OPEN RISK TAKER (VIVY)

              Vivy Yusof is a risk taker because she spend RM100K of her and Fadza savings and borrowings. She doesn’t care if the money that she spend not worth it but she believes and take the risk to borrow the money and open the business called FashionValet. After two years on the relatively new e-commerce scene, they participated and won MYEG Make The Pitch Season 2, a nationwide TV programme, in 2012. They were able to expand FashionValet with our winnings and the exposure from the show widened our audience. 

            They had to do everything from scratch with the limited amount of capital they had. Meeting local brands every day and convincing them of this new idea was easy because they were excited about the new online shopping phenomenon, and with her blog following, they connected the 2 parties (designers and customers) together. Their challenge was more on the tech side, everything was outsourced in the beginning from website design to payment gateway to managing bugs etc. They learned a great deal and the learning curve was very steep.

              They definitely had their fair share of highs and lows, from dealing with competitors to a small flood in their office. Starting your own company and creating a whole new “comfort zone” is terrifying, you’re constantly thinking “will this work?” “is there another way we should be doing this?” said Vivy, but with the right determination, support and a little bit of luck, she believe they can take on any difficulties that come their way.

              She think that their difficulty was the lack of capital. RM100K is what e-commerce stores spend on marketing per month but for them, that was all they had to do everything. With RM 100K, a huge portion already went to office and warehouse renovation or rent, they had to purchase stock whereby a large chunk was consignment so that helped ease the load and then they put the rest into marketing which even that wasn’t a lot. They didn’t take salary for a few months until the company was stable.

OBSERVANT (VIVY)

              Vivy at first, she wanted to be a businessperson and a dream to open a real estate based company.  However, due to the fashion world obsessed and prone shopping experience for five years during the study in London She intends to open a fashion business called FashionValet.net of a web local designers sell their work through online. She make an observation regarding her business and notice that fashion industry can be successful if she knows what people needs and wants.

              She was excited by the population in London who so appreciates the work of local designers and fashion development there makes it as motivation to open up a fashion business through the web. However, she put a limit to sell clothes that are not outrageous and disrespectful. She is to be selective in choosing a design that will participate in this FashianValet.net because she will only choose designs that are relevant to wear, simple, polite, do not overdo it and make sure the quality of the goods and beautiful to wear. She was fond of and willing to tighten their belts just for shopping through online takes up the challenge with open a business after graduation through the web in Malaysia because at that time she realized technology development in Malaysia is booming.

              Busy with everyday tasks at the office in order to help her manage the business deal of her father caused she have no enough time to go to mall and caused traffic congestion in Kuala Lumpur. She have took proactive steps to figure out how she should do something to facilitate the purchase of goods by means faster and fun with her best friend, Fadzarudin Maher.

             

              Fashion clothes in FashionValet selling price start from RM170 and above. Vivy recognized that the price of products sold in FashionValet is quite expensive but they hold to the principle of providing quality products to customers. FashionValet has a special team in charge of the quality of all of the products sold in FashionValet.

VISIONARY (VIVY)

              A visionary entrepreneur is one who is able to see what others are not able to see. In other words, this class of entrepreneurs have the right kind of picture in their mind that lets them know what will be the outcome of their business venture. Visionary entrepreneurs are differ from business owners in the sense that they have prior vision of what they want to do and achieve in their life. Vision is important to the success of a business since no one wants to wind up a business after years of toiling with it as an overworked and underpaid employee.

    

              So, Vivy Yusof is one of the entrepreneur that really compatible for this trait. When she is in London, she always shops online and even for groceries. When she back to Malaysia, she saw the opportunity because Malaysian not so use to e-commerce. She slowly plans for e-commerce business with her best friend and now her husband, Fadzaruddin Shah Anuar. Vivy really loves fashion so that she wants to build a business for fashion. When she was in London back then, most of the business there, really appreciate for local brands, so she thought of starts a business with a local design brands and make it popular not even in Asia but in the eyes of the world.

