Gabriel Goh Yong Jun

Chief Logistics Officer

Public Policy and Global Affairs with Minor in Entrepreneurship

Hello. 你好. Selamat. வணக்கம்.

I am Gabriel, an undergraduate majoring in Public Policy and Global Affairs, at Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

My journey in entrepreneurship started when I was in secondary school where we can purchase a stock of my school cooperative which allowed us to partake in profits from the vending machine from the neighbourhood. It was an exciting moment when I received my first profits of $100 for a $10 investment at the end of my 5 years in school.

Soon I managed to start and close many small endeavours that were profitable but couldn't commit due to many things. Such as importing and selling Pomades, Resale of electronics and eventually starting my own logistics company which still runs today and hopefully in the coming years.

I guess I inherited my entrepreneurial spirit from my mum who until this day continues to be her own form of employment using whatever limited knowledge she has to make a living for my family. As the sole breadwinner, my mother has started many small businesses which most ended up as failures but her spirit of never giving up but continually trying to reinvent and to catch up despite the lack of education really inspire me to do better and take on the same path. She taught me that despite being unsuccessful we shouldn't give up what we like to do and keep trying no matter how hard it becomes.

I decided to pursue a Minor in Entrepreneurship to not only complement my course, but also get a feel of how is it like to start a business from scratch with the real OGs and find like-minded people.

For all past, present and future entrepreneurs, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn (https://tinyurl.com/GGoh96) to network and be able to have a two-way sharing our experiences in our journey as Entrepreneurs and learn from one another! To future Mie students (or aspiring entrepreneurs), I hope my blog will benefit you! :)

October 02

We brainstorm through various ideas such as terrarium, livestreaming and marketing consultancy agency. We manage to prepare a pitch for each of the idea by the initiator. I myself prepared a brief outlook on the marketing idea on how we can provide value to small business owners and how we can achieve the dreams for people by providing an outlet to scale their business through marketing and consultancy. However after much discussion the group eventually decide to move on with the terrarium idea due to it easier feasibility.

October 16

After 2 weeks of research and manifestation of our idea onto a proper business plan we managed to get a better sense of what we were to do for our business. We manage to come up with a timeline that suits everybody to begin the initiation of our plan, we manage to allocate workload properly among the team we will meet back to discuss after completing our task. We also had to present our idea and we got much feedback from everyone and after this. I am even more determined that the project will be successful if enough effort is given into it.

Until the coming meeting i am tasked with procurement of supplies as well as the plants. This along with trying to understand the market and industry a little better. Hope that everything will go smoothly.

24th October

During this week's meeting the operations department were tasked to develop a timeline of setting up the process workflow for our customers & workshop program to teach basic building and maintenance of our terrarium. While Nigel and I had a long discussion over the feasibility of having everything locally sourced. Followed by debates over the quantity for our first batch of sales.

While we eventually discussed to purchase as many items locally as possible it was not possible to source for figurines and terrarium housing at a cheap rate. We then had no choice to source for it in China. While i will be in-charge of sourcing the items from China from my end, we will head down to bulk purchase whatever supplies locally soon and do a product trial.

31st October

Today some of the group went to Far East Flora (FEF) and Candy Flowers. We were able to develop an understanding of the market prices of the supplies we will need for our business.

With a better understanding over the market prices and how we can further develop our product with the type of plants and where to source. we will continue to search for more supplies to keep our options wide and proposed a suitable budget for operations and inventory. on our weekly meeting on Sunday, 31st October 2021

31st October

During this week's meeting, the operations team were tasked with the development of Christmas design and idea and the sourcing of relevant material for the Christmas period. Hence we took it upon ourselves to search for figurines and related supplies that are suitable for the Christmas product line.

Nigel and I also decided that we will have to attend a terrarium workshop to develop an understanding of how to develop our own line of workshops.

Also with Stevenson's help who decided to purchase a terrarium, we were able to have a better understanding of the proportion per terrarium in terms of material so that we can bulk buy and repurpose them so that we can save on cost and increase our profitability per terrarium.

6th November

On this day, Jyn, Nigel and I went down to Hua Hng at Sembawang to compare prices and to purchase as much local supplies that we will need for our first batch of products.

After heading down and talking and looking for the supplies we manage to buy our first batch of supplies less terrarium housing. The decsion to buy all our supplies at one go despite having cheaper source else where was the consideration of transport cost which would render the discount moot. Hence we purchase our supplies as well as a group of plant to test the survivability of them under various condition. We also purchased a few housing for our first product trial.

