Pushing Past the Struggles, Uncertainties & Loneliness of Being an Entrepreneur Boss: Mr. Daron Hongsananda (Thailand)

To many, Mr. Daron Hongsananda is the scion of a successful real estate business family in Thailand, and the Founder of Koze, a comfort-centric furniture business. Dr. Ramesh digs in deeper to hear Daron's story, beyond the gilded surface of wealth and privilege, to answer the question, "What is it really like to be an entrepreneur?"

Moving beyond the usual hype you hear about excitement, prestige and profitability that comes with starting your own businesses, Daron shares his own story about the struggles, loneliness and tough personal decisions he has to make as an entrepreneur.

It certainly is not easy - Starting from scratch, planning and executing an idea, worrying about money and deadlines, the pressure to deliver, working with a myriad of people ... Founding his own business has opened Daron's eyes to the fact that ultimately, you are responsible for your own success in life.

To learn more about the entrepreneurial mindset with Dr. Ramesh, get your copy of The Big Jump into Entrepreneurship 2.0 on Amazon.com or www.Dr-Ramesh.com.

Host: Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra, Author, Podcast Host and Founder of Talent Leadership Crucible

Guest Speaker: Mr. Daron Hongsananda, Founder, Koze Furniture

#EntrepreneurialMindset #Thailand #GaysornProperty #RealEstate #FamilyBusiness #SuccessionPlanning #FamilyOffice #Dr.RameshRamachandra #TheBigJumpintoEntrepreneurship2.0 #CrisisReadyMindset #TalentLeadershipCrucible #Thriving #AgeofDisruption #CrisisResilience #KozeFurniture #BeanBag

Transcript

To learn more about the entrepreneurial mindset with Dr. Ramesh, get your copy of The Big Jump into Entrepreneurship 2.0 on Amazon.com or www.Dr-Ramesh.com.

Host: Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra, Author, Podcast Host and Founder of Talent Leadership Crucible

Guest Speaker: Mr. Daron Hongsananda, Founder, Koze Furniture

#EntrepreneurialMindset #Thailand #GaysornProperty #RealEstate #FamilyBusiness #SuccessionPlanning #FamilyOffice #Dr.RameshRamachandra #TheBigJumpintoEntrepreneurship2.0 #CrisisReadyMindset #TalentLeadershipCrucible #Thriving #AgeofDisruption #CrisisResilience #KozeFurniture #BeanBag


Ho Lai Yun  00:00

Hello, and welcome to Thriving in the Age of Disruption. Today, Dr. Ramesh gets into a deep, heartfelt discussion with our guest speaker from Thailand, on the intricacies of inter-generational succession planning in a successful family business and balancing that with entrepreneurial ambitions to build one's own business. 

 Meet Mr. Daron Hongsananda, Founder of Koze Furniture and whose family owns Gaysorn Property, one of Thailand's leading players in the commercial, retail and residential property space. 

To many, Daron is the scion of a successful business family. But beyond the gilded surface of wealth and privilege, Dr. Ramesh digs in deeper to hear Daron's story, and to answer the question, "What is it really like to be an entrepreneur?"

Being an entrepreneur is certainly not easy. Founding his own business has opened Daron’s eyes to the fact that ultimately, you are responsible for your own success in life.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  00:56
Welcome to the Thriving in the Age of Disruption podcast series, Daron. I am excited to talk to you today. I’ll start off by asking you to introduce yourself to the listeners. 

Daron Hongsananda  01:05

My name is Daron, I'm from Thailand. And I come from a background with a family business in real estate. I've been running my own business for five years, called Koze. It's comfort-centric furniture business designed to make your space and time more comfortable and enjoyable. It's like an ultra-premium bean bag, which is soft like clouds. There's no beans inside. And at the moment, I have scaled down and restarted, because of the setbacks we got from Covid, as well as the problem with Facebook advertising algorithm. So we're currently in the process of re-strategizing on how to move forward.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  01:47

Daron, how did you start Koze, five years ago? What was the motivation behind that?

Daron Hongsananda  01:53

I had a lot of a fire inside me. I just completed my Master's in entrepreneurship. I wanted to do something. I was in America when I started this business. When I started this idea, there was this brand called Lovesac in America and it's been around for a really long time. The first time I went to America was in 2004. And I really liked the product, you could just jump on it and be sinking, I thought, "Wow, I wish Thailand have this." That was in 2004. So 2014, I went to study in America, and I decided to bring one back. And I had that feeling inside me like, "This is an opportunity, this is a start, you just did entrepreneurship. And how hard can it be? It's just foam and bags.” 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  02:33

Yeah. 

