Imagine being your own boss by the age of 25. Sounds like a tall order isn’t it? Not for Liu Lung Hao, who seems to have hit the jackpot with his own company. However, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. It was a long and arduous journey filled with stumbling blocks and hardships. Below, we are honoured to be able to interview him despite his busy schedule!
Without further ado, here are some questions and advice by Lung Hao on how he managed to do it, and hopefully this helps those that would like to walk a similar path:
Qn 1: When did you start getting interested in Technology?
I started somewhere in my primary school where I joined the robotics CCA, building Lego robots to solve missions. For example, some of these missions simulate the real world natural disasters. Our task then was to build a robot to overcome the challenges in those missions. That was when I first encountered coding and felt that this was really what I wanted to do in the future.
So I decided to go for Direct Polytechnic Admission in secondary school to study Diploma in Information Technology.
Qn 2: So you already knew from then that you want a diploma in Information Tech?
Actually, I’m more interested in the cybersecurity aspect. But I did not take that up because I did not wish to focus on any single aspect only. I prefer to look at IT as a whole as everything is and should be interlinked. So, I chose Diploma in IT because in year 3, I can specialise in cybersecurity if I change my mind in the future. This way, I get to keep my options open and enjoy the best of both worlds.
Qn 3: When did you start envisioning creating your own company?
It was around when I was in year 1 in poly. I learnt a lot of things on software development and my friend and I decided to form a software development company in late 2013.
He worked his way up through sheer curiosity and unwavering determination.
Qn 4: Did your parents know about it and did they support you?
Actually no, I haven’t really told them that I have a company yet. They wanted me to focus on my studies. But I rather put less emphasis on school as there’s a lot of valuable lessons I can learn outside of school, from the workforce. Unlike other industries, the IT industry is constantly evolving at a rapid pace. The school would not be able to keep up with this rapid change in landscape. That was why we created this company, so we can experience the dynamics of this industry. However, I think my parents more or less know what I’m doing. While they don’t discourage me from doing it now, they still want me to put my studies first.
Qn 5: How did you find the talent for your company?
Our teams are mostly made up of my seniors from Nanyang Poly. I have always asked my seniors for advice in school work. That’s how I knew most of them. Right now, they are not just my seniors but also important members of our company.
Qn 6: What is your 5-year plan?
We are actually going through a transition, so now we are doing much more than website and software development.
We have divided the company into four main areas. First up is the modern workplace. When we first started Feezmodo, we rented an office space for work. But as we progressed, we realized that there was no one is using the office space as we can work anywhere as long as we have our laptops with us. This is especially so for millennials, where they work from different devices and locations. A common problem that millennials often face is the lack of access to the company’s email via their personal devices such as their phones and laptops.
On the other hand, companies will have some security concerns over accessing corporate data via personal devices. So that’s one of the key areas where we will be addressing. We want to enable the employees to have the flexibility to work from anywhere and anytime they want. Also, company can rest assured that their corporate data will stay protected at all times.
Second focus for Feezmodo will be building an integrated software system. This is especially important in companies where they have a lot of different systems operating independent of one another. Integration will streamline and enable automation to replace arduous manual labour, freeing up valuable human resources so they that can become more efficient and productive. The same team will also be building our own software solutions that will help our customers to be even more productive.
The third focus is data analytics and AI. Right now, while a lot of companies are aware of the importance of data analysis. But they do not know where to start and how to take full advantage of their data. So that’s where we come in. The company simply give us the data they would like to analyse. Our data scientist will help them do data cleaning and display the result on a nice and neat dashboard.
For example, companies usually use excel spreadsheets for financial reporting. But in our approach, we automate this by integrating with their accounting system and automatically generate financial report automatically using our software solution. Since everything is automated, it will save lots of time and labour which translate to cost reduction.
Lastly, we have Security and Compliance. There are a lot of security regulations such as the Singapore PDPA, which is a law that requires companies to protect user data. Failure to do so will result in being fined and warning being issued. Likewise, in the European Union, there is the GDPR which is very similar to the PDPA in Singapore.
A lot of companies are looking into ways to stay compliant with these regulations but they are also clueless in terms of how to achieve this and the cost of compliance. So we are developing various solutions to protect our customer’s data and stay compliant to these regulations.
These are the 4 areas that Feezmodo will be focusing on in the next 5 years.
Qn 7: Advice for newcomers into this industry?
First a specialist, leader or expert in that particular field. You must focus on what you are really good at. Once you know your forte, you can then start to diversify. This will allows you to gain insights from a different perspective and apply them in problem-solving in the real world.
A big thank you to Liu Lung Hao for willing to take part in this interview! We hope that his company will keep on improving and also become an internationally and regionally recognised name in the future! All the best!
