Been through a lot of interviews asking me how I start up my companies, what is the vision, what is the meaning of the names of my companies and so on an so forth.

To be dead honest, it is an accident. I started out when there was no ISP in Singapore. There was a Technet but that was serving the academic community. There was no browser, at least not the type that we are use to. Everything was text based. The graphics are ASCII graphics. I think that was in 1994. I just know that I browse to a web site looking for Accounts Executives selling web hosting. At that time web hosting isn’t very common. The servers are gigantic “Mercedes” as it was known because of their costs. I barely know what is web hosting but decided to try it out.

I was still an undergraduate, I remembered having 24/7 access to the CAD/CAM Centre where all the Sun Ultras and expensive main frames and work stations using UNIX were. I was working on my project part time but doing the Accounts Executive job full time. I was lucky, sales was great especially when Netscape Beta was launched and web sites started to get popular. I was appointed Country Manager in Singapore.

I graduated and faithfully worked as an Engineer for two years. Never expected the small business I had started bloomed to so much that it needed full time attention. Really left the R & D Engineering field with lots of regret but no choice. It was really an accident. Looking at the prices of the web hosting then, I feel that I can cut it by 80% offering less features but pre-made with a lot of add on that were free and just left my web site to sell for itself. It was quite a Blue Ocean then

I started full time as a Technopreneur after two years in R & D Engineering just because of this accident. The web site was filled with orders without even advertising on the media etc. One thing led to another. Web Hosting is a basic necessity of a newly launched company. As such I got to know a lot of aspiring technopreneurs and entrepreneurs. A lot of opportunities here and there.

Looking back at the years of being a Technopreneur, 24/7/365 of work, molding grains of sand into a castle. No time you can call your own. The satisfaction of seeing your company grow and mature, your staff experienced and happy in their work, the feeling of accomplishment is there. Feeling of fatigue is also there. It is simply too fast pace. We are in a Paradigm of Change and the Internet is the catalyst of this change. We lived generations through the years. I am certainly not an Henry Ford but I did leave my mark somewhere, no matter how small it is.

Henry Ford

I feel that we need more Entrepreneurs and Technopreneurs. But all I have seen are mostly bright eyed teenagers who think that just registering their company and put up their web site, they can expect success. We need those who dare to get their hands dirty, willing to work 24/7/365 without pay with a Vision. In today’s era, no such thing as iron rice bowl and industries morphed and changed beyond recognition in a matter of years. We cannot depend on traditional employment. I looked at the entrepreneur courses available, taught by Ivory Towers academics, really wonder besides theory, do they know what they are teaching? GIGO no wonder the “entrepreneurs” and “technopreneurs” we are getting are of such quality. You cannot ask an academic or bureaucrat to promote entrepreneurship. You can ask them to provide their areas of expertise to entrepreneurs, that’s it. They can be of great help with their specialized skills and knowledge but it takes entrepreneurs to train entrepreneurs. Problem is successful entrepreneurs won’t be willing to be trainers. But some sort of mentorship is really needed.