Daron Hongsananda  02:34

Really hard. So I decided to just jump in and start, this could be a great opportunity. I think everyone would like it. And that was the drive that started my business back in 2014. So I went for it. That's how I started. Actually, the first year, we were very successful. We were making a million a month. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  02:53

Oh, wow. 

Daron Hongsananda  02:54

For a few months. And then something happened to Facebook. And it dropped. And we were like, what do we do now? I mean, I learned that success doesn't always last, and you got to constantly figure out how to adapt to changes. I don't want to rely on my- 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  03:10

Your parent. 

Daron Hongsananda  03:11

I don't want to. I really want Koze to work so I work on myself, everything and I can have a future. But wow, what a journey! There has been a lot of struggles. What I've learned is that the business I do impacts my personal life, impacts everything. Everything links to each other. If I mess up my business, it will mess up my personal life as well. And if I don't balance everything out, things just gets worse. I have to deal with mom sometimes. And I have to deal with my business sometimes. And that includes my partner, my customer, my car. Wow, everything, all at once. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  03:46

That's right. Yeah, we got to juggle many balls, deal many stakeholders, and they all want a slice of you, especially your time, I guess. 

Daron Hongsananda  03:55

Yeah, yeah. Especially my time. And I think as a start-up, I walked into many new realms, new experience first-hand. I made a lot of mistakes and I learned a lot along the way. There'd been a lot of ups and downs, some loses. Wow. Yeah.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  04:15

I feel that having an entrepreneurial mindset is an essential skill set to have. And I define the entrepreneurial mindset as one where a person is being resourceful, is able to manage the risk or deal with uncertainty on a day-to-day basis, to be able to create value for themselves as well as for whatever that they take on. What do you think about that? Do you think that you have that entrepreneurial mindset? 

Daron Hongsananda  04:45

I would like to add some stuff in, actually. You got to be prepared for the conflicts that's gonna come, that goes beyond your business, such as your personal life, you know. It will impact you both physically, emotionally, and financially. It will impact you. If you did not prepare yourself. Because sometimes we read books, we listen to podcasts and everything, and those motivational speakers say like, "Go! Go for it! You need to start," and everything. And they did not mention about the personal life side of things, that also can bring down and slow down your business. I know a lot of stories where many entrepreneurs broke up with their partner because they are really focused on the journey, right? Sometimes your partner can be the one, being an outsider, giving you opinions from an outside point of view and just saying, it can be good and bad, like, "Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that?" But then there's two ways to look at it. She can really, one, the good side is, pull you out and give yourself a bird's eye view, give you a break and really look at yourself. And one, she doesn't understand you. 

Sometimes I looked at my mistakes as just part of the journey, but some other people will be like, "Why are you making these mistakes?" But looking back sometimes, I have to make these mistakes. Otherwise, I'll never know, I'll never be complete if I don't make these mistakes, and really have a big self-reflection on myself. That's a lot that I had to take in at the beginning. Another one is finance. A lot of people go all in with their business, life savings, boom, all in. But looking back, I really wish I thought differently and think about how to create passive income, an income that's not from your business that will support you along the way. Because whether stocks like Cryptos, you don't know when it's gonna go down, it's gonna hit you, and it's gonna hit you many times, and you got to be prepared for it. So financially, you got to have backup. Like, if your sales are really bad, there's Covid, for instance, you really need to have financial backup to support yourself while running your start-up. Because you might see a lot of success stories where they just win their first-time round, three years then success. Not everyone's gonna be like that. Some people will take five, six, or more than ten years to get to the point where they want to be. We never know which kind of path lies ahead of you, it could be short, it could be long, you don't know. So it's best to actually have some financial backup to support yourself along the way. I struggled a lot in the years. I went all in but things not working and financially, I was short. Things started to get hard. Wow, it impacted my personal life, impacted everything. From a dream where I have lots of energy and drive to go through, it's just become really dark, a lot of struggles. But yeah, there's some really big lessons for me. But what a journey it has been.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  07:40

