After winning the Young Trailblazer Competition at 18, Winston Ng, CEO of Finute, went on to build his business while preparing for A Levels. Struggling with mundane online learning methods himself, he was determined to make education fun for the younger generation through experiential learning.
We had a video chat with Winston to learn more about his entrepreneurship journey and some of the apps his team has developed to transform learning experiences.
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An Avid Gamer Who Grew Into An Innovator
While he enjoys gaming, Winston is no ordinary gamer. When others were indulging in the joy of playing computer games, he would be spending hours on YouTube to learn about coding and developing his own game. He made his first LEGO stock motion film at just 9 years old.
Influenced by the numerous product pitches he watched growing up, Winston envisioned himself to join the ranks of global entrepreneurs who could solve problems of the world with technology.
Throughout his formative years, he participated in several innovation competitions to pitch ideas and push his creative boundaries. Embodying the wisdom of his inspirational figure, Steve Jobs, he always pushed himself to think out of the box for seemingly impossible ideas.
“As Steve Jobs put it, people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. I think that being young is a form of crazy, and I too, can come up with solutions that could change people’s lives.”
Turning His Winning Pitch Into Reality
During the pandemic last year, he took part in the Prudential Young Trailblazers Competition. With a strong interest in the Metaverse, he pitched the idea of a multi-player interactive game that enables users to discover Singapore virtually and emerged as the champion of the competition.
Victory aside, taking part in the competition broadened his creative problem-solving skills as he was exposed to new concepts like the “4I-framework”of innovation and design thinking through a series of expert-led workshops.
Covid-19 may have been an uninspiring and immensely challenging period for many people, but for Winston, it carved a new trajectory for his entrepreneurship journey. Leveraging on the knowledge he had gained from the competition, and his experience from drafting business models and proposals as the President of his school’s entrepreneurship club, Winston decided to embark on his own business venture. At 18 years old, he founded his edutech company, Finute.
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Developing PRUQuest: Where Virtual Meets Financial Planning
Being a student himself, and having to prepare for A Levels via online learning, he resonated with the struggles of many Gen-Zs at a time of the pandemic. With Finute, he wants to focus on experiential learning where users can learn by doing.
With guidance from his mentor, Magdalene Loh, Head of Innovation, Prudential Singapore, and the Innovation team at Prudential, he pivoted his business idea from the competition and developed an app called PRUQuest that combines virtual experience with financial planning. The app aims to help young adults in making better financial decisions by featuring interactive gamified content related to financial literacy, savings and investments. The app was also featured at the Singapore Fintech Festival in November 2021.
“I remember I was stuck in my bedroom with a laptop, and I thought why not start a business during this pandemic? Attending online lessons was so mundane, and I wanted to make education more fun. That’s why I founded Finute to develop gamified solutions. Together with the team at Prudential and my Co-founders, we developed PRUQuest to make financial planning fun for the younger generation.”
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Overcoming Rocky Beginnings to Finding Like-minded Partners
Winston is on his way to making his name as a young entrepreneur. While this seems like an impeccable feat for an 18-year-old teenager, it was an arduous journey for him. It was tough to find like-minded people within his circle of friends and family members. Not to mention the academic stress from A Levels preparations, and a lack of personal time. He recalled surviving on only 3 to 4 hours a day as he hustled through a hectic schedule packed with school and business activities.
“Time is crucial. My typical day starts off with morning lessons, client meetings in between breaks, then co-curricular activities in the afternoon, followed by client meetings and product development tasks at night. I would only sleep around 2 or 3 in the morning, then wake up at 6am. It was tiring, but I was building something I was passionate about.”
Thankfully, he found a couple of good friends, Zachary Lim and Joanna Tan, who shares his vision and joined him as Co-founders. They relied on online communication platforms such as Discord to carry out most of their business discussions and app development plans. Aligned with his philosophy towards learning, he values talents who possess the right technology skills over academic prerequisites. He also appreciates clients who are forward-thinking like him, willing to look beyond his age and explore new ideas with him.
“Some clients think I am too young, but that there are still others who believe in me. In fact, many recent innovations are pioneered by young change makers, like cryptocurrencies and NFTs. So I am happy that more clients and investors are open to young people trying things out.”
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Developing Vanda Bay: Discover Singapore in 3D Virtual Space
Other than PRUQuest, his company was the first to host a virtual National Day Parade in August last year (Marina Bay Reimagined). While his team experienced a critical bug that almost destroyed their software days before the launch, they managed to work round the clock to resolve the issue and bring the virtual experience to over 100,000 users across Singapore.
Building on their success of launching Marina Bay Reimagined, they are now developing a bigger and better version of the concept – Vanda Bay, an app that enables users to discover Singapore in a 3D virtual environment. Their goal is to bring experiential learning to more users in Singapore and other parts of Asia.
Sharing His Perspective With Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Besides wearing the hat of a promising young entrepreneur, Winston is also a fast-growing content creator who has gained over 17,000 followers on Tik Tok with his gaming know-hows. He was also awarded the best gaming content creator at the Gamescom Asia.
His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is to read as much as possible. From Science & Tech, to Fiction, books help to recharge his creative juices. More importantly, he thinks that it is important to find suitable co-founders who share the same vision and ready to grow as a team.
“Believe in yourself, never think about giving up once you embark on your journey. And as a leader, and a startup founder, be willing to listen to your team members. Each person has limited experiences, but collectively we have wisdom. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
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