One Sneak Peek Into Finding Your Way in Entrepreneurship

Why did I start One Sneak Peek Into?

I found out that many of my peers had troubles identifying their strengths and interests.

And so I started a platform where youths like myself could discover the myriad of opportunities in the world and support fellow Singaporeans on their growth journey

I focus a lot on the stories of young entrepreneurs and fellow Singaporean youths who are relentlessly pursuing their own passions

And Chang Yao here is one of them!

He is the founder of Overhaul Design, which he started with a co-founder whom he met in polytechnic.

Both of them share the same passion in UI/UX, and they aspire to help non-tech founders build software products

The duo also teach designers about UI/UX and coach them on how to improve their existing portfolio

Even better, they are currently undergoing an accelerator in SUSS, and hope to expand to the Vietnamese market soon.

Here are some pointers that I took from our conversation:

1. Pivot if necessary

“I used to think of myself as a marketing person. But when I was tasked to make 30 videos for social media marketing every single day, I got burned out.

Because of this, I gave design a bit of try by helping someone I know build a website. When I was doing so, I never felt burnt out at all unlike in marketing, where I would run out of content ideas.

I learnt lots about design from my co-founder and from others in the Makerspace Club at my polytechnic, and soon realised that UI/UX consisted a lot of helping people build ideas that they would be satisfied with. And I enjoy doing this.”

2. Shared vision of founders

“I put a huge emphasis on whether the vision for both founders is similar. My co-founder and I have had very little conflicts thus far, as both of us share a passion for design and we ‘vibe’ at the same level.

We solve conflicts from a professional standpoint by letting results speak for themselves. When we have conflicting views, we would try to test things out and experiment to see how things go.”

3. Benefits of having mentors

“We got some mentors from all the mentoring opportunities provided by the school, but the really good mentors, those come from networking events.

Overhaul does not have social media accounts, nor a website, so how we market services is through connections. And many of these connections, we derive from our mentors.

At networking events, one person out of every 50 is there just to impart knowledge instead of doing business.

These people have been through hell just to get to where they are, and mixing with them gave me a perspective of where to go and where not to go.”

4. Exploring as much as you can

“Strive to do (explore) as much as you can, so in the future if something does happen, you will be glad that you did what you did. Even if that something is not your passion at the moment or not what you like, there is a possibility that you will be grateful for the experience down the road.

I got this advice from a guy who started off as a private chef, but was then referred to an AI startup as he happened to be learning coding at the time. He is now running a 20-man strong team.”

Connect with Chang Yao: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chai-chang-yao/

Join our telegram channel: https://t.me/onesneakpeekinto

Stay tuned for more insights from our interview series as we continue to explore the stories of trailblazers breaking barriers and redefining success.