You've called out a couple of interesting points here. Number one is that as you took the journey as an entrepreneur to start and run your own business, one of the key aspects that you started to see was there could be conflict, especially since there is a demand on your time from different people. And it is really, from the closest people nearest to you, whether it's your girlfriend, or wife, or it could be your family. And as well as customers and employees and other stakeholders. The second part was how there is a need to ensure when you start that entrepreneurial journey in running a business to be prepared financially with some kind of backup, because we can't say like the COVID that happened, or we can't say when your sales dries up, or for instance, if you're taking the opportunity to go and invest in Crypto, and then it goes in a different direction. Now you run out of cash, right, so what do you do about that? And you want to actually plan for that ahead. You actually talked about having for yourself a healthy definition of what success was and that you're not tied up to it has to happen within the first year or it has to be that first big major client. Because then you can have a relationship to entrepreneurship from long-term perspective, and you don't put undue stress and pressure on yourself. Ultimately, I think, Daron, what you've actually called out is that that journey as an entrepreneur can be lonely, because it's you who are having that journey. And you've got all these stresses to deal with, sometimes you might not be able to talk to other people, even your business partners. That is actually a very important piece to highlight because most people don't realise that. They think it's all cool, and really an exciting time to be an entrepreneur, but they forget that there are those reflective moments when you have to deal with the pressure of how you pay salaries or you've got to tell “No” to your girlfriend who wants to go out on a date night? It's not like you want to say the "No’s", you actually want to say "Yes" but you've got to make that trade off.

Daron Hongsananda  09:54

Oh, yeah, definitely. There's a few things you pointed out there. Lonely, you're definitely right. I start to understand why they are bad bosses around, why were there strict bosses, why people say, "Hire fast and fire fast," and everything. It can be cruel and heartless. But I can start to see that those are very experienced employers because they start to realise that not all employees are loyal. If your boat is sinking, they will be the first one to jump off and sale themselves. But you will sink with the boat. You realise no matter how much relationship you build with them, if they see that you're losing they will escape, and then they'll leave you to sink alone. And that's very lonely as a boss. If they don't perform, you got to be able to let them go or fire them. It's not easy. Being a boss is definitely very, very lonely, but over time you get used it. You got to start building that mindset. That's what I've learned. 

Daron Hongsananda  10:52

Sometimes stress takes over me. And all I can think about “How my business is going to survive tomorrow? How am I going to get sales in?” Because sales is so inconsistent, right? When I start out doing Facebook marketing, we don't know what's working, what isn't. So we thought, "Okay, let's make content, content, content. Take photos, photos, photos. Come up with new products. Add more colours. Keep going. Try it out." And it can be very exhausting. When things work, you're happy. But when things don't work, you're stressed out, and you don't know why it's not working. Sometimes I may go on a date night with my girlfriend, I may spend time with her. But my mind is not with her, it's with work all the time, stressed. Because you're afraid all the time. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You don't know if you're going to reach your main goal. 

That really ruined my relationship and my health. I stopped exercising and everything because the business needed my time and staff needed me. I couldn't really manage it. Yeah, I can't say “No” all the time. I mean, there are times when we went on a vacation, and I did tell myself like, "Let tomorrow be tomorrow. If it's gonna fail tomorrow, let it fail tomorrow. But today, and on this weekend with my girlfriend, I am not going to think about work at all." It's such a nice relief. Two days at the beach, I don't think about work. I don't think at all. Soon, I had to come back, boom, all over again. Then we ended up having a fight so many times. I watch a movie with her at night, I fall asleep. I am so tired. I fall asleep. I can't even finish the movie. And she's like, “This is not our time”, sorry. So you may say "No". But "No" also brings more problem at the end of the day.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  12:37

That's true. Now, how long have you been an entrepreneur, running your own business?

Daron Hongsananda  12:41

Since 2017. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  12:42

Okay, so that's five years. So you've highlighted to us some of the challenging moments. 

Daron Hongsananda  12:48

I think there's not enough pain, given in podcasts and everything. I really think there should be more pain that I will go through, not success, pain. So people before they're hyping themselves up for real challenge and dreaming about success. But also know that the struggle is so difficult that you actually wish you are an employee. Being an employee is so comfortable, sometimes looking back. It's just like, you don't have the solution, go to your boss, "Hi, help me." And your boss might sometimes give you some guidance. But as an entrepreneur, you do not have anyone to turn to. And yes, I might come to you, Ramesh and other people, but still, I'm the boss, I'm the business decision maker, the risk taker so the problem is on me. Employees, you still get your salary. You don't get bonus; you still get your salary. Entrepreneurs, you don't get anything, you don't eat. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  13:40

Is that how you envisage being an entrepreneur was going to be before you started?

