19. How to grow your business without killing yourself – Alvin Poh

Are you looking to grow your business to a six, seven or even figures without killing yourself?  If the answer is yes, you’re going to love today’s interview with Alvin Poh, a tech entrepreneur based in Singapore.
 
At the age of 33 years old, he sold his Internet business Voiden for $30 million. This was the business that he scaled up from $0 all the way to Singapore's #1 hosting provider with 35,000 clients and a team of 150 before the 8-figure exit. Alvin then spent the next few years traveling the world, exploring new hobbies like snowboarding, kite surfing and many more.

In 2020, he returned to Singapore and developed the 5E Scale Engine, which was the framework he used to scale up his business. Using that, he coaches entrepreneurs, just like himself, on how to Super Scale their businesses so that they can achieve breakthrough profits and find time freedom.
 
If that’s what you want as well, keep listening to this interview!

If you're an entrepreneur currently in the process of growing your business, listen in at 24:24 where Alvin shares a few mistakes entrepreneurs are currently making, including a strategy for each one.

And listen in to Alvin's answers to the following questions:

• Alvin, from a kid with only pocket money for bus rides and lunch in school, how did you end up becoming the CEO of an internet company?  - 1:09
• How did the $30m make your life better, and also worse? - 7:37
• If material goods aren’t your source of happiness, then what is? - 11:37
• Was your exit strategy very clear cut at the beginning? - 12:58
• How can we make a company sellable? - 18:43
• Is there a distinction between scaling and growing? - 20:06
• Why should businesses consider scaling? - 22:49
• What are some of the mistakes entrepreneurs making and how we can avoid them? - 24:24
• Is there a distinction between a 6, 7 and 8 figure business? - 28:02
• Tell us about your book, Super Scaling and your 5E scaling framework - 29:47
• How can we detach from the business to allow us to scale? - 30:57
• How can we get a copy of your book? - 34:50
• What’s next for you Alvin? - 35:55

If you want to keep in touch with Alvin, you can reach him on Instagram @alvinpohofficial. You can also pick up a copy of Alvin's book Super Scaling on his website at: http://superscaling.com/book.

Read these books to become highly sought after in your own industry -> www.pickericsbrain.com

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Transcript

Eric Feng (Host):

Are you looking to grow your business to a six, seven, or even eight figures without killing yourself?

If the answer is yes, you're going to love today's interview with Alvin Poh, a internet entrepreneur based in Singapore. At the age of 33 years old he sold his internet business Vodien for $30 million. You hear it right, $30 million. This was the business that he scaled up from $0 all the way to Singapore's number one hosting provider with 35,000 clients and a team of 150 before the eight figure exit.

Eric Feng (Host):

Alvin then spend the next few years traveling the world, exploring new hobbies like snowboarding, kite surfing, and many, many more. In 2020, he returned to Singapore and developed the 5E Scale Engine, which was the framework he used to scale up his business. Using that, he coached entrepreneurs, just like yourself, on how to super scale the businesses so that it can achieve breakthrough profits and find time freedom. If that's what you want as well, keep listening to this interview. Okay. Now, Alvin, you got to tell me this, right? I know you are a kid with just pocket money for lunch and for bus ride.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah, pretty much.

Eric Feng (Host):

Then, how did you end up being an internet CEO?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

I didn't dream of becoming a CEO. So, things started really, really small. All I wanted was enough money to hang out with my friends.

Eric Feng (Host):

Yes.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

As a kid, I had to find that money by myself. My parents wouldn't give me enough for food from the school canteen and maybe in the bus rides. So, the alternatives or the choices to me back then were part-time jobs, which typically paid about $5 an hour or starting your own thing. So, long story short, I just decided, yeah, just start my own thing. Be a freelance web designer. That gave me a lot of time flexibility. One thing led to another and suddenly I was running this tech company with my co-founder and that was the business that we grew 17 years and eventually sold for $30 million at 2017.

Eric Feng (Host):

Exactly. That was pretty impressive, but let's break it down. So, I calculate it because you said that you were doing this, at 33 you sold it off, and you were doing this for 17 years, which means that you started this business at 16 years old, right?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah, 17, actually.

