Abstract The Entrepreneurship impacts the economy at three levels: at the aggregate level, at the consumer level, and at the firm level. The positive effect of entrepreneurship permeates through the economy. At the aggregate level, entrepreneurship benefits the overall economy by creating new jobs and increasing income, raising the potential for new investments. At the consumer level, the effect of entrepreneurship is the added value for consumers - the improved products or services available to them at lower costs. At the firm level, entrepreneurs can out-compete other companies that are not innovators, because of the cost advantages that innovation produces. Social entrepreneurs use earned income strategies to pursue a social objective. Social entrepreneurs adopt a mission to create and sustain social value and private value; recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission; engaging in a process of continuous innovation; adaptation; and learning; acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand; and exhibiting a heightened sense of accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created. This paper attempts to understand the success factors of one such young and enthusiastic social entrepreneur.

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1. Background of Entrepreneur

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Eva Wong Siao Yen is a young and enthusiastic social entrepreneur born on 23rd September, 2008. Eva is the founder of Happyland Special Edu Centre. She was born in the year 1978. She is the only child in the family. Her parents both came from a very reputable family, with strong emphasis on education. The father came from Pahang and the mother came from Sarawak. Ms. Eva was born in Sarawak. The parents moved from Sarawak to Johor Bahru to start a new life, and had to start everything again from zero. The father had to do a lot of blue collar jobs like lorry driver in order to support the family. The life might be difficult but the parents never neglect the learning opportunity of their only daughter. The parents always let her have the freedom to do what she wants to do. The cultural factor that helped to form her entrepreneurial trait was her parent’s strong emphasis on education, hard work and honest living

Eva did her Master in Management (University of Preston). Then she continues her studies in Master in Special Education (University of Southern Queensland). And finally she graduated as PhD Research Student in Education Psychology (University Technology Malaysia). Other than that she has NGH Certified Hypnotherapist/NLP Coach and she has been Certified Neurofeedback Clinician. Furthermore she is a member of American Psychology Association (APA).

2. Background of Business

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As soon as leaving university, Eva started getting involved in children with learning difficulty, because she was curious in why some children can catch up very fast but some are never able to catch up no matter how you teach them. By believing that there must be some reasons behind, Ms. Eva went into research. She did her Masters in special education. From there, she decided to start a new business – Happyland Special Edu Centre. Second environmental factor that was a reason for Eva to set up the special education centre is her intention to help children with special needs. She noticed that not many parents aware about the problem with special need children. Normally, parents will send the children to tuition centre blindly, from one to another and complaint that the tutor is not good enough but in fact, this is not tuition centre or the tutor’s fault, the problem lies in the children. Eva wants to let more parents know about this, so, she decided to set up Happyland Special Edu Centre. Currently, Happyland Special Edu Centre has four (4) more centres in Skudai, Segamat, Saleng Indah and Bukit Mertajam. The main center is in Taman Johor Jaya.

2.0 STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS

There are mainly three (3) key factors that contribute to the successful establishment and growth of Happyland Special Edu Centre. These are: i) The Characteristic of the Entrepreneur ii) Fulfillment of The Venture’s Need at Different Stages of Its Growth iii) Continuous Improvement and Innovation on the Product and/or Service Offering

1. The Characteristics of Entrepreneur

Some of Eva’s traits, knowledge, skills, experience and vision that played a positive role are: • Passion. A startup founder is often driven by the quest for deeper purpose beyond the sheer mechanics of operating a business. Eva empowers people to consider the most valuable asset in their lives. • Perseverance. Entrepreneurs need to be able to deal with obstacles. A business does not get built overnight, and turning your idea into a reality will take time. What makes Eva great is having the perseverance to grow regardless of how many times they are shut down. • Follow-up. People might present plenty of excuses for not getting back in touch with you. Yet if we show persist in trying to make things happen, we’ll probably succeed. • Sponge like nature. Being an entrepreneur involves a learning process. If we are not willing to learn, think about leaving the startup world. We need to be able to soak in everything and anything we can, just like a sponge. The more we learn the better.