Daron Hongsananda  13:46

Honestly, I think more about the success than the struggles. I did not know the real struggle behind it. 

Daron Hongsananda  13:58

I come from, like I said, a family business. And I was brought up in a way that, well, I assume that family is going to help. That was in my calculation. That's why I picked entrepreneur route because I thought they're going to be very supportive. Nope. Well, my mum, my dad, my grandma did. But I was expecting my uncles’ as well. So when I did the business plan, I expected them to jump on board. But no, they didn't. That was a real setback. That was a real struggle, the lower budget and everything. I mean, if I knew that they're not going to support, I would have thought twice, thrice. That also made me stressed. It's just that it hit me that, "Wow, I thought we are family. I thought family helps." But I guess there's many ways to look at it. My uncle is not my dad. He's my uncle, it's his money. If he has kids, the way he would raise his kids or the way he would support them would be a different way. So I didn't think of that. So that added to the stress of my business. I have my girlfriend, family and business all at once. Yeah, so that's another problem. I didn't see it coming. When I did entrepreneurship course at Babson College in Boston, a start-up is all about working in an environment with extreme uncertainty. And that was really an extreme uncertainty condition. Yeah. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  15:19

Yeah, hearing about it in a classroom about extreme uncertainty or even risk is quite different from experiencing it yourself.

Daron Hongsananda  15:28

Yeah. There's nothing in class, nothing from books can prepare me for this. I don't know what's going to happen.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  15:38

I want to circle back to this whole conversation about being a member of a family business. You're the second generation, and what you're pointing to is interesting because we do a lot of work with family businesses. And one of the interesting things about family business is that they develop a lot of close ties, family ties, because of the fact that they live together, maybe in the same compound, but different homes. They share meals, they have multiple interactions. And I guess when you talked about the fact that you had hoped your uncles would have invested in your business, or you had expected them to, it is almost like because they are also a part of your inner circle where you expect them to validate your idea, right. So do you find that that could be one of the disadvantage of a family business whereby we want to have alignment or at least agreement between all the key members of the family, even though it might be something that you are doing on our own. What I'm suggesting is that the money was just a proxy, right, for the approval or for the endorsement of your idea or your journey?

Daron Hongsananda  16:47

That's something I asked myself a lot about, how does this thing work or how all this family business work? What's going through their mind? Do they love me, or they don't love me? Like, am I not good enough? You don't like my ideas or what? I went through a lot of confusion. And I come to a few conclusions. What goes on between the siblings of my mom's family, I don't know. This is between them. There's a line drawn that I don't know the inside what's going on and if my mom understands everything wrongly, or something like that. When they started out their business, and they're successful today. They started from scratch, as well, they also learned to this day. They are not perfect with what they come up with. Although they say family office, when I looked at it, it's not really complete, there's a lot to be done. It's not the kind of family office that actually creates passive income for every family member, even though they do nothing. When I studied family office, an ideal, strong family offices, that the investment should be good enough to create passive income for any family member to start their life and family. They did provide education, and that's a good thing but they should be able to have a strong investment that brings financial freedom for everyone. It doesn't work that way.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  18:03

So they are learning, they are on a journey. 

Daron Hongsananda  18:05

Yeah. So they're learning, they're on a journey. And what goes on between them, I wouldn't know. But I come to a conclusion that if I have my own kids, I will not tell them that I am going to give them my inheritance, even though I will, I will not. So they can kind of like go on survival mode, not expecting anything from their family, but really go on survival mode, really learn to build their own wealth, take a path that they can survive. Because when I was young, my mom would put into my head that you're going to be running this family business one day, you're going to be sitting up there, you're going to come back off the uni, you're going to work with the family business, and you're going to climb up the corporate ladder, and you'll be in high rank someday. Now I'm almost 37, I'm still nowhere in the organisation, because they didn't plan it. And that's the thing. I have expectation when I was young, that I'm gonna be, everyone did. And when we get to a certain age, it's just "Wait a minute, this is not what I've been told. This is not what I expected. I'm not moving anywhere. I work in a family business. I'm not happy, I don't get to do what I do. You don't even listen to my advice. What's better? You let your staff same age as me run the show. What's going on? What do you overlook all of us? We have talents, we have connections, but you don't pick us, you pick your staff." And I look at other family business, my friends, wow, they are taking the steering wheel. It's about trust issue as well. So the expectation I have was a kid didn't really come out. And I think kids should have expectations of their family. Because otherwise, they're not trying to build their own stuff so that they can survive. 

