One of the great blessings I can count is the privilege of knowing a handful of successful Internet Entrepreneurs in person… BEFORE they became successful.

It’s been 4 years since I knew most of them, and I remember their ‘early days’ of humbly starting out as if it happened just yesterday. Time sure flies fast!

Today they have built outrageously successful, mission-driven businesses and set a positive example for others to follow. And when the comparisons are made between BEFORE and TODAY, it’s truly a WORLD apart.

This blog post pays tribute to 10 ordinary folks I know who went from having almost nothing to achieving extraordinary feats of success in their own rights, and in the process I hope sharing their story can inspire every other entrepreneurs and those in the making.

ED’S NOTE: My opinion in choosing these 10 people has little to do with just ‘making big money’, but more on their transformation to success.

I also picked these 10 people to make the list for other qualities like mission-driven, authenticity, and other traits you don’t really see in every common entrepreneur nowadays.

1. Khai Ng (www.AboutKhai.com)

BEFORE: Want to know how I met Khai for the first time? You can hear straight from the man himself here. 8th November 2006 at an A&W Drive Thru.

To put a long story short, I was introduced to Khai thanks to his younger brother whom I’ve known since my high school days.

He came across as a very determined man, this time trying out Internet Marketing and I so happened to be the first person he knew in this business.

What I didn’t know at that time was, Khai ran into a huge sum of debt as a result of the failed MLM programs he tried in the past several years.

I also didn’t know he borrowed from his then girlfriend (now wife) to buy two of Sen Ze’s books that I recommended to him!

But like I said, he was a very determined man. So we got into a short-term partnership to release 3 e-books in a limited time Internet sale… and we made $1,890 in 24 hours!

TODAY: Khai happily works from home, and has a team of people from other countries managing various operations for his online business. He’s free from the huge debt he ran into years ago, and is setting his sights on ultimate financial freedom.

In the past 3 months alone, he had released new personal development products under the Inspiration DNA banner!

2. Aurelius Tjin (www.AureliusTjin.com)

BEFORE: I first got to know Aurelius through joining his Give Away event called “Underground Give Away” in early 2006. After registering as a Contributor, Aurelius added me on MSN and that’s how we came about talking to each other!

Even though Aurelius started Internet Marketing a year earlier than me, and he was still working for his ‘big break’ by the time I knew him, I was under the impression I was working with a high-end guru! LOL (well now he is)

TODAY: Since then we became good online friends. We usually got each others’ back every time we do our own PLR Sales. Prior to this, we partnered up to do PLR Secrets Exposed! which even though was a moderate success at first, the site continues to educate and pull in new members to this day!

Though we hook up online more, we’ve met in person in Singapore, Bali and even Sydney when I paid him a visit last year!

Aurelius bought his own home and have been doing his own traveling since!

3. Ian del Carmen (www.IandelCarmen.com)

BEFORE: Ian was first introduce to the online marketing scene in 2006 and yep, I saw him as a total freshman! At least I had a year’s experience with marketing online and saw some results at that time.

But after Ian released his MobileEbooks.net (his first product) things skyrocketed for him ever since! This led to the formation and branding of what everyone now knows him as…

TODAY: … yep, Mr. Fireball. Internet Marketers who are familiar with him should know what a heavyweight Ian can be when it comes to affiliate contests.

Ian topped my launch leaderboards many times, rivaling even other gurus who had been longer established than him! His amazing speed in creating new Fireball branded products for the IM community, coupled with massive energy, impressed me even further!

It is Ian’s rapid growth from obscurity to visibility on the Internet Marketing’s “who’s who” that earns him a place in my list here.

4. Calvin Woon & Patricia Lin and 5. Jonathan Teng (www.IMBuzzCreators.com)

Writing this is a little bit hard. For one, I’m actually squeezing 3 names into a list of 2! I can’t neglect mentioning either one. Second, these guys co-own so many websites! I hope you find this entry acceptable nonetheless.

BEFORE: Calvin and his girlfriend Patricia got started marketing online in 2006 too. I was surprised that when I finally met Calvin in person, he said he first got his exposure to Internet Marketing through joining my website ResellRightsMastery.com! (I know, I should be flattered)

I remember how I got in touch with Calvin for the first time. He was helping to promote my 750 Traffic Tactics PLR package, a launch I did in April 2008 to fund my trip to Tehran, Iran. And that’s how everything started from there.

I was promptly introduced to his girlfriend Patricia Lin, and also his business partner from Maritius, Jonathan Teng.  At that time, both Calvin and Patricia were still going to university! They were juggling both Internet Marketing and studies at this point in time.