Eric Feng (Host):

17 years old. So, you're a web designer. How did you evolve into a web hosting company?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Wow. That's a huge story in itself as well. So, I remember getting involved in web design because I was always on the computer. Then, one day my relative he just asked me to design his company website for him. I said yes not knowing anything. I said yes. Thankfully, I managed to find out how and deliver the website to him, got payed as well. The money wasn't a lot, but it was instrumental. It was actually life-changing because it showed me that my skill sets could be monetized. People are willing to pay money for my skillsets.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

That was the day I decided to go all out into web design. I did that for a few years. That was how I roped in my co-founder as well. He was literally the guy that I sat beside to the first day of Temasek Poly.

Eric Feng (Host):

Now, those of you who are classmates with Alvin, don't you wish that you were his classmates? You could have been the co-founder of a $30 million company. All right, anyway. So, you reached out to him, he helped you with a web design company. Okay, and then?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah. We started doing more and bigger web design projects, but ultimately we were balancing, we were students, right? So, we're balancing school and work and we didn't know it back at that time but we wanted to pivot. Even work pivot was something unknown to us. We basically just wanted to change the business into something that's a bit more sustainable. That came in the form of web hosting. We looked at the resources that we had available at that time. It was the customers that we served, the market that we had access to.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Knowing that, we knew that everybody who needed web design needed web hosting. That was how we had the idea to just do that pivot, go into web hosting and focus on that product based business and grow it from there.

Eric Feng (Host):

Very interesting. So, you moved from service, which is very human dependent.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

Into product, which therefore allowed you to scale, which is the theme for today's interview. You guys, if you want to know how to scale your business without killing yourself, you've got to keep staying through this interview, okay? So, two men, how did you evolve and become 150?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Well, it didn't happen overnight.

Eric Feng (Host):

What, your whole entire Temasek Poly-

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Joined us, right?

Eric Feng (Host):

Joined [crosstalk 00:04:56].

Alvin Poh (Guest):

It was a long process as well. At first, we were struggling. We got our first person to join us. I don't know how we did it. We managed to persuade him to join us, and then it started growing from there. We didn't know anything. Again, we were fresh out of school. Students that had no experience in business just getting into business. So, we had to figure out a lot of things along the way. Something as simple as, I remember our first employee was just going through his probation period and we were, both of us, my co-founder I wanted to confirm him.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

We just talked about, discussed his employment package out in the open. We were in an open office at a point in time, shared with two different companies and everybody was sitting in the open and we just discussed his contract right in the open.

Eric Feng (Host):

How old are you?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

That must have been like 20-ish, like early twenties, I think.

Eric Feng (Host):

That's freaking amazing. Then, so that was your first employee?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah, and then we realized, "Oh, no, we shouldn't do that. These are the things that should be discussed in private. Good meeting room at least." Yeah, but that gives you an idea of the kind of business people that we were, the kind of business knowledge that we had. Everything we had to do, we found out through the hard way. We had to learn and experience it ourselves and figure out how to solve things ourselves.

Eric Feng (Host):

Back then, from one employee, was it an intentional plan that you want to hit 150 staff, or how did you happen organically?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah. No. I think we always operated on the model of being very lean. Lean in terms of not spending unnecessarily. Mind you, this is back then when VC funding and raising capital and all that was unheard of. Our company was actually essentially bootstrapped 100, self-funded, no external investments at all besides my co-founder and myself. So, every single cent that we spent had to be justified. It had to be something that would contribute to the business growth. So, yeah, that was the mentality that we had in terms of finances and growth at a point in time.

Eric Feng (Host):

That's fantastic. Now, of course, a lot of us would be very curious to know the how to. So, we'll talk about that in the second half of the interview, but I have a three-part question. I call this the million dollar question. Actually, no, it's the $30 million question. So, now, I knew it was on the news. So, you got bought over, Dreamscape. Then, $30 million, how did that make your life better?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

I think money is essentially to me a tool. The thing with money is it amplifies things. Like, who you are, what you want, it all gets amplified with the more resources you give it, money being one of the resources. For me, life didn't really change that much. In fact, I think it actually allowed me to explore more things. I give back to the school when I could, because now I could actually give other people the opportunities that were given to me back then as a student. So, I created a scholarship fund.

Eric Feng (Host):

Oh, beautiful.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Now, every single year there will be a scholar that would be created from that scholarship fund.

Eric Feng (Host):

What was the name of the fund?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

It wasn't very creative, it was called the Alvin Poh Fund.

Eric Feng (Host):

Well, I think it's the namesake. I think it's a good name. All right. So, you have the Alvin Poh Fund that you get if you're from Temasek Poly.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

This was the SMU.

