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Ah beng fighter dropped out but grew up to become a successful entrepreneur

Rogue Trader

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Asset
The misfit finds his niche

20121210.111909_sph_st_jacking.jpg


Wong Kim Hoh
The Straits Times
Tuesday, Dec 11, 2012


When he was just 12 years old, Jacki Ng masterminded a bold criminal scheme.


Then a member of a street gang, he cajoled a 17-year-old fellow ruffian to steal a cheque belonging to the latter's uncle.


Ng wrote it out for $20,000, forged the signature and instigated another 17-year-old to cash it.


"I had elaborate plans for the money. I wanted to start a sustainable loan shark venture," says Mr Ng, now 37.


But the teenager who tried to cash the cheque got caught.


"The bank found him suspicious and reported him to the police. He was arrested, and after that, so was I," he adds.


The older boy was sentenced to a year in jail. Ng was let off with a stern warning because he was a minor.


"I was a horrible kid, and that was a horrible thing I did," he says.


The horrible kid is today a legitimate entrepreneur.


He employs more than 40 people to help him run seven dive operations, a foot reflexology shop, a multimedia company and a production agency which collectively make more than US$6 million (S$7.33million) a year.

It is quite a turnaround for a Secondary 2 dropout who battled family violence, business setbacks, a failed marriage and depression before finally gaining a firm grip on life.

Rene Descartes, Bertrand Russell and other philosophers saved him, he says.

More about that later.

At just 1.61m, the diminutive founder of Gill Divers has a mop of coarse straight hair, large impish eyes, a roguish smile and looks more like an adolescent skateboarder than a businessman and father of two teenagers.

Mr Ng, who has an older sister, grew up in Geylang and Changi.

His parents ran a butcher's stall.

He was a menace of a pupil at Geylang Methodist Primary School, where he got into scuffles regularly and once threatened to beat up a teacher who had humiliated him.

"I guess I have the Napoleon complex, I was very sensitive," he says.

"I was also hyperactive and attention-seeking, very aggressive and rather violent. I probably got it from my dad."

He remembers being caned by his father until he bled.

"Occasionally, he used his fists on me when the cane didn't work. But he stopped when I learnt to whack him back and the beatings became fights instead," says Mr Ng, who was still in his teens when his parents divorced.

He joined a street gang in the Aljunied area when he was 12.

Although he was academically able and especially good in mathematics, his propensity for fights got him caned publicly and booted out of Geylang Methodist Secondary School after a year.

"My mother had to plead and beg for Changkat Changi Secondary School to take me in," he says.

He lasted barely three months there, and was expelled for fighting.

He remembers his mother collecting him from school after he was expelled.

"We went home, she went to work and I remember listening to my Bananarama album and the song I Want You Back and I just cried and cried. I thought to myself, 'That's it. I am dead, my future is screwed,'" he says.

After a couple of months at a private school, he got into the Institute of Technical Education in Balestier where he earned his NTC 3 in Motor Vehicle Mechanics.

While there, he made friends with a course mate who introduced him to the world of disc jockeying and dirt bike scrambling.

The hobbies got him out of trouble and also inspired him to brush up his English since it was what his new friends spoke.

"I had to keep up with them. One day, I was at McDonald's and trying to order a fish fillet and the girl at the counter couldn't understand what I was saying. I went home very angry, with her and with myself. I told myself I needed to get it right."

The hitherto dialect-speaking Ng started reading English novels and watching English television shows and movies with a vengeance.

"I watched Total Recall five or six times," he says, referring to the sci-fi movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. "It was one of those movies where you really have to understand the dialogue to know what's going on."

During that period, he tried his hand at a few jobs.

He worked at Burger King and helped an uncle run a stall selling fruit in Hougang.

With help from his mother, he next opened a stall selling chicken in a small market in Hougang Avenue 7.

"I had to wake up at four every morning. Whatever was left unsold was fried, and I'd cycle to Tampines in the afternoon to sell fried chicken," he says.

It did not quite take off, and he closed shop several months later.

While in national service, he earned money delivering a publication, Human Resource, in the evenings.

He was 20 when he married a clerk and they had two children.

Through his sister, he found a job coordinating exports in a freight- forwarding company called Famous after completing his national service.

He did well but left barely a year later after he roughed up a colleague who had smacked him on the head over work.

The owner of a used car company, located next to a motorbike shop Mr Ng frequented, offered him a job.

"I learnt how to sell and buy cars. I loved it, it was an art," says Mr Ng, who could sometimes pull in $13,000 a month.

