Entrepreneurial Journey

Selling our own products means so much more to me than selling meant at Google.

I had a chat last week with a former colleague who is starting her own business, and she mentioned that she hears it is a challenging question.

“Were people buying from you, or were they just buying because it was Google?”

Now that Tom and I have started our own business, we’ve created our own products, and we're pitching a business that we’ve built from the ground up. It feels so...different.

When I was running the pre-sales team at Google, I remember how my reps thought it felt so easy sometimes to cold-call a customer: you mention you’re calling from Google, and they’ll typically stay on the line for a few minutes. Intrigued why we're calling now. When I reach out to someone and say I’m Brian from Teamwork Unlocked, they take a moment to look at my LinkedIn page. See my personal branding, then decide whether to engage.

My outreach messages need to be sharp and quickly promote, not just what we’re selling, but the value.

Since opening for business in July last year, we’ve already had X Forbes, 500 companies go through our workshops, along with major Singaporean government entities and universities.

Those companies signed with us because of our offering something that we made and designed with our own hands and minds. It’s an incredible feeling that I never would’ve had if I didn’t take the leaf from the safety of corporate work.

This Entrepreneur path isn’t for everybody. We still haven’t paid ourselves yet. Every deal that comes in is a celebration. Every deal that slips through my fingers can ruin my day.

But that sense of pride we feel when a customer gives us positive feedback or when a new, unexpected inquiry comes in, outside of the feeling I had when getting married and when we had our two daughters, there’s nothing quite like it.

Come see for yourself what we’re doing at Teamwork Unlocked. You won’t be disappointed. Whether it’s five board games that quietly change how you see collaboration, a friendship that shapes how you lead, I keep coming back to the same idea.