Daron Hongsananda  19:40

So I think if I was taught differently, say, "Look, you're not going to come to a family business, you're not going to have any of this. After uni, you're on your own." They can be lying. I think it's good if they lie, and then slowly they push me towards that way, and I built up my own thing. I think it might be better that way. Because I would have laid out a stronger foundation for myself, rather than preparing to take over a family business. Because to a certain extent, there's a lot of comfort zone there, like you're just waiting to be spoon fed, rather than go out and hunt yourself. That's not just my problem. But that's the problem with everyone in my family. We were expecting them to just pass it on to us, groom us and get ready. I only learned the real stuff during Koze. That's when I really learned the hard life. And I thought "Wow, if I had this when I was 20, by 30 I will be somewhere else more comfortable," I guess. But yeah, I think looking back today, they were starting from scratch, they're learning themselves. So they don't know what to do with our generation. They have an idea, but they don't really know how they should lay it out. They were too busy trying to build Gaysorn and everything. But they really didn't really have time to really go through what's going to happen. What's the scenario? What if they have all the money and take us to the best schools? But if we didn't do well in school, what was going to happen? What if it didn't turn out the way they wanted? But they didn't prepare any of that. They made mistakes themselves, the way they prepared for our generation was not perfect. It turned out the way they want to be, and then they didn't turn out the way we want. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  21:14

I'm grateful that you are willing to share this because you're pointing to a very key issue that family businesses have, and that's around succession planning. The reality is, Daron, as you have discovered for yourself, as the entrepreneurs themselves, they are busy in building their business, making it stable, successful and looking at its growth and expansion. Sometimes they may not really do the planning that's needed for the family members, and the family itself, in terms of what next. That's why the succession of the family members into the family business, sometimes it's not a smooth road. It could almost feel like family members don't get the same opportunity to be part of the business. Although the business is incredibly successful and has got a great reputation. I really got what you talked about how when it becomes your turn with your children, you don't want to create that expectation for them that they're going to be successors because you rather have them focus on discovering their strengths and knowing their weakness so that they can survive on their own. And then when the time does come when they have to come into the family business, they have that confidence of having discovered what they can do for themselves. And they can cope with whatever stresses that come to them. 

Daron Hongsananda  22:37

Yeah. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  22:38

It's not a right or wrong answer for many family businesses. In China, maybe it's another five more years before you see really a lot of the succession happening. In Thailand, you're lucky, they've already started doing that maybe two decades ago. In Vietnam, it's still something which is very new. There is no right or wrong answer, I guess, it's a journey.

Daron Hongsananda  23:00

I have a friend who actually used to work in a family business. It's an Indian family that owns children's products factory. 

Daron Hongsananda  23:08

They manufacture a feeding bottle for Disney. Basically, when it comes to the children's generation, he took a different path. He did finance and work in an investment bank and will manage his family investment portfolio. And after a few years of managing, he discovered family office company based in Singapore, where it had many managers, multi families. Basically what he does now is that he used his family assets and money to invest in multiple businesses around the world, from companies, to funds, to stocks, to everything -- different asset classes. That's very clever. Because in this day and age, you do not really need to have a family business. If you have enough funding, you can just shift from one investment to another. You don't have to stick with one. You can be in healthcare today, and then-

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  24:03

Diversify. 

Daron Hongsananda  24:04

or you can sell it off. And then you jump into tech, and you jump into agriculture. You can jump into anything with this family business. Why do you want to be in one industry and not diversify your risk? If you are using this sort of family office, you can even ask your kids like, "What do you want to do? Do you want to do health care? Okay, here, manage healthcare. Do you want to do tech? Here, you manage tech. You want to do agriculture? Here, manage agriculture. Learn." And you don't have to stick with one. You can go into multiple ventures. You can just be an investor, or you can work with them, build it up, sell it, be like a serial entrepreneur. Sell it, start something new, go and do it all over again. And I think, "Wow, that's so clever. Why don't we do this? Why are we sticking with just a shopping mall?" That's really difficult that's causing conflict between families. Why don't we work on something where within the family, we can all have different interests? But we can still work towards one goal and be very flexible and learn about different asset classes, investments and businesses. Why not?

