Looking back, there was not one chance that this introvert with zero confidence was going to be where he is today.
On the Media Personality front,
Who would have thought that I was going to appear in a Netflix show, have a show on streaming giant Zee5, have over 12 years of acting, hosting and performing experience on national Mediacorp channels like Channel 5, Vasantham and Channel News Asia in Singapore. Be also getting featured in IMDB.com.
On the Entrepreneurial front,
I started a web development company at the age of 18 while studying in Singapore Polytechnic, later venturing into insurance, real estate, mortgage brokerage, boutique investment, tuition, transportation & logistics and finally software. I have built multiple businesses from scratch and turned them into 6-7 figures. Some of my businesses were even featured in publications such as Straits Times & Tamil Murasu. Also, I was glad to receive several awards for business excellence such as Promising SME 500 in 2014 and Mobex Awards 2019.
It has been a long journey with loads of ups and downs. Hence here I wanted to share my experiences and lend a helping hand to those struggling to find a path to their own success. Sometimes all we need is just a spark, everything else is already within us.
What can you expect on this blog?
With this blog, I am venturing into blogging as a business, online marketing, e-commerce, and affiliate marketing. Like with all my other ventures, sharing knowledge online is going to be a fresh start too. Again & again every time I like to challenge myself, thus sharing such content is like moving out of my comfort zone and it helps me acquire a new skill set.
I am going to learn and share everything I know about the following topics and help you as my audience grow your business. So before we stay connected, perhaps let me share how it all rolled out for me.
1983 -Born to do great things ! Unrealised vs Realised
I was born on 29th March 1983, at KK Hospital in Singapore.
I was the first son of my parents, Wadarajan and Elevine. Funny story, my dad’s name is pronounced Varatha Rajan and my mum’s Elaveni, but during those days where people just wrote what they heard, both their names got recorded as Wadarajan and Elevine (Almost an English name).
Growing up in those days, people lived together in family homes. I remember almost every detail of my grandparent’s house where I grew up. They call it “Kampung”, a Malay word that means settlement. The house was huge with over 7 – 8 rooms. Where I had aunties and uncles living together with me and it was a blast.
Although I was a big fan of outdoor activities like running, jumping and goofing around, I found real solace in video games, back in those days it was the Sega 16bit, then came Sega 32 bit and Nintendo 64. I had them all, in fact, I had the PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2, 3 and 4. I also had a PC, and those days they had the 5 ½ floppy disks which my aunt used to give me games like Donkey kong, Pitstop and Pacman.
1993 – Moved to our new home
I was 10 years old when we moved to Yishun, Chomp Pang. The place is famous for its wet market (Wet market is the place you go to get poultry, meat and vegetables) and hawkers (Hawkers are stalls serving amazing local dishes at super affordable rates).
By this time I had two younger brothers, Jegadeeswaran and Prasad. They are 3 years and 6 years apart. We formed a bond that in my opinion made us the best brothers, maybe because I never behaved as my age in my life. We did all things together like watching WWF, playing video games, rollerblading, cycling and literally everything that I did in my childhood involved my brothers. Although we always had different personalities we shared so much together.
Once I was studying in Chong Fu Primary school, now a super popular school due to its production of top-notch students. Anyways I wasn’t on that list, just to be transparent lol. I was pretty average during my primary school days. This was the period where I started having a lot of self-doubt and “Shyness” which was actually me being an introvert.
I still remember that I couldn’t even look my teacher in the eye when I spoke, somehow I started profusely sweating in my palms when a peer talks to me, I always got anxious whenever there was a new activity that gets everyone’s attention towards me.
I was never heard, I was never the voice in any group. I did not even dare ask questions in class coz even that scared the living daylights out of me.
Than something happened
I was given the responsibility to be a Class Monitor, someone who is the representative of the entire class for its conduct and other misc stuff. It was a big deal for an introvert like me. Everyone looked at you differently, you are supposedly their leader. The changes thereafter were subtle but I could feel it.
After I went to Yishun Secondary School, I was appointed as a prefect. This role is given to students who are able to lead by example. By being early to school and conducting yourself well. However, this role came with its responsibilities like giving warning letters to students who came late, to which I slowly grew into it and it was ok. But what broke me and broke me into the new me was reciting the Singapore Pledge to the entire school.
This was not an easy task, could be easy for anyone but not for an introvert like me. I was still sweating my palms and face whenever I met anyone new in my school. I still had trouble maintaining eye contact with teachers and peers. I was not confident and I still hated attention. Reciting the pledge is nerve-wracking and to date, I still remember the first time I did it. I got the notice that I was going to do the pledge next week Monday. It was a Friday when I heard about it.
After that immediately I froze, and couldn’t sleep the entire weekend, as I was playing millions of scenarios where I thought this was going to go so bad. I memorised the pledge to a point where I could say it backwards, but I just didn’t have it in me to pull myself together to do this.
Then the day came, I was announced to take the pledge. I stepped up on the podium, began the first sentence, “We the…” and I froze. As expected, I did not complete the pledge. I just couldn’t, someone had to take over from me. I was broken and my confidence took a hit and possibly a final blow which I was never going to recover from.
