Since he was just 10 years old, Lee Jin Rui wanted to be an entrepreneur running his own business. His classroom wheeling and dealing earned him hundreds of dollars but also got him into a spot of trouble.

By the time he graduated from primary school, he said he had earned close to S$4,000 by buying and selling the Japanese trading card game Cardfight!! Vanguard.

He was warned by the school for buying and selling the card games. “I think I was probably the biggest dealer in school,” Mr Lee, now 22, told TODAY in a video interview.

This did not deter Mr Lee and he eventually started his own business in 2021 — Wiz Consultancy, a digital marketing agency helping clients to increase their brand visibility and optimise their content to reach a wider customer base.

In July 2023, the data science student at the University of London (LSE) branched out to set up Adolet, an education firm which runs digital marketing training programmes for students free of charge. Next year, he plans to run paid courses under Adolet for corporates.

From an initial four-man team, Mr Lee said that his agency has now grown to six, with plans to expand the business abroad.

Three of his team members at Wiz Consultancy are from the free program — they started off as interns and then became salaried employees.

Using the earnings from his digital marketing business, Mr Lee pays to use the facilities at the Nanyang Technological University to conduct his lessons monthly.

The program curriculum includes teaching students how to use search engine optimisation (SEO) as well as WordPress content marketing, with close to 30 students attending the four classes so far and the next class being held on Nov 10.

Ms Quinny Tran, 21, a final-year marketing student at Curtin University who started interning at Wiz Consultancy after attending the program, said that she chanced upon the programme while searching online for courses to help supplement her knowledge.

Most of the classes she found cost a few hundred dollars which she said was too expensive for her as a student.

"I asked if I could join his company as an intern after the program because I liked how he gave a lot of real-world examples (in his course)... I wanted to gain more (hands-on) experience also," she said.

Apart from learning practical digital marketing skills, she also learned interpersonal skills like how to handle clients' requests.

"I could use the soft skills I learnt even in my studies now, and in the future this knowledge can help me as I am thinking of doing a masters (program) in marketing," Ms Tran said.

As for 26-year-old William Tan, head of operations at software company MWI Technologies, his knowledge of digital marketing was all self-taught before he joined the programme.

"Hard skills like SEO and all the marketing jargon can be taught, but Jin (referring to Mr Lee) also taught us how to speak to bosses, solve business problems and assign value to the things that we were doing," Mr Tan said, adding that such soft skills were seldom touched upon in theory.

He said that he has also already implemented the knowledge he gleaned from the two-week course into building the company's website, utilising SEO to increase the firm's visibility on the Google search homepage.

"Generous is definitely one way to (describe) this initiative," he said.

SUPPORT FROM PARENTS, TEACHER AND NOW GIVING BACK

Inspired by a week-long digital marketing course he attended when he was just 14-years-old, Mr Lee wanted to start a programme where learners would be able to have hands-on experience after acquiring new skill sets.

“There was no follow-up after the course ended and I could not put the skills I had learnt to use," he said, adding that the one-week class was too short to cover enough ground.

"And there were also over 30 people in the class, which was not ideal (for learning)."

Classes at his free training program are limited to six or seven students and span two weeks.

Students also get to partner up with external companies to help with their digital marketing and branding which in turn helps with their skills and resumes, he said.

These include fitness education centre FIT Asia and music school The Music Circle.

While many would be impressed with Mr Lee’s achievements at such a young age, he credits the support that he got from his parents and teachers as the main factor.

After he completed primary school in Singapore, Mr Lee's family relocated to Cape Town, South Africa due to his mother's interest in the city where she ran a massage therapist business remotely.

During his time there, Mr Lee started an AirBnB-like start-up with some of his friends there.

His teacher there allowed him to take time off school to work on his business, which encouraged him to go forth in growing his company and dabble in different fields.

Mr Lee said that his parents were also very supportive of pursuing his dreams and did not give him any pressure when it came to his studies.

They asked only that he pass his subjects in school.

“My parents were always supportive of all my business ventures.

"I did not receive any financial support from them for my businesses, but they provided me with contacts from their networks which (helped) my business to get that initial capital funding,” he said.

As to why he chose to conduct his lessons for free, Mr Lee said that he did so with the motivation of “giving back” to the community.

“I think it's giving back. And the concept of giving free value that others would pay for, is something that has worked well for me. So this was my immediate mindset going into Adolet too.”

To aspiring young entrepreneurs, Mr Lee advises putting in the work to grow nascent business ventures, citing sports company Nike’s motto of “Just Do it” as his own mindset when starting out.

“You shouldn’t overthink it and just do it. Don’t expect anything in return when you do something for companies when (you’re starting out) because you can’t have confidence without evidence,” he said.

Clarification: An earlier version of this article stated that Mr Lee said he was once suspended from school. He has clarified that he was given a warning.

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by SHYNN ONG

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