Misfits: Wisdom from Unconventional Individuals

Gina Tow is the founder and owner of Happy Rollies. Happy Rollies was started in 2015 and has since grown from a humble flea market stall selling ice cream at Geylang Serai market to having 20 ice-cream carts and 2 mini-vans now.

Gina Tow has since developed other food items such as Churros, Watermelon Volcano, Toasted Smores and Cheese Chicken Cubes.

If you are heading down to Geylang Serai Bazaar this year, keep a look-out for her stall(s). She is cooking up some excitement for all of us.

In this conversation, we spoke about:

• How Gina Tow earned 10K a month by trading second-hand luxury bags?
• Gina's experience of being bullied in school
• How Gina start a successful ice-cream cart business

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"Success is a satisfying state of the mind, failure is when you stop trying." - Koh Seng Choon Koh Seng Choon is the founder and managing director of Dignity Kitchen, Singapore's first hawker training centre for people with disabilities and the disadvantaged. Dignity Kitchen has trained over 400 individuals and successfully given job placements to all of them.

Project Dignity's mission is to build and return dignity to the disadvantaged and people with disabilities through vocation with passion. Under Project Dignity, it runs several other programs which including Dignity Mama Stall, Dignity Cottage, Lunch Treat for the Elderly and more.

Koh Seng Choon is also the author of 3 books - Elements of Success: Business, Elements of Success: Education and Elements of Success: Living. Elements of Success: Business is a best-seller in India.

Koh Seng Choon is the owner and management consultant of Christopher Benjamin Consultancy Services. 

On the side, he is a professor at SP Jain School of Global Management. 

In this conversation, we spoke about:

• How Koh Seng Choon negotiated a scholarship with William Cook PLC
• How Koh Seng Choon built a network in India in a record time
• Teaching entrepreneurship at SP Jain school of management, Changi Prison
• and lots more

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Adrian Pang is an artistic director, actor and host. He is also the co-founder of PangdemoniumTheatre Company with his wife, Tracie Pang.

He has won “Best Actor” award at the national Life! Theatre Awards and the 14th Asian Television Awards (ATA).

Adrian has appeared in numerous local and international films including Forever Fever, The Carrot Cake Conversations, Unlucky Plaza and Blackhat.

He also co-wrote, produced and starred in Six Weeks, which aired on MediaWorks in 2004.

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“Chefs need arrogance, business that wants to build a brand needs arrogance” – Bjorn Shen

Bjorn Shen (IG: @bjornshen) is the chef-owner of Artichoke, Bird Bird and an ice-cream brand, Neh Neh Pop - their Instagram feed make my stomach growl.

Bjorn Shen is also the author of the Artichoke cookbook and writes a monthly column titled “Bjorn says” for Time Out Magazine.

On the side, he also is a lecturer at Culinary Institute of America.

In this conversation, we spoke about:

• Story of Bjorn getting robbed while working in a 7/11 store
• Advice on structuring rental agreement
• How Bjorn lost $230,000 in 3 months with OverDough
• Why does Bjorn insist taking his staff on oversea trips and lots more

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Kuik Shiao-Yin is the co-founder and creative director of The Thought Collective. It is comprised of various companies – School of Thought, which offers tuition for General Paper and Language Arts; Food for Thought, a socially ethical restaurant chain and Think Tank, a branding and content curation agency.

She is also a two-term Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP).

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Jack Sim is the founder of the World Toilet Organization (WTO), Base of Pyramid Hub (BoP Hub), World Toilet College (WTC) and the Restroom Association of Singapore.   At the age of 40, he attained financial independence after creating a series of 16 successful businesses. Thereafter, he decided to retire and devote his life to social work.   Jack has been named the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur and is an Ashoka Global fellow. Jack also sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Councils (GAC) for Water Security and the GAC for Social Entrepreneurship.

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Adrian Tan is the author of The Teenage Textbook and The Teenage Workbook which were both national bestsellers. The two books sold over 50,000 copies. The books were made into a film - The Teenage Textbook Movie, which topped the box office in Singapore for four weeks. In 2015, The Teenage Textbook was selected by The Business Times as one of the Top 10 English Singapore books from 1965–2015.

Adrian is currently a lawyer with Morgan Lewis in Singapore and specialises in intellectual property and information technology law. On his off-duty days, Adrian also judges on the International Emmy Award-nominated debate TV show - The Arena.

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Loh Lik Peng is the owner and director of Unlisted Collection. His career began as a litigator during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. He mainly dealt with company bankruptcy. His transition to hospitality occurred in 2000 when he bought a property, now known as Hotel 1929, on a bargain and treated it as a passion project.

Today, he owns several boutique hotels and restaurants in Singapore, London, Shanghai and Sydney. Some of these include (but not limited to) New Majestic Hotel, Wanderlust Hotel,  Burnt Ends and Pollen. He also chairs the Shatec Institute and Singapore Hotel Association and holds directorships at the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre, Asian Civilisations Museum and the Peranakan Museum.

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Dharni Ng (@dharniofficial) started beatboxing at age 15.He studied at Temasek Polytechnic Singapore. In 2011, he won Emperor of the The Mic in Canada. He is the first person in history to win The Grand Beatbox Battle Championship twice in a row. He has also has opened for artistes like Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West, Lady Gaga and performed during Mariah Carey's concert.

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Daniel Ong is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Twelve Cupcakes, with more than 40 stores around the region. He was a well-loved radio deejay from Singapore's MediaCorp Radio 987FM and won the most popular radio personality awards in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Daniel also managed the radio station for 15 months. In 2010, he announced that he was leaving the radio industry at large. In 2011, Twelve Cupcakes was born and it has grown to more than 40 stores today.

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