Ambition drove him to contact an uncle to help him start up a business building air-conditioner risers

Although he made money initially, the young businessman ended up losing more than $300,000 after a contractor which engaged his company to do a big job went bust.

"It didn't help that my uncle also gambled away some of the company's money," he says with a grimace.

The loss so traumatised the 26-year-old that he fell into a blue funk.

"I couldn't sleep, I couldn't work, I even had suicidal thoughts. Back then, I didn't realise it was depression," he says.

But he took up computer courses and discovered he had no problems grasping technical concepts.

Despite his lack of paper qualifications, he got himself a job in technical support at SingNet.

The company sent him for courses which stood him in good stead when he became a net server engineer in Hewlett-Packard next.

"HP also found out that I could understand and cope with computer stuff, and they sent me to a lot of classes and training."

Although scarred by the failure of his air-con company, he decided to take up an opportunity to deal in alternative printer cartridges.

He quit his job to set up a company but two faulty shipments landed him in financial trouble again.

By this time, big cracks had started to appear in his marriage.

The couple decided to go their separate ways. The two children, now 15 and 17, live with their mother.

"I moved back with my mother and I was at least sane enough to know that I should not drink or take any drugs," he says.

Instead he started devouring philosophy books.

"I was reading Bertrand Russsell and Aristotle and Plato.

My favourite is Descartes.

Somehow, reading armed me with a lot of clarity and helped me to rationalise my behaviour in the past."

"It was my Sophie's World," he says, referring to the novel by Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder.

The book revolves around a teenage girl who is introduced to philosophical thinking and the history of philosophy by a middle-aged philosopher.

"That's why I can talk to you about my abandonment issues and Napoleon complex," adds Mr Ng, who speaks English fluently.

Encouraged by friends, he also took up diving during this period.

"The key thing about diving is that you meet a lot of people. Meeting people helps you get a good sense of who you are. I found myself again," he says.

In 2003, two friends invited him to set up Gill Divers.

One of them even paid for him to be trained as a diving instructor.

"When we started it was just one desk in an office shared with a Filipino travel agency in Lucky Plaza," he recalls.

The early days were tough. Both his partners left not long after, one to take up a full-time job.

Mr Ng decided to wing it alone.

Leveraging on his technical expertise, he had by then built a website for the company.

He started work on a software to cut red tape and introduce systems in the diving industry which used to be very cut-throat and competitive.

He found an investor to develop the software One Diver, and it is now used by several dive shops in Singapore.

Today, he owns seven dive operations, including one in Bintan, Indonesia.

On average, his shops organise trips for between 80 and 150 divers a week, and conduct diving lessons for a couple of hundred of enthusiasts a month.

Mr Toh Yee Choon, 34, one of the original founders who is now a regional trainer for a computer company, says he is not at all surprised by Mr Ng's success.

"He is very dedicated. Once he's focused on something, he drives himself really hard. When we first started, he was really down and out. But diving became his passion, and he has this fearlessness which makes him really different."

"He earned a lot of respect by introducing systems in the industry. He's great at marketing and managing change and he's managed to get investors on board."

The business has an annual turnover of more than $5 million.

Mr Ng is brimming with ideas, including plans to invest in a dive boat, and develop a range of diving gear.

One of the great joys of running his diving business, he says, is the opportunity to give young people a shot at a career.

He has in place a DMA (dive management associates) programme for his staff.

Those with potential will be made shareholders.

Having found his fins and feet, he started diversifying into other businesses.

He owns reflexology outlet Feet Press, and roped in a partner to start a digital media company called Pin two years ago.

With another partner, he set up a production company Noon Talk, which rolled out Timeless Love, a romantic feature film starring Kimberly Chia, last year.

It has also produced commercials for watch group City Chain, and an online variety show called Prince and Princess.

The company also has a talent management arm, and its stable of artistes includes Chia, Xu Bin and Aloysius Tan.

"Gill Divers is thriving, Pin is struggling and Noon Talk is doing okay," he reveals.

Although he can easily afford his own home, Mr Ng - who has been in a stable relationship for several years - sleeps in a small unit above one of his dive shops in Hong Kong Street.

He prefers to plough the profits back into the business,


He turns philosophical when asked if he harbours great hopes for the future.


"I hope I will one day be financially comfortable without working. Then, I can focus on doing things which are purely meaningful."




 

MOOLahMOJO

Alfrescian
Loyal
A bit of peanut success niah, start plastering his whole CB life-story, like some super-star celebrity lidat. Get a frigging life, behaving like a Jack Neo, a leopard never changes its spots...once a con, always a con. ptui!
 

