Plight of a Singaporean male

Recently, I was flattered to receive a long feedback from one of my readers, Hyom, to my previous post on a business idea to provide services to foreigners and PRs residing in Singapore. There was a lot of angry thinking in his response and I can also sense a tinge of injustice when he mentioned that he, as a Singaporean male, had to fork out much money for his tertiary education whilst foreigners of lesser talent received scholarship using our tax-payers monies.

I thank him for his honest feedback and can relate 100% with him as I am a fellow Singaporean.

Singaporean
Life as a Singaporean male in Singapore is not easy. My wife is a 100% Singaporean, so is my brother, sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, parents and grandparents.

I, too, went through the tough education system and paid for it myself. I, too, earned S$300 a month as a NSF for 2.5 years. I, too, compete with FTs for jobs in the market. Having contributed (and still do) to National Defense and economic growth for many years, I wish the country, in turn, can do something for me and fellow Singaporean.

If fellow Singaporeans do not even make the effort to look after our own countrymen in Singapore, how can Singapore continue to survive in this world?

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Business Idea

Quite some time ago, a reader visited my blog and suggested that one niche business idea could be to provide a service to help foreigners or permanent residents to integrate into Singapore society.

I have mixed feelings when he suggested this to me. While this business idea is potentially niche and may have less competition, it is something which I find it difficult to make money. This is because to be a successful business man, one must have conviction that his product or service would be beneficial to his clients and thus create market demand.

Business idea

As a born and bred Singaporean, I am not so sure whether this is something which I would want to explore, even if it could bring in tonnes of money. There are definitely much better ways to make money in Singapore.

Sometime I wonder what kind of nation we want to build. Do we want to be a rich nation but with the majority of the population consisting of foreigners? Or do we want to slow down and strengthen the core population? I guess there are always trade-offs in life but as a young nation, we probably need to start to define our identity in the global stage.

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Business idea: Confinement nanny agency

I have not been blogging for quite some time. This is because last month I became a first-time dad and I was really busy with my day-time job. To manage time, I engaged a confinement nanny to look after both my wife and my little bundle of joy during this challenging period. The experience also gave me the business idea of setting up a confinement nanny agency.

During our research on confinement nanny agencies in Singapore, me and wife realised that there are not many established ones around, notably only a few. Eventually we settled for PEM which claimed to be the largest confinement nanny agency in Singapore.

The first nanny lasted for one week and left because she claimed her grandmother passed away and she needed to go back to Malaysia. The replacement nanny who stayed throughout the confinement period was old and slow.

Business idea
We were not satisfied with the services of PEM but held on to their services because we felt it was a hassle to keep changing nannies during this short period of one month. Somehow we also felt that the services rendered wasn’t value for money.

During the contractual discussion, we stated that the nanny was expected to perform basic household chores, cooked for me and my wife and also take care of the baby.

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