When Daniel Charles, the founder and CEO of Global Racing Schools, first decided to get into the racing business, he wanted to open a race track in Singapore. But he realized it would cost about half a billion dollars.

“That may not be the best place to start,” he thought. He decided to scale down, and considered starting a go-cart track instead. But that proved too daunting as well.

Finally, he settled on becoming a dealer for motorsports products. Slogging his way through, Daniel, at 25 years old now, has built Global Racing Schools into a company that connects leisure and professional racers to driving experiences by over 200 suppliers in 20 countries.

“I remember an entrepreneur talking on television about the right way to get into an industry: ‘Don’t focus on getting the whole body in. Start with the toe’,” he says, “if you want to be a DJ, start by carrying amps around. If you want to be the next Zuckerberg, start by hanging around the right places and events.”

Today, the young entrepreneur has offices in Singapore, Australia, and the United States. The avid Formula One fan, looking every bit a professional racer himself with designer shades, watch, and a racing polo-tee, has handled between two to three thousand customers ever since the company was started in 2008.

A basic driving package at a race track starts from around US$600, while an aspiring professional can fork up to US$3,000 a day. Global Racing Schools takes a cut of the revenue from their partners in Europe, America, and Asia. Corporate clients have turned out to be his biggest customers.

Recently, the company has even begun offering Ice Driving experiences in countries like Mongolia, Canada, and Finland.

While there are websites offering similar driving experiences, they are usually confined to a country, say, France. He isn’t aware of a company in Asia that’s offering these packages in various exotic locales.

“Don’t focus on how much money you will make; find something you’re passionate about. If you just look at money, you will forget that you won’t make money for a very long time.”

Daniel epitomizes the old-school, gut-it-out, learn-as-you-go kind of entrepreneur; a throwback to an earlier time. With no mentors, outside investment, or industry knowledge, he jumped into the dealership fray against grey heads with more experience, armed with nothing but savings from his previous businesses and his dream of building a global racing empire.

“There was no one to guide me or incubate my business. I didn’t know anyone in the industry either. When I showed up on the scene, everyone asked, ‘who’s this new kid on the block?’”

Being young certainly was a disadvantage, and people tended not to take him seriously. He had no grounds to stand on.

Being young also meant that while his friends were out partying and having fun, Daniel would be going on business trips and attending meetings.

“I didn’t have much fun. What kept me going was the joy that comes from creating something new,” he says.

The rough idea for Global Racing Schools came to him while he was still in Nanyang Polytechnic.

A client in his dealership business, who has been buying motorsports products for his child, asked Daniel if he knew where his child could train to become a professional racer.

Since there are so many schools and courses around the world, with so many locations and dates, the challenge is to sieve through all of them and find the quality ones.

Daniel realized that this pain point is something he can address. He worked on his business even while serving his two-year mandatory National Service stint in the Army. Since he worked regular hours as an engineer, he had time to execute on his business after work hours.

Global Racing School essentially serves two kinds of customers: First, corporations and individuals looking for unique experiences to gift someone, and second, aspiring professional racers looking for advice, consultation, and management.

Since it could cost up to US$8M to train a child from the age of six to become a Formula One driver, securing the right partners and racing schools is critically important.

“Suppliers will always tell you they can do it. But only we know what they can do, from a neutral standpoint. We know the pros and cons of the partners we work with.”

The challenge with building Global Racing Schools was that he was focusing on a niche market seeking for global experiences.

He had to build from scratch a network with suppliers. With a limited marketing budget, he used Google Adwords and SEO techniques to target customers. It took three years before he finally turned a profit.

“When the whole world doesn’t believe in you, you have to believe in yourself. Don’t focus on how much money you will make; find something you’re passionate about. If you just look at money, you will forget that you won’t make money for a very long time,” he says.

Moving forward, Daniel hopes to establish offices in more countries. While most of his customers come from Singapore, he believes that by having a sales force to meet corporate clients in more places, he will be able to dramatically widen his client base.

Starting a business is something that has always been in Daniel’s bones. In Primary school, he would sell drawing blocks and rent neckties to students that did not bring them. He has even founded a tuition center and a restaurant, which he has since shut down.

Daniel is now working on his fifth company, this time in the fashion line.

To this day, aside from the $5,000 capital he started out with, he has never needed another cash injection. He starts his next business from the money he made from the previous one.

While he isn’t close to building his race track yet, he is certainly one step closer to that ideal.

Women Entrepreneurs on the Web (WeOW), an initiative by both organizations, will kick-off in June, with the launch party on 31st May. The event was first started by Google in India and saw over 300 female executives and entrepreneurs participate.

