The Origin of Idea9
I started my 3rd, “marketing” company Idea9 in Jan. 2019.
It was probably a crazy decision, given that I was already running two companies, Imonology and Joint Commonwealth Fund (JCF) at the time. Both companies also couldn’t yet be considered “stable” in terms of cash flow.
But probably because I was aiming for something bigger and higher, that I still decided to do it.
This came after some soul-searching last year in 2018, when I was trying to identify what my real, ultimate goal in life would be. It turned out that I would really like to become a “social billionaire” by the end of my life, a billionaire who’s made his fortune via social enterprises.
Why a billionaire as a goal? I’d say that the seeds were planted long ago, when I was determined to help make the world a better place. You know… the kind of wish a child would have had when everything was possible: world peace, ending poverty, protect the environment, and help people.
These ideals tend to fade away as we get older, become more “civilized” and “socialized.” Because by then you’d be learning the cold “rules” of reality, that not all dreams can be achieved, that bills have to be paid, and that you have to sacrifice your dreams for things more “realistic”.
I never accepted that, even though I’ve just turned 40 this year.
The idea that as you become older you will become more limited and fixed, is a fixed-mindset thinking. On the other hand, a growth mindset believes that you can improve almost every area of your life, from health to finance, if you’d be willing to make the necessary change in yourself.
Deeper down though, the real reason of why I’d like to make a positive impact in the world is my mom. She’s always pushed me hard, asking that I become “more” and “better” at each stage in life. I don’t feel that I’ve ever received a praise from her, though I know too that she loves me the most.
A long-term pain I’ve experienced as an entrepreneur with two companies is sales and marketing, which I never considered myself “good at” or an expert for. As I was actually a programmer and researcher by background and training.
Going out of my way to start companies and become an entrepreneur was a growth with a lot of personal pain.
Still, I’ve enjoyed the process, the learning, and the freedom it brought me, and also believe that to become an entrepreneur is one of those decisions that could really change the course of one’s life.
But not knowing how to do sales properly and bring clients or revenue in a predictable manner really was a pain in doing business.
I also observed that actually besides me, many other people and organizations had similar suffering, especially if their original talents and skills are not in the “sales and marketing” domain: small shop owners, startup founders with technical background, or even NPO founders who started it all because of some ideal and passion.
I saw a need in both myself and others, that there really wasn’t a readily available, approachable, easily-comprehensible way to do sales and marketing for these organizations. At least they were out of reach for myself and my peers.
I began my search and found Russel Brunson’s ClickFunnel.
It met a lot of my expectations: easy to use without much technicality, a platform built for the small / inexperienced to help them with marketing, and most importantly, a core philosophy that if you’d be willing to invest the effort, there’s a predictable path to success.
Although ClickFunnel has been quite successful in the western world, it’s still relatively unused in Taiwan and perhaps Asia. The idea clicked to bring ClickFunnel to a Chinese audience, who mostly are still using E-commerce based sales tools.
Simply adopting ClickFunnel for the marketing and sales for my companies is one thing, starting a 3rd company with the sole purpose to master ClickFunnel to serve a Chinese audience is quite another, though it serves as a “forcing function” to really force myself to be really serious.
I’m not yet sure how this trip will take me, or end up, though I’m already experiencing and enjoying the wild ride.
