This article chronicles the inspiring journey of a graduate who transitioned into motherhood while building a successful career with the help of Skilio’s supportive environment. Skilio empowers young individuals to redefine success and equips them with the tools they need to thrive in the workplace, all while navigating personal milestones.
Who is Ho Zhi Hui, Founder of Skilio?
Ho Zhi Hui is the founder of Skilio, a platform helping young people transition from school to work. Skilio focuses on developing and assessing soft skills. Under his leadership, it supports students in securing internships and enhancing career readiness, especially in ASEAN. His vision and commitment have shaped Skilio’s success.
This article is written by Ho Zhi Hui, sharing her 5-years-jorney with Skilio.
How Did Skilio Start?
Exactly five years ago, I caught up with Felix over a cup of coffee. Thanks to Google photos and social media, these significant milestones are beautifully timed reminders! We first met during our university’s orientation camp, where he was looking for Psychology students to help develop Skilio.
At that time, we didn’t even have an MVP, and our vision of the product was still unclear. However, our mission was crystal clear: to assist young people in their transition from school to work and redefine success beyond just grades. Many know I was an average student before university, but Skilio’s vision resonated deeply with me. Despite my many commitments as a first-year undergraduate, I decided to take a chance on this project. I never imagined it would continue for the next five years, but here we are today!
As I prepare for maternity leave and considering a recent public holiday, I thought it would be a good time to share some of my learnings from the past five years. Balancing pregnancy symptoms and work has been challenging, but I figured it’s better to share now than after the baby arrives, right? 🤣
On Choosing & Forming the Right Team
Building a startup from scratch takes more than just a great idea, product, or service. It demands a great team. Here are a few lessons we learned about managing our team and helping other startups and SMEs do the same:
- Identifying Talent: We sought individuals who not only had the right skills but also shared our vision and passion for helping young people transition from school to work. We value a diverse team because it allows us to better serve our clients and students from various countries.
- Remote Management: I’m proud to say we practice what we preach! Since our team members work in different countries, we had to create strong ways to manage them remotely. We established regular check-ins and used collaboration tools like Lark and Coda.io. This helped us ensure everyone stayed aligned with our goals beyond vanity metrics by sticking to our execution discipline.
On Humanising our Business
We remain committed to humanizing our business. While technology and software are essential for automating processes, we’ve realized that technology alone can’t solve every problem.
- High Touchpoints: We prioritize frequent and meaningful interactions with both our fellows and employers. For instance, we hold monthly masterminds with our fellows to review their progress, organize physical meetups with fellows and employers in and outside Singapore, and offer one-on-one consultations for fellows who need help crafting strong application materials for international careers. Many challenges are nuanced and complex, so we consistently seek feedback to improve our services.
- Team Management: When managing our remote team, we ensure that our team members feel valued and motivated. Beyond providing the necessary tools and systems for success, our daily communication is intentional in building rapport and understanding their needs.
On being Open-Minded to Experiment with Different Pathways to Success
The journey has rarely been a straight path and continues to be full of twists and turns. Experimentation remains constant as we choose to stay in discovery mode, continually reassessing and improving our solutions. When our team was about to graduate from university, raising money was particularly challenging. Long sales cycles and security concerns in pitching our soft skill analytics platforms to schools further complicated matters. We faced a choice: give up or find alternative ways to sustain and grow our business.
- Helping ASEAN Students Kickstart International Careers: During this time, we stumbled upon the idea of conducting skills webinars for ASEAN undergraduates seeking internships. The initial reception was positive, and participants expressed a desire for more support in securing international internship placements. This feedback encouraged us to expand our efforts by engaging more partners and schools across various ASEAN countries.
- Resourcefulness: Along the way, we realized the importance of being resourceful in finding complementary avenues to build our business. For example, we organized immersion trips to Vietnam, which opened doors to career offices in Vietnamese universities seeking partners to help their students start international careers. Our experience with employers and young people in ASEAN equipped us to conduct workshops, addressing their specific concerns and challenges.
On Balancing Personal & Professional Priorities
Balancing personal and professional priorities has been one of my biggest challenges, especially with the major life transitions I’ve experienced at Skilio over the past five years.
- Marriage and Parenthood: Personally, navigating marriage and becoming a parent has added complexity to my role at Skilio. Being part of women in entrepreneurship communities has shown me that many mummy entrepreneurs have managed it too. This gave me the confidence to take everything in stride, stay ready to learn new things, and prioritize different aspects of life as needed. My time at Skilio has taught me to handle new challenges, much like running another startup from scratch. And yes, I use many of our workplace tools to manage my personal life too!
- Support System: I am very thankful for a supportive spouse and family who are deeply invested in this journey with me. They are excited to tackle diaper changes, feedings, tummy times, and nurturing our new addition together. I’m also grateful to the Skilio team for being with me through my growing years. It’s rare to have a venture accompany you through so many life stages, and I’m thankful we found this path early in our university years.
After five years, we are just beginning to make the impact we envisioned when we started Skilio. Whether you are a student in Southeast Asia looking to start an international career, an employer wanting to build an intern team, or someone interested in supporting young people in their school-to-work transition, we would love to chat with you!
We are eager to hear from everyone, including mummy entrepreneurs who have navigated various life transitions. We would love to learn from your experiences too!
Original article can be found here.
