the inception of FilmNeverDie, how I left a ‘Big 4' firm and pursue my Film dream…

I like to tell the story of how FilmNeverDie was founded. Like how Dr Edwin Land was inspired to venture into instant photography, FilmNeverDie was inspired by a girl too, a lady should say, my very eccentric girl friend, Wei Wei Chong.

In Dr Edwin Land’s case, his daughter asked him, back in 1940s, why can’t I see photo straightaway. For Wei Wei, it was a christmas present in 2010 that changed our life forever.

Back then, in 2010, it was funny year, a weird year, Wei Wei has just came from Malaysia and I coming out of my jobless status into being a junior Research and Development (R&D)Tax Account for one of the ‘Big 4' accounting firm, starting 2011. When I broke the news to my parents, they were very happy, Dad told his company accountant and the company accountant complimented saying, the firm only accept the smartest pupils.

Polaroid sold their last factory to The Impossible Project (TIP) 2 years earlier and TIP have just started to pump out very very very experimental films. We are talking about instant photo that does not produce a picture until 45 minutes later, and if the newly ejected film are expose to daylight, the picture will be gone ( the film did not have a UV shield thus any sunlight or daylight (UVa or UVb) will overexposed the film).

One of the main reason why it takes 45 minutes compared to 5 minutes from the old Polaroid films is because the blue dye was toxic and TIP can’t get the raw material anymore. To make the matter worst, that the film was also very sensitive to temperature, slightly warmer weather will give you Red to Pink photos and slightly cooler weather will give you blue and green photo, that is if you are lucky to get a photo at all. Oh wait, did I also mentioned you get 8 shots instead of 10, because of the thicker chemical that TIP used? Thus The Impossible Project (TIP) were greatly mocked by suppliers being Impossible to work with.

TIP film is definitely a far cry from Polaroid produced Polaroid films, but that’s the only one you can get unless you are willing to pay upward of $45 for a pack of 10 shots. Thank God, today in 2015, the film that TIP produce has improved vastly. They recently announced their 1,000,000 pack of film milestones, but apparently TIP is still not profitable.

As she requested, I bought Wei Wei a Polaroid camera just to find out that I can’t get film anymore, and the only way to do it is to import them in bulk from TIP, so I bought 60 packs of films, gave Wei Wei 10 and try to resell the rest on eBay, they sold. Subsequently, I repeated the process of buying bulk and selling them on eBay, however we were not prepared for what was to come.

Almost every second pack that we sold came with a complimentary negative feedback, I mean we were in the thick of things, answering questions like why the films were what they used to be. So we decided to come out with our own instructions on how to shield and make the most out of the film.

Despite all these challenges the business grew, very slowly, during the early days we will sell 1 pack of film a day and Wei Wei will walk Headie (FilmNeverDie dog) to the post office everyday about a 25 minute one way walk just to post that one parcel. During the same time, I was struggling with my role as a R&D tax accountant.

stealing the line from the famous ousting of Groupon CEO Andrew Mason

“People of Groupon

After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding — I was fired today. If you’re wondering why… you haven’t been paying attention. From controversial metrics…”

5 months into my new R&D tax accountant, I decided to pursue my Film dream and went full time in FilmNeverDie (the fact was I was fired from my job). I still remember clearly I took the cab home that day I was fired, the cabbie even gave me a discount for that. As I was approaching the gate with all my stuff( my biking to work gear, all my snacks i bought for work), Wei Wei was shocked and were welcoming me home with open arms and tears in her eyes. Then I said to her, today I been promoted by this accounting firm, to become the full time CEO of FilmNeverDie.

I found myself in this very interesting position, just being fired from my normal job and now selling films. Though the margin was not great, probably making $2–3 a pack of film, but there is a market.

Then the first light bulb moment went off, since we are selling film, why don’t we sell cameras too, i mean they work hand in hand. So we started to sell Polaroid cameras too, sourcing from all over the world, I thought myself how to test them and make sure they are working then we resell them with warranty. We started to list some on gumtree and people actually wanted to come see them in person. Coincidentally the place that we live in have a separate garage, the only one that have another entry from the lane way too. Believe it or not, one of the unit ( we have 8 units ) don’t even have a garage. God’s plan.

So after selling purely online for roughly one year, year two, we started to test out our FilmNeverDie gallery shop, sectioning half the shop with white cloth, running FilmNeverDie in the other half. In day one of FilmNeverDie gallery operation, I still remember vividly, Eric and myself were still arranging cameras on the shelf ( the state of the shop is still in shamble) two guys walk in and bought a camera and some films each, a confirmation that this is the right thing todo. We were greatly comforted.

tomorrow, i will continue to tell how we grew FilmNeverDie to a quarter million dollar a year business and how we grew the team to about eight people just to find out …