Please, introduce yourself and your business.
Hey my name's Alvin. I bootstrapped a cloud hosting business, Vodien, and took it from $0 to an exit of $30 million. We provided email hosting, web hosting, servers, and domain names for our clients, and we grew from nothing to become the largest in Singapore.
After my exit, I went traveling full-time for 2 years before starting 2 other businesses, one of which I decided to close in 2024 and I shared my reasons and lessons in a YouTube video on my channel.
The other business was another cloud hosting business, CLDY.com, which surprises me, because we were founded to solve the same issues that the industry faced back in the early 2000's.
How did you start your business?
When I was 17 years old, my co-founder and I met in school, and we decided to start a small side-hustle to get pocket money. That business grew and evolved to one day become Vodien.
How much revenue was your best year? (include margin if possible)
We served thousands of clients, and at our peak before the sale, we were doing $11-$12 million revenue per year. Hosting is not just infrastructure-intensive (server costs, licensing, etc) but also manpower-intensive. Our biggest margin optimisations came from being best-in-class for our internal systems and processes.
When did you notice traction when building your business? The “Oh S**t!” moment, what did that feel like?
We started Vodien as a side-hustle, but one day we realized that our clients were all relying on us for their own businesses. It was a moment that made us appreciate the fact that we had a great responsibility towards our clients.
This was the point of time that made me realize that a business isn't just about profits, but rather a problem that you were trying to solve for your clients.
From this point onwards, we started doubling down on what our clients needed from us. We called these the 4 S's: Speed, Security, Stability, and Support. This ensured that our clients got the absolute best in terms of performance and uptime, in a secure environment with support whenever they needed it.
What was your childhood like? Were you slinging candy on the playground?
My family wasn't well off, so I had to make money myself if I wanted to hang out with my friends or buy the latest comic book or video games. I didn't have the schedule nor desire to work at a part-time job, so I hustled at any chance I could get.
For example, when I was a young kid, I discovered that I could earn a few cents from buying country erasers from my neighborhood bookstore, and selling it in my school. I also like to think that I had a brilliant idea to offer HaaS - or Homework-as-a-Service, but that quickly got shut down when my teachers discovered it.
What has been your best marketing marketing channel?
Our 2 best marketing channels were SEO as well as affiliates. Affiliates were particularly helpful because we had such a strong product offering, so it was an easy channel for people to want to refer us to others.
How many attempts at building something did you make before you found what you’re working on now? Did you always have an entrepreneurial drive?
I've always been dabbling in one entrepreneurial endeavor or another. The number of businesses that I've either created or been involved in are too many to count. One consistent thread across all of them is the knack of finding a problem, typically something that I've experienced, and developing it into a business.
Not all of them succeed, and some of the businesses die of various reasons, but I've never regretted exploring and developing any of them.
What’s the most important skill you’ve learned?
One of the most important skills that I've learnt is thinking systematically and strategically. This is crucial because when you look at entrepreneurs, the main issue stopping them from success is not a lack of ideas, but a lack of execution.
It's also not a matter of executing fast, but executing right. After all, if you run a race with the world's fastest man, you can still beat him if he runs in the wrong direction.
What do you know now that you wish you knew when first starting your business?
I'd wish I'd learn more about communication, because it's essential for almost everything in business - whether you're communicating to your business partners about the partnership, communicating an idea that you have in your head, communicating the strategy to your team, or communicating your product's benefits to your clients.
What is your best advice for someone who wants to build a business but feels completely stuck?
One piece of advice I always give other entrepreneurs now is being intentional. We all want certain goals, but we end up having our plates full and being busy, but not really moving the needle.
When we have utmost clarity about what we want to achieve, it becomes so much easier to figure out what needs to be done today, this quarter, or this year, in order to get us towards our goals.
Having the clarity and knowledge that every action that we take will take us closer to our goals is going to make us that much more effective as entrepreneurs.
Check out Alvin, here:
Personal website: https://alvinpoh.com
Twitter/X: https://x.com/thealvinpoh
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AlvinPoh
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thealvinpoh/
