One Sneak Peek Into the Products of a 12-Year-Old’s Drive

After finishing the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), I played Growtopia with my friends, watched Youtube videos and surfed the net all day long.

I mean, what else can a twelve-year-old do, right?

Ryan disagrees, however. He entered the world of entrepreneurship right after PSLE as he wanted to repay his parents for what they had done for him.

He placed $3000 of his edusave and pocket money into drop-shipping after searching how to make money online as a teenager. When all of that crashed, he picked himself up, dusted it all off and finally hit a win with his first product.

But soon, he got tired of drop-shipping. He realised he really enjoyed advertising though, so he transitioned his business into an agency model in 2020 during the COVID period.

That sounds impressive? Wait, there’s more.

Ryan plans to create an academy for young entrepreneurs to teach them how to leverage their strengths and turn it into a viable business model with viable cashflow. He also intends to host a gathering for fellow young founders in the near future.

Not only that, he is a passionate songwriter that has been creating pieces since 2020. He aims to push out more music videos in the near future, and wants to release a full music album next year.

Read on if you want to know what goes on in the mind of someone so young yet ambitious!

Here are some points that I took away from our conversation:

1. You don’t actually fail until you give up

“You never actually fail until you give up. A lot of people portray entrepreneurship to be glamourous. With all of these in mind, you need to constantly navigate yourself through uncertainty.

There was one point where the agency was doing rather well. But at that time the growth was too fast, and my team wasn’t what I expected them to be. The average client retention period then was three months. I signed on quite a decent number of clients who left after 3 months and were very unhappy about the results of our work. The reason was because our team wasn’t what I was looking for. I completely forgot about the probationary period thing. And the existing team members were very maxed out with their existing pipeline.

The clients were of good quality, but my team members gave a poor response, and they were not really active per se.

To overcome this, I had to restructure a lot of things and make sure that everyone on my team was qualified to take on new clients. I would monitor them very closely before giving them responsibility. I don’t want the team to ghost me or the clients. I also put the clients on a first-come-first-serve basis, so who was actually qualified could work with them first.

I was also too trusting of others in the past. I would simply trust clients when they told me their recent revenue. But it actually was their earnings from six months ago. When I found out, I had already signed the contract with them. I learnt the importance of having a physical proof of the client’s revenue from these incidents. It is important to make sure that transparency in conversation is observed from both ends. That’s how you make a partnership work.

Things will never be perfect.”

2. Familial support

“I am lucky to be supported since young by my family, to do what I love. Back then, I had the time to try and fail. My dad is an entrepreneur, and that inspired me to become the same. I used to sit in on my dad’s meetings.

For my mom, she is supportive when she knows that it is my passion. But back in school, I was still studying. When I spent too much time on my business, my grades fell a lot and my mom wanted me to focus more on studies. She is more of a results-oriented person.

The biggest concern with parents is if their kid’s business is not sustainable. I feel this is not true because you can get fired from any job as well. I think as long as my revenue constantly increases, it is okay with my family.”

Connect with Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-koh-0a3b96230/

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

And that’s all for today’s One Sneak Peek Into

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