 who have met me before. Hello again for those new faces I've never met before. Hi for the first time. I know a lot of you feel like it's really weird for a financial planner to be here today to talk to you about money but I think it's the root of a lot of problems that we face in life whether you're in tech, in pharmaceuticals, in the medical industry, whatever else okay. So my background was in tech as well. I started freelancing at a very young age 14 years old. This is the kind of thing where you'd be proud to announce when you are like age 20 you'd be like oh yeah I know I freelance at the age of 14 but now I'm like mid 20s. I don't like to brag about it. So I just said I started freelancing young, founded a company, eventually moved into financial planning to join my dad's team. So while I was in financial planning services for the first couple months I actually went on to pursue associate wealth planner accreditation so it's an independent board away from like all the other financial services company. Now after graduating from this program and earning my accreditation, I did a bit of reflection on like my days in tech and I really really wanted to slap my old self. Unfortunately my life is not like a tamagotchi where there's like a reset button and I can go back in like five years and redo everything that I've done wrong. So my purpose here is to kind of just share the lessons that I've learned or rather the experiences that I've had or seen people go through so that you guys will make the same mistake and five years down the road you're not going to be like this financial planner smoke to me once and I clean nothing useful from her. So I'd like to discharge my duties as a financial planner to you guys today. Okay so let's ignore and so go for a while. It's a bit small. Can you guys see from the back? This is oh yeah Honest B is like really big here. So who here used Honest B before? Oh who here is from Honest B? I must be careful. If anybody here is from Honest B, I love your app. Okay I was a very big user of your app until a while ago where FairPrice pulled out. So I used to use Honest B when I made taco so I always had taco Tuesday nights for myself and my family. So it's very convenient and I just like clicky clicky and order. So once FairPrice pulled out of Honest B that was when I was like that goes my taco Tuesdays no more. So I'm the typical millennial where I like depend on one application for my lifestyle and once it's gone I'm like dang it like I will not do it again you know so I just left it hanging but when FairPrice pulled out I never um I never thought much about it like I didn't suspect something was wrong with Honest B like I just thought you know or maybe they had like an argument and both of them couldn't like partner well together or something right. So uh yeah that's ignorant so go. So that is Honest B for Singapore. They recently met into a lot of funding issues. They've got a lot of debt a lot of creditors chasing them for money and this is based on I think the maximum funding that they got was 20 million series A funding. So for tech genius like yourself who are interested in joining a startup or when you're in a startup a lot of times you know startups can brag about their funding situation which to me back then was like oh my gosh y'all got a hundred million funding yay right it's like such a great thing but now when I look back it's like dude you just sign yourself up for a hundred million dollars loan that you need to pay back somehow like I ain't gonna go around bragging saying hey guys I just got a hundred million loan from the bank yay for me no I'd be like oh my gosh how am I gonna pay it all back so like these are the things that sometimes we don't think about because the media really flops up a lot of the startup stuff um so I thought this talk might be useful for you guys today now. Further away from Asia uh there's Theranos anybody read Bad Blood quite common right I mean this book is like crazy popular now so Bad Blood actually talks about the whole story that unfolded for Theranos the health IT company in basement America and uh so it was run by this founder named Elizabeth Holmes so Elizabeth Holmes is known for her really really low voice and her black total neck because she really wanted to assume the role of um the female Steve Jobs which was a little weird but I thought I was the only one who felt like it was weird a few people did like pick up a few like you know like weird vibes from this lady but everyone else was like oh my gosh she's like the star of the valley she's got a lot of funding she's got she's like branded so well it's like amazing to work in Theranos but little did like consumers like us know or like people outside and both inside the company know like all the crazy things that was actually going on with the management with the funding with the cash flow issues so as junior techs or as tech people as much as you want to join like a startup or like a new a fun tech company that just got funded you have to make sure you watch out for yourself and for me I'm here to tell you how you can watch out for yourself in terms of your personal finance because it's going to play into a lot of factors of your life if you are a father you have children in total right you have to find a way to support them even in days where you are retrenched so uh in the view of time I don't have time for car food so I just like to ask the crowd like for your opinion of what you will look for if you're joining a startup for the first time like if you see this startup it looks very exciting what are some factors that you guys will look out for is it funding okay funding adequate funding okay what else team size what else nothing ah just see the logo nice the office nice got ping pong table the mission right the mission and the vision okay what else employee reviews good that's a very important thing to look at so now a lot of times we um we look at the mission right we look at the funding but sometimes we also forget to look at the employee reviews the past employee reviews which is very very important people don't leave the company just because they feel like they want to leave and they want to leave like a bad negative review like maybe one person might feel might be sour grapes about it and like leave like a very bad review on glass door but if you see glass door with like 20 negative reviews I think that says something like even though the founder is very convincing even though the mission is very convincing even though the product is very shiny like honest be sorry for those honest be employees and employees I don't mean to to bring your company up so much okay so here's a case study of a recent Singapore healthcare start that I don't know whether you guys know this company I blanked it out anyway so like employee past employee reviews right just simply go to