https://begyn.co
Entrepreneurial journey told by two students
Story written by Toby Wong
“My cutoff was by the time I’m 45, I should be running my own firm. That is a key driver to me that makes me always planning on going back into the startup scene.
Begyn started about a year ago, prior to that, I was working at Quantium heading up the global IT operation team. After quitting the previous job, we sat down, we idea around a number of options, I think we had maybe two or three domains that we registered for other business ideas that we’d come up with. One was in the Robo Tech space. Another was in the b2b data analytics space, more from a sales and pipeline perspective. But we ended up settling on the education space, just reflecting back on what research had already done in the market itself. And it just seemed like the right opportunity at the right time. The idea that grabs my attention on education industry is related to my daughter. Back at that time when the pandemic of COVID -19 was devastating the world and children are pulled out of school, I myself, needed a tutor for my daughter which wasn’t easily able to find anyone and had no way of getting the tutors or understanding where they’re coming from, what they do, how they do, how much they cost or any other information. We realize it is actually a problem being faced by the majority of parent through interviewing loads of tutors and loads of parents. We had a number of hypotheses to see if the solutions that we’re planning or the features that we’re building actually helps to solve those problems, and we managed to prove those hypotheses true. And yeah, that’s where the product came to.
My goal for the business itself is to have a company that people actually want to work at, and they would have the freedom to think. We’re not going to stifle your thought process; you’re going to bring a diverse group of people together that can go through and create what the future of education should be and can be. For my lifelong goal, I just want to be able to have an impact. You have one life, so you need to have no regrets. And you need to achieve as much as you possibly can as quickly as possible you can, because time runs out very quickly. Having a startup is a more stressful job since we have lots of target to meet compared to a contract work with full time salary, but it is definitely a more enjoyable job for me. Wealth is not just monetary, wealth is freedom. So, when you work for yourself, you get freedom, and that’s your wealth.”
Story written by Tim Salisbury
“People keep talking about wealth and wealth is not just monetary – wealth is freedom. So when you work for yourself, you get freedom, and that’s your wealth. I don’t think I could give it up.” “My dad was a property developer, not a big time businessman, but he had a few properties, that kind of thing. We weren’t rich by any means of the imagination. My parents were immigrants to the UK, and they had to struggle and work hard, all the way through, in the 60s and 70s. It was a very different time back then. Growing up, we didn’t always have everything we needed, but my parents made sure we had enough to go university and graduate. My parents always supported me, no matter how far flung my dreams were. So, yeah, there was a bit of a drive and ambition to do something more, to step ahead, as it were.” “I’ve had some level of success in my ventures so far, but my viewpoint is that I don’t want to peak too early. You know, you see the kids at university getting the top grades and they’ve reached their pinnacle – they’ve got where they want to go. Whereas I felt I was underestimated and a bit of an underdog, I was always fighting to get the top. I think it’s the fighting spirit that pushes me on, especially as a first generation immigrant. I have a mindset around continuous learning and improvement, you always need to be better today than you were yesterday regardless of what you’re doing.” “I just want to be able to have an impact because you only have one life. You need to have no regrets and you need to achieve as much as you possibly can, as quickly as you possibly can, because time runs out very quickly.” “I believe that education is the key to changing the world and making it a better place. How are we going to solve things like climate change? How are we going to feed the world’s population? All of these things come down to education and you need educated people to be able to solve these problems.” “One of our mottos at the beginning was that we wanted to democratize education, bringing knowledge to the masses. Maybe there’s a child in regional NSW that goes on to solve one of these big defining problems of our generation. Without encouragement or a push or a tutor, they may never get there. So for me, that’s the goal.”