Last week, we got a first-hand account of Hansen and Vanessa’s Venture Building experience thus far. This week’s feature article will highlight Sherman’s journey and his developments so far working on TrueSign.
It has been months since we started on venture building journey, looking back, there are many events that occurred, fruitful events, big events, small little gestures, and others. Some of these events are significant and some are just downright discouraging.
Yet, something that stays in my mind and memory, is the freedom of choice. Dr Lin, always says, “it’s either yes or no”, whether you want to do it or not, it is never about, not able to do it.
Sherman is currently involved in a few projects — namely TrueSign (a digital signature platform), Pratu (a property fractionalising platform), and a music-based project.
A brief summary of TrueSign
TrueSign is a digital signing platform that aims to address two problems which digital documents are susceptible to.
Authenticity of Content in Documents
Digital documents are prone to malicious alteration. As they are digital, they might be compromised and artificially modified as digital data is just a bunch of 0s and 1s.
Credibility of Digital Signatures
When dealing with digital signatures, it is extremely hard to ascertain the counterparties’ identity as compared to the traditional face-to-face situation, where people are able to physically see the person and confirm the identity of the counterparty signing off on the documents to ensure the identity of the signatory of said document. In a digital scenario, the most prevalent method for identification is through the use of a password and email combination. However, this has proven to be unsafe.
As the world is ramping up the digitalisation of processes, we observe that there is a gap in the market where individuals handling high-value documents are looking for a solution to this pressing problem. Thus, TrueSign is here to fix these errors and ensure the documents are handled with care and security, allowing users to focus on their priorities of managing business operations.
Lesson Learned
Sherman recounts the huge culture shock he experienced as he embarked on this journey just a few months back.
In the past few months, it has been a big shock to me, the responsibilities that a business owner carries, and how the businesses should be built are all just part of the whole training.
While developing TrueSign, the team struggled to identify the key problem. The problem is that, when one is unfamiliar with (and have never been in) the scenario before, he or she will be unfamiliar with the severity of the problem. Thankfully, their mentor Edward, who is a finance sector expert and hence understands the whole business inside out, have been guiding them since.
As fresh university graduates, the team is daunted by the idea of talking to people who handle such huge amounts of money. However, as they continue with the project and learn more in the process, they found out that by employing certain techniques and learning deeply about the industry, the fear factor gradually decreases.
What is happening now?
Currently, the project is pushing towards the launch, and much planning and attention to detail are required for processes such as operations, marketing, onboarding, deciding who their first customers should be, and how to convince these customers to get onboard.
Currently, the team has developers with not much experience, and there are issues to be sorted out in the development process. However, the team is confident they are able to solve these problems and push out a minimum viable product in time.
Sherman’s Thoughts
Sherman is thankful and grateful for the opportunity to develop a business under NTUitive’s Venture Building Programme.
NTUitive provides a great chance for the VB18(venture builders), we are able to get an insight and get knowledge through course, arming up with skills such as APPCOM, growth hacking, digital marketing, the art of persuasion, and inner engineering.
These skills prepare us to be able to have an insight into what constitutes a higher chance of succeeding in business. Furthermore, the mentors that are paired with the different teams offer support and experience talk so that we are able to avoid error and learn from the journey.
I am thankful for the chance given by NTUitive for myself to learn and train in a safe environment, but also providing this platform for Singapore’s youth and interested entrepreneurs to interact and learn the ecosystem.
Sherman’s full account of his journey can be found here.
That’s all for now. Next week, we will be hearing from another Venture Builder, Adriel. Till then, stay safe!
