I started a business with a partner 8 years ago, we were formerly working for others in this industry and decided to strike on our own. The company had only 2 of us, it was really tough going as there were many competitors in the market and we were competing against much bigger players for business. We had numerous setbacks, but we just kept working at it. Now my company has 12 people, all graduates including several masters holders. Our future looks bright, but we still have a long way to go.
In the early years, we learnt the hard way that in order for our company to survive in this industry, we had to focus on the niche areas where there is little competition. The reason there is little competition is because it requires a lot of R&D and there's little demand for it, finding customers for these products is difficult. Most of our competitors prefer to do the much easier business of trading in the mass market.
So we began developing our products for the niche market, and travelled overseas frequently looking for customers. After much effort, we manage to secure several overseas projects. The key thing we learnt in the niche market is that we need to be flexible and innovate to compete. Our competitors have fixed products that do not meet all of the customers specs. And each customer has different requirements. For us to win the business, we have to work with customers to customize, develop and fine-tune our products to meet all their requirements, as well as provide them very good tech support. All these are very time consuming processes and have monetary costs.
The evolution of my company over the years is surprising to me, never would have expected it. We started as a small local trading company, to a niche market R&D company, and soon becoming a manufacturing company. For the past 8 years, I've been working like shit, and when I get home, I've to help look after children and listen to the wife nagging for coming home late, not helping with the children, blah blah blah... This kind of life can drive me insane.
