by Ahmad Mutammim (Singapore)
This journal is written to recap the journey I have gone through in my Technological Entrepreneurship class. It is by far the best course I have taken in my 4 years in SMU. It was not only the most practical, it is also very relevant. I am able to connect all the dots in the past few years and make sense of what my life has been till now. This class is like the culmination of what I have learnt in school.
In the past, I have been involved in a number of businesses including network marketing, internet marketing and financial advisory. The most successful business that I have was the financial advisory business. It was during this few years that I get to know about the foreign currency exchange market. I was intrigued by it so I decided to research on the market further. I soon realized that forex companies make a tremendous amount of money. The amount of transactions that occur every single day is gigantic. If I want to become rich, I believe this is my ticket. So I research further into the market and realize that there is a market need that is not fully serviced – Islamic forex market. There are currently few products or services that offer Islamic or ethical trading services. This led to the idea of a fully Islamic forex brokerage firm – Fursa FX.
It was challenging for me in the beginning for me. My idea was rejected by a number of Professors who do not understand the forex market. Plus it was also pretty hard to convince others about my business idea and to join in my team. The main reason was that not many people understands how the forex market works and their revenue model. Nevertheless, I decided not to give up and pursue my dreams. I am confident that I will find my team one day when the time is ripe.
It was during this class that I get to know my current team members. Firstly, Sang Un who is an exchange student decided to give it a try to join in my team. Yeah, I could tell it from his eyes that he absolutely taking a calculated gamble and he was hesitating whether to continue to remain in my team. I had 3 of my original team members to leave the team one by one. In the end, it was left with me and Sang Un. I asked the TA if it was possible to recruit other students out of the class to be part of the team. I was grateful that the classs was not inflexible on this matter. As such, I proceeded with asking two of my friends, Hafiz and Asyraf. Both of them have their own capabilities and skills and I am confident that they could add synergy to my team. I am glad that we have been a great team till today. Each of us complement on each other’s strengths and weaknesses. I learnt that it is all about team work and man management.
If there is one thing that I learnt most from this class apart from the valuable business knowledge imparted, is that it is important that we have passion and self-belief. It is not enough for us to only have dreams. You need passion and belief to make things happen. Your passion will rub off your shoulders while belief in yourself, your business idea and your team will give you the strength to persevere and succeed.