This was one of those moments that shaped me. I could have just given up. I could have walked away and never tried it again.
Despite being scared of doing anything, I summoned the courage to try again.
I practised the pledge on my own at home, in the toilet, while I lay in bed and soon it happened, I was assigned to do it again. This time I DID IT! My first Breakthrough.
There were many “Manually driven” breakthroughs in my life and such moments helped me overcome my shyness and my introverted nature. I can’t imagine the life I would have missed, the opportunities, the network and where I am today if I had not embraced the idea to change my state of mind.
I have a saying for myself; “Change in life begins with the change in the state of mind”.
Year 2000 – How my life took a turn for the best
I went to Yishun Junior college to please my parents for 3 months as they wished I would take the Junior college to University route. But however, I already fixed my plans to pursue Multimedia & Software Engineering at Singapore Polytechnic which I did.
Life was great! I started my first Business, Jankosoft, a website development business where I market businesses, find clients, design, develop and ship products for companies. Initially, I had a couple of my friends join the business, at that time we were having more fun than actually building a real business. Money was great, nothing big but it was a way to build my confidence.
Later, Army happened and I had to shut my business down. I was fully focused on my 2 ½ years in the SAF. Had many countless breakthroughs which shaped me and I am forever in debt to the many commanders who made me realise what I was capable of.
Year 2006 – My first footprints into the multi-media industry
In the year 2006, I decided to join the Insurance industry as a Financial Planner. Made really good money for a while while I had business from my closest circle of friends and family. Soon things went really hard after that, the number of roadshows, tirelessly doing surveys, cold calling and getting slammed. My god, it’s the toughest thing I have done to date. On the flip side, in my opinion, if you can do that, then I guess you have the wits and skills necessary to handle any other position related to sales.
Later I chanced upon a Singing competition called Vasantham Star in 2007. I am in no way a professional singer, I sing for fun and had some experience learning Carnatic music. At that moment, I never fancied myself (or) even thought that this is going to go in my favour. But anyhow I gave it a shot and I ended up in the grand finals, finishing fourth. It was crazy, and it got much crazier after that. I had “Fans” I never would have imagined me, the introvert who kept to himself had thousands of people sharing their love and regards for me and my performance. Quickly one led to another and I started Hosting shows, did acting, and even had a try to be a VJ on the radio.
Thereafter my inner search led me to Entrepreneurship. I went into a flurry of things from being a property agent, started a mortgage brokerage firm with over 30 agents, ran a boutique investment firm, a food delivery logistic firm that we built from 4 men to 70 men in 3 years which we exited, a tuition centre which I built from scratch to exit in 1 ½ year.
Year 2014 – Proudly launched a successful startup
2014 was the year when I launched Jankosoft Pte Ltd, a web and mobile application development firm. Our main focus was on building custom projects on time and that landed us with customers including the Fortune 500 companies, Government Agencies, Notable SMEs and a lot of thriving startups.
Year 2017 – Discovered and explored a niche market
I noticed a huge problem that plagued the F&B industry. Everyone was trying to take a cut from the hardworking F&B entrepreneur. Be it delivery platforms, reservation platforms, deal Sites and even some POS solutions charged commissions on every order. Since the F&B sector is made up of people who were quite low tech guys and their options were limited regarding technology, so they just jumped on whatever was available and promised a way to drive their growth. But soon some paid platforms were hurting their growth more than anything.
Thus, I launched a startup called NinjaOS with a mission to be the voice for these F&B entrepreneurs. We have created a Zero Commission Online Ordering System that allowed F&B business owners to create an additional stream of income online, grow a loyal customer base, save time and make money to really grow their business. We have seen massive growth with startups powering over 500k customers in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia. Our customers have generated more than 40 million dollars in just 3 years.
Year 2021 – Made a decision to help people online
Wondering where I am now?
I am still in Singapore, running NinjaOS successfully. But amongst all the pandemic noise and concerns, my business was able to sustain and get it through. Throughout these years I have gained so much knowledge and work experience on many things and I thought of sharing this knowledge on the internet.
Even though I had this very own blog online before 2021, which I mostly used as my personal diary and shared a lot of my good stories. But in the last few years, I have kept myself busy with online businesses. Where I learnt a lot about marketing and had personally touched and implemented multiple digital marketing strategies by myself which helped me and my business grow. So I thought of letting people know about everything that I know.
Thus at the end of the first quarter of 2021, I was ready to share my marketing knowledge with people who wanna get into the online business game and build something of their own. It could be anything, like:-
- Starting a niche blog from scratch
- Building an eCommerce business
- Doing affiliate marketing on the side
Hence I decided that I wanna share what I know about online businesses and marketing. In the very next moment, I revamped this site and have been churning out some content ever since to help people understand how to make money and build a business of their own.
Finally, I want to take this moment to Thank you.
If you made it this far, I really want to take the opportunity to Thank you for appreciating my story, I deeply value every relationship.
Stay in touch, and do join my mailing list. I promise to only deliver value.
Peace out.
