Weichang – “The Goal Keeper” in Sunday Times

Yesterday, Weichang, our fellow co-founder in SG Entrepreneurs, was featured in a Sunday Times story entitled “The Goal Keeper” (Require ST online subscription) under the column “A Life Less Ordinary”. We present some excerpts from his article and congratulate him on his fifteen seconds of fame.

Without Weichang, SGE will not be complete, as he’s our IT consultant and helps us to think about the more pragmatic aspects for our site. Of course, we believe that his story is far more interesting as an entrepreneur (despite him not thinking so — read the article). So here are bits and pieces of the article (note the highlighted parts):

IN HIS scruffy jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt, Lai Wei Chang blends right in with the undergraduate crowd chilling out in the Science faculty canteen at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Unlike many of them, however, the third year Physics major does not depend on his parents for an allowance. He does not need to, not when he is the founder of several businesses including ManyTutors.com, one of Singapore’s biggest tuition agencies……..

‘I put in another telephone line in my bedroom, and I remember starting the business there, taking calls, working on the database. We were one of the pioneers when we went online, we came up with ideas like posting tuition assignments in a web forum.’

Today, ManyTutors.com has an 400 sq ft office in Paya Lebar, and hires eight people to handle a business volume worth more than $100,000 a year.

Not all the ventures he started during this period took off. One was the Neighbourhood Health Directory which gave detailed listings of clinics and hospitals all over Singapore.

‘We printed 20,000 copies. I was undergoing radiotherapy then but I remember knocking on doors of HDB shops, trying to canvass advertising. But it was too much work for too little money.’………..

‘In the past, I used to be scared of rejection and failure. Now, I don’t even think about it. I would just go out and do it if I wanted to try something.’

He adds: ‘If you gave me the choice between a windfall of a million dollars and the chance to start something, I will choose the latter. It’s the experience of doing something and seeing it bear fruit which is more valuable.’ ……….

Lai, who’s also one of the founders of the blog Singapore Entrepreneurs, laughs at suggestions that he’s a budding entrepreneur.

‘I’m just someone who sees an opportunity and makes some profits out of it. A real entrepreneur is someone who does something which brings value to the world.’