“Epic Fail” is a series dedicated to the moments in life when we screw up big time. These stories focus on passion, hard work, and courage. Most importantly, they celebrate failure in all of its embarrassing glory.
We have all been sold stories of millennials who leave mind-numbing corporate jobs to start their own businesses. The thing is, this perspective of entrepreneurship gravely ignores the financial complexities that go into building an entire company from scratch.
No one takes this sobering reality more seriously than 31-year-old Jeff Wei, who unequivocally disputes any talk that attempts to glamourise entrepreneurship. After all, passion alone was not enough for the interior designer by training to pay off the $800,000 debt he found himself in after making a foolish business decision.
In 2013, the managing director and founder of Ctrlplus, a construction and interior design firm, was too focused on accepting jobs from one particular company: interior fit-out firm Serrano Holdings Pte Ltd.
Jeff says, “After Serrano engaged us as a subcontractor, we were overwhelmed by projects from them. They were very promising, which made us grow quickly as well. We saw a good future with them and placed all our hope in them. We projected that we’d grow about 300% with them each year.”
You know that nagging feeling you get when things seem too good to be true?
Yeah, never ignore it.
Around the same time, Serrano was trying to get listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX). They would succeed in 2014, only to crash shortly after.
According to Jeff, Serrano had also convinced other contractors that they were doing well. They had even used the excuse that they were going to be listed on SGX to temporarily withhold payment. But once the realisation sunk in that Serrano did not, in fact, have the money to reimburse Ctrlplus (or anyone else), it was too late to do anything.
It would take Jeff a year before he would even begin to chip away at the staggering debt he owed to both workers and suppliers.
More at https://sg.yahoo.com/style/epic-fail-putting-eggs-one-023415016.html
We have all been sold stories of millennials who leave mind-numbing corporate jobs to start their own businesses. The thing is, this perspective of entrepreneurship gravely ignores the financial complexities that go into building an entire company from scratch.
No one takes this sobering reality more seriously than 31-year-old Jeff Wei, who unequivocally disputes any talk that attempts to glamourise entrepreneurship. After all, passion alone was not enough for the interior designer by training to pay off the $800,000 debt he found himself in after making a foolish business decision.
In 2013, the managing director and founder of Ctrlplus, a construction and interior design firm, was too focused on accepting jobs from one particular company: interior fit-out firm Serrano Holdings Pte Ltd.
Jeff says, “After Serrano engaged us as a subcontractor, we were overwhelmed by projects from them. They were very promising, which made us grow quickly as well. We saw a good future with them and placed all our hope in them. We projected that we’d grow about 300% with them each year.”
You know that nagging feeling you get when things seem too good to be true?
Yeah, never ignore it.
Around the same time, Serrano was trying to get listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX). They would succeed in 2014, only to crash shortly after.
According to Jeff, Serrano had also convinced other contractors that they were doing well. They had even used the excuse that they were going to be listed on SGX to temporarily withhold payment. But once the realisation sunk in that Serrano did not, in fact, have the money to reimburse Ctrlplus (or anyone else), it was too late to do anything.
It would take Jeff a year before he would even begin to chip away at the staggering debt he owed to both workers and suppliers.
More at https://sg.yahoo.com/style/epic-fail-putting-eggs-one-023415016.html
