Entrepreneur Benjamin Tan has never really had a business game plan but he seems to have landed on one that looks a winner, after many years of trying his hand at pretty much everything.
His ventures have included anything from marketing to real estate and high-tech forays on the Internet - a testament to his willingness to keep searching for one that works best for him.
Mr Tan, 28, is now the proud owner of The Escape Hunt Experience Singapore, set up at a cost of $300,000, which opened in May.
The game involves locking customers inside different rooms for 60 minutes, leaving them to play the role of detectives who have to find an escape.
Mr Tan came across the game while in Bangkok in December last year and decided to bring the franchise to Singapore.
He said he had always wanted to be in business but did not know where to start or how to find the capital.
When he enlisted in national service at the age of 17, he signed on as an Air Force regular as it was the only way he could afford a university education.
He was given a scholarship to study computer engineering at the Nanyang Technological University.
During that period, he explored many money-making opportunities - options trading, multi-level marketing and eventually Internet and affiliate marketing. He picked up coding, learnt how to build a website and studied subjects like search engine optimisation. He did well and bought out his Air Force bond.
In the middle of 2011, he went into real estate and chalked up about $120 million in transactions in his first year. Overall, he sold about 200 units in his first two years, he said, but when the market slowed last year, he took time off to do a Bible study course with his wife Sebrina Goh, 28.
It was then that they decided to diversify and invest in property. The couple went to Bangkok to look for investment opportunities and returned with two condominium units under their belt and plans to open Escape Hunt.
Q: Are you a spender or saver?
A saver. Since young, I've believed in investing in assets which appreciate rather than depreciate.
While I was working in real estate, I saw some friends blow their money on fancy cars, watches, holidays. It's not really my style.
I'm saving towards investing in my own businesses. I also believe in investing in properties that appreciate.
Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards every month?
I charge about $10,000 a month to my cards, which I use to chalk up KrisFlyer miles.
Most of it is business expenses. The rest is car loan payments of about $1,600 monthly and day-to-day expenses of $2,000 to $3,000.
Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself? What do you invest in?
My main investment is this new venture. So far so good. We're the top attraction on TripAdvisor.
I also run an education consultancy firm with a business partner which started early this year. It's not as capital intensive, but involves sweat equity.
I have life insurance and am covered for about $500,000, including critical illness and total permanent disability coverage.
Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like?
I come from a poor family. My father is an electrical engineer and very hard-working, but he had a gambling habit. so we were always in need while growing up. He tended to spend more than he earned and lost money in the stock market, football betting and horse racing. Eventually, he declared bankruptcy when I was 14.
Q: How did you get interested in investing?
I started reading a lot from when I was 16 years old, as I wanted to get out of the poverty cycle.
What inspired me to invest was Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki. I got started in stocks initially, tried my hands at options trading and failed terribly. I went into multi-level marketing but didn't feel the model was right.
When I got into real estate, I had wanted to learn how to invest. But I realised that the best way to learn is to keep practising, so I became an active agent on the ground and went for continuous training to improve my market knowledge.
Q: What property do you own?
Two two-bedder condominium units in Sukhimvit Road, Bangkok, which we bought late last year for about $700,000 in total.
We went in with a Malaysian developer and collectively bought eight units, so we got a good price.
I knew that locally, it was not the best time to enter the property market, whereas there were many opportunities overseas. We had studied the Bangkok property market - the prices there were quite low for the prime area, compared with prime areas in other cities like Singapore or Beijing. There was a big upside potential to Bangkok.
The rental market was also strong and there was a lot of local buying demand. It's been appreciating for last few years - property prices don't fall just because there is a riot or coup.
Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought?
A business course called Get Altitude by Eben Pagan, which I bought online for US$4,000 when I was 18. That was six months of my pay.
It's a set of 12 DVDs. I studied how to build and scale a business, and the principles I learnt from the course really helped.
For example, take the concept of speed of implementation, or how soon you can implement an idea. I make decisions quite fast if I see it's a good decision. When we went to Bangkok, we took just one night to do our sums and decide to bring Escape Hunt back here.
Though we realised later that we're not the first in the local market - there are already 14 such players now - we aim to be the best.
Q: What's your retirement plan?
I think I will never retire. I'm an entrepreneur at heart and am always looking for more opportunities.
Q: Home is now...
A five-room flat in Tampines with my parents. We are still timing the local market to get our own home.
Q: I drive...
An Audi A6.
This article was first published on July 20, 2014.
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