Eric Feng (Host):

Oh, that was already in SMU?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

That's fantastic. Okay.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

But you say things amplified, right?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

So, tell us, what were some of the things that you acquired?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

So, I didn't really acquire much. I did, I got a Lamborghini. That was my dream car.

Eric Feng (Host):

Okay. First of all, did you guys just hear what he said? He said, "I didn't acquire much." Then, after that, the next sentence he said, "I got myself a Lamborghini." Well, it's true, $30 million really amplifies everything. Okay. So, you got to tell us what are some of the things that you bought.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

I think the biggest purchase that I bought was the Lambo, the Lamborghini. Back then it was a Gallardo, the 560-4. That was my dream car. When I was growing up as a kid that was my wallpaper on my computer. One day I realized I could afford it and I could get it, and so I did. But then I realized that in the ownership period that I had with the car, which lasted about a year, the two happiest days that I had were the day that I bought it and the day that I sold it.

Eric Feng (Host):

Oh my, tell us more.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

I remember there was this one day that I was driving back home from work and it was peak hour. Suddenly, I realized there was something wrong with the steering. So, I pulled over. It turns out the tire had blown. So, I called a tow truck and waited by the side of the road for 20 minutes for the tow truck to come. Because no matter what kind of car you drive-

Eric Feng (Host):

You still need a tow truck.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

... you still need a tow truck and you need to wait for that truck to come. So, while I was waiting there, I remember this one particular motorcycle that just went past, slowed down, and there was a pillion rider on it. Both of them looked at me, pointed at me, laughed, and then sped off. I'm like, "Oh, wow, why did I put myself through this?" That was just the beginning of my problems because after the tow truck sent the car to the workshop, I realized that I couldn't find replacement tires because it's a special tire. You can't just buy it.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

It was like 7:00 PM and I had a flight that night and I had nowhere to leave the car. So, it was really, really terrible. I had to scramble and I just felt like I was giving myself all these unnecessary stress. This is one of the examples that happened after that. I realized that material possessions don't make people happy, at least it doesn't make me happy. That was when I decided to sell almost everything that I had. I became a minimalist, especially from the years of like 2018 to 2000, I sold everything that I had.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

My life possessions could fit into two duffel bags. Yeah, I actually left one bag in my parent's place, took one bag and I went traveling around the world with it.

Eric Feng (Host):

I see, wow. From a multi-millionaire to a minimalist, because of that one incident, one [crosstalk 00:11:18].

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Well, I wouldn't say that it's because of one. I would say it was accumulation of all these experiences that showed me that material possessions aren't the key to happiness or whatever it is that you're looking for. So, it has to be much more than that. That's why I say money is a tool. It's not going to be the answer.

Eric Feng (Host):

So, you said that material goods are not your source of happiness, then what is currently your source of happiness then?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Freedom means a lot to me. Knowing what your purpose is, knowing why you are doing things and then being free to pursue it. I think that is something that is truly meaningful.

Eric Feng (Host):

Would you say that that's something that's universal or it's because of who you are, that's your core value, and that's why that's important to you, and that's why it makes you happy?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

I think for me, particularly, that's something that rings very true, but I believe that that's something that is true for everybody as well. It's just a matter of how much importance it plays in your life. For me, that sense of freedom, that sense of liberation is absolutely crucial. I see that linked to your passion, your purpose very much.

Eric Feng (Host):

Wow. Okay. That's fantastic. There are a lot of entrepreneurs listening to you and I'm pretty sure one of the standard goals that everybody's setting in their business is to be a millionaire, and then to be two million, then to be five million. But hearing from somebody who has achieved it and then realized that it did not actually make you very happy, I guess it gives us a glimpse to the future. That maybe there's something else that's more important, our purpose, our freedom.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

Wow. Beautiful.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

Now, let's go into a little bit of the technical details because we have some entrepreneurs here who would say that their dream goal is to get their company to be bought out. Okay. So, was your exit strategy very clear cut right at the beginning, that set up an internet company, get bought over?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

No, not at all. Not at all. It was probably not even one of the first few things that we were thinking about. So, for us, I think having a business was one of duty and responsibility. At the start, when we first started the business, it was all about survival and money. It was either that or go get a part-time job or a job. So, that was how the business got started. But very, very quickly after that we realized that it's not about the money anymore. It's always like, I don't know, when it dawned upon us that all our customers that came to us actually trusted us and relied upon us to provide the service that they were looking for.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

We knew that without us, without the company that we had, anyone else in the market at that point in time couldn't provide the level of support that we gave. Couldn't provide the level of stability, speed, and security that we provided as pillars of our web hosting service. So, it became very clear to us that it transcends just profits, it's why your business exists.