We proceeded to Jyn's house to store the supplies and conduct our first product trial based on the porportion given by stevenson to develop our own product and feasbility of it. While Nigel and I managed to do the trial hands-on, Jyn was unable to do so due to Nigel accidentally breaking a terrarium housing showcasing the fragility of housing.

With our successful product trials we passed one set for QiQi to conduct photoshoot for marketing materials.

7th November

During this week's meeting, the update from everyone seems positive however due to our academic pressure, we had to be more flexible with our goals. While we were tasked with doing the workshops, i will be sourcing and negotiating with the Chinese suppliers to bring in our terrarium housing. Which was tough to find a suitable one due to the shipping rates and MOQ that we were finding.

Also update the status of the terrarium that i made with Nigel last week which is still going strong.

21st November

I managed to source for figurines and geometric terrarium shapes, purchases were made and i managed to cut cost on shipping by using a forwarder in China. The only thing we can do now is wait for the arrival of these item and hope that the ship manages to offload in time before Christmas sales season.

The supplier send me a photo of the ready goods to be shipped to our forwarder.

4th December

We had our first consultation with Mr Roderick and Mr Adrian to update on our progress which in turn we were given valuable insight on the our updates and how we can better market our products on the market and how to brand our products to the for new terrarium users. I also had updated the team on your progress of our shipment which was shipped to export terminal and ready for export. We were very excited as the bulk of the goods will be in Singapore very soon.

12th December

We had a meeting to discuss on our progress and i provided a sad update that our shipment will be unfortunately be delayed to 14 December. However we were still hopeful that the items could clear custom and reach us for our christmas sales.

16th December

Today, our team held another weekly meeting to update our progress of how we will proceed. As for me i presented on how we can deliver our terrarium packages easily with a logistics network provider and the low cost of it as we move towards that direction. deliveries will be done by those with vehicle whom will support the deliveries initially before we begin to use logistics provider.

However, another sad news was that our shipment has arrive in Singapore but is still pending custom clearance. We expect that the shipment might not reach us on time.

26th December

On this day we had a cohesion at Jyn's house for our weekly meeting and gathering.

Our objective was to do Inventory stock-take & Quality check of the terrarium casings which came from overseas

Following which Nigel and I Develop model of the "Classic" & "Enclosed" product lines to test the viability and testibility of the product.

3rd January

The team held its eighth weekly meeting. This week the operations team was assigned to generate idea for workshop with NTU Banyan Hall and also to source for Ruby star plant

The team is looking at pushing for CNY-themed terrarium.

6th January

We decided to refilm the terrarium video on 6th January, it happenned at Jyn house with Nigel as the host, while i am the director and cameraman for the whole thing. Nigel took the opportunity to make CNY design too.

CNY Terrarium

27th January

To help with our future workshop. we decided to participate in a workshop ourselves to understand how workshops are conducted and how to care for the respective plants. We called this business intelliegence ;)

Through the workshop, we really how to best conduct ourselves during a workshop and the kind of layout we need and equipment to faccilitate the workshop. we also gotten to know about the pricing of our competitor and ultimately learning some new tricks and tips.

28th February

we held a meeting on this day to discuss about our progress and how we are going to organise the workshop that is happening on 2nd March. It was unfortunate that during this period. Me,Jyn and Kelvin was down with Covid and we couldnt do much and we might not be able to be negative by 2nd March. but nevertheless we discuss contigency plan on how we can move the items from Jyn's house to our workshop location safely and timely. We decided that if Jyn is unable to do so we will get lalamove to assist in transporting to the location. Thus far we were worried that our trainer Nigel and Richmond will be down with Covid too. However luckily most of us are trained in making terrarium and hence we wont be caught too off guard. Really hoping our first workshop succeeds without a hitch !

2nd March

Successful Workshop !!

The day for our first ever workshop has arrived but unfortunately, Jyn and I are still Postive but we are on our day 10 and 7 respectively and we decided that we will help transport and setup the workshop as safely as possible.

After setting up the place with Nigel, me and Jyn went to wait in another room while Nigel, Richmond and Qiqi conducted the workshop. The workshop went smoothly and everyone had their fun and we managed to get a feel of how a proper workshop is done. Me and Jyn joined the rest to cleanup the room after they were done.

9th March

Finally, we have come to the end of our adventure after 6 months. It was finally time for us to share our experiences with everyone throughout our journey.

ET9135 has been an amazing journey, with plenty of moments and friendships forged. I'm grateful to have such an encouraging team.

To the future batches, hope that our blogs help you in your journey as well. Do remember to be brave and take that step if you believe in it and always be open to new ideas and adapt constantly! Feel free to contact me to find out more

https://tinyurl.com/GGoh96

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