Never in John Jervis Lee’s wildest dreams did he imagine that he and his best friend would one day own and operate one of Singapore’s — even Asia’s — leading web hosting providers.
For John, having a driven business partner by his side has allowed them both to achieve more than they otherwise could have on their own. As the years went by, school days gave way to tertiary education, and it was during their polytechnic days that they made a decision to face the working world as a team.
It was during John’s stint as a web designer in 2002 he came to realise that there were no outstanding web hosting providers in Singapore that could offer value-for-money service and unparalleled technical support. It was 2007 when he finally decided to change that forever and switch business focus from web design to web hosting to capitalise on this opportunity.
“As web hosts, we knew how to build websites and we know what customers required, so we thought we were the best people to build the infrastructure, hosting services to service their needs–securely, with speed, and great 24/7 support for customers,” explains John.
The first couple of years were pretty tough as it was just himself and his best friend manning their new company, Vodien Internet Solutions, trying their best to live up to a promise of 24/7 support. Both John and his partner had to be on standby around the clock, sleeping between calls and emails. At best, a few hours of rest was a real luxury, with incoming email alerts blasted through their computer speakers or the ringing phone, set at maximum volume, to wake them as they stole a few minutes of precious sleep.
“We did this because we wanted to be there for that someone who wakes up at 2 am with the inspiration to build a website, who did not have to wait till the morning to speak to someone who is experienced and can offer them good technical advice,” John says.
As 2009 came around, business continued to pick up with over a thousand clients, which was more than the two guys could handle. They decided to take a heavy pay cut to invest in a few staff to help them cope with the demands of the growing business. With more free time both partners used it to refocus their business strategies and create even better solutions for their customers.
Did that work out? It surely did! The result of this delegation gave the two the clarity of vision to keep improving and innovating on their customer service like implementing live chat when they noticed that people wanted faster responses than emails. They then took live chat a step further by turning it into a hybrid support service introducing callback if the live chat went on too long, further reducing the time it took for customer issues to be resolved.
It may be confusing to outsiders, but this is a company that is proud to state that they “like complaints”. Customer service has always been at the foundation for their success. The strength of the company’s feedback channels has given the duo actionable data for them to improve their business. In fact, both partners still get their hands dirty by picking up the phone themselves to call clients, partners and vendors in order to put their ears to the ground and understand what their customers really need.
In the course of this fast growth, the Vodien team implemented another major breakthrough, automating their payment collection. Where once they had to manually process cheques and cash for thousands of customers, nowadays automated payment through online platforms like PayPal take up almost 80 percent of their payments, improving the customer experience and freeing up precious man hours for business activities instead.
“The era has changed; people are more willing to pay online now,” John offers.
It’s easy to gloss over the difficult and intense effort of the two best friends at the start of Vodien’s story now that the company is enjoying success, but neither John nor his partner take hard work for granted. The challenge now turns to working hard, but smarter, and strategising how to take Vodien to the region. Vodien wants to become the top local service provider in every country it enters, aiming to provide the best and most reliable service that made them so successful in Singapore.
Today, after over a decade, Vodien has over 60 employees and is an accredited member of APNIC and the biggest ICANN-accredited domain registrar in Singapore, and they enjoy the fruits of their close partnerships with various hardware and software technology firms.
John’s insight into why he has been so successful “I’m glad I started Vodien early, because I was in my early 20s then, when I had the energy—and there has been a lot of difference doing something with a partner, giving you the moral support,”.
Looking forward, and regardless of what the future holds, one thing is certain: John’s friendship is still an enduring component of his business’ success.
John’s Tips
- Find a business partner who complements your skills, keeps you accountable and helps to motivate you.
- When looking for an idea for your business, don’t just look for areas of the market that have no competition – look for verticals where current players are weak in factors you can improve on such as customer service or price.
- Radically great customer service pays off!
- Don’t get too bogged down in the day-to-day operational work – hire staff and delegate so you can take time to properly plan your business’ direction.
- Understand that customer complaints are your opportunity to learn and improve. Take a little time to personally handle customer service functions every so often so you can understand your customers at first hand.
- Streamline your payments processing and save valuable time and resources by using a service like PayPal.
- Investigate partnerships with industry organizations and other businesses – they can provide valuable support