Eric Feng (Host):

It's like a responsibility.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah. So, first, it was truly that, and that sense of responsibility was something that guided us in everything that we did for our business. So, the investments and the people that we had, the services, the product, the software were all developed because of the responsibility to our customers.

Eric Feng (Host):

Would you say that the more you focus on serving your customers, the bigger the business grow?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

I would think so. Yeah. I completely agree about that. That's why customer centricity is such a big part of the coaching that I do for my entrepreneur clients. If you have that passion to serve your clients, creating that product or service that gives them that value that they want, there is no way that your business is going to do badly. There's no way that you cannot grow. It's then a matter of making sure that your operations are air tight, that you're efficient. Then, you have all the systems and processes in place. Then, you will naturally scale.

Eric Feng (Host):

This is so beautiful because I was just watching a YouTube video by the founder of Mindvalley that talks about the four rules of life, four surprising rules of life that most of us wish we know very early. Rule number three says this, that your life is not about you. Your life is about the lives of everyone you touch. It's not about you. It leads back to rule number one, which is everything centers around personal evolution. He says this, "Your work is not about your work. Rather, your work is nothing more than the greatest vehicle for personal evolution, that your career is there for you to evolve.

Eric Feng (Host):

Your family is there for you to evolve. Love life is there for you to evolve. If you center around serving yourself and serving others, you can't help but to grow. Everything else grows."

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Right. I absolutely believe in that as well.

Eric Feng (Host):

Beautiful, right?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

So, I love it that if you want to scale, what I'm learning from you is that, we need to not focus on the fruits, which is the money, the influence, and all of it, we need to focus on the seeds, and it's service, and that's about self-evolution, and then the business will grow.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

Beautiful.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

I think that's something that a lot of entrepreneurs get flipped, right? Then, they focus on the wrong things instead. Then, in the end, they face roadblocks and obstacles time after time.

Eric Feng (Host):

It's so true, because I graduated with a tech entrepreneurship degree, which is actually an embarrassment, because I didn't even start up a tech company. So, I shouldn't even mention this in the interview. I just say it, and I was like, "Dude, Eric, you're just speaking in front of a real tech entrepreneur." But I'll tell you something, I'm not even going to mention the university I come from. So, I want say it there. When I was in school, learning about entrepreneurship, they taught us a lot about how to get acquired.

Eric Feng (Host):

They say it's all about acquisition of assets. You need to grow your customer base. You need to increase capital. But it's very, very transactional.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

But I love the heart of your business, the heart that you put in, which is that you don't even care about all these things, the metrics, the real metrics. You just got to focus on doing the right thing, which is, did your business help you grow? Even if you face obstacles, do you evolve and grow in the process? Because as you evolve, your business evolve, because it's interlinked, and that if you keep your eyes on the prize, which is serving your customers, they will return that favor and serve your back. That's how your business grow.

Eric Feng (Host):

Which means I don't have to ask you the next question, which was, how do you position yourself for acquisition initially, because you have really answered that. That's beautiful.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah. We actually had a market share in the country, and that came from that customer centricity. But more so than that is actually creating a business that's actually sellable. So, while we didn't have that notion of wanting to sell, that option was always available for us.

Eric Feng (Host):

Why?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Because we had the systems and processes in place. I, as an entrepreneur and a business owner, could take a break. I regularly took like three-week vacations back then to snowboard, or I went to Europe as well, and I didn't have phone calls every single time.

Eric Feng (Host):

While having such a big team and so many customers, 35,000, you could go for a three-week break?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

Would you say that the reason is because you were on the business, but you're not in the business?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

There's just always this [crosstalk 00:18:37] saying, right?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

Okay, we will definitely unravel that in a short while, but maybe very quickly tell us, how do you make a company that we build sellable? In a few criteria, what are some things that they are looking for as investors?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

There's many. When you even buy something, it has to be valuable, right? So, value has to be there. You got to be of a certain size, profits, and all of that. But I think beyond all of that, ultimately, what makes a business truly valuable and truly something that I just want to buy is whether or not the business founder, the owner, the entrepreneur, needs to be there. It blows your mind, but the less reliance the business has on the entrepreneur, the more valuable it is for others.