The event will consist of webinars, in-person seminars, networking events, and Google hangouts, all held within a five month period. A Student-Partnership track will also be launched where interested students will be trained in Google products to help businesses with their digital marketing campaigns.

The training program will consist of five circles, and these are:

• Building an online presence
• Collaborating effectively through the cloud
• Connecting with customers
• Promoting your organization
• Tracking and optimizing your online presence

You can find out more information about WeOW in Singapore, or register online.

Join the speaker in this multi-user dialogue, which will take a small group of people through the experience of the transformative power of communal learning, interaction and sharing. It is held at Kennel, a co-working space for creative entrepreneurs.

Event Details

When: Saturday, 19th May, 2pm to 6pm
Where: Kennel, Blk 8D Dempsey Road, #03-03/04, Singapore 249672 (map)
Cost:  Public: S$99, Kennelists: S$79, Veterans: S$59

Register here.

About the speaker

The Journey Man entitles the work of Johnny Gillett who draws from over twenty years of wide and varied performance.

• As a Mime Artist throughout Europe and North America
• As a Speech and Drama Teacher in South East Asia
• As a Youth Worker to the international expatriate community
• As a world travelled Storyteller with tales from across the globe and nearer to home

Now, Johnny visits schools, museums, corporate training days, teacher training days, festivals, woodland, parks, youth centres, churches, conferences, art centres, residential centres, castles and many other venues to perform, lead workshops and teach.

It said in the statement that they do not “allow the use of our logo or name as an endorsement of any company’s products or services. In this instance, Interesting Mart has not been authorised to use the logos of SPRING and SPRING SEEDS Capital. Furthermore, SPRING has had no part in the formation of Interesting Mart nor has Interesting Mart been awarded the ‘Spring Singapore Enterprise Fund’.”

The company has since removed all mention of both organizations.

SPRING Singapore was the administrator of the now-defunct YES! Startup fund, a seed-funding scheme.

SPRING SEEDS is a co-matching investment scheme which matches the sum funded by private sector investors dollor-for-dollar up to a maximum of S$1M, with the first round of investments limited to S$300,000.

Technology startups are today’s entrepreneurial rockstars. Not a week goes by without an announcement of a new location-based app, niche social network, or online travel discovery service.

But like many hard-luck musicians, these startups burn bright at the beginning, relying on the quick fix of seed or venture funding, only to fade later on.

That’s because they are still searching for a business model, and until then, they can’t be legitimately called a sustainable business.

In the midst of this fever, Aunty Binnaz is an online service that stands out for modernizing an un-sexy industry — fortune-telling. Yes, I’m talking about psychic reading of the tarot-card, astrology sort.

Except in this case, Aunty Binnaz’s main product is coffee-cup reading, a popular form of fortune telling in Turkey.

Started in January 2011, the business is on track to generate an annual revenue of US$1M by doing “hundreds” of readings a day, says Turkish entrepreneur Sertac (pronounced sir-tarsh) Tasdelen, who’s also an Ernst & Young business consultant, fashion photographer, and part-time model.

He is based in Singapore, while his co-founder and CTO Kaya Diker works from the United States.

Aunty Binnaz’s business model is straightforward. It is a Turkish and English website that enables users to upload pictures of their empty coffee cups to any of the 30 carefully selected and listed fortune-tellers.

Customers pay a US$6 fee per reading, which can be received either via text or voice recording. Aunty Binnaz (which is actually branded after Sertac’s mum) keeps a share of the revenue.

The company, registered in Singapore, recently added Tarot card and Astrology readers to their ranks, and has just launched an iPhone app in Turkish. 90 percent of customers are from his native country, and that market is their focus for now.

Like me, you may be skeptical about the fortune-telling business, or even the ethics of it.

But it makes a lot of business sense. Psychic reading is a money-spinning endeavor. A study suggests that one in seven Americans have consulted a psychic. In Asian countries like Japan and Taiwan, fortune-telling is huge too. That goes without saying: The Chinese are a superstitious lot.

“We grew organically. That’s the key in any startup.”

While the most rational among us might question the legitimacy of these oracles, Sertac claims he is a true believer.

“There are some people with the sixth sense,” he says, and his mum is one of them. He recounts an incident where she did a reading for his CTO Kaya and friends. Kaya is a non-believer.

Upon receiving the voice recording in America, he pressed the play button on his iPhone while he and his friends are having dinner together. His wife was serving soup.

Sertac’s mum says: “I can smell the soup, next time please put it for me also.” The recording was made beforehand.

While fortune-tellers tout their ability to predict the future, Sertac says they serve a more practical purpose too.

“In Turkey, coffee cup reading is a way of communicating problems.”