GOD IS MY DOG

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
aiyah.................always got people to provide him with lobangs..................probably capital too....................
 

GOD IS MY DOG

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
A bit of peanut success niah, start plastering his whole CB life-story, like some super-star celebrity lidat. Get a frigging life, behaving like a Jack Neo, a leopard never changes its spots...once a con, always a con. ptui!


well said, up your pts......................
 

GOD IS MY DOG

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
anyway, to have success.....................must always have people help one...................either with capital or with lobangs.................unless so lucky, kana Toto or lobangs come find you lah....................

after reading the story again, it seems always got somebody help this guy out in the end..................
 
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tonychat

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
the moral of the story is that if you got balls, you will have money.

many wimps here are jealous of others who got money.
 

blackreplica

Alfrescian
Loyal
Whats he supposedly boasting about? He shared his messy life with us, and it sure was a mess. I for one and impressed with his success and as long as he wasnt exaggerating his sordid beginnings, he thoroughly deserves it. He's a great example for us all.
 
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chonburifc

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
He employs more than 40 people to help him run seven dive operations, a foot reflexology shop, a multimedia company and a production agency which collectively make more than US$6 million (S$7.33million) a year.
Confirm doing much better than me. I paiseh cos' he sec 2 nia and me studied 2 years extra but still make less than a sec. 2.
 

Narong Wongwan

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
this one used to be my underling before becoming a sect leader.
nothing like a heart warming reformed ah beng made good story....

2na689g.jpg


Driven to deliver the goods
16 September 12
The Straits Times by Wong Kim Hoh

It is 5pm and Harold Lee is winding down after a hot, stressful day by taking swigs from a big bottle of Bintang Beer.

The founder and managing director of courier company XDel is sitting outside one of his two offices in Hong Kong Street, near Chinatown.

He started the firm 20 years ago with just one van and one employee. Today, XDel has a fleet of 10 vans and 35 motorcycles, and nearly 70 workers. In its first year of operation, its revenue was barely $35,000; last year, it was $2.5 million.

Getting to where he is today has not been easy. The entrepreneur, 42, nearly lost the business a couple of times. At one stage, he was mired in debt to the tune of $500,000.

The days and nights he spent growing the company also cost him three marriages. This is not something the father of five children, aged between 10 and 21, is proud of.

"But I guess things happen for a reason," he says philosophically. "I don't think too much about marriage now. Now, it's just my career and work. I just feel I haven't achieved what I want to achieve."

Born out of wedlock, he is no stranger to the bumpier side of life. His father was a gangster and brothel owner; his mother, a singer.

He did not see much of his father but remembers visiting him in prison as a child.

"He was a big-time gangster. Burglary, rioting, you name it, he has done it," he says wryly of the 65-year-old whom he has not seen for some years.

His mother, a singer in nightclubs, hotel lounges and restaurants, started lugging him to work when he was a month old.

"While she sang, all the other singers would help to look after me backstage. There were many Taiwanese singers in those days. That's why my Mandarin is pretty good."

When he was five, his maternal grandmother came to look after him.

"She was actually my mother's adoptive mother, a very tough and feisty woman from Guangzhou."

The older woman, he says, taught him to be independent. By the time he started school, he knew how to keep house, gut fish and make soup.

"Because she was an amah herself, she had a lot of 'sisters' who worked as amahs for the prostitutes in Rowell Road," he says, referring to the red-light district. "She would take me to visit them sometimes and while she chit-chatted with them, I would run in and out of the rooms."

The trio led a peripatetic lifestyle until the boy was about 10 and his mother married a musician and settled in Sembawang.

"Before that, we moved many times, from Clementi to Katong to Telok Blangah," he says.

As a result, he attended three primary schools: Haig Boys', Telok Blangah Rise and Sembawang.

He started mixing with bad company in secondary school, played truant and found work in construction sites.

"I was earning $25 a day clearing debris and cleaning flats. It was good money," recalls Mr Lee, who also picked up smoking, joined a gang and got involved in a lot of street fights.

One memorable brawl involved nearly 50 people from two rival gangs in Ang Mo Kio.

"I was chased by someone wielding a parang, and one of my friends got slashed several times," he says.

Not surprisingly, the rebellious teen was expelled from Anderson Secondary as well as Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary.

"Fortunately, the principal of Si Ling Secondary in Woodlands took me in and gave me a chance," says Mr Lee, who completed and passed his O levels.