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  25:12

It's interesting because Daron, you're pointing to what is actually another struggle of family businesses. Most people when they found a business which eventually becomes a family business, they focus on the survival of the business entity. But what we forget is that there are two other pieces in a family business and the other piece is called the family unit where all the individual family members constitute themselves as a family unit. So if there were four siblings and the four siblings had, let's say, 10 children. And then you add that up and you add up maybe the patriarch or the matriarch as well. The last piece is the individual members, and the aspirations and the needs of the individual members. In our consulting, we actually use a systems approach where if you look at three circles, and one circle is the business entity, which is a shopping mall or whatever. The next circle is the family unit. Third circle, the individual members. And we say that it's not enough to have just a successful family business as a business entity with its own strategy. Actually, what is more important is to have a family vision. 

We're currently working with the Vietnamese family, where they created a 30-year vision, and they had their conflicts, but they were able to resolve the conflicts. Because when they created that 30-year vision, it provided the runway for everyone to come on board, because now they had more time. Now the individual members could see "Oh, my personal aspirations are included, or I could also have a pathway to success." They could see that actually; the family unit was important. And more importantly, they could see that their individual needs were being met, it's a new way to approach family businesses, the family businesses who are able to find happy compromise are the ones who actually spend more time in creating the family's vision first. And then go to work with the business’s strategy. But you need both because one feeds the other. It's also important that family members ultimately can feel connected to the family business and to the family.  

Daron Hongsananda  27:28

Okay, I got it when I was going to introduce this family office space in Singapore, to my uncle's to have a new direction on this family vision. I started diving about a finance and understand why we invest, right, okay. And investments ultimately come down to what you want, in the end in life. It comes down to okay, you need to work out how much funding you need to live, to eat every day, to grow out, all the necessities. How much fund you need per year? You multiply how many years you gonna live for the rest of your life. If you're going to have kids, how much will it cost to have kids? To take them to school, how many vacations you want to take throughout the whole year? And the disposable income you'd like to have per year, right? You need to figure out all that. And then when you work out all of that, you start to look at which financial instruments, which investment, which asset class you want to use, and then you start to go deeper to small volatility, the risk and you manage all that. And once you come up with this model, you start to think about, "Okay, where are you going to find the finance to invest? And how long it's gonna take?" Whatever. So you come up with all that, that's what I've learned. 

Daron Hongsananda  28:41

Okay, so the real question is to ask yourself, "What do you want in life? What do you see?" When I introduced that to my uncle, I had to go ask my mom what does she want in life? My grandma, my uncle, "What you want in life?" And what I've discovered is that they all want totally different things. And then, wow, I learned a lot about these guys, because the thing they want, it's very interesting. I mean, when I grow old, I would imagine myself seeing my grandchildren running around, having a good time, somewhere on the beach, taking a vacation, like with the whole big family, and you get your kids, you get the spouses of your kids and their kids. That's happiness. When we went on vacation during the COVID lockdown. And I see my grandma, and every one family member running around, she must be really happy to see all the grandkids running around. She's old. How far she has come. I think that's, that's real happiness. And I think that everyone should have that. 

And I come down to two words in every investment. Before you start even thinking about family business, because that's not the ultimate goal, it is health and happiness. Every investment you should do, it should bring health and happiness. If it doesn't, it's not going to work. You can't have happiness without health. You can't have health without happiness. For instance, you have health but you're unhappy. Is that good? No. You're happy, but you're dying. Is that good? No. So whatever the investments, whatever the family business does, it's not about legacy. Some people think is their value, it's about legacy, it's about face value, but it comes down to two things, health and happiness. I bring that to my uncle. And it's funny, his happiness is different. His happiness, I don't know if you think it is Warren Buffett, but it's just keep investing and learning, meeting new people, keep investing. And that's his journey. His happiness is not about sitting with grandkids running around. That's not the kind of vision you have if you want to do a family business or family office. He does not see health and happiness. He invests so that he can be happy with his life until the day he dies. That's all he cares about. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  30:50

I think that's how it looks when everyone has got a different vision and hasn't had the opportunity to put all that on the table. And to come up with an aligned statement of what could be the vision for the family. So there is still one more part left Daron, which is the most difficult part like you've observed, when you interviewed your grandma, your mother and your uncles, that we now have to bring all this together in one statement that will include everybody. When you go really out there into 30 years and you'll start to look at what the world will look like and the scenarios that we would have where with A.I. and all the kinds of modern technology that we're looking at, we can't assume that today's world is going to be the same then, we'll make few conclusions. And at that point, it will be easy to align. I'm happy that you've started on that journey. And I want to actually assure you that you can find a place where everyone can come together. And that's called a family vision. But it has to have a long enough runway. 