glass door sign up for an account and then you can review the companies that you are intending to interview at so it's so blur I can't see okay I underline some important things but I can't reveal it says our managers never communicate the problems effectively that's one bad review poor management management fires employees without valid reason this is alarming for me as a financial plan like what like what would happen if you have a family that you need to raise and then this one says the management doesn't have any idea on how to manage people you are given false hopes and fake promises which should come from the vision the mission of the company employees are not treated with respect and there's a lack of job security now the next one is even worse is talking about more that I think is an upper management so and so is a narcissist pathological liar went to group after group to manipulate into providing funding so funding could be a misleading factor as well from time to time especially if you know you have a very manipulative person who's able to charm and manipulate funds out of people so yeah advice to management stop manipulating and lying your way through life so these are like really big reflex like if you do not take these into account you need you need to talk to me I will nag at you I'm a professional nagger at times as well it's like my part-time job already okay so financial problems that you will likely face joining tech startups or tech companies these are just a few of course there are it's not just limited to tech companies I'm not trying to you know say that tech companies are bad they are great and some of these factors actually can be applied to a lot of other small businesses or new businesses so keep an open mind about this so some of the factors are misuse of funds and employees were kept unaware instability of the jobs and layoffs can be quite sudden when it comes to startups it could be like you know going to office the next day and the founders like okay everybody we've got to let 29 people go and these are the 29 people please pack yourself you know you need to leave and there's a there's there's not a nice thing to wake up to really um sometimes in your tech companies the very well-established ones you have a very good problem you have a very high salary but then you also feel the pressure to keep up with the bonuses okay keeping up with everyone else's lifestyle I'll go into that later and sometimes when you're a bit disgruntled with your full-time job you know because you have tech skills you are highly employable or rather people want to hire you for other projects you might consider freelancing on the self-employed route which has a different set of issues itself okay let's look at them one by one the first one misuse of funds employees kept unaware at first these problems can be very small and negligible at the beginning you might pick up some signs of it when you're working in a company you may not but it really snowballs into very big issues in the long run so previously in one of the case studies there were actually AP holders or other foreigners who were brought into Singapore to work in that particular startup who uh who's pays like the salary was not paid out for a couple of months and they were just you know the founders just kept convincing them hey uh it's okay you know funding is coming just hold on for a bit longer hold on for a bit longer so he held on for two months this guy has two young girls who are going to rather expensive schools here in Singapore because he's a foreigner and so eventually by the third month he's like I can't I just I can't do it anymore so these are real issues that happened in Singapore so do keep in mind next instability and sudden layoffs so as proven by many many many many startups if you are a paying user of tech in Asia I'm not I get to see the brief like the first three sentences then after that they're like oh please subscribe I'm like you ain't taking my one dollar ninety cents I'm not doing that but you can see a lot of news about technology companies laying off people very suddenly out of the blue they can just go and your job is gone the next day okay so um and this will be you unemployed and you could last for up to six months if you're lucky if not then it could last potentially longer depending on the job market as well okay now the good problem high salary and lifestyle expectancy so sometimes you know especially if you're in the c-suite um everyone around you could be earning upwards of 10k a month and they become a like strolling into the office with a nine dollar organic coffee in hand you know coming to the office putting it down and like looking at you going like hey you buy go pc why you cannot afford nine dollar coffee man so like sometimes even though like for me I like my go pc even though I could be earning much more than afford much more than that sometimes um but it's just it it does give you an unnecessary social pressure from time to time so when you feel that way uh keep yourself in check you know like uh just just say you'd like go pc I guess there's nothing really wrong with that there's nothing wrong with being the black sheep in certain scenarios like that um is there another scenario that I can raise right now I can't think of it it was on my mind a while ago later if I remember I'll tell you again now self-employed people freelancing on the business route because you have very great employable skills you have skills that people want you have skills to build something to build the next I don't know the next amazon or whatever else right so although it might seem like a very lucrative option um and a very exciting option to be your own boss you can sometimes go into that route completely unprepared for the finances that come along with it so you have a lack of stable salary as well as a lack of employee benefits if you're a singaporean pr or a singaporean citizen this is what you'll be facing you will not have your cpf contribution by your employers now just to show off hands anyone here has a financial plan or financial portfolio they can call a plan or portfolio raise your hands good I see some hands well lucky I see some hands I felt so worried okay great great great good job guys um so just a brief overview a financial plan is a big concept it includes things like you know budgeting lifestyle planning retirement planning savings insurance as well as you know ways to get out of debt if you are currently in debt now a financial portfolio however is commonly mistaken as just your portfolio of investments which is not exactly very true because financial consists of all three insurance being your first line of defense emergency cash savings and then also a diverse diversified portfolio of investment so it consists of all three there's a very well rounded all-weather portfolio that can last you for