Eric Feng (Host):

This is such a mic drop moment, such a mic drop moment, because if you think about it, we built that business, that's our child. We're attached to that. But the more attached we are to the business, the more the business cannot be sold?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah. So, it's actually the mindset. A lot of times entrepreneurs, they don't want to let go of responsibilities. They don't want to let go of tasks. They don't want to empower their team because they feel like they can do it best, they can do it better, or they don't trust others and all of that. But it becomes this vicious cycle and then in the end they cannot scale because of what's in their mind.

Eric Feng (Host):

Brilliant, which leads us very nicely to the topic on scaling, right? What's the difference between, because I see people use it very loosely, "I want to scale my business." Another person would say, "I want to grow my business." Is there a distinction between these two, with scale and grow?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah. Fundamentally, when we look at growth and scale, growth has the connotation of ... both has the connotation of increasing in size.

Eric Feng (Host):

Exactly, expansion.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

But when we look at growth, it's a very lineal kind of expansion. Let's look at revenue as well as costs. Those two things always happen in businesses. That's revenue that you bring in, and then that cost that you spend in order to support that revenue. In growth, this happens linearly. As revenue increases, your cost increase as well. It happens a lot in, say, service-based businesses, especially when your contracts and your clients and your projects increase, you hire more people. Cost gradually increases as well.

Eric Feng (Host):

That's true.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

That's like growth mode, right? In skill mode, the same thing can happen, right? But revenue is increasing at a much faster rate and costs are very, very contained. So, the ratio is broken and you can increase. That is why sometimes when businesses and entrepreneurs find that when they get more and more revenue, they feel more and more stressed.

Eric Feng (Host):

So true.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Because their business is growing and revenue is increasing, your costs are creeping. Not creeping, actually, following-

Eric Feng (Host):

Going up, yeah. Falling right behind chasing.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah. So, the stress is there. So, that's why when we look at scale, we're not just concerned about size of operations. We are looking at breaking that ratio, creating the systems, the processes that allows us to have a sustainable growth, which is scale.

Eric Feng (Host):

Which is impact. All entrepreneurs want their companies to be of impact, I would assume. That we want to be of a huge impact, but without the bad stuff, without the dark side of the business, which is the anxiety, the stress, and the pressure because of the overhead. Case in point, I was with an entrepreneur who introduced me to the boss of a Japanese sushi restaurant. His monthly cost is about a quarter million, 250,000. 250,000 is equivalent to what people probably earn in a year for our business, but his cost is that high.

Eric Feng (Host):

Now, no doubt, yes, it's a very well-known restaurant. So, he makes a lot, but during COVID-19 cost dropped, sorry, revenue dropped, but cost remains. It's very stressful to know that you have a quarter million cost every month. It has a toll on you.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

Beautiful. Oh, my God, Alvin, no one has ever explained growth and scale such elegantly. Now I get it. It's so beautiful. Now, there will be people listening to us, watching us that would say, "But, Alvin, convince me, why do I have to scale my business? Why can't I keep it small? Why can't I let it be a mom and pop shop?" What do you have to say to these people?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Again, scale doesn't have to do with size. You can keep a boutique agency, a mom pop shop, whatever, scale comes. When you look at the systems and processes around what you do, and the less reliance you have on any individual, including yourself, the better. So, with scale, we look at systems and processes, how to make sure that everything runs when problems happen. One of the things that I talk about is, you don't really want to put out fires constantly, which is what happens in business.

Eric Feng (Host):

Very stressful.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

You want to prevent the fires from happening in the first place.

Eric Feng (Host):

In the first place.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

To do that, you need to have the processes, the team in place. You can keep the business small or of a certain size, but just make sure that all these are in place.

Eric Feng (Host):

You know what? I love what you just said because now I got an answer, which is, it's not about whether you want to scale or not, or how big you want to scale a business, is that it gives you an option.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah, exactly.