He peddled massage equipment in Lucky Plaza and became a part-time waiter before signing up with the police force when he was 18. The irony of a gangster becoming a law enforcer is not lost on him.

"Hey, I was still idealistic, okay?" he says, adding that he did well as a plainclothes officer with the Central Narcotics Bureau. "I had a good relationship with the addicts and I spoke their language."

It did not turn out well, though. He had to leave the job after barely three years because he roughed up a drug addict who suffered a hairline fracture on his left wrist.

He started a company, H&D - which he renamed XDel a few years later - after completing national service in 1993. By then, he had married a cosmetics promoter and become a father.

"I never thought about starting my own business. But one night, I saw an ad for a delivery man and the job required someone with Olevels. I thought to myself, I can't be an employee. I won't be able to control my destiny. I need to start my own business."

The idea of a courier company came about after he helped out at a florist where his mother was working part-time.

He saw the demand for delivery services and reckoned it was an easy enough business.

He roped in a partner and, with a $15,000 loan from an old friend, bought a van and was ready to go.

But the day before the company was due to start business, his partner got cold feet. Although he came around the following day, Mr Lee decided he would go it alone.

"He had jitters even before we started. How could I trust him for the long term?"

So he hired a driver, because he did not have a driving licence then, and does not have one now.

What? The boss of a courier company cannot drive?

His retort is quick: "Does the CEO of Singapore Airlines know how to fly a plane?"

The first day is etched firmly in his memory.

"We parked the van at the Boulevard Hotel and I knocked on the door of every florist from Cuscaden Road to Centrepoint," he says.

From florists, he moved on to other companies which might need help with deliveries.

"I would just go in and give them my name card," he says.

The first year was nightmarish. He took on all jobs - even house-moving and flier distribution - to make ends meet.

"Our income was only $35,000. No matter how I tried, it just wasn't enough to pay the instalments on the van and the salary of the driver."

He had to borrow from friends and family to stay in business.

He lost count of the number of times the van was repossessed.

"And if we had a traffic summons or needed to change the tyres or pay for repairs..." His voice tails off as he shakes his head.

He clocked 15-hour days, making deliveries by day and processing orders at night.

By then, his marriage was over.

"My personal life was in a shambles. But I was very stubborn. I was not going to give up. I had to make it work."

Things started to look up in the third year when the company landed the job of making deliveries for RS Components, a distributor of industrial parts.

"We started with just 10 deliveries a day for them, but that grew to more than 100," he says, adding that monthly turnover started hitting more than $20,000.

Buoyed by optimism, he started hiring and expanding. He also roped in an old friend to write him a software application which would help him to automate work processes and keep a record of all transactions.

The good times, however, did not last long. The 1997 Asian financial crisis delivered a punch to the gut that left Mr Lee and his company reeling.

Business dried up. By then, he had seven vans and more than 10 employees.

"The biggest mistake I made was buying seven vehicles. It cost more than $3,000 a month to maintain one, a huge chunk of my operation expenses," he says.

Soon, he was defaulting on his rent, the instalments on his vehicles and his workers' Central Provident Fund contributions. Before he knew it, he was weighed down by a $500,000 debt.

Friends advised him to file for bankruptcy.

"But reputation was very important to me. I wanted to show people that I was not a fly-by-night operator," he says.

He auctioned off all his vehicles, and negotiated with banks and all his creditors.

"I told them, 'I'm here and I'm not running away. Let us work out a payment scheme'," he recalls. "Strangely enough, they trusted me. Then again, I guess they didn't want me dead. They just wanted me to repay."

He adds that he made sure to honour his word and kept his creditors and staff informed about his financial situation.

He also devoted every waking hour to restructuring the business.

He started outsourcing deliveries to smaller players. Instead of full-time employees, he began hiring part-timers with their own vehicles.

He did everything he could to streamline operations and cut costs while looking for new business.

It took nearly four years, but he cleared all his debts.

"Whatever money I made went to paying everyone I owed," he says.

Today, the rebuilt XDel is lean and sturdy.

"One of the biggest things I did right this time around was to insist on an IT infrastructure," he says.

He invested close to $500,000 in a versatile custom-made IT system that does almost everything - from tracking deliveries to invoicing and comparing delivery performance in real time.

"We automated everything in the system," he says, adding that the result was significant manpower savings. "My motto now is to always keep my costs relevant and not to overspend."

XDel, which counts several merchant banks, Nets and Eu Yan Sang among its clients, now averages more than 700 deliveries daily, charging between $5 and $30 for each.

