Before joining Roland Berger in 2017, I had tried to start a small tech company focusing on B2B sales lead generation. However, there was no product-market fit.

Looking on the positive side, the experience gave me a real sense of how to start a business. The small team created strong personal bonds and unconditional trust that lasts to this day. I enjoyed the experience of being in the driver's seat, doing something with people that I trust, and creating something new. Now, with nearly 5 years of systematic business training with Roland Berger behind me, I feel I have accumulated useful knowledge that can help with a new endeavor.

There are many reasons for wanting to start a business: the element of creation in product development, being your own boss to make stuff happen, the comradeship that you build with others in the team, and seeing your strategic thinking put into the real world. But frankly speaking, I don't think entrepreneurship is a decision driven by the logical mind. It is a decision driven by the primitive emotional mind. It is a calling.

My business idea was to develop an automation SaaS tool for information security certification. The background to this idea came from a client RFP. I truly believe cybersecurity is as big a trend as sustainability, software-defined everything, and the metaverse.

During my Roland Berger supported Entrepreneurial Fellowship, I created a lot of knowledge-driven marketing material and reached out to a number of people to test market need. A WeChat account was created and attracted some followers. It was quite an intense experience. I learned that there are many research papers in this field that can be commercialized and I acquired a new understanding of sales.

Overall, the Entrepreneurial Fellowship is an exciting experience. It is a true simulation of how an actual business is started, while also being an intense learning process and quite an invigorating one.