TODAY: I’ve met all 3 of them in person when in Singapore last year. And things are going BIG for the three of them.

Long graduated from school already, now Calvin and Pat has got an office of their own with staffs working for them, and they’ve been launching one software after another! This is on top of their successful Joint Venture campaigns with other people’s launches.

The Singaporean couple has also made appearances in the local papers, and I think they are some of the brightest young entrepreneurs every other youth should model after!

6. Semmy Wijayanto (www.InternetBisnisku.com)

Semmy will probably be surprised to see his name here, but I think he deserves the honorable mention.

I recall how Semmy was still dabbling in “a little bit here” and “a little bit there” when I met him for the first time, and when I was in Jakarta for the first time in June 2008. Like any story of rags-to-riches, that’s precisely the circumstance of Semmy at that time: in total rags.

But things started to change. Semmy learned graphic designing and took up designing tasks for clients, and used the Warrior Forum as one of his main platforms. Alongside, Semmy built a solid information business for his fellow Indonesians.

TODAY Semmy runs one of the highly successful recurring WSOs in the Warrior Forum. Last I checked, his WSO views go into the tens of thousands. You can pretty much guess how many customers and business he’s getting every month!

And if you have him on Facebook, he’s actively sharing inspiring content in both English and Bahasa Indonesia. Semmy is also happily married and I attended his wedding in Jakarta just a few months ago.

Now this is truly a story of “turning the tide”! Well done Semmy!

7. Stephen Luc (www.PLRGoldVideos.com)

I’ve not met Stephen in person just yet, though I look forward to the day we can finally meet face-to-face! Even so, we’ve been great online buddies for quite some years now, and God willing our friendship continues for a long long time to come!

My PLRGold customers should very well know who Stephen is. He is the guy behind the high quality Private Label videos – the one man army who’s churning them out and providing his excellent voice over talent.

BEFORE: how we connected online is truly a mystery of events. But maybe not. Here’s how it started in 2006: I was very active in the Warrior Forum and I posted up an offer to write sales copies for $200.

Stephen Luc was one of my first clients! So Stephen assigned to me one of my earliest copywriting job – to write a sales copy for his software called “CB Niche Builder”.

I was relatively a nobody in the forum and at that time, $200 was a lot of money to me. So I took up the job enthusiastically and finished writing his copy in a few days.

I heard his audio at that time and as expected, he sounded like anyone who comes from America. Mind you, I didn’t see his photo yet at the time so I was surprised to discover he’s pure Asian later, just that he’s living in the US since forever. LOL

Later on, he used my sales copy to sell his software… and guess what? He told me he made about $30,000 in just two weeks as a result of my copy! Darn, I should have charged him like $2,500 + royalties.

But then like I said, I was just starting out and I was happy with $200 already at that time, hahaha! This was big mental breakthrough experience as it made me realize my true capability of writing sales pieces.

AND THEN: Fast forward to late 2008. Stephen casually suggested the idea of doing a partnership to sell PLR videos. At this point, I was selling only PLR E-Books.

Truth be told, I had been burnt many times in partnerships for many negative reasons. But Stephen proved to be a very committed business partner and a valuable friend above all.

When I saw him going all the way for our first project together, I started directing all my efforts and energy to this venture… it was to be called PLRGold: Videos.

So we launched this new PLR package in November 2008 and we hit the $100,000 sales mark in just 10 days!

SINCE THEN: we’ve been working together! We also did the Mega Red Packet and early this year, we did a 4-Day PLR Sale. We’re also looking forward to doing a sequel to PLRGold: Videos hopefully end of this year, if not the next.

What I also like about Stephen is that he’s a spiritual person and mission-driven, unlike many materialistic entrepreneurs out there.

Stephen is currently making great money from producing videos for other top marketers. Man… how things have skyrocketed since the first time we met online!

8. Peng Joon

Many marketers probably don’t recognize this name in main stream, only because he uses his pen name most of the time in niches outside Internet Marketing.

I met Peng Joon for the first time in late 2006. At that time, he was just weeks away from resigning from a software company he was working for. Simultaneously, he was using Adwords to market his niche products.

FAST FORWARD 2010: he’s now also into investing in properties alongside a booming online niche empire, and I just heard he’s set up his own office!

9. Elle Wong (www.ElleWong.com)

If I am to name one great friend I am most thankful for, it has to be Elle! By the way, check out my Year 2009 Reviewed post and see the “Wild Goose Chase” part!

BEFORE: May 2009. When I decided to move to Petaling Jaya alone, it was around the same time I got to know Elle (thanks to what else? Facebook!) We have been neighbors since.