2.1.1 The childhood. When she was a little girl, like other children, sometime she would find the homework very difficult and did not want to do the homework but the father always tells her that “there’s no such word as difficult in the dictionary”. Until today, the lesson from the father still motivates her to keep going whenever faced with any obstacles.

2.1.2 Self-esteem and Determination During the first year, the business was bad and it was a trying time. At that particular period, it did cross her mind to give up the business but her aversion to failure prompted her to bulldoze through. Her persistence and perseverance was a positive driving force to the venture.

2.1.3 Passionate and Impulsive. Eva is a very passionate and impulsive person. Her concept is - do not want to wait; want to do, do it now, do not think much or long on what the consequences would be. To her, problems can always be solved along the journey once you decided to take the first step. Thus, even though she has a business plan but she doesn’t strictly follow it. To her, the nature of her business exposes her to unpredictability and unforeseen circumstances. She acknowledges the dynamism of the business and flexible enough to deviate from the initial plan.

4. Confidence Eva is a lady full of confidence. She is very confident that she can handle the business well, therefore she did not engage any consultant for business advice. She believes that with her high educational background, she knows what the consultants know. She also fears that the consultant might not really comprehend the need of the business since this field is a rarity in Malaysia. But she acknowledges the need for expert advice in the technical aspect of business, thus she has a mentor who is a professor with expertise in special children education in Taiwan whom she seeks professional advice from.

2.1.5 Visionary Eva has a ten (10) year goal to build a well-recognized school for special needs children. Children facing learning difficulties problem, are always in the grey line, where, when the parents send them to the normal mainstream school, they are lagging behind, and the school will ask the parents to send the children to the special school, but the special school doesn’t suit them because they are physically and mentally healthy but need special training like sensory integration training for them to learn. Eva aims to help these children by providing them the proper training.

These entrepreneur’s characteristics has supported the venture in its start up, early stage and beginning of growth stage. With a vision and a plan to implement them, Eva is set for more success stories.

1. Fulfillment of The Venture’s Need at Different Stages of Its Growth

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2.2.1 The start up stage Eva opened the first centre with one of her friends. The first Happyland Special Edu Centre was established in year 2002, in Taman Johor Jaya. The target students are the children with learning difficulties, autism, hyperactive, etc. The partner left in the second year in pursuit of different career path. In the first year of the business, effective marketing was important. Eva and her partner went from house to house to distribute the fliers to promote their centre but the responses was not good. Eva had to pocket out her money for rental, utilities bills and other expenses. The first enrollment started with three autistic children (friend to each other). After taking in these children, Eva decided to stop marketing activities and focus on those three children and let the result speak for itself. Witnessing the transformation in their children, the parents started recommending to other parents. Mouth to mouth advertisement attracted more parents and slowly Eva gained reputation in this field and the business started to grow.

2.2.2 Early Growth Stage Eva uses a method called Sensory Integration Training to develop learning skill in special children. This is US based training. Eva’s mentor adapted it to suit Taiwan and China users. Eva initially used her mentor’s method, but however, as the number of customer increased, their needs become diversified and specific. In respond to this, Eva used her knowledge and skill to modify the method to become more suitable to be practiced in Malaysia.

2.2.3 Growth Stage One of the concerns at this stage was that the sensory integrated training was not formally accepted by Ministry of Education as a valid mainstream methodology to train children with learning disabilities. In order to reach out to more market segment, Eva work hand in hand with hospitals as advisor and to research and build successful case studies formally to be able to be used for Government acknowledgement. She also created a non-governmental organization - “Malaysia Special Children Association” to build a network among parents of special children to exchange ideas and provide valuable insight for future improvements. It is also the first and only organization for special children in Johor Bahru that organizes a lot of activities like birthday party for bringing joy to the children. When Eva started the business, she took charge of everything. She was continuously revising her business plan. Sometimes it was not even formally written, it was a plan in her mind. Since the plan is in her mind, she might change it anytime but other team members are unaware of it. At growth stage, she realized the importance of formally written and well communicated business plan to help the team stay focused and achieve the organization’s vision and goals. Eva also admits that as the venture grows, the need to balance her entrepreneurial skill and managerial skill becomes more imperative. As an impulsive person, she also values the same quality of impulsiveness and spontaneity in others. However she realizes that as the team (trainers and facilitators) grows bigger, there is a need for established procedures and guidelines to ensure equal workload and consistency in quality of training. To this end, she has improved her managerial skill and systematically communicates the needs of the business through proper timetables and staff meetings. But at the same time, she still believes in her own judgment and intuition. When she recruit new trainer, the first thing she does is choose two special children for the trainer to spend time with. Only after a good rapport is build, she proceeds with formal training and instruction. Eva believes that the first prerequisite for a qualified trainer is that he/she must genuinely accept the special children first.

