Are you blessed from a financially rich family? To be honest, I feel that in order for you to be able to successfully create a startup, you will already have some sort of affluence. Am I wrong?

Rather than poor or rich, i think the main issue is whether there's immediate family needs that the person needs to take care of. When starting a company, it requires upfront capital + low salary (for some time) + long hours. So if you have commitments (need to look after child) or financial obligations (need to feed your parents, spouse, children), then it's going to be tough.

Hi Anon,

I came from your average middle-class Singaporean family. My father was a tailor who emigrated from Malaysia at the age of 18, and he was the main breadwinner while my mother took care of the home-front. She did take on part-time jobs as expenses grew in pace with us. Life wasn’t a complete struggle, but I knew that money wasn’t easy to come by—so I often thought up ways to earn it.

The Internet back then was a whole new world ready for exploring, and it drew me in. At 15, I taught myself to design and build websites. Realising that I could make some money through that was the icing plus cherry on top! By the age of 17, I’d started a blogshop to earn some pocket money on the side. From selling clothes and accessories online, I was earning between $1,000 and $3,000 a month. Thankfully, my parents didn’t push me to only focus on education and instead allowed me the freedom to do what I thought best for myself.

In the ensuing years, I did internships and work experience programmes both in Singapore and London, and those allowed me the opportunity to dive deeper into my interest in technology. I learnt how to build applications and websites; I even learnt video editing on the job. But while I had an interest in the technical side of things, I knew that where I really wanted to be was in business. It was what I could do for the end consumer that pulled me to that field.