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Dato Kenneth Kolb's Interview on ExpatriateLifestyle, June Issue
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, June
“So I thought ‘who are the people who make the most money?’ and I realised that it was business people who made a lot of money based on a small profit on each unit. And it was at that point I was going to invent something that I could sell a lot of and make a little money on each of them.”
He shrugs at that memory of his 22 year-old self, one that launched lifetimes of experience, a narrative that has taken him across the globe and placed him in the improbable location of Malaysia where he’s about to launch a revolutionary new product. While he’s on the cusp of his ultimate business success, he still has the scars that don’t let him take such moments for granted. “I think if I had known what I know now, all the difficulties that you encounter, I might have chosen differently. But probably not, there’s nothing like this, the life of creating your own destiny.” He draws deeply on his signature cigar, smiling at it all.
Kenneth is the curious and illusive breed of economic life, the entrepreneur, the individual who decides to abandon the security of a wage and a job to work for him or herself, empowered by the belief that they have a product or service that will succeed where others have failed, to deliver wealth beyond the constraints of salary. They have personal qualities and abilities that will overcome the risks and liabilities that they assume. Entrepreneurism is marked most decidedly by risk, that failure has a heavy cost that has consequences both personally and professionally. Entrepreneurs often take out highly leveraged loans taken from banks that believe in their business case, put all the assets they have in (including homes) and know that there’s a good chance that they’ll be working 24/7 for nothing, that a good business idea and even the money won’t be enough. Timing, competition, the animal spirits of the market can all spell doom for the best laid plans of mice and men.
According to Business Week, failure rates of most new ventures hover in the 50–60 per cent region in the first three years and even over the life of a business, the numbers are daunting. The Wells Fargo/NFIB estimates that over the lifetime of a business, 39 per cent are profitable, 30 per cent break even, and 30 per cent lose money; in other words you have a coin flip chance of making a profit. And all this doesn’t take into account that the entrepreneurs we’re talking about—foreigners who come to Malaysia—encounter special problems that make such rates even more discouraging. “Foreign businesses—especially entrepreneurial ones—aren’t the easiest thing to do in Malaysia,” admits Minna Saneri, General Manager of the European Union Malaysia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (EUMCCI). “There’s some special obstacles and things one has to navigate.” There are many times when an entrepreneur will pay everyone but himself, have taxes and bureaucracy hitting them that seems Kafkaesque, who have all the burdens and none of the rewards. It’s no wonder that—out of the general population—only 8 per cent choose to be business owners and instead opt for wages. Rupert Steiner, in his book My First Break attempted to define the secret of becoming an entrepreneur and following interviews with over 100 entrepreneurs, Steiner concluded that there was not one defined path. He has, however, drawn out observations of an entrepreneur’s personality traits. They have a tendency to be rebels, outsiders, original thinkers, risk takers and break new ground. Entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for new business opportunities and have the guts it needs to start up a business. They have total commitment to what they are doing, which verges on obsessive behaviour.
“Yes, without a doubt, there’s a special psychology. But they fulfil such a critical part of the economy. 90 per cent of economic life is dictated by SMEs (small medium enterprise); that’s mum and pop shops, small internet companies, light manufacturing and so on. And today’s SMEs are tomorrow’s larger corporations. They are the growth of an economy, the engine innovation and they are almost always entrepreneurial, owned by the owners/operators,” says Professor Jonathon Chin of Taylor’s Business School.
That innovation and down-on-the-ground spirit can manifest in different ways. For Kolb, his new invention, a revolutionary product called Hot Can (www.hot-can.com.my), is the accumulation of ten years of hard work. It’s a beverage can that heats up at the push of a button, anywhere, anytime. “It took me ten minutes to come up with it and ten years to get it ready for the market,” he tells, half amused. Still, he takes pride in the fact that he created something that larger manufacturers can’t replicate. “There’s one firm that has been working on a similar concept for years. They have 500 R&D employees, 500, and yet me and my team did it in less time and a fraction of the personnel,” he proudly declares. And after phenomenal success at the recent Halal Food Forum in KL, where Dato’ Kenneth was not only able to take big international orders from a variety of countries but he introduced Hot Can to former Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, who gave it a huge thumbs up.
Kieran McCarry, a man who started his own company called Clarisound to help those in need to better hearing―“They estimate that almost 5 million people suffer from hearing loss in Malaysia alone,” he says, a fact that is his call to personal and entrepreneurial action―saw him have his new business challenged by his old company that he worked for, the former employers putting a hearing aid shop in the same location as his.
“But they’re doing poorly, they’re just not able to get the level of service that we deliver,” he notes with a sigh having fought a market share battle against a formidable foe with only his determination and values winning the day.
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