Creativity x Start-up x Innovative by Chim Shui Man

Mr Chim Shui Man(詹瑞文/Jim) - Not only he's one of the leading drama kings in Hong Kong who demonstrates great creativity, he also has superior business sense running his own business. It's a great talk organised by The Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation Limited with Mr Jim sharing his experiences in a pleasant atmosphere ! 

Mr Jim Chim - seminar by HKMC 

He started by his views on business. Many people want to create their own business but imagine their working life like this: 9am: wake up and work, 10am: chat with customers, 12noon: lunch, 3pm: accounting, 5pm: off work.

The real business enviroment is like a war. If you want to live a life like above, you better apply to be a civil servant in Hong Kong government. 

The most important thing is to EARN money. The interesting thing about drama industry in Hong Kong is - he used to spend money from funding from government and not thinking the concept of making money. 

Then, he introduced 4 personality:

- skillful: stick in own profession, take him as an example, he focuses in drama

- marketing: know how to promote and sales

- management: manage or motivate others

- creative: give directions  

The kind of personality decides your fate. If you don't even think of your dreams, how can you achieve your business success! 

After his graduation in Hong Kong, he applied scholarship to UK to study drama. Starting his career as an actor, he received compliments from UK audience of performing pantomime with "Chinglish". He thought Hong Kong audience would also like this kind of shows, he decided to bring this performance back to Hong Kong.

Coming back to Hong Kong, he just performed on the streets in Sheung Wan with few audience. People at that time only rehearsed their drama in outdoor places in Polytechnic University. Later, he felt that he needed a better place for rehearsing. He borrowed money from finance corporation to rent a place in a factory building and redesigned it. The place was equiped with his first fax machine and a computer. That's the start of his own business.

He also faced hard times running his business. He realized that his industry is in luxury sector. People would buy tickets unless they want to improve their spirital enjoyment. However, the economy was extremely bad in 2008 and it was hard for him to sell the show tickets(男人之虎). He restructured and had lay-offs in his company during financial tsunami. This was a painful process for him.

At that time, he also worked with Giordano to create a series of t-shirts named "Cheer you up" to cheer Hong Kong people during the hard time of Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. The sales reached 1 million across the globe. This brings in cash flow for him to overcome the hardness in bad times. The most important thing he recalled from his experience is "CHANGE"! 

He created his own company "PIP "which stands for his living philosophy "Pleasure Imagination Play". He is now still working with passion and sharing his happiness with Chinese speaking audience! 

The last thing he shared is about his understanding of business(生意) which stands for the meaning of life (生命的意義). 

In Q&A session, someone asked how to boost creativity. Jim encouraged using differenet ways to stimulate your brain such as using left hand for eating, change your ways to work, switch to ATV instead of TVB. People get used to their own way of living and don't want to change and that hinder creative minds.

Another guy from a game start-up company said he's facing competitiors copying game ideas. He'd like to know how to prevent this issue. Jim said it's really a problem but the reality is - Samsung beats Apple by making a few changes to iPhone. How you twist the brillant idea into your thing is important in business.