I had a glimpse of being an entrepreneur at the age of twenty-one. Tagged along with my dad to work out deals to provide ten-wheeler tipper trucks. These trucks were to deliver red earth (soil) for highway construction.
The entrepreneurial bug bites again
As many..
The site was the long stretch from Taiping (in Perak, Malaysia) to Butterworth (in Penang, Malaysia). The deal was very lucrative. When my dad asked the project manager, “How many lorries do you need?”, his reply was, “As many as you can provide, and you must be fast!”
We were dumbfounded. We later learned that they (the contractor) were on a fast-track schedule. There was also a truck shortage in the region.
My dad grabbed the deal and supplied six trucks. The “capex” was only RM94 – the initial cost of fuel for us to travel between Taiping – Ipoh – Butterworth and back to Taiping. Yes, and the cost for lunch we had that day, was chicken biryani rice.
Early lessons
I received my early lesson in business on:
- Other people’s connection – OPC
- Other people’s money – OPM
- Other people’s company – OPCo
All these have their own pros & cons. When you have only RM100 in your wallet (even that was borrowed by my dad from my uncle), you had to improvise. I liked the way how my dad approached people who were strangers and asked for their help.
What can I do, with people’s money, to help people?
What killed a business
The business went on for two years until serious mismanagement took its toll. This was my second lesson in money/fund management. Also, in choosing the right partner. That’s a story for another time.
Due to this mismanagement, all six trucks were repossessed by the banks. Upon graduating from university, I came back with the hope that I could expand the business – was dashed! My father and his partners were not only back to square one, but they were also saddled with debts too.
My dreams or thoughts of going into business went “poof!”
Fortunately, I had a job, already – with my sponsor. Thus, I decided to take up the contract and serve them – for ten years. Then onto another job, and another, and another.
Dreams dashed
I put away the thoughts of dreams of being in business, for a few years.
Until it came to a point where I thought I had enough experience, at least in selling, with enough success. I decided to take up an offer to start a business, using two out of the three OPs above – OPM, and OPC. We opened a company that dealt with safety and security items.
A company with no real direction… to be honest.
Dreaming again
I took up the offer as it was Other People’s Money being offered here. A paid-up capital of RM300,000. To me, that was big money – for someone to put in my care and grow it.
The partner/funder took out RM150k after a month though. I was disappointed. I thought that I would have at least the fund to last the company a year before we secured some major works. Now we had to scramble fast.
Scrambled we did as we now were drawing income from this company – myself, and another partner. She was great at securing smaller faster deals while I was great at working out the long sales cycle kind of deals.
The sparks of a dream
Strategize
Now, with part of the paid-up capital taken out, we had to re-strategize. I had to look for the smaller/faster deals too, and we had to hire a salesperson who could hit the ground running and make kills already!
This taught me well that not all plans work all the time, and plans change. When plans change, you must be quick to adapt!
Opportunities
My funding partner had thoughts of opportunities in his mind. However, he did not quite know how to grab or realize those opportunities. Similarly, my other partner often had similar thoughts too, and she often heard things from the marketplace.
It was always often up to me to figure out how.
To make faster deals, my funding partner asked the question, “What can we supply the Marine Police?” I honestly did not know how that question popped up in his mind – and specifically, Marine Police, why not the police?
My other partner, playing with the oil & gas safety equipment field, heard that Petronas was going to use the fire-resistant material “Nomex”, for ALL the coveralls that were worn in its operations and plants.
“Just Do It!”
When I used OPM & OPC, I had to bring my own “gift” into the equation. After gazing at my belly button for a while (that might mean days…), one morning I just said to my funding partner, “Let’s go!”
It was only after he fastened his seatbelt that he asked me, “Where are we going?” and I replied, “Marine Police, Port Klang”. He continued, “Do you know anyone there?” and I replied, “No!”
He then kept quiet for most of the 45 minutes journey.
Say Hi!
When we got to the Marine Police base, at the office side, I proceeded to approach the “on duty” sergeant and asked him if he could help with a few things. He asked me to come back the next day as his boss, the Inspector, was on leave and would be back the next day.
I came back, alone, and within the week, I managed to get a meeting with the commander of the Marine Police. In that meeting, we found out that there were certain items – which we could supply – that were required urgently, for their boats to meet the safety requirements of the Marine Department, Malaysia.
That beginning gave us a steady business for a little more than a year.
Nomex — A huge undertaking
Nomex had been used by many oilfield service contractors already. It was expensive though – eight to ten times more than the regular cotton coveralls. Compared to cotton coveralls, Nomex coveralls had been demonstrated to potentially save lives. Thus, many large oil companies decided to allocate a substantial budget to Nomex coveralls, including Petronas.
When my other partner mentioned what she heard to me, my interest was to only supply the materials – the cloth, the threads, etc. We started our “sleuthing” work by approaching an oil company executive that we recently met at a “Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) Convention”.
Since he was so busy, we ascertained that he needed to eat, and asked him to pick a mealtime to eat. We agreed to meet for breakfast – he always left home early, skipped breakfast, and ate near the office.
Racing to deliver, in an unfamiliar race
The beginning of a huge undertaking
He turned out to be among the early committee members for this Nomex project. He informed us that the oil company did not do things halfway. It wanted to do this Nomex thing holistically from beginning to end! I thought and said then (after we heard his explanation) that being a new company with little funds, we couldn’t do it. We thanked him for his time.
However, just before we parted ways, he asked if we could do some research for him—on Nomex? As the internet was already decent then I replied, “Let me see what I can do. No promise though”.
We met again in two weeks, and he was pleased with the information I presented to him. We kept on meeting frequently, with more of the team members (separately though) until they asked us to figure out how to make this project a success. We had to collaborate with another company as we foresaw that the financial requirements were huge. There was no way we could undertake this job ourselves.
We did more research and were invited to bid for the work. We negotiated for only part of the package (the quantum was huge – beyond our capacity then) and a competitor was given the other part of the package.
A huge win!
As a young company, with the financial strength of our collaborator, we had been awarded a 1+1-year contract worth from the low to mid eight figures.
I had to undergo guerrilla training in fabric/apparel manufacturing as well as project management.
Financials
Trouble (financials) hit our collaborator. Our project funding disappeared as well as our project collections. We struggled for many months trying to make deliveries with the materials already purchased. Fought for the payments for our subcontractors while we ourselves not receiving any money for eight months!
It came to the point where the money we received from our work with the police went purely to pay for the basic overheads. I had to request my wife to go back to work just to put food on the table and make sure we have a roof over our heads. Dinner was consistently the roti canai/paratha (Indian pancake) five or six nights a week.
We had to surrender the contract back to the oil company. We couldn’t go on. I needed to find work again – to survive.
Know who?
Nobody! I hope from the police and Nomex stories, you would realize that you do not need to know anybody to start selling. You just need to be humble and able to say “hi” and work your way in from there. Have it in your mind that people want to help.
Taking a break
When it was clear that we were hitting a wall, I decided to take up another opportunity, to build another business (not mine), so that I could feed my family and let my then-wife use her hard-earned money for some little luxuries. Yes, for our son, ice cream once a week was a luxury.
I took a break from entrepreneurship. That break became nineteen years break from entrepreneurship. I continued on as a sales and business development specialist.