Eric Feng (Host):

If you have all these processes, well, the word you said was systems, in place, then I have the option to either keep it small, or I have the option to grow it a bit depending on my ambition and depending on the market demand. So, that's beautiful. I think that that answers the question. Now, before we go into the how, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of mistakes that entrepreneurs make today as they try to scale their business. Could you share with us what are some of those mistakes? Then, how do we avoid them?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

The fourth pillar in the 5E Scale Engine is engage, which is, got to do with the customer. When we look at a customer journey, the very, very typical mistake that entrepreneurs make is focusing on only the front part of it, the sales and the marketing part of the customer journey. The analogy that I like to use is the leaky bucket analogy. So, imagine you want to hold water in a bucket, the water being your customers and your sales. All of that is what people always focus on, but they don't realize that their bucket is leaking.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

So, the water just keeps flowing up. A much better way of approaching this is if your bucket wasn't leaking. Therefore, you don't really need that much water to come in and you don't need that torrential pour.

Eric Feng (Host):

That means, that huge amount of revenue [crosstalk 00:25:18].

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah, and everything you get stays in the bucket. That is literally what we are doing when we have a very holistic approach in our business. Instead of focusing at the front, which is sales and marketing, the inflow of water, we look at how we can have a very solid customer fulfillment process. You want to make sure that customers come in, they refer their friends. Not only that, they also renew, they keep coming back, buying more from us products and services.

Eric Feng (Host):

This is so interesting. So, mistake number one is a lot of businesses are focusing on acquiring customers, but what we should be doing, it's about focusing on how to ensure that customer have a good experience with us, stays with us, and refer their other friends to us.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah, exactly.

Eric Feng (Host):

That's more important, which is a process goal rather than an outcome goal.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

Okay, very good. Give me one more. Come on. Let's make the best out of this guy, right? Give us one more mistake that entrepreneurs might be making right now as they scale their business.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

So, one of the questions that people ask is, "Okay, so I might be running a seven figure business right now, how do I get to eight or nine figures?" People don't understand that, or people don't realize that it actually requires not just the business to grow, but also the entrepreneur himself or herself to go.

Eric Feng (Host):

There you go, self evolution.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Evolution, like you've mentioned just now. One of the keys or one of the concepts that needs to happen is this concept of what I call leverage. The entrepreneur is typically asking himself, how can I do this? How can I solve that? Or, how can I do this? Or, whatever.

Eric Feng (Host):

That's right.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

That needs to change into incorporating leverage with teams and with systems, by changing that question to, how can we solve this or how can we do that?

Eric Feng (Host):

Or, how can I look for somebody else out there that can help me solve this problem?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah. We look at how to leverage upon the team that we have all the processes that we have, to get the result that we want. It's no longer just based on the individual.

Eric Feng (Host):

Got it.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Because it's so much more powerful and you can actually utilize the team or your systems to get to a result that you want.

Eric Feng (Host):

Got it. So, the next mistake that we make is that we are very I focused, which is we take responsibility, right? So, how can I do this? How can I do better? But if we want to take the business to a seven or eight, we need to be asking, how can we as a team do it?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

Or, how can the processes help us do it?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah, leverage.

Eric Feng (Host):

Or, what kind of external resources?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

Leverage. So, one is self, leveraging self. The other is leveraging others.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

That is another distinction.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

Let us see if we can make it even more memorable for our listeners and viewers. You see, most of our businesses, probably, are five to six. Is there a distinction between a six figure business and a seven, and then a seven to eight?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

I think in businesses there's three mean areas that business typically goes through. First, there's the launch phase. The business is just starting out. They don't really know why they are there. They're trying to find out what their product market fit is.

Eric Feng (Host):

Correct.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

They're trying to find out why customers choose them, what their difference is. After that comes the growth stage, the growth stage, everybody is now on a more stable ground. Product market fit is more known. Customers are coming in and they have a better idea of the differentiation factor that they have. But they're still not in a scale stage. The scale stage is the earlier stage, and it could be six, seven, eight, or whatever number you're at. But that is the stage where now you're looking at the systems and processes and trying to remove redundancies and bottlenecks in the business.

Eric Feng (Host):

Okay. So, what you're saying is that we should never see it as a mindset of a six-figure business or a mindset of a seven figure because six, seven, eight, they are really just fruits.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah, this is arbitrary.

Eric Feng (Host):

This is arbitrary. But what we should be focusing on is, are you having a launch mindset, a growth mindset, or a scale mindset? But if I, as an entrepreneur, as a founder, I have already a scale mindset, I'm destined for eight, to nine, or 10 figure business.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Well, hopefully we have the right things in place, but yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

With your book.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes, my book.

