In January 2020, Ong Jin Jie—who goes by “JJ”—walked away from what had been his dream life.
The full-time musician had made it, performing, travelling and recording music over the last four years. He had been signed to Warner Music Singapore and was even offered a “really, really good” overseas record label deal.
But he realised his passion didn’t purely lie in music. It lay in creating.
“You don’t have to create only music. You can create things like businesses,” says JJ. “So, that’s when I went down the rabbit hole of being a creator in entrepreneurship rather than in just music.”
Fast forward to now, where JJ is involved in a string of creative endeavours. He runs branding and marketing consultancy Niimble Co and lectures part time at educational institutes. He also has a real estate licence and a few small ventures in China.
JJ’s current main focus, however, is LFG Content Co., a content production studio founded in June 2023 that helps clients film and edit podcasts.
This June, the studio launched the LFG Pod, an unmanned podcast studio at Esplanade Xchange where anyone can record professional podcasts with a single press of a button.
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From Musician To Marketer
JJ became good at marketing and branding while working as a musician. He learnt these skills out of necessity so that he could stand out within his music label and the local music community.
Not every musician knew how to market themselves—and few people wanted to help them. So, after calling time on his music career, JJ seized the opportunity to help others market their music.
He also went on to open a marketing agency, working with businesses like Daikin Singapore, Yakult Singapore and Kikkoman Singapore on commercial music projects.
JJ could have joined an established agency to do this, but says applying for jobs was “not even in the list of things” he considered.
“From a very young age, I’ve never wanted a desk-bound job,” he shares. “I don’t want to report to somebody.
I want to be responsible for my own thing.”
“Let’s Start A Podcast Studio”
JJ founded many other businesses after that. (He thinks he’s started more than 20 businesses so far.) And LFG Content Co. was one of these.
“I don’t keep ideas to myself,” he says. “When I have an idea that I think is viable, I really try to make it work.”
At that time, his friends and now partners at LFG Content Co., Wong Jian Liang and Wong Jian Ming, ran an audio-visual studio. The studio focused on music productions, but it happened to have the equipment and space people needed to film podcasts.
So, JJ pitched his idea to his friends. “I just told them, ‘Hey, why don’t we start a podcast studio?’” he shares.
“‘We already have the equipment. You have the expertise. Let’s develop a workflow. Let’s do this sh*t.’”
(During the ideation phase, he would also often say a phrase whose acronym is “LFG”. Although the phrase, unfortunately, cannot be printed in full here, “LFG” would go on to become part of the podcast studio’s name.)
His friends were sold. They roped in another friend, Isaac Ho, to handle the studio’s corporate development and finances. They also built a website. Within around two weeks, LFG Content Co. was up and running.
Word-of-mouth recommendations snowballed as people used the studio and introduced it to others. Within three months, the studio broke even.
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Building An Unmanned Podcasting Pod
LFG Content Co. generated good revenue, but the team was pulling in 8am to 2am days. They couldn’t keep up with the workload.
JJ needed a more sustainable long-term solution. About a year into running LFG Content Co., he started to explore building the LFG Pod—an unmanned podcast studio.
He wanted the pod to automate simple operational tasks, such as opening the studio doors and operating the camera. This way, his team (and studio users) could focus on higher-level responsibilities, like scripting and producing podcasts.
He also wanted the pod to help podcasters record professional content affordably. This meant conducting research and development (R&D) on a small budget to minimise having to pass on costs to end users.
Given the team’s budget constraints, JJ describes the R&D process as “very, very difficult”, but they managed to do 90% of it on their own.
The remaining 10% involved building an app to accept bookings and control the studio. LFG Content Co. completed it with help from Damian Chow, founder of unmanned smart gym The Gym Pod, who shared his smart gym’s app technology with them.
According to JJ, the LFG Pod costs mid-five figures to set up in all.
Just Press Record
Recording a podcast at the LFG Pod is super easy, even if you have no technical experience. I know, because I interviewed JJ for this article at the pod!
When you’re seated at the table in front of the camera, you’ll see a control panel. Just press the record button to start and stop recording. That’s it.
There are other buttons for adjusting other aspects of the recording, like the lights, background colour and framing, but doing this is optional.
At the end of the session, you’ll get two video files in landscape and portrait formats. They’re upload-ready, though you can edit them if you need to.
Booking the LFG Pod costs $39 per 30-minute session. JJ shares that it has averaged 30–50% occupancy every month since launch.
Many users are startup founders, freelancers, salespersons and insurance and property agents looking to record social media content. He’s even had university students come in to record videos for their projects.
JJ’s Next Goal: To Fund “Useless” Businesses
More LFG Pods are in the works, both in Singapore and abroad. But JJ is already looking beyond LFG Content Co. to his next business endeavour.
“I’m a ‘zero to one’ kind of person. My passion is building something from nothing. Scaling a business from one to 100 isn’t my interest,” he explains. As a result, he tends to transition out of his businesses once they stabilise.
As he progressively hands over leadership of LFG Content Co. to his business partner Isaac, JJ is working on building enough capital to start a venture studio for funding “useless” businesses.
By “useless” businesses, he means those born out of passion—like a bonsai tree-breeding business, for example—but that may not be in revolutionary fields like machine learning.
“I was very lucky to have been able to turn my passion into a business and be supported in non-financial ways by mentors,” says JJ.
“So, I hope to be that person for others who have a dream that might not be lucrative or useful in the world’s eyes, but is still important to the community.”
Recognise There’s No Roadmap As You Walk Your Path
The conventional business advice is to focus on doing one thing well instead of spreading yourself across multiple ventures and risk all of them going nowhere.
But this advice has never sat well with JJ. He says he’s never been able to do just one thing—and that he wouldn’t have gotten to where he is today if he had.
“I realised we don’t have to conform to others’ ideas of what success looks like. Everybody has their own path to walk, and there’s no roadmap to this,” he says.
“I think it’s an eternal need, especially by Asians and Singaporeans due to our upbringing, to have a roadmap, and this causes us a lot of pain and anxiety.
The moment we accept that there’s no roadmap, that there’s no correct answer—that’s where the real game begins.”
