Transcription
I'm Jane King at the New York Stock Exchange. With me, Mike Foo, the CEO and founder of YY Group. So, Mike, great to have you here. And I, I've talked to many people in the company, um, lately, but why don't you introduce yourself? Tell me about your background.
Yeah, thank you for hosting me here, Jane. Okay, uh, I, I'm Mike Foo, uh, the founder and the CEO of YY Group. So, uh, I'll introduce a bit on myself. So, uh, today, this year, I'm about 41. So, married with my wife for, uh, 15 years ago. We have our two kids now. Okay, two girls, lovely girls. Yeah.
Okay, wonderful. And, um, share some of the story. So, how did you come to to find YY Group and, um, just talk about how all that happened.
Okay, uh, it's a very, uh, good journey for me. Okay, uh, I, in 2006, I came to Singapore for study. So, uh, during study time, I was working as a, as a waiter in the hotels. So, uh, during that time, it was okay because I come from a very poor family. So, all this, uh, uh, my school fees, so we had a problem. I came to Singapore, my parents would borrow the whole village. Yeah. Okay, getting the money prepared for me to come to Singapore for study. So, when I came, after I came to Singapore, okay, then we were able to do a part-time job in different, all these five-star hotels. So, uh, initially, we were facing, I am facing a big challenge. Okay, because coming to Singapore, Singapore is an all English-speaking environment. So, uh, coming in, in the beginning, okay, basically, uh, I'm not familiar with English. Okay, not good in talking. So, when I found, got in the hotel, it was facing a lot of difficulties. Like, first day, I was looking for the, into the hotel, looking for the direction, asking around in the main road. Okay, spending half of a day to get to the hotel. So, after that, okay, went through all these interviews. Then ready, okay, then I started all these jobs in the hotels. So, during the part-time time, okay, I was facing a big challenge. So, because of communication barriers. So, a lot of people, they were not willing to work with me together. So, even other people, they said, "Hey, I don't want Mike working in my team. Okay, our two persons, we are able to handle all these tables." So, it was very sad for me initially. So, because of all these people, they didn't love to work with me. They were not willing to work with me all this around. So, but I never gave up. So, along the way, I just kept learning, watched people what they do, how they say, okay, how they manage talking to the guests, how they do all these services. So, along the way, kept improving. So, by the time, I think I studied in Republic Polytechnic, so, 3 years. After when I graduated, ready, I already became a part-time captain. So, meaning I managed all these functions running by with a hotel manager together.
Wow. >> Yeah. So, it's always dynamic and fun. What a fascinating story. And inspirational. You came and you worked so hard and learned the language. And what were the challenges that you faced as you were growing the business?
Okay, I think doing the way I set up the business, initial business was very good. Okay, because we had, uh, built my name in the market. So, all these hotels, they were looking for me by word of mouth to pass around. So, along the way, I think I set up a decent business for after 3 or 4 years later. So, I made a very big, big mistake. Okay, I set up a restaurant business, so along the way. So, when I was doing all this integrated manpower solution to the hotels, at the same time, I set up a Chinese restaurant business. So, I spent quite sometimes, most of the time on the restaurant business. So, the hotel side of the business were dropping. So, the restaurant was also not doing well. So, I think I operated the Chinese restaurant for 5 years. I about lost about 3 to 4 million dollars. After that, now, I closed down the restaurant and came back to fully focus on this manpower business. Then, I set up a, we set up an IT team with my wife together to develop all this platform so to integrate to become a last time, all operational manner to become digitalized. So, that's why we are able to currently move to internationally, nationally, globally in different countries.
Okay, very interesting in how you pivoted and your wife, I can tell, has been a crucial part of the business as well. So, what about mistakes? What would you say is the biggest mistake that you made?
Okay, I think as along the way, I think come to the biggest mistake will be the setting up the Chinese restaurant. Spending my 5 years of the time losing about 3, 4 million dollars. So, after I think the experience, we need to do a business, we need to focus on what we are doing. So, that's the reason I closed down the whole restaurant business and came back to do all this manpower on-demand staffing matching business.
Okay, and then you're listed on the NASDAQ. So, it's been a real success story for you. Why did you choose to do that?
Okay, after I opened the business of in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, so I was thinking, "Okay, I'm looking for a more globally wise. So, I should get things since I am able to do this, where I am able to run the business in Malaysia, Hong Kong, all different regions and different countries. So, why not we're looking for a more wider vision, come to a global like setting up a Europe, setting up a US. So, because now currently we more focus on digital lines. So, all this is automated, the whole process is a like currently client posts a job. So, all these part-timers in the platform, then they are able to apply for the job directly. So, it's quite automated, really. Now, currently with the AI integrations, like currently we set up all, all this open cloud integrate with the operations. So, we can save about 60 or 70% of the time on the operation to improve the op- efficiency of the operations. So, all these areas, I think that's the reason, okay, after that I move, I decided say, "Hey, since we are able to successfully running of a few countries already. So, now why not we go public?" So, that's the reason we chose our NASDAQ. So, because NASDAQ is a more global wise exchange platform. So, more, I think it's globally people, everybody, they know NASDAQ. Yeah. So, and then >> new wise, so we got to know more international clients. Yeah.
What are your plans for the next 3 years?
Uh, I think in the next 3 years, we are setting up our robotic solution in Singapore. So, we set up our data collection center in Singapore also. So, I think in future will be the hybrid model for all these solution providers. Like us, we are solution providers. So, we want to move to this a hybrid model. So, we not just providing manpower to the client. So, we are providing a robotic solution to the hotels also. So, we'll be coming on more collecting our data, like currently we're going to set up our data training. We're working with all these hotels, the five-star hotels, shopping malls to collecting all these training [clears throat] data. For example, our cleaner working in the mall, so they're wearing data, data collection test kits. So, we can collect the data. Okay, now we're going to feed all these data to the robotic. Then in future, the robot can do all these, maybe our human don't want to do the job. So, if human do all these jobs, supervise, do the lesser, lesser task job, lesser workload job, then all these heavily job will be done, whichever by the robotics. So, we imagine in the next 3 years, maybe we are providing all these solutions. We are providing with the with trusting. So, it's a focus talk to all these clients in the ballroom. So, asking them on the experience, all this is service in the, I'm more on human touch. Okay, so the robot will be focused bringing in the food from the back of the house, bring the drinks from the bar, then send to all this. So, our human will do the human touch, is serving the drinks, all this to the guest.
Ah, it's going to be fascinating to see the future. So, Mike, thank you so much for coming and sharing your story and, uh, it's an inspiration to hear what all you went through to build the company. So, thank you.
Thank you, Jean. Thank you.