Eric Feng (Host):

With your book. So, that brings it very nicely to your book, because you successfully scaled a business from a zero to a $30 million, and no doubt back then, I guess you learned it from trial and error, but you managed to down it to 5Es. So, would you be able to show us a little bit? So, maybe you can take a look. So, those of you on YouTube, if you're watching us on YouTube, wow, it's a beautiful blue book. The title of the book is called, I'll let him do the honor of reading the title. Could you read us the title of this book?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Right, it's called Super Scaling. It's a book that encompasses all the knowledge that I had, 17 years worth, at least, of entrepreneurship experience. I took more than a year to condense all the knowledge, the lessons that I had into a framework.

Eric Feng (Host):

It's beautiful.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

This is the 5E scale engine that's contained inside there, that took months to develop. At first, it was the three pillar framework, and then it became four pillars. Then, I realized it wasn't comprehensive enough and didn't cover everything. So, then I included five instead and finally came up with the 5E.

Eric Feng (Host):

What I think is brilliant is it's not just a one-year effort, Alvin. I really think that because you said that you started this business at 16 and then, 33, that's 17 years, right?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

17 years of trial and error, 17 years of mistakes, 17 years of realizations condensed in a book. You're buying us time.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Exactly.

Eric Feng (Host):

Now, before we go into the book, one more question first. A lot of entrepreneur is probably going to think about what you said, including myself, and would go like, "This guy is right. We need to go and scale our business." But you know what, Alvin, the fact of the matter is that we're always bogged down by the things that are very urgent, which is we need to hit our next quarter goal. We need to bring in the revenue, we need a firefight. So, it's always a chicken and egg thing. You know what I mean?

Eric Feng (Host):

We want to be free so that we can sit down in a zen nice location, nice retreat, and then start looking at our business. So, how do we do it? It's as if like you're asking us right now to change the system of our car while driving our car.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Pretty much. Pretty much.

Eric Feng (Host):

How do you do that? How do you change the wheels while driving the car?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

So, that's why it's not a question that I can answer like this, so simply. That's why this whole framework is there. We need to start from who we are, the beliefs that we have first. That's why the first E of the 5E scale engine is evolve. We, as people, need to let go of certain beliefs that we have and adopt new ones that empower us to develop into the entrepreneur that we need to be.

Eric Feng (Host):

Beautiful.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Only then can we start looking at the business.

Eric Feng (Host):

In other words, the first E is a very self-oriented E.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

Okay, what's the second E?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

The second one is envision, that one is about the vision of the business, the business model, the roadmap that you have. You need to turn it into something that's concrete so that not only you, but the team that you have, the customers, your business partners, your suppliers, whoever it is knows what it is. That is envision.

Eric Feng (Host):

Third E?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Empower. That's when we finally can start moving onto the people that we have in our company. Whether they are contractor, whether they are full-timers, whether they are remote, local, whoever or wherever they are. Empower talks about how we can build a really powerful company culture and get everybody to perform very highly as a team. Yeah, that's empower.

Eric Feng (Host):

Then, the fourth E?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Engage, engage is the customer. Now, we look at the customer. We've got everything sorted internally. Now, we look at the customer. That is the five-step process that I mentioned, where people have to understand where in their customer journey they need to improve. How can they optimize things? How can it serve the customer better and not just focus on sales and marketing?

Eric Feng (Host):

So awesome. You know what? The scary thing is that if you hold a hammer, everything looks like a nail to you. So, let's see you're good at sales and marketing, essentially, you just look at the sales and marketing of the business and not everything else.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah. Everybody looks at it like the latest Facebook ad hack, or any growth campaigns that you need to hack your sales funnels or whatever.

Eric Feng (Host):

You just mentioned it very well, as the leaky bucket, right? Yes, you can get all the water in, but if there are a lot of holes in it you're not going to do much impact.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes, exactly.

Eric Feng (Host):

Beautiful. What's the last E?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Execute. So, execute is finally where we look at efficiencies. My favorite analogy is with Usain Bolt. If I were to take part in a sprint against Usain Bolt, who is the world's fastest man, I can still beat him. The only requirement is if Usain Bolt runs in a wrong direction. That is what happens when businesses focus on efficiencies first, that's why efficiency or execute, the execute pillar is literally the last thing that we work on. We want to make sure that fundamentally everything is in place. That everything is sound before we look at efficiency.

