Interview With Irene Ang, Founder and CEO of Fly Entertainment

Tucked away in a nondescript industrial building along Henderson Road is the headquarters of Singapore’s first artiste management agency Fly Entertainment. Initially surprised that an agency for stars like Allan Wu and Beatrice Chia-Richmond was housed in such an unassuming location, this interviewer’s feeling of disbelief eroded when talking to Fly Entertainment’s Founder and CEO Irene Ang. The office’s understatement is an extension of Irene Ang’s down-to-earth nature, one that belies the business savviness of the entrepreneur Irene Ang in, what is arguably, the, if not one of the, most cutthroat industries in Singapore.

Irene is probably most recognizable as Rosie Phua, the wife of Singapore’s most beloved ah-beng Phua Chu Kang. As she would tell it, the role was one that she stumbled into – while still an insurance agent, Irene had been working as the ‘warm-up’ for the show ‘Under One Roof’ when she was spotted and asked to audition for the titular role.

It might seem strange that an insurance agent who entered into the entertainment industry just to meet more people (and hopefully sell more policies) was able to attain considerable achievements as an actress, but those beginnings reveal the secret recipe to Irene’s success in life – set a goal, have faith that it can be reached, pursue the goal with gusto, execute with a focus on being excellent, slam into walls, learn and do it all again. Read more

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In Conversation with Wong Joon Ian, co-founder of Bloomerang

Bloomerang is a start-up founded by two founders, Zhiwen and Joon Ian. Their first product, BloomerHang® transforms clothes hangers into a novel, eco-friendly advertising platform. What’s more interesting, it is a product made of recycled cardboard and completely biodegradable and recyclable. The product even goes as far as ending the team as a finalist to the President’s Design Award Singapore 2009: Design of the Year. What’s the story behind this eco-conscious and ideas-driven startup? We caught Wong Joon Ian, one of the co-founders and sat down to interview him about the story behind Bloomerang, the process of getting the trademark and the challenges in position BloomerHang as an advertising platform.
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In Conversation with Forrest Li, Founder of Garena

If you are an online gamer e.g. Counter Strike, Warcraft 3 or Call of Duty 4, Garena is a multi-functional platform that allow games to chat, challenge opponents and play their favourite games online with millions of gamers out there globally. As a Singaporean based IDM company, Garena is one of the biggest PC online game communities with 23M registered users from 210 countries. What’s the story behind Garena? Through the lens of Forrest Li, the founder of the company, we interviewed him on how Garena serves the online gaming community out there in the world, the interesting features that they like new users to know, their expansion plans to other markets and his thoughts on gaming industry in Asia. Read more

Interview with Aung, Founder of 2C2P

2C2P is a Singapore-based company which provides a platform for e-commerce payment processing service with a set of industry standards, real-time fraud monitoring, and business intelligence reports and utilizes latest web 2.0 technologies extensively to process payment faster and enhance user experiences. The company has also won the grand prize for the Nokia Calling All lnnovators competition in the emerging countries and mobile necessities category and have been featured in the recent Nokia One-Connected World. We sat down with Aung, the founder of 2C2P and go through a range of issues from how the idea of 2C2P is conceived to the product and finally his thoughts on entrepreneurs in general. Read more

Interview with Ross Veitch, co-founder of wego.com

If you walk past the lane opposite Boat Quay in Singapore and look, you will see that one of the shophouses there displayed a logo called “Wego.com”. Wego is the name of a travel search portal made in Singapore and used to run by the name of Bezurk. In fact, if you talk to a lot of frequent business travelers, they will frequently refer you to this site to find hotels, flights and even good deals on travel. Ross Veitch and Craig Hewett started this enterprise some years back and brought Martin Symes, an experienced veteran into the company as CEO. They have been featured on the press from WSJ to many travel magazines such as Expat Living and Time Out Singapore. What’s the story behind Wego.com? So, we brought in Ross Veitch, one of the co-founders to share their story with us. Read more

In Conversation with Jeremy Snyder, Twinity and Metaversum

During Ad-Tech Singapore 2009, I worked together with Jeremy Snyder from Twinity (and Metaversum, the parent company) on a panel about innovation and experimental marketing. So, we thought it will be great for him to share about his experiences on virtual worlds and how it is like for a foreigner to set up shop in Singapore. While this is happening in the midst, Twinity has just announced a partnership with AsiaOne for the upcoming release of Virtual Singapore, where they will launch a virtual Orchard Road and Marina Bay in the third quarter of 2009, in conjunction with a major partner who will be announced closer to the release date. So, with all these interesting happenings in the virtual world space, it will be great to share this quick interview with Jeremy Snyder. Read more

Interview with Kenneth Lee, Founder of Green Koncepts

We often hear about how much we can do about energy conservation and sustainable development from the activists involved in the green movement. However, there exist companies with products who are doing their small part to guide us in our household towards energy conservation and in a small part, help us towards saving the Earth. So, we found a company in Singapore, Green Koncepts, which specialized in this area, and got their founder, Kenneth Lee to tell us about their product, Wattson – their wireless electricity monitor and the challenges involved in this emerging industry of energy conservation for the household. Read more

Interview with Yong Ming Guang – CEO of Socialwok

Socialwok, which is developed by a team led by CEO Yong Ming Guang, aims to provides enterprises the same communication tools that Internet users have become comfortable with when connecting with friends and family. A video overview of SocialWok can be found here. Ming shares with us how SocialWok can benefit businesses, employees and developers below. Read more

Pitch To Joi Ito

5 minutes may not sound like much, but if it means pitching to experienced investor, Joi Ito, 5 minutes may be a chance of a lifetime. Read more

Interview With Jonathan Chua, Co-Founder Of Klout

With the much awaited unConference 2009 happening this Saturday, SGEntrepreneurs catches up with one of the startups presenting at the event, Klout. We interview one of its co-founders, Jonathan Chua. Read more

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