 The first time I met George was at his bar at the Spiffy Dapper, a long book keep and You know, he runs a bar that like there's like no other you either hate it or you'll love it You know, but I have to say the drinks are good So go try that they're now in Amoy Street and the bar is bigger now So you can have more people in it. No, that's good but if you look at The Spiffy Dapper's Facebook page, it's quite hilarious quite entertaining to read. Did you write all that stuff? Yeah So when I asked George to come speak at Cockup Nights, the first question he asked Can I swear? And I'm like, it's called fuckup nights, you know, and yeah, we do a reasonable amount of swearing here But you've been warned Okay, so I won't waste your time. Let me take the floor. You want to click it? I Sound nice So Great, so like Emily said the first question I had was can I swear and I Was thinking I'm gonna swear a lot, but then Calvin came with his kids But then I checked with Calvin if I can swear but he said, okay, so I'm gonna swear anyways We were pointing this out Right That didn't work. Ah, right wrong button. All right, cool. So I'm a I'm a serial fuck up. Um, there is Pretty much everything I have touched I have completely fucked without Yeah, pretty much So I'm just gonna go through some of the stuff the major ones I fucked up and just maybe share with some stuff I learned because when she asked me to do it I made a list of all the things I fucked up. I was like, there's no fucking way I'm gonna cover this in the amount of time given So, yeah First fuck ups written life. So my mother sent me to Singapore when I was 16 years old Put me on a plane gave me a semester of school fees a semester of accommodation and asked me to kindly fuck off She didn't say that you should probably cut that in the video unless my mother said Anyway, so I came here and for the first semester like every good Indian boy I studied But in the second semester, I discovered three things number one was beer number two was smoking and number three was women The last part was especially surprising So I spent the second semester pretty much, you know drinking and smoking All the time and when the exams came On the day of the exam my friend told me hey, we got an exam today. I said I didn't study So I'm not gonna go. So I repeated the semester Only later did I realize in Singapore unlike in India a Week before your final exams for the semester, there's a makeup session where the lecturers basically give you 90% of the answers you need to pass the exam. I was straight fucking phenomenon for me Because in India you don't study for at least a month before exam. You're completely fucked So I was like what the fuck Singapore what this is completely horrible way to do this education Then my friend told me and I thought at this point of time I was somebody who could remember a lot of things So it's you know, but I couldn't I didn't really know what to do with the things I knew so he told me don't worry about Knowing things figure out how to find things and that was one of the biggest experiences learning things that a Singapore educational system Gave to me if nothing else So that was the first lesson. You don't need to know you need to know where to find the information The second fuckup during that time was I was working as a waiter I was working my way through school and I don't know if you guys remember There was the SARS epidemic and I was working at a restaurant in Clarke and during this time the restaurant was going through bad times And I didn't have a job So I could pay my rent and I had to live for about a month on the streets And it was a funny thing because before then I had a computer in a Bicycle and you know all kinds of gizmos that a teenage boy needs and all of a sudden I'm out on the streets Living out of parks I had in that time in Tuesday had one dollar loads of bread. I had a Nutella and Nariskis Stewed pork by the tin was my luxury for the week So there was that was weird time But looking back I realized I was probably some the happiest times of my life That is when I realized that I don't need things to be happy. I need me. I need presence of mind I need the ability to be alive and that really changed my life philosophy going forward and now My woman always tells me that I always choose the most boring thing She does not allow me to choose my bed sheets because you know, it's always boring But then again, the reason for all that was you know, I now like minimalism as opposed to maximalism some shit like that For job so eventually graduated and I Started applying for jobs, but I didn't get the jobs because applying for CEO positions and for some reason they didn't feel I was qualified So I Got a job as an apprentice bartender in a bar that was about to open Two days before we opened the guy who's supposed to set up the bar fucks off and the boss is like George Can you set up a bar? I'm like fuck yeah So I used the first lesson which is nowhere to find stuff and I googled how do you set up a bar? I made a list of all the things and I set up the fucking bar The first day was funny because I don't know how to do it, you know, open a keg So I tried stabbing you with a knife. I was That was weird anyways, my boss was not to see that day and I spent the next one and a half years working my ass off I really for the next one and a half years. I didn't say a single day off I didn't take a sick leave like and of which I blacked out and I left the company But during this time I had become a shareholder and a director of the company And I thought that was a great thing and I was given that because I'm great fucking employee But that was not the case so after I leave the company the owner of the company fucks off to another country is and He does not do compliance. He didn't pay suppliers blah blah blah and Fuck right So there's a couple of companies and I spent pretty much the next one and a half years Thinking I was going to go to prison. My life is fucked. I I was just doing all kinds of stupid things but then I realized I Have to take control of my life and I tried to do it and I looked at the problem and I tried to solve it. I Started by learning the company law started doing the accounts myself and I got out of the situation about three years later And the two important lessons I got from there is this Trust people and make sure you hold a fucking rock in the other hand Second thing is problems are never as hard as they look I always thought the problems are horrible like it's just gonna end me But it's your if you just get up look up look at the first problem chip away at it And it's gonna be like fucking horrendously like ridiculously stupidly slow But if you get it eventually you'll be able to get over the issues that you're facing Ah brilliant So fast forward. I don't want to shut shit in between Anyways, then I managed to hustle a bar It was actually a hustle because