Why I chose to do my own startup

Whenever I hear young people complain about their boring work, I would encourage them to do their own startup. Entrepreneurship will walk you through adventures.

Five years ago, I was the senior IT service and security manager at JobsDB, the biggest recruitment portal in Asia. Just like any other salaried worker, I often complain about the routine work and office politics. Then I started to fantasize about starting my own company and believed I would be in a better situation than I was in then. As one of the founding members and shareholders of JobsDB, I witnessed the growth from a startup to an industry leader exiting with an amount over HK$2.8 billion, the best ever record in Hong Kong. This inspired me to do my first startup.

Initially, my intention was to create a product with worldwide influence. However, entrepreneurship is far from what I had envisioned and imagined: The road to success is paved with thistles and thorns. It is uncertain whether there were obstacles or surprises waiting around the next corner.

TeamNote was one of the unexpected gains along the journey. Two years ago, I took a job for a local real estate developer to develop a mobile enterprise chat app. My team and I came up with a security IM module for the app because of my 10-year security management experience in JobsDB. The app eventually became TeamNote.

TeamNote is an enterprise app designed to facilitate business communication and unleash mobile workforce.

Throughout the entire journey, everyone around me thought I was a fool. I still plunged right into my startup that specializes in mobile enterprise. My friends tried to talk me out of the idea of developing a mobile enterprise app because they think submitting an app to Apple’s App Store or Google Play would be the only way to success. However, I saw B2C market as a “red sea” because a growing number of startups started joining the bandwagon. In contrast, with the appearance and growth of iPad and my expertise in information security management, I believed mobile enterprise market would be a “blue sea”.

During my entrepreneurial journey, everything is more than my imagination. In 5 years, the number of staff in AppTask grew from 5 to 50, and after spinning off AppTask and becoming a standalone company, TeamNote developed from a secure IM to a platform simplifying workload for clients and walked from Hong Kong to Silicon Valley. Depression, loneliness and bitterness were on the road, while customers’ positive feedback as well as teammates’ support made all the hard work worthwhile. Looking back, I know that I have made a right decision after all.

It is still not clear what’s waiting for me around, but I think I kinda like the excitement of uncertainty. 

Note from Huiyi, TIA’s community manager:
FYI TIA Community! Roy previously did an AMA session with the community here. 🙂