Eric Feng (Host):

So, make sure you go the right direction first before you run fast.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

Beautiful. So, effectiveness, then efficiency. So, there you go, guys. That's the 5Es to scaling your business so that you don't kill yourself and yet to be able to be a huge impact to this business world. I think this is really, really beautiful. So, now, all of us are probably thinking like, how do we get this book?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

So, it's available on my website for a launch discount, superscaling.com/book. It's available right now for 14.97.

Eric Feng (Host):

Gosh, what a steal. What a steal, $14 for 17 years of experience.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

You know what? I guess for those of you who feel like, "Okay," if you're convinced, you want to have the option of scaling your business so that you have time freedom, so that you have the profits that you want, then you need to first tell yourself, get yourself this book first. Why? Because no point trying to change your business if you don't even know what that framework is. I always feel that. Like what you just mentioned, it's making sure now you have the why, make sure you have to what. You know what to do before you go into the how.

Eric Feng (Host):

So, okay. We'll definitely put your book link on our show notes. I've read your book once. I definitely want to reread it again. I think this is really, really powerful. So, Alvin, thank you so much for taking the chance to be here with us.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Oh, thanks for having me. This is so cool.

Eric Feng (Host):

I'm curious, so what's next for you, man? You have the life, you now have the book. What's next?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

This is why I'm having such a special promotional price on the book. The reason why it's at 14.97 is because I want more people to be able to access it and to read it because the information, like you said, in this book is worth like 17 years of my life, put into this handy book.

Eric Feng (Host):

Yeah, by the way, it's nice. I can put it in my bag and I can read it. By the way, it doesn't make you fall asleep because the fonts are big enough and it smells good.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

The freshness-

Eric Feng (Host):

By the way, I love the smell of fresh books. Yeah, and I liked the baby blue, by the way.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Thank you.

Eric Feng (Host):

Got it. So, anyway, sorry to cut you. But you were saying that, yeah, you want this on everybody's hands, right?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah. When I was growing Vodien, I think it was a very lonely journey, I had my co-founder with me, but I didn't have the support of other entrepreneurs. It was hard to find like-minded people, even the friends that I had, my secondary school friends or my school friends, they didn't really have the same entrepreneurship life that I had. It's very hard to talk to them about stuff that happened in my business. So, one of the things that I really want to do is to build up this community of entrepreneurs. Have everybody be supportive of each other and grow together.

Eric Feng (Host):

Well, so there you have it. If you spend the entire time watching this video or listening to this podcast, you are definitely one of Alvin's tribe. I always believed that we're meant to do big things in this world, but having an ambition alone is not enough. You need to have the proper guidance. I truly really believe that Alvin has what it takes in this book. So, go get a book and go relisten to this podcast or rewatch this YouTube video. Okay. So, thank you very much, Alvin. I assume this book is mine?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

For me?

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yes.

Eric Feng (Host):

Well, I just take the book from him, I assumed. Oh, there was a cool message. To Eric, thank you for always being a constant source of support and encouragement. I hope you enjoy this book. I don't think I would just enjoy this book, I'm going to really, in [inaudible 00:37:53] even say, [foreign language 00:37:54]. I'm going to restudy this book. I want to make you proud, man. I'm going to scale this business of mine. Not just grow, but scale.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

Yeah.

Eric Feng (Host):

Thank you so much, Alvin. High five.

Alvin Poh (Guest):

All right, thanks, man.

Eric Feng (Host):

So, there you have it. That is Alvin Poh from a multimillionaire to a minimalist, to a master teacher of scaling of businesses. There's so much I learned from him, but I think the biggest one I've learned from him is the mindset of being an entrepreneur, which is it's not about ... You see? My problem is that I always feel that I need to do everything myself and therefore there's always going to be a limitation to how big the company you can grow. So, my biggest takeaway from him was the mindset part of scaling a eight to nine figure business, which is I need to stop being self-reliant and I need to be more system reliant.

Eric Feng (Host):

I need to be more resource reliant. I need to be more team reliant. The minute when I had switched that mindset around, things open up. So, it's really true, man. Mind is everything. When you start thinking differently, the entire world changes and that's how you can fulfill all your dreams. So, do go check out his book, Super Scaling, and not just check out his book, but remember the last part he says, execute. So, make sure you don't just read it, but execute on it. When you do get amazing results, please go let him know.

Eric Feng (Host):

He'll be so happy for you. If you like this interview, I post interviews like this once a week on YouTube. So, remember to switch on notification, hit the subscribe button, and I'll see you in the next video.