1. Hello! What’s your current role in your start-up, and how did your past experiences take you here?
As the company’s founder my primary focus is growing our core team and global network of over 70 consulting professionals. A background in engineering draws me towards building solutions that optimise processes, eliminate waste and generate value.
My first start-up was a high-technology water treatment company that went bust in under a year. Working for and with other multinationals, government organizations and start-ups since then has provided firm grounding in reality. I no longer look only for long-term hypothetical value. Revenue and profitability are critical elements of business success – only a handful of unicorns manage to skirt this. Lining near and long-term value up has been an exciting process at BiTS.
2. Which 3 words would describe you best?
Form follows function.
3. How did you come up with the idea? And what problem is your start-up trying to solve?
Out of necessity. Under a Singapore-Myanmar JV two of our largest clients were looking at multiple seven-digit proposals for enterprise resource planning systems. We used open source tools to deliver a set of solutions for less than a fraction of the cost. BiTS was a natural spin-off from this effort. Moving the know-how and technology to Singapore – a market full of SMEs that desperately need to modernize themselves.
4. How long did your start-up take to finish development?
7 months of sleepless nights to get our SaaS platform up and running.
5. What are your preferred platforms/tools?
Azure, Jenkins, GIT and anything that fits in with our agile development philosophy. We use tools that encourage teamwork and accountability. This helps us to scale globally and work with a myriad of full-time and part-time professionals from around the world.
6. Have you gotten any interesting feedback from users of the app/solution?
Constantly! Users are always value-adding to the platform with feedback. Many requests centre around making the user experience more intuitive. We do our best to simplify the visual presentation of data, without undermining its integrity or shedding granularity.
7. How do you keep yourself motivated, especially during the low times?
Taking a moment to remember why you’re here and where you’re going. A strong vision is like an anchor – it can weigh you down if you obsess but it also helps you ride out the storms.
8. If you could go back in time when you first started, what would you have done differently?
Nothing – our team and business are the result of both stumbles and successes. Hindsight is 20/20 but it’s always better to learn and look forward.
9. What’s next for you?
Sustainable growth and incremental improvements. Bearing in mind we serve businesses, continuity and growth are their key pillars. Adopting a digital business solution like ours can be challenging for our SME clientele but it is critical to their long-term survival.
10. What’s one advice you would give to budding entrepreneurs?
Two things that have helped me:
#1 Give your start-up everything you have, it will take nothing less to succeed.
#2 Plan but more importantly do.
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