Cialfo

UNIVERSITY ADMISSIONS Consultancy

Cialfo is a business operating in the education sector that offers services such as university admissions consulting, SAT preparation, personal statement advice, etc. and aims to help students achieve their academic ambitions in universities around the world. Since its incorporation, Cialfo has achieved a string of successes in a relatively short period of time. Their efforts haven’t gone unnoticed as they earned the title of being one of the “20 Hottest Singapore Start-ups” in 2014. As they’ve grown tremendously over the past few months, Cialfo believes they are no longer a start-up. Today, they are in the ‘growth stage’ and have started expanding in Asia, attracting top investors in the process. 

Stanley Chia Ding Li is the co-founder of Cialfo (Rohan Pasari, the other co-founder, was unable to join us for the session due to work commitments) and we had the privilege of speaking to him about his enterprise journey. Here is the transcript of the interview:

Q1. Could you introduce yourself?

Hi, I’m Stanley Chia and I’m the co-founder of Cialfo (Rohan Pasari is the other co-founder).

Q2. How old are you now and how old were you when you started it?

I think I’m...28 this year! We started when I was 25...right? I think… (laughter)

Q3. In one sentence, how would you describe your business?

Cialfo is an education business that focuses on helping students achieve their aspirations in attending universities in the US or the UK by providing end-to-end services during the applications processes, ranging from SATs prep to personal statement consultation.

Q4. What made you want to start your own company and become an entrepreneur?

Oh, it was a long journey. When I was in Polytechnic, I was the president of the Entrepreneurship Club, vice-president of the Social Entrepreneurship Club, and held positions in various other clubs, but my 3 years of education in polytechnic didn’t give me the opportunity to start something on my own because my time was always occupied with administering the clubs. Along the way, I found out that a lot of the members in these clubs actually started businesses on their own and I felt that I wasn’t doing myself justice. When I went to university (Nanyang Technological University), I knew I had to give myself a shot at starting something on my own.

My interest in starting a business accelerated when I took an entrepreneurship minor in university. The last module of the minor required me to commence a start-up in the real world. A lot of my peers opted for small-scale projects like buying goods from the US and selling it in the flea markets in Singapore. I, however, chose to start my very own education business called Envisage. Envisage was a social startup that aimed to educate the youth about community involvement. It was something I was really passionate about. Our main business revolved around uncovering the potential of youth and enhancing their involvement in the community through creating simulations and games. 

I was so thrilled with my startup that I took a sabbatical for 8 months. Those 8 months helped me immensely as I had the time to find myself. One of the key positives of taking the sabbatical was the fact that I avoided the rat race of the school system for those months. That’s important because when you’re a student in the school system, you are trapped in the day-to-day routines of studying, submitting projects, etc. and that really prevents you from pursuing something sustainably. I believe that if you want to do a business, you have to pour your heart and soul into it- you can’t choose when to make time for it. When you’re studying, you will come across instances where you have to choose between a client meeting and completing your class tutorial. The sabbatical relieved me of that routine. I went through a lot of soul-searching during this time and attended a lot of talks, which made me realise that entrepreneurship is not just a career or a job, it’s a lifestyle. If you really want to do it, you do it with your whole life invested into it. When I gave myself a shot, I did it in a practical way because I had to answer to my loved ones. The reality in Singapore is that a lot of parents don’t really understand the entrepreneurship culture because most families belong to the working-class. One of the challenges of taking a sabbatical, however, is to form a plan to keep yourself productive on a daily basis for a fruitful reason. You don’t want to take a sabbatical and waste time and regret it later, you want to make the best of it. 

Q5. How did you and Rohan meet and what it was like to share a joint vision?

I met Rohan during the time I opted for the Entrepreneurship minor in NTU. We had never worked together throughout the whole minor but we knew each other (in fact we were ‘rivals’ for a while: on the 4th module of the minor, there was a simulation task, and Rohan’s team was ranked highly whereas my team was ranked in the middle. It became quite intense but we respected each other very well). In Rohan’s final year (which was during my sabbatical), he wanted to start an education business but he needed someone who understood the education market in Singapore. So I, having gone through the processes of learning the system here, seemed to be the natural partner for him. He asked me if I was interested and I was, obviously. Both of us had actually helped our juniors with applications so we found that this idea was something that we were really passionate about. However, no business idea blossoms into the way that it was originally planned. Along the way, we agreed to make a lot of adjustments and adaptations to the original idea so you can say that the current vision of Cialfo is really a product of our combined efforts and decisions.

Q6. What gap in the market persuaded you to launch your company?

The biggest gap in the market when it came to applying for universities was the entire lack of information as there wasn’t a predominant culture for students in Singapore to pursue universities overseas (except for elite universities). Typically, when you need help applying to overseas universities, you approach your seniors in school, but in a school where there are no seniors or just a handful of them applying to overseas universities, the chances of you getting help is pretty slim. So we realised that there was this big gap in the market and we decided to fill that. After a year in the industry, we realised that there was an even bigger problem: students having gone through the Singapore education system only apply for universities after their final exams and didn’t know that they had to prepare for overseas university applications a couple of years before they planned to attend the university. So we used this to our advantage and branched out our services throughout the Junior College/Polytechnic period. Thus, there was a huge lack of knowledge, information and culture for applying to overseas universities. One of our greatest efforts early on was to educate the market, so we hosted lots of seminars and engaged in a variety of non-profit projects. 

Q7. What were some early obstacles you faced and what motivated you to overcome them?