I didn't have any money a friend of mine told me that there's somebody who has a space So I went into I got this guy to talk me up Then I talked to him like I'm doing my fucking favor and I'm asked I'm basically open the bar We didn't have licenses or lease or anything like that and after about one year of operating I realized that hey after make the shit legit So I found a place in little India. I signed the lease and two days later the fucking right happens I am like fucking Indians My fucking countrymen you could have either done the right to fucking days ago or could have not write it at all Anyways, there goes the plan of the bar because you know, you are a and Singapore police force do not want to touch anything. I tried to make it a cafe. They say no way So eventually I decided to build a co-working space So I bought the wood and I basically spend six months building with wood and I built a fucking co-working space By this time I ran out of money and I had to take her the other business which I was not looking after So I didn't get any time to sell that one. So, you know, my co-working place is now the place where I stay Lost a fuck ton of money there. Unless I learned from this was this Sometimes it is just luck. There's nothing you can fucking do about it. I just just completely out of your fucking control What the important thing is this Sometimes when shit like that hits you there is really no you know, best way or wrong way to go about it because I took money from people to build it and Thinking back I would owe a lot of people a lot less money if I stopped and just cut that away right now And I owe people a fuck ton of money now, but But now as my business has grown it's now grown as a it's now a space for my employees to come together It's now my office. So there's really no way of As Steve Jobs said right like connecting the dogs backwards or some shit like that. That's basically what happens Yep So Could it be fast with this one because I filled a fair bit of restaurants one two three four Right about eight or nine have fucked up Doing this business And two super simple thing I've learned is Number one either have complete fucking creative control and that is so important because a lot of the times when we go into businesses and stuff We're thinking like hey this person's great and all that shit But one thing that people do not think about is rate of growth a lot of the times You might be working with somebody who is at the same level as you when you start But if you're growing at different rates Soon one or the other person I'll grow each other and when that happens It's not it's not a nice picture at all So either have complete trust make sure the person's growing at the same rate invest in that person as well as you investing in yourself or make sure you have complete fucking control and Make sure you raise more money that you'll ever need because you never know what's gonna come at you Yeah, this is my favorite one Now I fucked up so much as a human being and I'm not saying like, you know, it's horrible to people I am usually horrible to people but mostly I Always try to fit in looking back I Think about trying to fit in was I don't know New in this fucking country and all that shit whatever But as I have done so many things and I fucked up so many times I realized the whole point is top trying to be cool about things stop just fucking be yourself You know, most people will definitely hate you and if they fucking hate you for it. So be it good riddance fuck off And screw weaknesses work on your strings a lot of us Think too much about the things that we're fucking out really it does not do any fucking favors to anybody Nobody wants to be with people who are complaining all the time think talking about the weaknesses all the time Fuck that shit people want to be around with happy people who are doing shit So do stuff work on your strengths fucking weaknesses you can work on that when you're fucking old like Helen Thank you Did you ever think that things Funny question Well, I knew what I why I was doing it I kind of had my brain at 23 and I figured out what the fuck I was supposed to do So everything from then was trying to figure out how to get it done. I'm trying to still try to figure it out It was desperation school fees mostly After that it was well, hey, I got a bar Like I like two weeks before I opened the bar I did not know that I was gonna have a bar then I had a bar. I was like fuck. Yeah And I realized I did not think the damn thing was gonna last so I was like fuck this shit We're gonna make it fun as long as it lasts so Then I basically did all the things that a bar owner shouldn't do and for some reason it became successful and Then I was like, okay, maybe I should quit everything else and do this. So that's how I got there I Share everything Sorry All right, so so the question was do I share ideas easily I'm not worried about people stealing stuff. I used to be But then I realized ideas are easy executions hard There's you know, a lot of people who's gonna take this thing, especially in my business bar business fucking hard But pretty much everything else as well, right? Everybody can say that this is a cool fucking idea like but when you look at it, even if you're looking at tech, right? Your architecture your team your UX, you know, it's the difference between the best UX guy bad Is activations on your app simple as that so fuck ideas work on execution Funny one Did my first one of fundraising to make okay, so I fucked up the co-working space So I had to go back and raise money again because you know, we still didn't have a lease So I went to raise money then I saw this restaurant with invested in it. We fucked that up Then my board decided to kick me out. So I had a coup d'etat kick the board out And then I had seven days to raise $150,000 to get a new place I shit my pants I did it Absolutely not If they're under my foot I trust them That was a joke um You want to work with people for a while and what I do is I always hire in my industry, especially I hire people who have no experience. I build them up and go from there There's once you work with somebody for a while So I work with progressive equity then I kind of set them free virgin style some shit like that So that way, you know like who you're working with as opposed to just like Everybody can come and tell you who I did this did this blah blah blah But I think the key thing is You know, just don't give shit away straight out give stuff away progressively So if you're working with somebody that's new say hey, great. I have the fucking idea. I'm bringing you in I get it. I'm gonna give you let's say one person equity every quarter. Okay, cool And then if they fuck out they take the equity they walk away But at least we still have a fucking company and all that stuff. So that's really how you can protect yourself There's no other way Oh, thank you