Karl Mak is a Singaporean entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of HEPMIL Media Group: a holding company that owns SGAG, MGAG, PGAG, SGEEK and HEPMIL Creators’ Network.

If you’re a fan of memes, then you’re in for a treat because that is precisely what HEPMIL specialises in!

Karl shares how he almost became a professional swimmer, how he built a flourishing real estate career while in school, his experiences (and failure) with his first startup & how he ended up co-founding SGAG with Adrian Ang, whom he had first met back in 2005 in junior college. 

Highlights:

• 3:32 Swimming competitively
• 9:53 Entering the real estate business
• 13:28 The gift of the gab
• 20:26 Learning from Professor Soon Loo
• 22:23 Attending a coding bootcamp to find a co-founder
• 26:26 “Crazy” things Karl did to get enterprise clients
• 28:22 Why Televate, Karl’s first startup, failed
• 33:43 Meeting Adrian & starting SGAG
• 38:27 How they come up with memes
• 40:32 The Ah Lian meme, which was picked up by mainstream media
• 42:36 Milestones to track
• 47:47 The early days of SGAG
• 49:04 Land grabbing tactics used by SGAG
• 51:42 Distinguishing SGAG from other similar pages
• 56:40 Selling vulgar T-shirts
• 59:18 How the business deal with Scoot happened
• 1:00:57 Changing the engine of a plane in mid-air
• 1:06:03 Your failure makes you more valuable
• 1:07:26 Building a creators’ network
• 1:15:58 How COVID-19 impacted Karl & HEPMIL Media Group

📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/55 

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