4 Years Ago Today

I should have written this a month ago but not too late to write now. I have been attending to a lot of matters offline as of lately, including my plans to move back to Kuala Lumpur and working on The Mega Red Packet project.

3rd March this year marked the 4th anniversary of running my Internet Business! Another year to go and that would mean my business is one of the 10% that survived in the first 5 years!

Would like to see that happen.

Thinking about it, even though I consider my business highly successful and am proud of my accomplishments to date, just 4 years ago the business had started out humbly on a computer given by my uncle, a phone that cost RM19.90 and I was working on purely dial-up Internet connection.

When I say “trial by fire”, I mean it.

Up until then, the only kind of life I knew was one with scarcity. There was always never enough money and no matter how much I saved my pocket money as a kid, the savings would disappear through one means or another – my parents couldn’t give me pocket money at times that I had to live on whatever I saved before, I had to fund myself at times through trading game cards, and before I entered Form 5 I had to work over the school holidays to finance my school books.

After leaving high school I had my first (and the last, I hope!) full-time job for a whole year, and I learned how harsh and cruel the world outside school is. There was little mercy even for a young man who was 17 going 18.

In the later stage of my job as an office boy, I saw myself doing the grunt work of 6 people’s job for the monthly salary of one. Still, I lived frugally and managed to save slightly more than enough to start an Internet Business the following year.

3rd March 2005. I was about to face the toughest challenge ever. It’s like fighting the final boss in a game. Only thing is this is real life and the boss was… myself. My desire for a better life vs. the scarcity mindset I have exhibited over the years of living in poverty.

At this point, I had saved just enough to get a phone line, invested in web hosting and other essentials to start my Internet Business as a reseller. All I had left after spending all these was a month’s worth of savings.

That flushed out quickly and I spent the next 3 months eating a slice of bread a day with my mom. Occasionally we ate Maggi Mee and to add anything to the instant noodles was considered a luxury. Every night was filled with worry and I hadn’t had quality sleep, was always thinking of how I could make the business work and start making money.

At the same time, I was afraid of spending too much time online because I was on dial-up connection and every minute spent on the Internet meant a heavier phone bill. Yes, doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of money for a slow Internet connection but I had no other choice but make do with it since broadband access was not available where I lived (and I was living in a rural sub-urban area).

It’s a miracle we pulled through the toughest times we had ever faced. It was most trying for me because it really tested my faith and how desperate I was in changing my life. I won’t lie that at many points in that time, I wanted to throw in the towel and give everything up.

I wanted to go back to employment but for whatever reasons, the employment agency couldn’t get me a job. I contemplated canceling my web hosting and other subscriptions on the Internet many times.

Yet I’m glad I stayed on because it was a dream worth fighting for. It was something worth DYING for.

I wanted to experience a life of abundance rather than a world of scarcity that I had always known. I had always wondered as a young kid why my parents were always broke even though sometimes my father would do relatively well.

Now the chance is here and it was up to me to turn things around for my mom and sister.

So I went back to the computer and instead of limiting myself to going online for an hour a day (due to the dial-up being more expensive the longer I stay online) I used for as long as I needed. With all other paths blocked, the only way is forward.

I raked up a high phone bill of course. But by then, I finally saw my first sale. A few more came in, and the rest as they say, is history.

I won’t forget the origin of my business and how it came from a humble beginning. This badge of honor is proof that I have survived the breakthrough.

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