When we first thought of starting Cialfo, we went through months and months of market research. Eventually, what got us started was when we took advice from a seasoned entrepreneur who said, “You never really know the outcome of a venture until you delve into it.” Rohan and I had a gut feeling that Cialfo would be successful, and since we had the passion for it, we decided to go for it. Nothing much happened in the first few months and we just incurred expenses and costs. Soon enough, we caught the attention of the market. What felt really great was when we made our first sale since incorporation. The very first sale encouraged us and made us believe that there were people who understood what we were trying to do. It was a market that didn’t exist so every time we were selling, we had to first convince the customers with our proposition. This involved a lot of hard-selling as well as reiteration of our end-to-end service. There were a lot of changes throughout the initial period and even now- the price points, our competitiveness, the products we offer, our ‘USP’. 

One of the biggest challenges we faced early on was when we met our competitor (who had an international presence). After analysing them, we realised that they specialised in SAT prep over the years but had very little experience in university application consulting, something we specialised in. Yes, they might have had more resources to hire people to compete with us, but even if you hire someone from a top tier university, it doesn’t mean that that person understands the procedure well enough. During our first year, we tracked the progress of each student thoroughly from start to finish. As we helped them achieve their ambitions in receiving acceptances from great universities, we realised that our process worked. That certainly gave us more confidence in the second year as it had set a track record. 

Initially, we had experts who joined us in our founding team: people who were once a part of admission bodies but eventually they left us. We didn’t lose hope as we banked on the fact that we have an established set-up and working process. The experts thought that we couldn’t survive without them but I’m proud to say that the gamble paid off. Today, we employ graduates of top universities and coach them further about successful techniques before letting them start consulting our students. We knew our services were great and that more people would benefit from it. Every time we see a student succeed, it’s a great feeling because you know that you have helped someone achieve their dreams. For some students, it is not only about university application success but also the change in the person’s life that has resulted from the coaching. Ultimately, the grander vision is trying to find ways to extend our services to people who can’t afford it and to help students receive scholarships and bursaries.

Q8. What do you wish you knew when you first started that you know now?

I think the first thought that comes to mind is that there will always be competitors in any profitable market. Even though these competitors might be bigger (financially) than you, it doesn’t mean anything especially if you are in a blue ocean market. Rather, it is about the speed of innovating. You don’t have to fear bigger companies. Secondly, securing our own investors and building relationships with them was important for us as we hit the growth stage. In the initial stages, the service business was a platform where we did cash up front, hence improving our cash flow. If we followed a credit model, we would have required investors to secure our staff’s salary payments before the year end when people get their applications, which would have reduced our attractiveness to them. This is a common problem all start-ups face.

One major thing we learnt through the process is that an idea is only an idea until it is proven to work for the company. There were junctures in our journey where we had partners who wanted to trade ideas for equity. I believe that ideas mean nothing if you cannot execute the potential of them. We struggled with the dilemma of rewarding people with more shares for their ideas. Now, we draw up contracts whereby people can get their share if their ideas generate said potential. Managing stakeholders was a challenge we faced initially that we eventually overcame and drew lessons from. 

Q9. Where do you see your company for the next 5 years?

We have already received recognition to the point where we can no longer call ourselves a start-up. Our investors had to inform us we weren’t one as calling ourselves a start-up or keeping our mindset within that of a startup gave us a lot of leeway! The next 5 years is about growing the business even further: hiring people to sustain the day-to-day workings of the business such that co-founders will be able to take a step back from operations (consulting, sales, hiring, finding employees who can fill these leadership positions) to focus on a more strategic level on issues like expanding the scope of what we do. Our long term vision is to develop our online tools so that our market can be expanded to a global context beyond Singapore’s geographically restricted face-to-face operation. Next, we’re looking into working with partners in China and hopefully in South East Asia as well. We have already made strategic hires and placed offices overseas. 

Q10.  What advice would you to give to new entrepreneurs?

Firstly, stop overthinking it. I had a long list of business ideas that I accumulated over my time in Polytechnic which I never acted on. The business I ended up doing is what I acted on. Also, don’t be afraid to share your ideas, to exchange opinions with others and take in how they find your idea. If you received a lot of opinions be mindful of who you take these opinions from. Be sensible and generally more receptive to people who have had more experience in your area of interest. A key piece of advice to those that are just starting out is to find a mentor that is relevant to the company. 

Be mindful of how shares are split among co-founders. How should the shares be distributed such that there is incentive to take ownership of the company? Or how would the number of shares be proportionate to ownership of the company? This affects the psychology of founders which is crucial. There should be no such thing as part-time co-founders. If you want people on a part-time stake, give them employee stock options unless they offer your company something that no one in the company has yet. Whether or not you need a co-founder is subjective but personally I needed one. Rohan complemented me in terms of his strengths and skill sets. He is a more systematic, work-oriented person and I’m a people person. For example, he pushed for hard deadlines while I tried to emphatise more with my employees and that balanced out. 

Eventually, when you move from a start-up and more people join your company, employee management would be very important. Mentors are important as they would guide you from making stupid mistakes, thus, cutting losses. Don’t be afraid to be clear to your mentors that you would need them for specific aspects of your company’s processes. Filter the advice that your receive from your mentors. Most importantly, just delve right into it!

Kopi Commerce would like to sincerely thank Stanley Chia and Rohan Pasari for giving us the pleasure to interview them. We hope you enjoyed the conversation.

Website: www.cialfogroup.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/cialfo

Twitter: www.twitter.com/CialfoEdu

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/cialfo-pte-ltd

AngelList: www.angel.co/cialfo