Kit Chan the entrepreneur:"My money strategi …
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Kit Chan the entrepreneur:
"My money strategies.."
Sincere, friendly, honest - Kit Chan shares straight talk about
how she became an entrepreneur, her old-fashioned money values,
and what motivates her.
9th May 2001
I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur. At this shop (Flowers
In The Attic, Heeren Annex) I have three partners, one of whom is
my very old friend. The other one was my assistant for five years,
and then she quit.
She was the one who wanted to start a boutique and she asked me what
I thought about it. My first idea was I didn't think it was a great
idea, because I was telling her "you know I don't know how to do
business, and I don't intend to do business…" and she says "OK…",
and I asked her "Are you sure you want to do that? I think it's
difficult you know, to make money". But then, by the end of that
lunch, I was like, in, I was her partner. It was crazy!
So far it's been doing very well, much to our surprise. And all
of us are very happy. The two of them are very happy. They're
realizing their own dream and they are their own boss. I hardly
go in, I'm more like the…I always give stupid ideas, I'm like
the spokesperson.
I wrote like the…something like the mission statement. I wrote
like the press release, things like that...so I do more creative
things. The other girl, the one who used to be my assistant, she
is very good at running operations and administration, and my
good friend, she's the merchandiser and stylist.
Clothes as an investment
My main income comes from royalty and performance fees. It's
erratic, you know. You don't get a monthly paycheck … but it
will work out. In the early years, it was quite difficult. You
put up your first record, and maybe you get your royalties half
a year later.
That was tough right, getting through six months of very low pay,
but after a few years, things will work out.
In the first year of my career, I only made $6,000 in the whole
year, and even like the next two years, I was just like getting
by, because don't forget that our expenses are very high.
I always say maintenance, upkeep, you know, it's difficult when
you are an artiste, especially if you are a high-profile artiste,
and especially if you work in Hong Kong. A lot of the money goes
back to my work, buying clothes, shoes for my work. And then in
Hong Kong, you're not allowed to wear the same thing twice! It's
terrible, it's terrible.
My friends always say "You buy clothes again!" If I was not an
artiste, I would not be buying this. But it's investment, it's
almost like operational costs, cos if you don't have these
clothes you can't do your performances, then you can't make
money.
My expenses are very high. And I have no interest in the stock
market, partly also because I hear so many frightening stories,
and I'm lazy, like they say, check everyday, I'm not going to
do that! I'm not even going to check it once a year if I can
help it, so I think that's kind of out for me, unless, say
there's somebody I trust very much, and can help me monitor…
so I never bought stocks before.
Insurance for the future
The moment I had some extra money, the first I did was to buy
insurance. I always think if you are not a smart investor, just
do something conservative, and insurance, we all need it, cos
you never know.
For us, you don't really have benefits like an employee, and you
don't have CPF, so insurance. I started buying insurance when I
was 21, and the younger you buy the better right?
Then... a few years back I bought my own private property. Now
I'm living in it. Again, when I bought it, people are asking me,
is it for private investment? No, it's for me to live in, so
when the property prices went down, I didn't feel anything,
because I had to live in it.
Don't spend money you don't have
For the people with a lot of money, I don't have much advice!
For the regular person, I really think you should save money,
because I know a lot of people, even my own friends right, who
really live from day to day, and they just spend everything
they got, and I think that's a bad idea. I guess people now,
you know, they don't look as far ahead as our parents did, and
it looks a bit scary to me.
I have been brought up to not live on credit. Although I do have
credit cards and I do use credit cards, but I don't like to owe
people money. So uhm…I don't want Singapore to become the next
America and everyone's living on credit. I don't think that's
good, so it's very old-fashioned values, when it comes to money.
Don't spend money you haven't got. Don't buy on contra! Don't
borrow. Ok, there are things like you need to borrow, like when
you buy a house. There's no way you can pay for it in cash, so
I think, things like solid assets, or if you're starting a
business, so it warrants it, but not like borrow money for shares,
that's unreal to me, or borrow money to buy luxury goods, I
think that's stupid.
So much I want to do
Knowing that there's something else that I've not done. I think
that's what motivates me. I think that…touch wood…if I were
ever to be faced with a life or death situation, like I'm
hanging on a cliff or something, I would think that … besides
the people that I love, it would be that I haven't done this,
this, this, and that would keep me hanging on. There's so much
I want to do.
I don't understand people who say life is boring. How can life
be boring? There're so many things I haven't done. Be they very,
very common things, let's say like ... I've been saying for the
past 2 years, that I want to have a picnic at the Botanical
Gardens, I still haven't done that, so this is like one common
place thing.
So there are like big things, like oh I want to go and take up a
one-year French course in France… so there's big projects and
small projects. Even if I never do the French course, it's
something that I look forward to do.
Extracted from an interview published in the May/June 2001 issue
of Fundsupermart.
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