Young Entrepreneurs
By I’mACE Team

Hi I’mACE,
My name is Nhek PichVirakYuth. I am now 16 years old and currently studying in level EAP 2 at ACE SP Campus. I am also a year 10 student at ICS International School.

In addition to my study, I am a young entrepreneur with a small shop which sells football boots and accessories. The shop is called ‘’Football Galore’’ and here is my story.

Since I was 12 years old I have really been interested in football. I love to watch football, support football, and most importantly play football.

During that age I didn’t care about anything except the beautiful and amazing game of football. I didn’t care which shoes people wore and I also didn’t care about the prices of those shoes either, but after years and years people started using the more expensive kinds of shoes. First I didn’t know anything about it but after a period of time I learned a lot about those shoes, so then I was thinking of how to make money out of it.

In December 2014, my friend Lim Chea Hav and I decided to create a business to sell those football boots. Hav also studies in the same class with me at ICS. Both of us have lots of passion for football and we want to learn how to make money and how to run a business. We do not think much about getting profit nor the money out of the business but most importantly we want to learn about how to run the business and how it works.
 
We started off as an online store on Facebook and with a small showroom at KB-All football pitch located behind the Australian embassy. Our Facebook page is called Football Galore.

We do not have lots of stock at our store because those football shoes are really expensive. After a few months not many people would be interested with it anymore due to the new releases of other football boots. So most of the time if our customers want to buy those new model shoes, they have to place an order through us and have to wait a maximum of 5 days.

For these first few months, most of our customers were just our friends because not many people had really heard about us yet. We only have our friends and Facebook to help promoting the shoes for us. Hopefully in the near future more people will start to recognize and know us a lot more.

In late 2016, I expect to achieve my Cambridge IGCSE certificate. My plan is to go a university and take two majors: Finance and Sales/Marketing. I want to get successful in running a business.

Last but not least, I wish to share some advice to kids at my age that it is not too early to start thinking about what you want to achieve or which job you want to have in your life. You should start thinking about it now, then take action and make commitments. Most important is to get ourselves well educated especially be fluent in English as it is used worldwide everywhere you go. Without English, I may not have got this far. I have a strong belief that people can achieve what they want if they work their best with the talent and education they have. Cambodia can be well developed if every one of us is well educated.

Hi I’mACE,

My name is Prak Sovann Pich. I am usually called Pania as my nickname. I am working at Manulife Cambodia, a life insurance company with its headquarters in Canada. My position at Manulife is “Senior Manager of Office Services” who is responsible in managing properties, procurement, and general office administration to support the operation of the business. Before joining Manulife, I was working as an Office Manager for a US not-for-profit organization called East West Management Institute for almost ten years.

We have two children, Yuth and Monireach. Yuth is the eldest. I started my career since Yuth was 5 years old while Monireach was 2 years old back in 2003. My husband is working for the Ministry of Industry and Handicrafts. His name is Nhek Virak.

We support our son in his business mentally, physically and financially. We keep giving advice and take appropriate action as needed. Our main purpose is to allow Yuth to get a real practice in things that he likes to do in life so that he understands that everything he wants to get success needs a strong commitment.  

We are very proud of Yuth. He actually focuses more on his study and his future plan when he started his business. Through the challenges he has faced in running the business at the same time he’s studying, he has shown us to be a patient person who does not give up on his passion easily. He keeps encouraging himself and has a strong belief in himself that he can achieve what he needs in life when he tries his best.

English is a perfect tool in helping Yuth to have a confidence in making communication with other people, both in writing and speaking. Without English, especially in this modern society, he would not be able to run his business as it requires all communication in English especially when he deals with suppliers across the country or to customers via online tools. English also helps him to understand well about the model or the detailed specification of the products which are written in English.