Daron Hongsananda  32:01

It is very important. As a family you need to clear expectations. I've tried to propose about family office here. I don't know if it's gonna come to life. But now I don't have an expectation. A, I'm finally working on my own path without anything from that. I stopped expecting. And it does make me happier. At the end of the day, it makes my goal my objective clear. I mean, it's better late than never. But I do wish I've seen this way earlier in life, not when I'm 40. Yeah, so the key is clearing expectation. I will tell you my definition of family, you tell your definition of family. Okay, and see where we stand, see if there's anything that we can work together. I think that's the bottom line. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  32:46

Yeah, for everyone. Getting clear about what is that shared vision. And from that shared vision, everyone would reduce a lot of the conflicts that we see in family businesses. So thank you for this conversation. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  33:05

Crisis as a setback that we experience, and usually in a crisis, there's also a turning point, whereby it's a choice between life and death. Obviously, if we are able to deal with it effectively, we go on to learn from it and to create something new. So when you look back at your own life, and you look at the crisis that you've had with the business or in your personal life, what do you think were the qualities that had you be successful in dealing with the crisis? 

Daron Hongsananda  33:35

Like the saying "No pain, no gain." The closer you are to losing something very important to you, the closer you are to death, I mean, the more enlightened you are. That was I realised. The more pain you get, the more I start to realise the definition of maturity. When I was really in pain, starting out my business, realising I had no support, running out of money, and started to really see the true colours of life. And I start to, like I said, maturity, the closer you are to failure, that's the more survival instinct you build. When you raise your kids, you should never tell them that you're going to give them your family business. They know that they are going to take over, there's got to be a succession plan for them. You're going to tell them, "No, you're not going to take any of it." So that they go through all the crisis, all the problem and build up their survival instinct. Everyone needs that. Survival instinct should be more groomed in every kid. It might make them a bit more mature, less happy, but everyone needs it. That's what I've really learned. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  34:38

Develop your survival instinct. It's almost like a resilience. But how did you go about it? Was it when you reframed for yourself that "Pain now is gain later."

Daron Hongsananda  34:48

I like to use this. Light your own ass on fire. You have to because that's when urgency happens. That's when you got to think quick, think on your feet. Otherwise, you're going to lose everything. That's when you light your own ass on fire. You need to survive. You need to come up with something and make it work and that's life. That's how you grow. That's pain when you light your ass on fire and you gain you really gain because "Wow, I never knew I can do this." When you're a kid you can never imagine like how did that adult become so successful? How did he get so far in life? And then you realised when you light your own ass on fire, "Oh, that's basically what he did." Trying to solve all the problems, all the conflict. When it’s down some people have luck, of course. But some people really went down into the lowest part of their life before they can bounce up. Pluck- it could be the low hanging fruit. Some people, it is lotteries. The longer they are trying to be successful, the more they're going to experience at down point in life, sooner or later, it will hit them. And it will be a bigger problem later, I think everyone needs to go through that low point in life, to be able to be enlightened. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  36:58

You're pointing to a very important point. And that is that in a crisis, you get to develop your survival instinct and it gives you the opportunity to grow, learn, and gain new things early in life. Because if you had bad luck later on, and you were too old to learn, pivot or adapt, you'll be caught, and then you're really stuck.

Daron Hongsananda  36:22

It's like bicycle or skiing. How can you start, and you don't fall? It's impossible! You just have to fall. And the more you fall is, the more you're gonna realise, okay, this is how not to fall, right? As long as you learn from it, I think that's what's important. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  36:38

That's right. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  36:42

What is spirituality? And where are you in your spiritual journey? Do you have a faith? Or do you believe in some universal principle? Are you religious?

Daron Hongsananda  36:52

I have a Buddhist but I'm not hardcore Buddhist. I do like their ethics, their teachings. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  36:58

Do not lie, do not steal. But more than that, how do you practice it, do you go for annual meditation? 