Elle was relatively new to Internet Marketing at that time and prior to this, she was in the business of servicing clients for website designing. We both attended the Millionaire Mind Intensive seminar, and I think this is where everything else truly started!

The very next day, we did an online launch together called “Brand Dynamics” – which pulled in $14,747 in just 3 days!

We went on to conduct our own Weekend Workshop 2 months later. And shortly after, we attended the Guerrilla Business Intensive in Singapore in September.

We came back to Malaysia and used what we learned and did a 7-Day PLR Sale that brought in $52,203 in sales! Elle also helped to co-host my first PLR Mentoring and Webinar program.

We didn’t catch our breath just yet though… next we went to Sabah to attend a Forex bootcamp and that pretty much concluded our main highlights of street education for the year!

I witnessed her handling all the challenges thrown into her direction, while on the way to achieving the ‘work from home’ lifestyle. What amazed me is none other than her iron will. She doesn’t complain and she has a genuine heart to help others. Only if more people are like her!

TODAY: Elle is happily working from home, and right now she’s working on some new niche sites… and an upcoming blog-related product too!

10. John Yeo (www.JohnYeo.name)

I saved this gentleman for the last to round up the list.

BEFORE: October 2008. I met Jhong Ren (that’s what I call him actually) for the first time at one of Stuart Tan’s seminars in AKLTG, Singapore. Jhong Ren was just starting out but I felt that he’s destined for greater things already.

Hey, note that this is 2 years ago… when this social worker was relatively a ‘unknown’! But you know the amazing things about having gut feelings? They never lie. And my instincts at that time told me to watch out for JR’s potential success in the Internet Marketing scene.

TODAY: In just one year JR had went from obscurity to building himself a highly successful Internet business on blogging and this year, site flipping.

Why I find JR’s entrepreneur qualities admirable is because like a hardened entrepreneur, he doesn’t make excuses. He’s also not one to take shortcuts over hard work. And in spite of his growing success, he maintains his humility!

Regardless of the different circumstances, background and challenges, what every person mentioned in this post have demonstrated is that if you put your heart into your dream, then no request is too extreme.

Thank you for reading… and I hope to be sharing YOUR success story next time!

3rd March 2010. That’s today.

It’s been five years since I first started my online business. And where did my broken computer and a teeeeerribly slow dial-up modem bring me to?

The steep learning curves I had to overcome.

The sleepless nights I went through, wondering whether I could pay my bills on time.

The very first online sale I made.

The great online friends I made, who would go on to make a positive impression on my business and my life.

Met some amazing people whom I am honored to meet in person… hopefully more to come!

The product launches I pulled off – some did good, some not so, but the few that did great made it all beyond worthwhile.

The rewards of time and financial freedom that finally came… which I had been fighting to get to since I was day dreaming about back in school.

The skills and lessons I had learned about myself and people around me.

Aah… What a journey it’s been!

I’m happy to belong to the 5% business that survives the first five years. Now the next mile stone: 2015 – being the top 5% business that is around for 10 years!

yay YAY yay!

You’ve probably ate Mamee monster in your early childhood days. Even to this day, children continue to enjoy every yellow packet of those crunchy noodles, whether they buy it from the nearest sundry shop or from the ‘Roti man’. Mamee monster is very popular in Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, several Asian countries, and some in Europe even!

But what many people don’t know is the founder of Mamee Monster, Datuk Pang Tee Chew, or also known as TC Pang. To your surprise, did you know that there actually was a time that Mamee Monster was close to not being conceived at all?

You see, Tee Chew and his father, Pang Chin Tin (who also now holds a Datuk title), met with a lot of extreme challenges leading up to the conception of ‘eating instant noodles as it is without boiling it’.

As expected, the idea was met with objections and criticisms. I could imagine that people thought it was a stupid idea. In fact, their main supplier commented that the idea ‘would never work’. Man, who would believe that Mamee Monster was thought to be a stupid idea back then? Today, it’s a generally accepted idea.

Now at this point, the father and son could have given in to the objections. And perhaps we would now be living in a world without those bright yellow packets on sundry shops, shopping malls and the Bread Man.

But they went ahead… and the rest, as they say, is history.

Today people and children around the world are enjoying every bite of Mamee monster, and many would remember it fondly as part of their childhood memories. The crunchy snacks have started serving for generations of children and I don’t see this stopping anytime soon.

This is one of the many examples of people from humble beginnings, and they have proved – time and again – that you can still succeed and never be afraid to conceive your ideas, even if other people might not think highly of it. Yes, there will be obstacles. And you can still risk failing. But even if you fail on your first attempt, there’s no reason to give up. You only fail if you give in and stop trying. The Pang duos didn’t.