We spoke to\u00a0Gary<\/a>\u00a0over a video call (given the pandemic), to hear more about his experiences as an entrepreneur and his journey of building JobKred.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read Also: The Story of Alvin Poh \u2013 From Selling Flag Erasers In School To A Multi-Millionaire Singaporean Entrepreneur<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gary knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur before he even had a career. His first venture was selling the popular magic cards at MRT stations during secondary school days. This gave him a head start to run co-operative bookstores in junior college. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This led to more ideas, and till date, he has already started four businesses across different industries, including: a karaoke, a video gaming cafe, a loyalty rewards platform, and his latest tech-powered workforce development platform \u2013 JobKred. <\/p>\n\n\n\n His approach towards career progression was learning by doing. Every venture \u2013 be it a success or failure \u2013 was akin to a progressive career chapter that helped him to identify his shortcomings and sharpen his business instincts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Gary puts it, you need to \u201cfind your passion, do something that you personally enjoy. Then build your own experiences over time, and never stop learning.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Gary initially played to his strengths when he sold relatable products to the people around him, focusing on mostly B2C businesses. When he later made the switch to break into the B2B market for the first time, he failed terribly with a reward programme business. He learned a great deal from that painful year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He identified the root problem to be his lack of technical expertise. He took a hiatus from entrepreneurship to join TradeHero, a tech startup company \u2013 with no pay \u2013 to get his hands dirty \u2013 within the technology space he wanted to play in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the course of his career, he gained substantial industry experience and built extensive connections with C-suites, giving him a confidence boost in prospecting multinational companies and embarking on a new B2B venture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, things were rather bizarre in the beginning of his stint with TradeHero. Though he had years of entrepreneurship experience under his belt, he was found himself clueless about the exact skills he needed to assume the role of Business Development Director. While he eventually picked up digital marketing, data analytics and coding skills, he noticed a similar problem among many prospective job seekers during his recruitment drive. Many graduates from top institutions, whom he interacted with, were lacking in practical skills despite their stellar academic records. Like him, they did not have the right skills \u2013 and a clear understanding of the skills they needed \u2013 in order to compete for their desired jobs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That, to him, was an imminent problem to solve and a business opportunity to seize. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After his stint at TradeHero, Gary was determined to help other people overcome their skills gaps and fulfill their career aspirations. He and his co-founder, who was introduced to him by a mutual friend, started researching intensively about the recruitment industry, analysing millions of resumes and drawing connections between skills, experiences and job titles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Consolidating all their findings and analyses, they built a workforce development platform, powered by their recommendation engine, that could help people to identify their skills gaps, provide training options, and display relevant job matches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Gary gave an interesting analogy to explain the purpose of JobKred. The platform functions as a doctor who runs blood tests to help people identify certain health issues, and then directs them to the pharmacist to prescribe the right medication. In the context of career development, JobKred simply helps individuals and companies to identify their gaps and upskill effectively with the right training courses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Gary has been guided by a principle for what makes a good business: \u201cThe basis of most, if not all, good businesses starts from helping yourself and others to figure out a problem, and find ways to grow to a scale that is investable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read Also:\u00a05 Questions With Ryan Chew, COO and Co-Founder of Tribe, Bringing Tech Communities Together<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While there were many companies that were aware of the skills gaps among their employees and actively looking into learning and development programmes, JobKred did not come off as an immediate solution as compared to established consultancy firms with a strong track record in change solutions. As the Co-Founder of JobKred, he invested a lot of time in educating potential clients about the importance of skills intelligence by providing ROI calculation on their talent pool and real-word case studies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To Gary, \u201cmany companies have the tendency to hire outwards than training from within. The truth is, there is a limited supply of talents with the right skills, and they are often too expensive to hire. Instead, business owners can focus on identifying and training existing employees with a 50% match of the required skills sets.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, there were companies that did not believe in the value of training. Though JobKred offered a solution that was at the forefront of HR technology, it was too early for its time. Few business owners were familiar with the concept of skills intelligence back then. It was only until the trend of digitalisation kicked in, that skills transformation \u2013 and JobKred \u2013 started getting massive traction from the public and private sectors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The sweet spot, in Gary\u2019s perspective, was to introduce something evolutionary at the right time, without having to invest too much effort in educating and prospecting clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLiving The Life Of An Entrepreneur<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Recognising Skills Gaps In The Workforce<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Turning JobKred Into Reality\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Gary](\"https:\/\/dollarsandsense.sg\/business\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Gary-with-JobKred-Team-1024x682.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nRiding On The Wave of Digitalisation <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n