Mr Goh Heng Huat, the former managing director of RS Components, remembers being very impressed by the young entrepreneur he met years ago.

"He was young, polite and very promising so I gave him a chance."

The two have remained friends ever since. Now retired, Mr Goh, 67, is not surprised at Mr Lee's success.

"He works very hard, and his mind works very fast. He is always coming up with new ideas. He just does not give up."

Mr Lee says he is no longer the excitable puppy he was when he first started the business.

"I'm now an old dog. I don't jump every day and don't get excited easily," he says. "But I am very prepared. When an opportunity comes, I will just grab it."

Mr Lee, who has plans to franchise the XDel brand, thinks that being aware of his limitations has helped him weather many storms.

"It is impossible for one person to know and do everything. You know what you know, you go and learn what you do not know. And if you know you can't do certain things, just surround yourself with people who do," he says.

Sheepishly, he admits he has not been quite as tenacious in saving his marriages.

His second wife, whom he married at 25, gave him three children; the union lasted barely four years.

He married again not long after, had another child and got divorced at 34. Although he and his first wife do not speak, he is good friends with his two other ex-wives.

"I was too fanatical about rebuilding the business. It was very difficult to try and hold a business and a family together," says Mr Lee who is now single and lives with an old friend in a Novena condominium.

"But if I hadn't been fanatical, what would my life be today?"

Candidly, the entrepreneur - who has roped in his stepfather and one of his three stepbrothers to work for him - admits he is probably not the world's best father.

"But in a way, one of the reasons why I'm working so hard is them. I don't want my children to have it as tough as I did."

He says he is driven by a need to know what he can achieve.

"You know what my third wife told me? She said, 'Harold, it's not that you have not achieved what you wanted. It's just that you keep pushing up your bar.'

"Maybe she is right. But this much I know: We cannot decide where we came from, but we can definitely decide where we are headed."

And Mr Lee feels he has a long way to go.
 

streetsmart73

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
Whats he supposedly boasting about? He shared his messy life with us, and it sure was a mess. I for one and impressed with his success and as long as he wasnt exaggerating his sordid beginnings, he thoroughly deserves it. He's a great example for us all.



hi there


1. honest, me too!
2. i really don't think the diver guy is boasting about himself.
3. he is straight-talking.
4. after all, there is nothing much to boast about in the first place.
5. i am glad that he makes a niche out of his passion & stays focus.
 

bushtucker

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
every sunday on the 154th Times, there is a "rags to riches" story in the main paper. I wonder when shitty times will run out of people to interview. :biggrin:
 

Narong Wongwan

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
every sunday on the 154th Times, there is a "rags to riches" story in the main paper. I wonder when shitty times will run out of people to interview. :biggrin:
when they run out they just invent lah.......
7K taxi driver, 1K income flat owner, 1.5K sole breadwinner with his happy family........
 

WinneMUCCA

Alfrescian
Loyal
Those who're truly successful in life and business do not talk about it in public domain.
Those who do are merely self-promoting. Tell me how much they donated to charities, that I'm interested to know.
Everything else about these bad to good, rags to riches, it's a yawn for me.

It serves nothing for if you're poor, you'll still be poor after reading it, if you're down on luck, you're still down on luck.
If you're not motivated, reading it will make you more stressed and frustrated, just like going to motivation talks, its
high is only for a month and you're back to square one.
 

tonychat

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
Those who're truly successful in life and business do not talk about it in public domain.
Those who do are merely self-promoting. Tell me how much they donated to charities, that I'm interested to know.
Everything else about these bad to good, rags to riches, it's a yawn for me.

It serves nothing for if you're poor, you'll still be poor after reading it, if you're down on luck, you're still down on luck.
If you're not motivated, reading it will make you more stressed and frustrated, just like going to motivation talks, its
high is only for a month and you're back to square one.

so who are those is the truly successful one in your opinion? beside not talking about it.
 

WinneMUCCA

Alfrescian
Loyal
so who are those is the truly successful one in your opinion? beside not talking about it.

The J P Morgans, the Rockefellers, the Goldman Sachs, the Rothschilds, the Freemasons, the Knight Templars, the Illuminati, and similar genes and their offsprings.
 

tonychat

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
The J P Morgans, the Rockefellers, the Goldman Sachs, the Rothschilds, the Freemasons, the Knight Templars, the Illuminati, and similar genes and their offsprings.

these are rich families for generations.. not those rags to riches thingy. different category. And those that you mentioned are a kind of devil to get rich in the expense of others.
 
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