Country: Singapore
Industry: Venue management
Founded date: 2013
Growing up surrounded by a family of entrepreneurs, it comes to no surprise to Ricardo Sentosa that he finds himself in the business field. During his early years, his keen interest in mathematics specified his direction to Finance & Accounting. And by the age of 30 he stepped foot into the world of entrepreneurship.
Founded in 2013, Venuerific established a marketplace for event space owners and organizers in Southeast Asia. Providing spaces from the smallest group of 5 to a crowd of attendees as large as 600.
Building good habits
As the saying goes ‘Habits maketh the man.’ A defining quality of achievers, setting them apart from the rest, are the habits that they have made for themselves. For Mr. Sentosa, it is vegetarian days on Sundays and winding down with friends on Fridays. He has also incorporated meditation and exercise in his every days. As good habits as such are built and practiced, it promotes the ebb and flow in our daily lives.
Part of his habit is surrounding himself with likeminded people inside and outside the company - passionate in solving world problems and achieving success by doing good. To quote one of his favorite lines from a book called The Secret: ‘What you think you become, what you feel you attract, what you imagine you create.’ Habits like so, creates a great internal foundation preparing oneself for challenges that may arise.
Surviving the pandemic
As an event centered business, they were particularly hit hard when the pandemic struck. For a long period of time, events came to a halt. Even by the time that restrictions were lighter, impact was still felt by Venuerific and team.
One of the measures they have taken during the pandemic was diversification. Which in retrospect, is one of the defying moments that were key to understanding his company better. ‘My greatest setback had been diversifying into businesses that weren't relevant.’ The team working on projects that was irrelevant with the pandemic ongoing, resulted in time wasted and low morale within the team which eventually led to resignations.
Cue in Mr. Sentosa’s finance and accounting expertise tied together with the PSG (pre-approved software solution) program by IMDA Singapore: ‘As we had a good list of clients and case studies that the venue management software has helped many of the businesses with automation and business efficiencies. Venuerific was approved as one of the vendors which helped to alleviate our software cost by 80% to our clients.’
Backed by team effort and support provided by the Singapore government for businesses hit by the pandemic at the time; they were able to make ends meet and come out of the other side stronger and better with new competencies added into their list of expertise.
Now providing venues from parties, virtual weddings to team buildings for MNCs and more; with a team of 20 people across Singapore, Indonesia and Philippines - it is safe to say that Venuerific is back for the better after overcoming the challenges.