Mr Douglas Gan: I learnt the power of networking in school - the more people you know who trust you, the more people will want to be engaged with you and that will help you build up your circle of influence.

Careers in Infocomm

Mr Douglas Gan was 16 when he launched this first startup – webhosting company PureHostings.net. Since then, he has been involved in at least six tech ventures, and sold five of them – the latest being web and mobile location-based services company ShowNearby. An “experiential entrepreneur” driven by a hunger for knowledge and a passion for the Internet, Mr Gan was conferred the Young Professional of the Year Award by the Singapore Computer Society in 2011.

What prompted you to set up PureHostings.net?
“It was 1999. I was surfing the Net daily and the phone bill came up to $150-$200 a month. The Internet bill was another $100-$200 monthly. At 16, that was crazy money to spend. So I thought:  Hey, maybe I could be earning money off the Internet instead. I was just one consumer and I was paying so much. Multiply that by a million, 10 million and so on…. Confirm can make money! So I analysed the Internet layers and discovered I could play in the space between the infrastructure and applications layers by reselling web hosting. Later I expanded the business further down into the infrastructure layer by having my own servers, racks, IP addresses, et cetera.”

What were some of the challenges you faced starting up the company? Was it difficult convincing customers to come on board?
“Starting was easy. I just advertised my services on IRC (Internet relay chat) and many people came to buy. But I had no idea how to hire anyone to help me. I was working 18-22 hour days because I received so many enquiries round the clock. I barely slept.

But when the bubble burst, people stopped buying services online. I had fewer and fewer customers and had to go door to door. Hundreds of companies rejected me. One uncle gave me $10 and told me to go home and study.”

How did things turn around?
“A guy I did some business with introduced me to someone in the precision engineering industry who needed help with his PC. It was then I discovered that precision engineering companies needed to fax hundreds of pieces of paper, and one wrong fax meant they had to re-fax the whole thing. It was crazy, I thought. They should just use email - much more efficient!

And so I went step by step, to try to understand what the companies needed – things like email, FTP (file transfer protocol) services, website, software installation and training, hardware installation and upgrades - and built my business around that.”

Along the way, you also did a diploma in E-commerce (Information Technology) at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. What were the most useful lessons you picked up from your polytechnic experience?
“I learnt the power of networking in school - the more people you know who trust you, the more people will want to be engaged with you and that will help you build up your circle of influence.

It was important because if my lecturers didn't trust me, they would be pinning me down for my absence from class - I liked to leave class halfway, and I seldom attended lectures. But they trusted me and guided me when I needed them. For example, when I failed my discrete mathematics, they spent countless hours helping me to get back on track. And because I gained a network of friends and lecturers who supported me, all I had to do was to ask a few questions to get many things done. Networking has helped me build the foundation for all my businesses, even before I launched them.”

What has been the most useful skillset or competency that has helped you in your ventures?
“Besides building up a network of friends who trust you, you also have to be able to market yourself. This involves marketing in all forms - public relations, marketing communications, design, presentations, et cetera. To build your business, you need to know how to market it effectively and quickly to gain traction.

You also have to understand what you need to do, to evolve constantly to be relevant to your customers. Observe everything around you - every single detail. Listen more than you talk. Talk to share and gain instant feedback. Constantly ask why, why and why. Then ask why not? Then structurally allocate these pockets of information into different compartments of your brain and mix and match to use them whenever necessary.”

When did you step aside as Chief Executive Officer of ShowNearby and what have you been doing since then?
“When Global Yellow Pages acquired a majority stake in the company and a new CEO was found in July last year, I thought it was a good time to transfer as much knowledge as I could and let go of the baby.

I stepped down as CEO of ShowNearby in October 2011. Since then, I have co-founded a new startup with three brilliant and very seasoned entrepreneurs (who wish to remain anonymous), and I’m assisting Property Guru – whose founders are my good friends – with strategic decisions concerning agents and consumers.

I am also investing in tech startups focusing on disruptive spaces. I’m looking at two kinds of startups in particular - those with a strong management team, or those with strong leadership skills, who know their limitations and have the stomach to agree to disagree.”

Tell us about your own latest venture.
“VanityTrove ( www.vanitytrove.com ) is focused on helping women get it right in matters related to beauty and wellness. Women are constantly bombarded by ads and there is confusion as to what they should be buying, with all the trends and latest products. We help them by gathering these samples in a box that's hand delivered to their doorstep monthly.

We are starting off the business with the monthly trove first and we’ll see how it goes from there. Maybe we may build an e-shop or an online magazine, but most importantly, it must always be relevant to our vision - to help women get it right.”

How did you go from location-based solutions to beauty products?
“My passion has always been the Internet. My first business was web hosting. It had nothing to do with online discussion forums, which was what my second business OhGenki was about, and that had almost nothing to do with mobile location-based services, which was my third business ShowNearby, or with my fourth business, a full service web agency Companedia. So to really answer your question – it was my fellow co-founders of VanityTrove who got me interested enough to join them!

I also believe that like my other businesses, domain expertise can be learnt, experienced and most importantly, can be absorbed via conversations. After I told all my friends about VanityTrove, within seven days I received over 18 invitations to meet for coffee, lunch, high tea, dinner and supper to discuss this new concept. They all fed me with ideas, contacts and assisted me in starting up the business. One of them even became my first customer.

The plan is to constantly improve, step by step. I’ve no idea how I'm going to get there yet, but if I keep listening to our users, we'll always get it right.”