PUBLISHED ONSeptember 27, 2021 11:39 AMByMelissa Teo Ever wondered what CEOs and founders are like? Are they all work and no play? Do they have a nurturing or intimidating personality? In Employee No. 1, catch a glimpse of what it is like being a homegrown boss under 40. Take an inside look into their day, how they run their successful companies, and learn what it takes to be employee number one.
Mention the name Aftershock PC and many would recognise it as one of the top brands in Singapore to get a fully customisable personal computer (PC). In fact, some of you may even be proud owners of their products.
The boutique PC builder is owned by fraternal twin brothers Marcus and Joe Wee, 37, where Marcus is the company's managing director and Joe is the creative director.
While Marcus may come off as soft-spoken to many, his eyes lit up while chatting with AsiaOne about Aftershock PC.
And from our short session alone, we could see why he is the best man to represent and helm this brand because he lives, eats, sleeps and breathes anything related to computers and online games.
What started it all was Marcus' very first custom PC. Many years back, when he was on an exchange programme in Canada, he purchased a custom-built laptop from gaming computer specialist Xotic PC.
It was love at first sight.
From having the freedom to customise the product to the after-sales service, he lapped up every bit of the experience.
"That's where I was like, why is no one doing this in Singapore?" Marcus questioned with a laugh.
And so, Marcus decided that he should be the one to get the ball rolling with his brainchild, Aftershock PC.
Ensuring work-life balance
In Aftershock PC's early days, the local brand only had 10 to 15 people on board, namely Marcus, his partners, friends, and a few customers who loved their concept.
This is a huge contrast to present-day operations where the company has over 150 employees spread out across three countries.
In the past, while it wasn't obligatory for any of them to work around the clock, all of them still did so and sometimes, they would only leave the office at around three in the morning.
However, over the years, Marcus began to realise that this wasn't a feasible structure, especially if they wanted to grow Aftershock PC into something bigger.
"People have to be able to be in it for the long run. It's a marathon, not a sprint," he told us.
In hopes of achieving that, they pivoted to focus more on having work-life balance and tried to ensure that the tasks and responsibilities set for the team can be easily completed within typical working hours.
"I think that finding a better balance is something that I would prefer as a business owner, something that I would feel more proud about," Marcus said.
"Especially having a team where you can see them working hard and delivering results, but at the same time, the individual members of the team are hitting all their personal goals and achieving what they want in their life," the founder added with pride.
Competitive both at work and play
Despite it being common for Asian parents to preach about the vices of online games, Marcus believes in the complete opposite — competitive gaming is helping him with work.
And he said that he isn't the only one who feels that way.
"You'll see a lot of the top new entrepreneurs in Singapore are actually from a competitive gaming background," Marcus cited to prove his point. "It's not about the games. It's about the attitude that you bring to the games".
"If you're a competitive gamer with the spirit of always wanting to win, always wanting to better yourself to beat your opponent, you're obviously going to take some of those qualities across when you do business," he elaborated.
And he believes in this so much that he and his brother encourage their staff to game in their free time — and they'll sometimes join in on the fun too.
"[Marcus] just found out that I play Overwatch and he was like, 'why don't you join my brother and I?'," Joel Tng, an Aftershock PC employee told AsiaOne.
"You can tell that they are very, very competitive. I think it bleeds through even in work — it makes it very obvious why he does certain things at work," Tng, who has been working at Aftershock PC for over a year, added.
Changing his benchmark for success
Many would assume that the Wee brothers are the epitome of success, especially with Aftershock PC's sales going up by 30 per cent amid the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the The Straits Times.
But Marcus shared that his personal benchmark for success has slowly shifted away from its typical definition.
He explained that when most of us are young, we tend to gauge our success purely by financial measurements, however, that's not the case for him now.
"Success for a business owner is when you're able to run the business just because you love it.
"If you're running it all the time, for example, just to survive, then essentially, the company owns you," he shared.
To further amplify his point, Marcus brought up the topic of financial freedom.
"Financial freedom, in my view, isn't exactly freedom if you are stuck there 10 hours a day, seven days a week," he said.
Instead, he believes that the ultimate goal of an entrepreneur should be to set up their company in a way that allows them to focus on all the things that they love about their business — all while attaining financial freedom.
Aftershock PC will always be Marcus' baby
Apart from Aftershock PC, the Wee brothers have gone on to helm multiple businesses and ventures.
However, at the end of the day, they've always come back to Aftershock PC.
"Joe and I have several businesses now, Aftershock is no longer the biggest one and yet we're spending all our time, 100 per cent of it, on Aftershock. We spend zero on the others — our partners run them," Marcus told us passionately.
And if you're a budding entrepreneur who needs some guidance, Marcus has a few tips for folks who want to take a page out of his book.
"The key thing here is to, of course, never give up and push as hard as you can," he revealed.
Apart from that, he also said that it's crucial to remain grounded and to carefully evaluate ideas to see how feasible these actually are.
"Almost everyone will think that their idea is absolutely golden. But seek multiple opinions from your mentors or whatnot," Marcus recommended.
Watch the video to hear about how Marcus runs his customisable PC business with his brother as well as what makes his brain tick in and out of work.
melissateo@asiaone.com