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**ramcem** · 26-11-2006, 11:05 AM

An article in year 2003..

For those who think setting up a business is easy and it just takes an honour degree to succeed, think again. For every successful example you see, there are 99 that tried and perish..

Enjoy reading.

~Ramcem

A dream to be a brand like SIA

Much has been said about Ms Olivia Lum, chief executive of Hyflux Ltd, a listed water-treatment company. But do you know where her entrepreneurial streak comes from? What does it take for a poor orphan girl to become a $70-million woman?

By Susan Long

CALL her Lady Luck. Ms Olivia Lum is one woman you would not want to play poker with.

Only recently, the chief executive of Hyflux was hailed as an entrepreneurial success story by her hero, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

When she took her water-treatment company public early last year, it coincided with a spirited market rally which saw its issue price of 32 cents surging by three times.

Overnight, the IPO queen became a multi-millionairess.

Defying recessionary gravity, Hyflux's net profit shot up by 16 per cent to $7.4 million last year, with higher expectations of growth this year.

To cap it all, she was appointed recently by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong as Singapore's representative to the Apec Business Advisory Council.

The international council provides business advice and feedback to Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum leaders.

At 41, Ms Lum is reportedly worth some $70 million.

Still single, she lives in a 4,000-sq-ft, triple-storey, semi-detached house in the Thomson area with a maid, a Samoyed called Snowy, two rabbits and three parrots.

With heightened publicity of late, much of it focusing on her net worth, she is asked the inevitable question: Has she received any attractive suits?

'I think not many men dare to propose,' she answers straight up. 'It's not easy to have a girlfriend like me. I'm a very focused workaholic.'

If she has no time for boyfriends, it is because she is blissfully married to her work.

'Work is my hobby. Even on Sundays, I enjoy doing it,' says the petite woman who has pounded the 12-hour-workday treadmill for as long as she can remember.

Her only indulgence is shopping for Prada and other designer togs and careening around in her black Mercedes-Benz E240 to check out new restaurants.

The head of this self-confessed 'pressure cooker' boss is screwed on tight. She harbours few illusions. Her secret of success is simple, uncompromisingly old economy, and summed up in one word: Sacrifice.

She scoffs at the many 'grand' misconceptions about entrepreneurship out there. 'A lot of people are seduced by the glamour of being their own boss, pursuing their own ideas and making big money. That's only one part of the story.

'You have to overcome a lot of other things. It is very tiring, humbling and all about sacrifice,' she says during an interview at her no-frills, fluorescent-lit Changi South office.

Often asked what it takes to go it alone, she has a stock reply for aspiring entrepreneurs:

'Are you willing to sacrifice time and, if need be, travel far away from Singapore, suffer in the cold, be with people you don't like and bring yourself to a low level, to convince buyers?'

Her frank assessment is that few Singaporeans, especially highly-paid middle managers, will make the cut.

'Most will tell you they want to work 9 am to 5 pm, no entertainment after-hours, that their family is their first priority. But in business, there is no pre-programmed routine. Especially the first few years, it is make or break.

'Unlike entering a job, you cannot negotiate with your boss that you are not willing to travel or work weekends.

'When you have to pay bills and worry about surviving the next month, you have no negotiation power whatsoever,' she says.

Her story begins with what most people would call lucklessness.

The setting is the languid town of Kampar in Perak. She was an orphan, adopted by an old woman she called grandmother, who spent her remaining days squandering her savings at the mahjong table.

At night, little Olivia's nightmares were not of phantom ghosts but of losing home and hearth and sleeping on the roadside.

At nine, her worst fears were realised when by yet another poor hand, their terrace house was finally lost. They had to move to a small wooden house and let the maid go.

It was then that she decided to sell everything in sight - from home-made ice lollies to denim jeans - to earn her own dough.

'Seeing Grandma gamble away her money, I wanted to do something. Otherwise, I didn't know where we would end up,' she recalls.

So, daily, she lugged four loaves of kaya and peanut-butter sandwiches to her school canteen and sold them at five sen a slice during recess time.

Sometimes, she skipped school and hitched a ride to far-flung plantations to buy cheap papayas or guavas. These, she sliced and hawked on the streets downtown.

Even the dolls, chocolates and other birthday gifts she received from her grandmother's friends were not spared. She repacked and sold them to her schoolmates.

'I had no toys of my own,' she says almost proudly. 'My joy and delight in receiving gifts was not to play with them - I had something to sell.'

She grew up fiercely independent, signing her own report card from Primary 1 to 6.

'I was brought up alone, so I explored my own ideas and talked to myself. My grandmother was illiterate so I decided most things myself. My teachers used to remark: 'Your parent's signature has improved over the years'.'

By the time she was in secondary school, she had progressed to selling insurance policies. She remembers ironing a RM5 note - her biggest sales commission ever then - and preserving it lovingly within the pages of a book, which she often flipped just to relive the 'enjoyment of looking at the money I had earned'.

Early on, she realised that sales suited her personality and she set her sights on building a business.

'What I liked was that I could do it quickly there and then and see tangible results. It was satisfying. The more I sold, the more I understood people and the human dynamics of pleasing customers, what they really wanted and needed,' she says.

'This dream never died - selling was my link with the business world.'

At 16, the straight-A student was advised by her teachers to further her education and prospects in Singapore.

So she bade Grandma a teary farewell, journeyed to Singapore, rented a cheap Chinatown room with three female construction workers and enrolled at Tiong Bahru Secondary School.

She paid her own way by giving tuition after classes on weekdays and peddling everything from souvenirs to smoke detectors on weekends.

On top of that, she scored 6 As and 2 Bs for her O levels and secured a place in Hwa Chong Junior College.

Then began one of the darkest chapters of her life. Her beloved Grandma died of tuberculosis when she was sitting for her A-level biology paper.

She found herself blinded by tears halfway into the examination. Her answer sheet was soaked.

Somehow, she managed to steel herself and did well enough to read applied chemistry - because it was 'industrial-related' and sounded 'useful' - at National University of Singapore. But even then, she was dead set on running her own show.

'I did my degree not to gain knowledge or work for someone else in case I failed in business - I did it so that I could put BSc down on my company name card,' she says matter-of-factly. (A statement I truly agree... )

She paid her fees by operating two canteens at construction sites in Katong and Bukit Timah and rushing there every day after lectures to help serve hungry workers.