Friday, August 13, 2010

tenCube - The Singapore $15million company

Singapore start-up tenCube, the company behind WaveSecure technology has been acquired by McAfee for an undisclosed sum, with sources quoting the fee to be around $15million! WaveSecure lets mobile phone users locate, lock, back up and wipe the data from their phones in case they fall into the wrong hands. You can even call the person who found/stole/bought your mobile phone if a new SIM card is inserted, how cool is that?!


The acquisition was reported in The Straits Times on July 31 and on Aug 11, Digital Life ran a cover on the takeover and interviewed one of the founders and tenCube's CEO Darius Cheung. This guy is only 29 years-old! Same age as me and I have not even sold anything that is worth $1.5million let alone $15million!


Lessons learnt?....


Never too young to start a business!
Darius Cheung was then 24 years-old and an undergraduate at National University of Singapore when he started the company with 3 other university mates in June 2005. The four of them invested $120,000 of their savings.  


Overcoming obstacles
Things were tough as they did not have any experience running a company and they often worried about cashflow. At times, they even had to push back payroll for their staff. Do we give up at the earliest signs of trouble?


Darius Cheung's words of wisdom?
As local as it can get.. MAI KIA SI (Don't be afraid to die). 


His inspiration?
His father who started a printing factory in China in the 1980s before it became the choice destination it is in recent years. His father had failed in other ventures before this success. The early exposure to business coupled with his dad's attitude towards business instilled the entrepreneurial spirit in Darius.


His neighbour when he was on an exchange program in Silicon Valley who looked silly and clubsy was actually one of three partners of a business that eBay bought for US$50million! That made he feel that successful people were ordinary with no attributes except being stubborn and not giving up!


He also looked to stalwarts in the industry such as Bill Gates, Google's founders and even Sim Wong Hoo of Creative Technology for inspiration.


Well, it looks like now if you are starting a business or already running one and need to look for inspiration, there's a new name to add on the list: Darius Cheung


You can read more about the tenCube and WaveSecure at https://www.wavesecure.com/

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