When the trials and tribulations of being just your average run-of-the-mill salary man finally reached a boiling point for Eugene Tham, he decided to reach out to a few entrepreneurs who shared with him that his earning power would not reach the comparable goals he had previously expected.

Hence, he took a leap of faith and thirteen years later, he is the proud owner and co-founder of two successful enterprises.

As a graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication from Upper Iowa University with HELP University’s ADP Programme, Eugene takes pride in honing his equipped with knowledge and skills of communication spent at HELP that have enabled him to work more easily with his colleagues and clients.

According to Eugene, “Upon graduation, I joined a 4A’s Advertising Agency servicing a Telco account and then was headhunted over to join the client’s team doing Marketing. I then moved on to a Regional Business Development role in an American Fortune 500 company before I hit my growth ceiling, and then decided to take the leap of faith to apply my Communications and Marketing skills in my own company. Starting my own business was indeed tough, needing to sell my car and use up my savings as capital. 5 years later, I co-founded another company and today we are running Craftiviti and CaesarPaperStone.”

The first company Eugene co-founded was CaesarPaperStone in 2010, a Marketing and Events company that provides Marketing Solutions, covering areas of Event Management, premium customisation, On-Ground Activation and POSM Printing and deployment, among others. His second company was Crativiti, established in 2015 and is an award-winning brand offering learning experiences and high-quality certified supplies to handcraft personal body products, candles, lotions, lip balms, masks, scrubs, roll-on perfumes for personal use or to start your entrepreneurial journey. For both companies, Eugene oversees business development and operations.

Though he found success with both of his businesses, Eugene advises entrepreneurs – both current and starting out to continuously adapt to the ever-changing landscape of economy, governance, and technology. “In the current business landscape, perseverance is key,” Eugene said.

In fact, according to Eugene, “One of my key principles in being an entrepreneur is to consistently be agile. I welcome technology with open arms, but the adaptations would take a lot of time, effort, and financial resources. I choose not to be a victim of technology but instead, harness its entire capabilities.”

Being hungry to continuously seek improvements and to always learn and grow is Eugene’s mantra today as self-development is the key to staying agile as he states, “Today I am learning to take risks and dare to fail. It is not an easy thing to do, but I have learnt that it is the only way we can grow. At the start, focus on what sets your product/service apart from others, know your customers and target market, and then communicate and sell to them. Create products or services that are a need, not merely a want.”

As a Communication major, Eugene believes that the ability to communicate well is key to being ahead. Having the best product or service is useless if one is unable to communicate it to the world in the simplest manner and always being daring enough to face rejection, failure and judgement are keys to success.

He believes that a business is only successful if the people work together with mutual trust and respect. “I believe networking is important but networking with heart is critical. There is no use in just going out and sharing our name cards with all but not building a personal relationship of trust and respect with whomever we meet. Let us not take each other merely as a tool for our own gain but work towards a win-win all the time.” Said Eugene.

In parting, Eugene points out that he sees great opportunities in the future as the world gets smaller each day with the advancement of technology as he believes that creativity and thinking out of the box will allow great spotting of opportunities for success.