“I was too naive to ask for help”

This is the fourth article from the “Mistakes made, lessons learnt” series. Check out all the articles here.

Company & founder: Gina Romero

Biggest mistake made: Failing ask for help from others when confronted with an unexpected big offer

Most memorable setback: Missing out on a potentially big deal – to be the main wireless Internet infrastructure supplier for a housing estate.

Setting up a base in Singapore only last September 2010, Gina is fast becoming a familiar face in Singapore’s startup scene. A mother of three, a manager of a family-run farm, a air-stewardess, and a former director of an IT consulting company, Gina is indeed a lady filled with experience and enthusiasm to make things happen. Today, she is the head of The Athena Network (Singapore, APAC), and founder of a business community, Business Rocks.

Rewind back to 2001. While on a visit to the United States, Gina noted that cafes offering wifi Internet are getting popular. Recognizing the immense impact this would have in the UK, she nudged her tech-savvy partner Bobby to explore this field. Together, they researched and marketed wireless Internet to over 100 housing units in a pilot project for a leading property developer in London.

Opportunities will come when you least expect them

It all started with a house visit to a friend of Gina’s newly bought apartment, which was managed by the property development company. Observing that the apartment was not Internet-enabled, she proposed setting up wifi access for her friend. Her friend was excited by the potential.

Gina then further pushed boundaries and proposed having a “Demo Day” for the entire block of the apartment. Not over-analyzing the situation, she rallied her crew —  family and friends — and started handing out promotional flyers to every other housing unit. On Demo day, the wireless Internet was activated, with the main Internet cable hanging down from the friend’s apartment at level six to the ground lobby floor. However, fellow residents were too in awe of the technology to pick on the unpolished set-up.

Despite such ghetto set-up, a big opportunity came knocking after the demo. The Managing Director of the property developer proposed having Gina to be the main supplier of wireless Internet for his company. This proposition came unexpectedly. But it was only made possible with Gina’s eagerness to market the technology to the UK and to her friend’s apartment.

Seek help, especially when it comes to renegotiating a deal

Yet, Gina shared how one mistake she made led to her missing out on this opportunity.

During the months-long preparation for the boardroom meeting, Gina came up with a business model of charging a monthly fee for each household unit; giving the property development company the full liberty to charge any final service fee they wish to the each household. This allowed Gina to have minimal upfront capital costs.

However, the directors counter-proposed that Gina incur the full installation costs, while giving Gina full ownership to charge a final price to the households directly. Daunted by the high capital costs required, Gina backed out of the deal almost immediately.

It did not cross her mind to seek advice from others on how to re-negotiate the deal. This incident occurred even when she had an advisor who was a veteran in the telecom industry.

“As an entrepreneur you can’t be good at everything — So don’t be afraid to ask for help. Be completely honest with yourself about your strengths and weakness, and build a network of experts across different business areas who you can call on for collaboration and support,” she said.

Photo: Jasmine Vincent

A huge success in the UK since 2005 with over 2600 members, The Athena Network is a networking organisation for professional business women from all industry sectors. Gina is launching The Athena Network (APAC Region) in Singapore on February 24th 2012. Visit the Athena Network Facebook Page for more information.

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