the rest of your life right so just a quick overview this is applicable to everybody let's just imagine your adult life right now if you're not schooling as a bathtub okay whatever you are earning now goes in to the bathtub as incoming water from your faucet everything that you're spending goes out you know as leakages and spills from your bathtub right so whatever you accumulate in your lifetime will be your assets your net worth and that's how much water you have in your bathtub now we all want a full bathtub right we don't want this like sad as oh sorry I say bad word is that okay can you blame girl okay yeah we don't want like a little bit of water you know by the time we are 60 plus and like we have so little water in our bathtub we can't even keep ourselves clean or warm at all so um in as your your main goal as an adult is to ensure that as you grow as you age the amount of water in your bathtub climbs along as you age so that when you retire you have a nice warm bathtub to dip yourself in and enjoy the hot bath okay next so some action tips to stay prepared in your field in technology and in startups so I remember I mentioned emergency funds earlier so there are two tips here for those who are currently full-time employees and companies it is advisable to have at least six to nine months of your expenses kept in a savings bank or something that's liquid like saving expense it's always the best because you can withdraw it anytime six to nine months of expenses they include maybe your rent your insurance premiums your day-to-day needs for transport for food okay for self-employed people who are even business owners it's advisable to keep up for the nine to twelve months that's a good gauge now a second tip you guys have to keep in mind to stay frugal not try and keep up with the Jonas's from time to time yeah you know what indulge in whatever you want indulge in some fancy trips some fancy dining go all out because you deserve it you've worked hard for your money but not every day because it's not sustainable in a long run you want to ensure that what you earn today can also pay for your meals in the future not just for now right okay and okay insurance is the first line of defense anyone here plays those like city building games those empire building games on your iphone and stuff right right me too like i love those games now who in those games right with the money that you have will buy all the weapons you see and just go out conquering other lands just conquer other lands and don't care about the land that you currently have no right that's like kind of silly like even if you're in real life like if you actually own a piece of land and you want to you know be a warlord and like conquer other pieces of land to expand what you have you need to be able to protect what you have from other people invading it from other people destroying it first so insurance acts as their thing that protects what you already have so that you can go out and conquer for more and the more you conquer the more you need to protect so it's a very easy way to remember why insurance is very important here so it protects your ability to work your ability to go out and run for more land but it also prevents your current finances from being destroyed in uncertainty so it prevents your why am i so like lost my breath it prevents your current land from being destroyed so from being taken over from being destroyed by whatever reasons okay so here's a good quote insurance is the only thing that pays you a known amount at an unknown circumstance which is why it's it's very important that you have that in your portfolio now the third thing that you want to include in your portfolio aside from emergency funds aside from insurance is a diversified portfolio of investments now like my in my previous talk when i asked what is investment everyone shouted bitcoin and i had like a diarrhea on the inside i was like dying on the inside i did no get it out of your mind investment is not like a get rich quick scheme okay most of the time when you're talking about investments you have your high-risk investments maybe you're investing into a company or investing into bitcoin but you also have the lower risk investments which will definitely or rather gives you a better security over the long run with moderate returns so you want to balance these two outs to meet different goals in your life you have your long-term goals including retirement not just kids or not just marriage including retirement and short-term goals things like your wedding or you know housing down payments and things like that so an important thing when it comes to investments or building out your investment portfolio is to ensure that whatever you are doing you keep this in mind that you are paying yourself in the future and that is as important as paying yourself now so don't go all out with like don't like i'd say you have $50,000 don't put $49,999 into like some very shady but super exciting cryptocurrency or like you know whatever your friends is is very exciting that will reap you 20% returns overnight okay those are things like you need to be super skeptical about so be realistic know that you know there's no free lunch in this world and if you are lost for advice you know you should always approach someone who is who is able to give you unbiased advice on your investment options okay so oh okay i think that's all from me did i finish too quickly i don't know okay so thank you for your time i actually have a lot more to share shorter now my 60 slides presentation to 23 so um i actually talk more about financial planning uh investment portfolio planning retirement planning um and if you're interested in anything like that feel free to let me know or you can contact me with my email um also sometimes i read like articles i only wrote two i'm intending to keep up with it but it's been a bit tiring for me so yeah just reach out to me on linkedin or my mobile number or my email address um from the feedback that i gathered in the past sessions a lot of people tend not to want to ask me questions after the event because it's it's not very comfortable to share your personal finance issues uh in a group setting so feel free to just drop me a text or call me anytime yeah so if you can take a bit of time to provide me with your feedback on my talk i would greatly appreciate it um it will help me i guess improve like my speaking and you know my offering to the crowd like i don't know if this is something you guys are really looking forward to to learning and if you've been anything useful out of it if so please let me know if not also let me know uh i'm i'm good with taking criticisms it's okay i can handle it i eat no strawberry okay so thank you for your time i really appreciate it uh anything else uh let me know i guess in in any channels thank you drina there for having me here