2. Continuous Improvement and Innovation on the Product and/or Service Offering

The growth and sustainability of Happyland Special Edu Centre is also a contribution of continuous innovation. Eva ensures that the quality of training program is consistent throughout all the branches. At the same time, Happyland Special Edu Centre is a market leader in its business. Eva was the first in Malaysia to introduce the Sensory Integration Training. She has her own gym, called VaVa Sensory Integrated Gym; VaVa is actually taken after her name - EVA. This gym it corporate all techniques in sensory integration training- yoga plus medication plus breathing method to calm down the children and stimulate the autistic children. The program adapted to suit Malaysian practice offers these: 1. VaVa Sensory Intergration Training • Improve the coordination • Enhance concentration and language skill • Soothe emotion, reduce hyperactive 2. VaVa Fun Learning Program • Improve learning abilities of children • Improve five motor skills of children • Improve creativity and imagination skill 3. Hair Tissues Mineral Analysis (HTMA) Important insight into supportive strategies for conditions ranging from depression and behaviour disorders to cardiovascular and neurological illnesses.

4. Play Therapy

5. Neurofeedback Therapy • Improve Learning disorder • Improve Inattentiveness • Improve Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) • Improve Emotional problem/depression • Improve Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) • Improve Memory deficit • Improve Language disorder 6. Hydro-Aroma Therapy • Circulate the therapeutic effect essential oil to lymphatic system and eventually to different part of the body. 7. DIR/Floor time Model Therapy

Recently Eva and Happyland Special Edu Centre became the first center in Malaysia to provide bubble-hydroponic therapy (BHT) and occupational therapy. BHT is like a Jacuzzi and it uses different aromatherapy oils for different purposes. The water jet stimulates the nervous and sensory system of the child. Eva said hyperactive and spastic children had shown positive response after the therapy. Each child will undergo a 10-minute session of BHT daily. Eva is continuously collaborating with various government agencies, non-governmental organization, medical associations and hospitals to keep abreast on current developments in the field of special children development in order to provide the best training for the children and counseling and support to the parents. In Sept’08, the business was given a new name- Happy Kid’s Play Therapy Centre after achieving non-governmental organization status.

3. CONCLUSION

Eva possesses and exhibits all the relevant entrepreneurial trait, knowledge, skill and experience that is needed for the successful existence and sustainability of her venture. Her ability to understand the customers’ needs and the venture’s needs at its particular stage of growth has enabled her to respond accordingly. She continuously assess her strength and weakness and able to balance her entrepreneurial skill and managerial skill effectively. Above all these, she possesses an undying passion for helping special children. This alone will definitely be a strong driving force for her success because when you love what you do, creativity and innovation becomes a natural outcome. And creativity and innovation is vital for the growth of venture and for it to maintain its competitive advantage.

PASSION is very important; nothing can be achieved without passion. If there is anything we want to do, do it now. Strike the iron when it is still hot, shouldn’t drag or wait. In another word is impulsive, do not think about the consequences, you will always find your own way to overcome the obstacles along the way. Passion is most important to carry on with the journey

4.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Entrepreneurship-Theory, Process, Practice–Seventh Edition- Kuratko, Hodgetts.

2. http://www.autism.healingthresholds.com

3. http://www.happykids06.blogspot.com 4. http://www.happyland.edu.my/usr/services.aspx?pgid=1