Daron Hongsananda  37:06

Meditation. That's what I really like about Buddhism, the idea of focusing on your breathing, restarting your mind and not holding on to things. Don't hold grudges, don't hold on to things. Leave it. That's what's really great about Buddhism, you are selfless. And it's very challenging to be at that point in life, the idea of being- I mean, your life is already complete, you're selfless, you don't need money, yearning, anything. You can go live in a cave, and your life works. And you just meditate because you're so selfless. It's like you become part of the nature, you're neutral all the time. I think that's what's really beautiful about Buddhism. And the more you can be towards that, the happier you'll be, the simpler life will be. In a world with social media and Instagram, it is really corrupting people- you've got to have that, you got to look good, you got to have likes, people have to accept you, you got to be here, you're gonna have that, you got to have this car, these things. It's all pointless. At the end of the day, it's just people trying to be accepted, be loved. But Buddhism is just you just need yourself.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  38:17

What is that one thing that you would like to do more of in this spiritual journey? 

Daron Hongsananda  38:23

Meditation. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  38:24

Do you meditate daily? 

Daron Hongsananda  38:25

No, not at all. It's just like, exercising, something I want to get to. Focusing on your breathing for five minutes is really difficult. Because your thoughts come in all the time. If you can master that, you can master anything. You're just really resilient.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  38:42

Yeah, I can get that. I guess that's what stress does to us when we have such busy lives that we can drop these very basic practices that can actually bring us a lot of value. 

Daron Hongsananda  38:52

Yeah, especially in crisis, you don't panic. That's what Buddhism does.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  38:59

Right? Do you think it's possible to live a simple life in today's world? And what is the simple life for you?

Daron Hongsananda  39:05

I think simple life for me, it's just you have a place to live, it doesn't have to be big. You have something to eat every day. Health and happiness. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  39:17

Health and happiness. Wonderful.

Daron Hongsananda  39:19

You just need those two and you can be anywhere, as long as there's health and happiness. That's it. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  39:27

That's it.

Daron Hongsananda  39:28

As simple as health and happiness. You don't need anything. You just need these two things. As long as you're happy. And it can be simple. You can have a really simple life, but if you're really happy and you're healthy. And that's it. That's all you need. That's health and happiness.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  39:43

So would that also be the key things that you need to thrive?

Daron Hongsananda  39:47

Like I said, finance when you work on your financial goals, money should be enough to supply the two points.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  39:54

So you add having sufficient financial backup as part of thriving with health and happiness.

Daron Hongsananda  40:02

Um, yeah. 

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  40:03

Daron, thank you very much for your generosity and sharing the behind-the-scenes pain, struggle and loneliness of being an entrepreneur. And I think that's really valuable. 

Daron Hongsananda  40:14

Thank you. I'm glad to be part of this. I really just pour everything, part of my head here.

Dr. Ramesh Ramachandra  40:18

Yes, yeah. Thank you, Daron.

Ho Lai Yun  40:20
Thank you, Dr. Ramesh and Daron for moving beyond the usual hype you hear about the passion, prestige and profitability that comes with starting your own businesses, to share with us the tough personal decisions Daron has had to make as an entrepreneur and boss.

It’s insightful and touching how Daron, in his own personal journey of founding his own company, learns that your identity as an entrepreneur and your identity as a person are one and the same. You think about your business, you breathe it, you succeed, or you fail – all wrapped up in it. 

If you're interested to learn more about how to start or to improve on your entrepreneurial endeavours. Check out Dr. Ramesh's book "The Big Jump into Entrepreneurship 2.0" for her top tips, simply click on the Amazon link provided in the podcast description. 

Next up, Dr. Ramesh meets with Ms. Snehal Singh Speaker, who applies her entrepreneurial mindset to wear many hats successfully as Author, Abundance Coach and Publisher. Thank you for joining us today. And be sure to follow Dr. Ramesh on LinkedIn so that you'll be alerted every time our new podcast episode comes out on Thriving in the Age of Disruption.


Bio

Mr. Daron Hongsananda
Founder, Koze Furniture

THE QUEST FOR UNIQUE COMFORT

“Seeking for comfort beyond the bed. Searching for relaxation beyond the sofa. I set off on a quest to find an ideal sense of being. My mission is simple…it is to discover personal space that is flexible and always accessible. It must blur the lines between tradition and innovation while uniting art and ergonomic design to give way to a unique comfort all its own.”

Daron H., Koze Founder
https://kozefurniture.com/ 

Previously -

Business Development Manager, Ratchaprasong Food Services 
Market development analyst, Gaysorn Property Co., Ltd.