    

              With a starts of RM 100,000 Vivy and Fadza build an e-commerce business names, FashionValet.net and only with 10 local brands that had been collected. As an entrepreneur, she used to face many challenges and during her ups and down, she never thought of giving up for what she has started with Fadza. They went through it together. Another opportunity came up, Vivy and Fadza went into competition for MyEG Make The Pitch which provided them with much-needed funds to further their marketing plans and expand their customer base and now FashionValet has changed its names to FashionValet.com to more worldwide. Vivy never missed the changes that come through and always looks into another level to make their business becomes the biggest.

OPEN CULTURE (VIVY)

              Open culture in entrepreneurship meaning is a concept according to which knowledge should be spread freely and its growth should come from developing, altering or enriching already existing works on the basis of sharing and collaboration, without being restricted by rules linked to the legal protection of intellectual property. In a context of globalization, the consequences are that all citizens should have equal access to information. Nowadays, most of the consumer want something that is creative especially the youngster.

              Vivy Yusof was keen in to see the development of fashion in United Kingdom and does not want to be left behind. Thus, she always keeps her appearance feminine. Besides, the United Kingdom residents are appreciative about the local designer’s works. Thus, establishing an online shopping process is also not a novelty in that country at that time. Compare to Malaysian, most of the people in United Kingdom would love to shopping through online rather than going to the mall and need to go through traffic jammed. Otherwise, people in United Kingdom even online shopping for groceries. Upon her graduation, she came back to Malaysia and she helped her father in the business or real estate. Even though she could not find the real satisfaction and she has deep interest in fashion.

             

              She yearned to shopping through online as she had been busy each day with tasks in the office and caused her do not have time to shopping. Inspire by the open culture in United Kingdom, she always aware that the development of information technologies is rapidly increasing. She decided launched an online shopping center named FashionValet.net (FV) which is the hub of local fashion designs. She started this business with her partners who is the founder and also used to be her colleagues in UK, Fadzaruddin Shah Anuar and Asma ‘Nasaruddin.

              When first business she has established, she moved along in the team to find local designers. For the first time, they were able to collect a total of 15 local designers but they do not have office yet. However, she still has to be selective in choosing a design that will marketed in FashionValet. With open culture, she wants to introduce local designers of FV to the world and want to open the eyes of Malaysian consumers to appreciate the local design and because of her, people nowadays are tend to be more appreciate of the local design. Most of online entrepreneur nowadays are make her as one of their inspiration in business and also for fashion.

PROACTIVE (VIVY)

             At first, Vivy wanted to be a businesswoman and a dream to open a real estate based company. However, due to the fashion world obsessed and prone shopping experience for five years during her study in London, she intends to open a fashion business called FashionValet.net of a web local designers sell their work through online. She was excited by the population in London who so appreciates the work of a local designers and fashion development there makes it as motivation to open up a fashion designer to open up a fashion business through the web.

             

              However, she put a limit to sell clothes that are not outrageous and disrespectful. She is to be selective in choosing a design that will participate in this Fashionvalet.net because she will only choose designs that are relevant to wear, simple, polite and not overdo it and make sure the quality of the goods and beautiful to wear. She was fond of willing to tighten their belts just for shopping through online takes up the challenge with open a business after graduation through the web in Malaysia because at that time she realized technology development in Malaysia is booming.

             

              Busy with everyday tasks at the office in order to help her manage the business deal of her father caused she have no enough time to go to mall and caused traffic congestion in Kuala Lumpur. She has taken proactive steps to figure out how she should do something to facilitate the purchase of goods by means faster and fun with her best friend and now already a husband of her, Fadzaruddin Shah Anuar. She is also taking proactive steps by being thrifty in their spending and make savings in preparation to expand her business one day and make her father’s example and reference for the conduct of business and gained a lot of useful advice.