When customers share their problems with a fortune teller, they forge a bond. Clairvoyants themselves may have psychological or social problems which can be cured when they know about other people’s issues. Customers benefit too, as talking about a problem to a listening ear can be therapeutic.

“Fortune tellers have an effect for us. They don’t make things happen, but these people have a tendency to see something that you and I don’t,” he says, “we also believe in general you can really predict the future by changing yourself.”

Regardless of whether you believe in the practice or not, Aunty Binnaz’s growth is not the result of some hocus-pocus. Attribute it to sound business principles.

Sertac initially started the site as a way to keep his mum occupied. Costs were minimal, and the only marketing expense was a one-dollar daily Facebook ad. But the demand kept up, and they soon had to hire more and more psychics.

“We grew organically. That’s the key in any startup. A startup is not something you invest a lot of cash, bring all those people together, and say: Let’s go. You need a unique idea, good execution, and organic growth to a certain stage where a company can stand on its two feet without too much intervention.”

Quality control is paramount at Aunty Binnaz. They have a stringent selection process, based on a secret formula, like KFC’s secret herbs and spices. Also, psychic readers are cut if they don’t hit a benchmark of 90 percent. They are scored by customers.

Fortune-tellers are given a set of guidelines to adhere to. They cover the use of language, tone, and the introduction, body, and conclusion of their readings. While everything is customized for the customer, the product contains the essence of the company’s values.

They don’t shy away from saying negative things too, although they present it in the most acceptable way possible.

“We don’t say, ‘you’re going to die tomorrow, but something like, ‘please be careful’.”

Aunty Binnaz isn’t just about revenue, but also social impact. Many of the fortune-tellers are hired from outside the existing job market, who may not be working for personal or circumstantial reasons.

Sertac treats all his staff like family, sending personal letters addressing them as such and keeping up to date with their lives. He has a bonus scheme for fortune tellers that stay long-term. Overall, he claims that his staff can earn up to double a normal government-related job, and it comes with flexible hours and the ability to work from home too.

“Starting a business is a childhood dream of mine. I believe that sometimes, you don’t push things, they catch you if you have a open heart.”

As a result, he has been able to keep turnover rates low.

“We want to create a bigger impact in Turkey; not just earn 100 million dollars in revenue. The social impact is what makes me proud and go to bed satisfied.”

What’s interesting about the business is the diversity of fortune tellers on the site. They include an ex-banker who just quit corporate life, a social study expert, a psychologist, an artist, and even an engineer. Some do it full-time, others part-time as a hobby.

The people who seek their services are diverse too, ranging from high-level corporate executives to housewives. A loyal customer even gets multiple readings a day from different fortune tellers, just so she could cross-check their prognosis.

While Turkey is its key market, Aunty Binnaz is keeping an eye on the world. The fact that Sertac operates from Singapore reflects the company’s outlook, although good infrastructure and transparent business and taxation rules factor in as well.

The Asian market is particularly enticing, since forms of fortune-telling like palmistry, astrology, and Feng Shui have continued to flourish. The company could potentially create localized sites with local ‘aunties’ for each market, and is open to engaging strategic partners, investors, and even franchisees to take the business further.

But in the near-term, he plans to expand the pie in Turkey first. He’s also quitting his job as a business consultant to work on his startup full-time.

“Starting a business is a childhood dream of mine. I believe that sometimes, you don’t push things, they catch you if you have a open heart. This project found me,” he says.

We’ve also received details and screenshots (below) of the alpha version of the site. Based on what we know, Home24.sg will offer about 5,000 variations of houseware, kitchenware, tableware, and lighting items. Their inventory will consist of a mix of local and foreign brands.

Customers will not be charged for delivery to their homes. They will also receive a refund if they find that the same item is priced lower in any other major retailer, or if the product does not suit their homes. The offer is valid within seven days of purchase. There are no delivery charges for refunds too.

(Read: Are the Samwer Brothers’s Rocket Internet really that bad for Southeast Asia?)

Home24.sg will face competition from other online furniture retailers like Courts, BEDS.sg, and Furnituremart.sg.

Click images for the full-sized versions:

Homepage:

Order page:

FAQ:

Filled with 200 enthusiastic and hopeful individuals, the room in the University of Philippines Cebu is buzzing with excitement. More than 40 individuals took turns to pitch this time.

It’s Startup Weekend Cebu, the third Startup Weekend held in the Philippines. Tickets for the event are sold out. Much like Startup Weekend Manila, you can’t help but soak in the positive energy all around you.

