This week, join us with Yue Ming, who is sharing with us his lessons from his first startup experience. Yue Ming was previously a founder of RecomXperience, a one-stop service to plan, coordinate and recommend food, cake, gift, activities and virtual occasion services for both retail consumers and businesses.
Join us as we find out more from Yue Ming about his previous entrepreneurship journey to help kickstart your own unforgettable journey!
1. Tell us more about RecomXperience!
The initial idea for RecomXperience was to develop an app which acts as a personal assistant to give curated recommendations for food, gifts and activities based on the person’s likes and dislikes. However, while working on the idea, Covid struck and Singapore was all forced to go into lockdown. That was when I started was thinking if there is something I do to help individuals and businesses during COVID-19 period?
This was when we pivoted to the idea of a one-stop service to plan, coordinate and recommend food, cake, gift, and activities to help couples and friends celebrate their anniversary and birthdays. However, I decided to put an end to this business idea as the business model wasn’t ideal and requires me to be passionate about event planning, which was not where my interest lies. Nevertheless, it was a decent experience which I truly believe will help me for my current and future businesses.
2. What are the 3 key lessons learnt from this experience?
The first and most important key lesson to learn from this is to identify your target customers, which you need to be as specific as possible. Next, you need to be very clear on how to value add by solving their pain point? After all, entrepreneurship is all about solving problems and giving values to them.
The second key lesson is teamwork makes the dream work. There is a saying: “A Great Team with an average idea will beat an Average Team with a great idea”. Every effective team should possess traits including adaptability, enthusiasm, selflessness, commitment, communication, and vision.
Thirdly, work with your strengths and passion, an idea that you truly believed in it, and you will go far in your businesses.
3. What will you do differently if your next big idea comes along?
Well, right now I’m focusing on my financial business and a Smoothies Vending Machine Business named Hale Smoothies , so you can call that my next idea already. Both businesses are what I believed in with passion and are alight with my strengths.
For my financial business, it was something that had already started on it from my university days. I aim to provide Singaporeans with unbiased and honest financial advice, representing multiple insurers and investment companies, with a focus on investments which is quite different from an insurance company.
For Hale Smoothies, we want to provide Singaporeans with a healthier alternative using tasty smoothies and providing convenience. We aim to tackle the problem of obesity in Singapore, which is the second highest country with obesity in ASEAN with estimated 1.7 million obese individuals. While we haven’t officially launch, we have secured the government support for our business with the SG Founder’s Grant. We target to launch by end of this year. We have done comprehensive testing during ideation and are confident with the business model and idea.
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. - Walt Disney”
4. What are the 3 key things that you think a start-up founder get ready before embarking on a new start-up?
The first most important thing is getting the mindset ready. I truly believe in mindset before anything else. One of the easiest and best way to start with a business mindset is to truly understand about the four quadrants known as the cashflow quadrant from the book “Rich dad Poor dad” by Robert Kiyosaki.
After that, it boils down to understanding your reasons, your “Whys” for doing a start-up or business. After that, it boils down to ironing the commitment, time and finding the right teammates.
Ending it off with one of my favourite quotes:
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. - Walt Disney”
About the writer:
Having recently graduated, Yue Ming is a University Sponsorship Award Recipient with SUSS-SAFRA at Singapore University of Social Sciences and a SAFRA Ambassador during his university days, while juggling with work commitments. In addition, Yue Ming is an entrepreneur and Wealth Strategist, which he started as a student entrepreneur where he won 1st place in the SUSS Impact Start-up Challenge – Manila 2020. Currently, he is focusing on his financial advisory business and a start-up as a co-founder.
Yue Ming is also a member of the SUSS-Alibaba Cloud Entrepreneurs. He was also featured on Lian He Zaobao, SUSS Newsletter, Temasek Polytechnic Newsletter and interviewed by The New Paper and Shin Min Daily News for his excellent track record and entrepreneurship.