expertise. If there is an issue that needs to be resolved, we need to understand the impact to the relevant personnel and a wider consideration on all aspect is always recommended. An open conversation ensures that all voices are heard. However, there are times when a difficult decision needs to be made, hence a voting committee will be formed to enforce such authority.
Q 24. In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
Ans: Nimbleness. As a stronger believer that one solution never works for everyone, I want to be nimble for my clients and work things out in a win win situation always.
Q 25. If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
Ans: Every career point made a significant impact to my success today. There is always something new that I learn from every company that I work in, and the people and client that I have met and work with had made a lasting impact in my personal progression in my career or expertise. Given a choice, I will not change anything in the career path that I have chosen.
Q 26. How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?
Ans: Strangely unlike some stories that you have heard, I get to spend more quality time with my family, and I have also discovered that the stress level involved is not as bad as many entrepreneurs had displayed openly. I guess when you know what you are doing and how to make it successful (because I have experience it firsthand with hundreds of different clients in the past 10 years), you tend to be more confident as you know exactly what to do every step of the way.
Q 27. What is your greatest fear, and how do you manage fear?
Ans: There is always that fear of failure, you need to brave it through when things are not working out. Understand what went wrong, motivate, and pick yourself up fast. Focus and be nimble in your thought process always, approach it again head on.
Q 28. How did you decide on the location for your business?
Ans: The location of my business is not critical, as the main consideration for my target audience is the country I am operating and the commercial friendly governing rules that will help them in achieving what they want.
Q 29. Do you believe there is some sort of pattern or formula to becoming a successful entrepreneur?
Ans: Yes! An entrepreneur must know what purpose does his/her business serve. Even if the idea is similar to someone else in the market, the business must serve a purpose that make sense to his/her target audience. Otherwise, it will eventually be a total waste of time.
Q 30. If you could talk to one person from history, who would it be and why?
Ans: No one to be honest, the past serves as a reference but doesn’t make a significant impact to the future. The only constant is change, look forward into the future and create your own history.
Q 31. Who has been your greatest inspiration?
Ans: Every entrepreneur that I have worked with in the past. No doubt not every single one of them has been successful, those that pick themselves up and try again and again inspires me. They truly want to make a difference in their lives and is dedicated to make it happen one way or another. I have a client who have spent all of his life savings entrepreneuring, and his final effort paid off as he remember his mistakes, remains nimble and make better decisions.
Q 32. What book has inspired you the most? (OR what is your favorite book?)
Ans: Honestly, I had never read a book from page one to the last aside from comics. Words bored me easily. Stories wise I loved stories from the Three Kingdom. It teaches leadership, human interaction, family, integrity, brotherhood, team spirit and the different aspects of failure and successes in the battles we faced in our lives. Those stories are still very much shared today as if it happened not too long ago. The lessons learned can still be applied today. A true evergreen.
Q 33. What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made?
Ans: Believing that everyone have your interest at heart. I have learned not to let my heart decide but consider the facts and actuals ahead of emotions.
Q 34. How can you prevent mistakes or do damage control?
Ans: Evaluate the facts always, keep an open, clear and nimble mindset is the only way to not make the wrong decision.
Q 35. What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
Ans: I ride my bike solo. It is refreshing and those quiet rides help make some very critical life decision. Sometimes you just need to listen and talk to yourself once in a while.
Q 36. What makes you happy?
Ans: Having mindless free time alone or with my family. A true happy day is a care free day.
Q 37. What sacrifices have you had to make to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans: None! If my goals are achieved, nothing is a sacrifice to make it happen.
Company Detail:
Company : Startup Biz Consultants (Singapore)
Contact : Alan Ang
Address : 412 Bedok North Ave 2 #01-132 S
City : Singapore
State : Singapore
Zip : 460412
Phone : (+65) 6523 2574
Email : info@startupbcs.com