(Read: A rapturous Startup Weekend Manila, right to the very end)

Startup Weekend Cebu - A long line of people waiting to pitch

For the uninitiated, Startup Weekend is an intense 54-hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application which could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend. The weekend brings together people with different skillsets – primarily software developers, graphics designers and business people – to build applications and develop a commercial case around them.

Team Commute.ph, pitching to solve the problem of a lack of public transportation information

It became clear to me that while Singaporeans like myself were busy solving first-world problems by simplifying photo-sharing and bar hopping, it is a different set of circumstances in the Philippines.

I was delightfully surprised at the diversity of problems that attendees were trying to solve — even more impressed by the standard of their pitches and prototypes.

The crowd favorites were those that were clearly solving a critical pain point in the daily lives of millions of Filipinos.

WaitKnowMore, codetoki and Commute.ph for example, respectively deal with issues such as making long queues more enjoyable, IT graduates more employable and public transport more accessible.

Here’s a rundown of the winners:

WaitKnowMore - they had a great pitch and did a skit to illustrate the problem and solution

1st Place – WaitKnowMore. A mobile SMS service that alerts you when your queue number is reaching. It sends out an SMS when it’s close to your turn and sends you offers from nearby shops to entertain you while you wait. Primarily targeting queues at medical facilities such as hospitals and clinics in the Philippines.

2nd Place - luto.co. A mobile application that acts as your recipe and grocery inventory, so that you’ll never have to wonder “What should I cook?” ever again.

codetoki website - helping students meet hackers

3rd Place – codetoki. By far, my favourite idea. It addresses a clear problem, which is improving employability of IT graduates in the Philippines, which currently only has 8 percent employment rate. Codetoki allows students to connect and ask questions from industry professionals about technical skills that are required to bridge the gap. Think Stack Overflow for students.

Kickstart for a Better Life award – WaitKnowMore

People’s Choice – commute.ph

Gwen with the Startup Weekend Cebu crew, Tina Amper in red.

The efforts by successful Filippino tech entrepreneurs and professionals who came back to the Philippines for this event to help build the startup community is commendable.

Led by Tina Amper, a native Cebuano previously based in Los Angeles, Startup Weekend Cebu was organized by TechTalks.ph.

Judges like Winston Damarillo of MorphLabs, Minette Navarrete of Kickstart Ventures and Alvin Gendrano of Microsoft Philippines also demonstrated  their commitment to help build a robust and active startup scene in Cebu.

“It is important that we provide a pathway for our technologists and engineers to become entrepreneurs,” said Damarillo, himself a highly successful technopreneur having founded software companies Morphlabs and Exist, before founding Developers Connect to discover and nurture the natural capacity of the Filipino to innovate and create.

“Our talent pool is scarce and fleeting — it is important to maximize our potential through entrepreneurship.”

Video curated by Business.me, a place to share and discover videos about business.

The creators of Insync, an app that offers Dropbox-like functionality to Google Docs users, have responded to the launch of Google Drive.

More than two weeks ago, I wrote that Insync is at risk of becoming redundant, since Google Drive replicates some of its features. Although Insync is the superior app for now, it’s only a matter of time before Google starts adding more features to its new offering.

In response, Insync announced two days ago that it will focus on Google Docs power and business users. Also, once it moves out of beta and into version 1.0, Insync will become a paid app with a free 30-day trial. Users will still be able to use Insync for Mac and Windows for free via a referral program. More details will be announced soon.

Currently, there are several things that Insync can do that Google Drive can’t. As listed on their blog post, they are:

• Google Docs in your “drive” — offline GDocs editing
• @gmail.com, @company.com, @family.com — multiple Google account sync support
• Who edited word.doc? — recent changes
• Change your Google Drive directory easily — just click Insync Preferences
• When recipient deletes a file, owner would still have local access to the document
• Local folder and file right-click (contextual menu) support for easy sharing
• No browser required when sharing (standalone app for Insync version 1.0+)

Moving forward, Insync already have their iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone apps in the works, which are expected to launch in May and June. Insync for the iPad and Android tablets will follow.

The mobile versions will have power features like ”send as attachment”, streaming music and videos, offline folders and files, export to SD Card for Android and BlackBerry, saving email attachments to Google Docs, and more.

Version 1.0 of Insync for Mac and Windows will roll out in June or July. Beta versions are already available on these platforms. A Linux version is being planned too.

It’ll be interesting to see how Insync navigates an increasingly crowded file-sharing space. Even Facebook has gotten into the game, enabling users to share files within Facebook Groups.

The company had previously raised a US$800,000 seed round late last year from Neoteny Labs, Reid Hoffman, Skype co-founder Toivo Annus, and Twitter’s ex-COO Santosh Jayaram.