I Scammed a Student Yesterday, in Front of Teachers Who Did Nothing
Updated: 4 days ago
Yesterday, I ran my usual pitching workshop.
This marks my fourth year running it in this Institute of Higher Learning (IHL) and the seventh time overall since 2022, and on paper, the metrics looked exceptional.
The Good: Engagement, Numbers, and Unexpected Appetite
We saw a record turnout of around 30+ attendees (approximately 40% more than usual).
The energy in the room was electric. The crowd was genuinely interactive, asked sharp, high-value questions, and paid razor-sharp attention throughout.
To test their business instincts, I ran my classic $50 bidding "scam" game
alongside an explicit offer to personally invest USD 25,000 in three of them—making it completely clear that terms and conditions applied. They leaned in, engaged, and played along. It was fun. The 'scammed' student got his $45 back and even made $5. I'll be following up with the other three of them and if deals are ratified, we'll publish them here. The $50 'scam' is a game. The three investment offers are real. No problem here.
Across the board, this cohort felt noticeably hungrier than previous batches.
The Bad: The Gap Remains Wide
Yet, once you strip away the surface-level engagement, the underlying cracks become glaringly obvious:
The Shamelessness Deficit: The gap remains excessively large. A significant number of attendees do not possess the steadfast, unapologetic shamelessness necessary to endure the challenges of early-stage entrepreneurship. In my view, "shamelessness" is a superpower and can be beneficial for mental health if it helps in disregarding naysayers.
The Age and Mindset Barrier: The age range spanned from roughly 18 to 65 years old. So cool right? Even among the 18-year-olds—an age where starting early is an absolute superpower—my intuition told me they still labor under the illusion that they are "too young" to launch a venture. "My mother say just study la".
The Scale of Apathy: Let's keep perspective. These are individuals who voluntarily carved out time to sign up for an entrepreneurship workshop. Out of an institution with a massive population of more than 12,000 and 150,000 alumni, is this tiny slice truly the hungriest bunch we can muster?
Hardship, Early Grit, and the Reality of Modern Startup Speed
It makes one reflect on what actually drives someone to build. Look at real pioneers who came from hardship and started early—like Elim Chew, founder of the iconic streetwear chain 77th Street.
She started building her path and cutting hair as a young adult before diving headfirst into retail entrepreneurship.
Chronistered in her candid biography, The Elim Chew Story: Driven by Purpose, Destined for Change, her journey highlights that building a business requires looking past comfort and stepping directly into the line of fire to solve real human problems. You can purchase her book here.
Some may argue times are different. Back then, the Police wore shorts. And I agree. It is now WAY EASIER to start something compared to 30 years ago. Back then, you had to physically source location leases, deal with sluggish manual paperwork, and manage complex offline logistics just to get off the ground. Today, you can spin up a cloud infrastructure, launch a website on Wix or Shopify, process digital payments via Stripe, and incorporate a business online in minutes.
When I was 18 years old, I already had four years of real-world work experience under my belt—grinding as a private tutor, a banquet waiter and a KFC cashier. Some might dismiss that as "just odd jobs," but it forced me into the arena early.
These were my hustles that paid the bills. Ker-ching!
I came from a single-parent family where my mum worked as a receptionist making less than $1,500 a month, and my dad was murdered when I was just one year old, tragically thrown off Sea View Hotel in Katong by loan sharks in 1983. Tough luck buddy.
By the time I was 21yo, our family had moved 11 times across rented premises and finally to our own purchased 5-room flat in Tampines in 2003.
It makes you wonder: Is raw adversity a necessary ingredient for true entrepreneurship? When comfort is guaranteed, does hunger quietly die? Is SG doing "too well"?
Mr. Jack Sim (famously known as "Mr Toilet") advocates that empathy and social-emotional education should be taught as early as 5 years old, and numeracy skills by 14 to actually produce something useful.
In his book,
The Gumption of Mr. Toilet: Mobilizing the World to Effect Change, he shares his incredible rise from being a poor student born in a slum to a serial entrepreneur. He emphasises the vital importance of leveraging other people's assets to achieve massive goals even when you have no capital. That is the definition of true resourcefulness. If that’s the benchmark, starting at 18 is already way too late. Why aren't our schools teaching entrepreneurship early?
The Systemic Lag
To be fair, things are improving.
Certain business modules, (shout out to the team behind INNOVA in Temasek Polytechnic), are finally becoming core requirements across some IHLs—meaning if you don't pass them, you don't graduate.
That is a massive step forward, but it is still fundamentally insufficient.
We need this embedded at the primary school level, or at the very least, deeply rooted in secondary education.
The government is trying to help with various funding schemes. But unless our students are hungry enough to actually catch the ball, pitching it to them is completely futile.
Funding Our Startups: Where is the Capital?
For young, aspiring founders who do have the hunger, the capital landscape provides several established pathways:
Startup SG Founder: Provides mentorship support and startup capital grants to first-time entrepreneurs with innovative business ideas. You can explore the framework and details via Enterprise Singapore or check program mechanics on Startup SG.
Enterprise Development Grant (EDG) & Institutional Seed Grants: University and polytechnic-linked incubators offer venture support and pre-seed funding of at least $10,000 to help transition campus concepts into viable commercial entities.
Smaths Corporate Services has been offering first-year-free accounting services for SG startups since 2013. In 2027, SEED Ventures will launch a USD12.5 million fund to support 50 startups per year for 10 years. Stay tuned.
What Can Be Done to Motivate Our Young?
If we want to shift the needle and build genuine operational grit before it's too late, we need to change the playbook:
Dismantle the Safety Net: Make it crystal clear to students early on that a conventional academic paper alone is not going to save them in a shifting global economy. AI is here. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong stated that the post-World War II global economic order, which brought 80 years of relative peace and free-market globalization, is effectively over.
Mandatory Practical Core: Make fundamental business modules—such as Design Thinking, finance, and real-world execution frameworks—mandatory as early as 14 years old.
Engage Credible External Trainers: Schools must actively bring in external trainers and mentors who have a documented track record of real-world success and genuine skin in the game. Do not rely solely on career academics who have never met a payroll Require these trainers to sponsor more than just talk—get them to commit their time, leverage their personal connections, and actively pledge to create high-value introductions for the students.
Treat Networking as a Must: Instil the discipline that networking is a full-time operational requirement. Say hi to three new people every single day. Opportunities don't fall into your lap; they are captured by people who are proactive and likeable enough to be given a shot.
Until we stop wrapping our youth in artificial insulation and start demanding actual skin in the game, we will keep running workshops for people waiting for permission to start.
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Disclosure: Ian has been an adjunct faculty in various IHLs including NUS, NTU and TP since 2018. He founded SEED Ventures in 2013. Smaths Corporate Services is a portco of SV.
Media contact: ian.gan@smaths.com
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