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19 Jun Opportunities are everywhere

Posted at 13:45h in Blog by

Shan-Lyn Ma, co-founder and CEO of Zola, was born in Singapore and moved to Sydney, Australia, when she was four.

There, her dad fought for Southeast Asians’ labour rights at a nonprofit and her mother was an entrepreneur at heart. In Australia, Ma’s mother taught her about spotting opportunities.

“We’d walk past an office building and she’d say, ‘Look at all these people. If only I could put in a coffee cart right there […] That would do X, Y, Z in sales, and it would only cost this much.’ A lot of what she talked about was that opportunities are everywhere.” 

According to an interview with Marie Claire, in college, Ma had a poster of Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, on her wall. Whilst she was studying her undergraduate commerce degree at the University of New South Wales, she had three jobs: pizzeria waitress, econ tutor for high school students, and call-centre employee.

At the call centre she learned about “having to randomly call people and ask them to take a survey” but it only served to enhance her entrepreneurial spirit:

“There’s nothing that I enjoy more than building things that the world has never seen before, but once they see them, they’re like, ‘How did we live without it?’. It brings them genuine joy. That is the thing I want to keep doing forever.”

Opportunities are everywhere! How do you spot them?

 

 

 



  • I am a huge advocate of the entrepreneurial messages and characteristics that you are driving. I think it is a fantastic idea to instil the idea of entrepreneurship into children from a young age. This is a great way to open children up to the idea of not always following conventional paths and giving them the belief and confidence to pursue their own creative business ideas.

    James Caan, CBE - entrepreneur and former Dragon

  • The Clever Tykes series are such a wonderful way to introduce ‘enterprise’ to children from a young age – I can’t recommend them highly enough, and strongly urge parents to read along with their child as there is no doubt the stories will stimulate lots of questions and interest!

    Lorraine Allman, Author and Founder of Enterprising Child

  • I found Walk-it Willow easy to read and full of lovely messages that children can take from it. It touched on taking responsibility, problem solving, admitting mistakes and also the work it takes to run a small business. Willow is entertaining but very human. A lovely story.

    Naomi Richards, The Kids Coach, parent and life coach for children