                                                                                                      

TASK 1(b) - TRAITS

One of the successful entrepreneur that we choose is Vivy Sofinas Yusof also known as Vivy Yusof is a proud Managing Director of Fashionvalet.com. She builds FashionValet with her husband also a CEO of FashionValet, Fadzaruddin Shah Anuar. She is one excellent example of an entrepreneur who starts her business since she was young. She was studied Bachelor Degree in Law at the London School Economics in United Kingdom.

              When Vivy returned from overseas studies in 2010 and saw lack of online fashion retailers in Malaysia, she saw an opportunity to be filled. With her now-husband Fadzaruddin Shah Anuar, she set up a fashion e-commerce site offering a variety of local brand designers labels. What began as a start-up with a capital RM 100,000 and 10 local brands has grown into a multi-million-dollar ringgit business offering 300 brands from across Southeast Asia. In between, they secured RM1 million in reality TV show MyEG Make The Pitch which provided them with much-needed funds to further their marketing plans and expand their customer base. Like most start-ups, FashionValet’s challenges are ever evolving. In the beginning, it was about getting the word out with very limited typical. They had to apportion their money carefully and did not have a lot to spend on marketing. So, Vivy leveraged on her contacts, working with the bloggers to spread the news.

              Both Vivy and Fadza are not from business background. She had read law while he had studied aeronautical engineering but because of their hardwork, they get to through it smoothly. Vivy gained audience through her websites. She started her blog, proudduck.com which she kept while she still studying. Vivy is overwhelmed by the support and never imagined that her little blog could grow into a business today. FashionValet shoppers know that dUck scarves are constantly sold out. Bags that she had been carrying typically sell within an hour, going to ardent fans who bought them in multiple colours. Vivy successfully keep their loyal audience. She did not do what most blog shops and e-commerce tend to do. FashionValet has ranked in close to RM10 million in revenue this year alone. This year is also FashionValet turn into profitable.

PROACTIVE

            Steven Paul Jobs, also well known as Steve Jobs was an American information technology inventor and entrepreneur. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) and the chairman of Apple Inc, largest shareholder and CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, a member of The Walt Disney Company's board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar and founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT Inc.

              Jobs started a company on April 1st, 1976 together with Steve Wozniak,. “Apple I” was released a year later,and that was the start of the meteoric rise of Apple Inc. The Apple grew to become a $2 billion dollar company with thousands of employees until now.

              Steve Jobs is recognized as a pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. After Job’s death, his official biographer, Walter Isaacson describe him as ferocious drive revolutionized six industries that is music, phones, animated movies, tablet computing, digital publishing and personal computer and also a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection.

              Carmine Gallo is an author who has followed Steve Jobs' career closely yeay by year, and wrote two popular books,  The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs , explaining how Steve Jobs' management practices and leadership have made Apple the world's most famous and valuable company.

              Carmine Gallo observes that, when we look back, we can see that Steve Jobs has been gradually handing off public exposure and power to other key personalities within Apple since news of his health woes first surfaced. "I noticed that Tim Cook began doing a lot of the presentations for new product announcements. Jonathan Ive and Phil Schiller stepped into the limelight more," Gallo said.

              While the media cameras at any given product launch remained focused on Jobs, Jobs began presenting the other personalities behind Apple in a more concerted way, acclimating the company, its customers, and the media to the look and feel of an Apple product launch sans Steve Jobs. Based on that, Carmine Gallo is confident that Apple's new leaders now have ample preparation to lead the company forward.

              Jobs turned adversity into opportunity and focused on his two new ventures, Pixar and Next. He eventually returned to Apple to make it even bigger than before. He was a survivor of pancreatic cancer until it returned to claim his life in 2011. Jobs clearly accomplished so much with so little despite stresses that presented in his life. The important message here is that Steve Jobs never let his circumstances get in the way of his dreams. Jobs chose to be proactive and solution- focused towards opportunities versus being reactive to any negative events that occurred.