Douglas Gan
Douglas Gan (born 3 August 1983) is a serial entrepreneur building businesses in Southeast Asia.
Personal life
Gan is the son of Richard Gan and Mary Jane Tan. Gan was born in Singapore and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia. On October 3, 2015, he married Kanna Kawaguchi from the Kawaguchi Family.
Early years
Gan started his first business when he was in Tung Ling Kindergarten. At 5 years old, he sold toy cars for $2 apiece. By 7, he was selling marbles, bubble gums, chewing gums, stickers, stamps and Dragon Ball Cards. Gan amassed a small fortune of $15,000 by 11. At 12, he started selling Magic:_The_Gathering Card Games and he made more than $20,000 throughout his secondary school education of 4 years.
At 13, the significant turning point of Gan's life, he went into his cousin's room and interacted with a Personal_computer, it was a 386. On it, he played the Monopoly_(game). Gan was intrigued by how computers functions and was curious AbOUT the ways it could touch people's lives.
However, Gan's father was a gambler and they hardly have money to put food on the table. So most of Gan's fortunes were passed on to pay off his Dad's gambling debts.
First computer
At 14, Gan's mother bought him a 486 PC. On it he played Warcraft I and he started to explore the internet with a 36.6kbps connection. The internet was slow, but it was enough for Gan to chat on mIRC. It was on mIRC that Gan started interacting with many strangers from all over the world, many of whom are very good programmers. Gan then learnt his first programming skills within the mIRC framework. Gan programmed his own scripts and his own robots that were popular during 1997-2005. He spent a considerable time chatting with strangers, so much so that his phone bills (which was connected to the internet) sometimes went up to $800 a month.
Gan was extremely fascinated by the possibilities of the internet. During his early years, he would call upon his cousins who lives all over the world to do an international collect call. Gan's cousins have to confirm with the operator that they would like to receive the call before they could get connected. However, the internet was instant. He can now chat, send pictures, leave audio text messages and even send video recordings of him and his family to his cousins on IRC.
By 16, Gan has started programming his first mIRC robot that sat on a 24/7 hosting environment. These robots are sold to online clients for $30 a month and clients would pay him annually via Bank Transfers. These robots allows his clients to leave messages to their loved ones who are overseas at different time zones, they can leave text messages, send photos, audio and video.
By 17, Gan started his first hosting company, PureHostings.net, enabling clients to purchase their own domain name and hosting their own website. The business flourished to over 10 markets worldwide, including Romania, Russia, Philippines, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, USA, Hong Kong and India.
Very quickly, Gan was making more than $10,000 a month. Recognising potential business opportunities in the corporate world, he then sought help from his mother to register his first company, Global Wiz Internet Solutions.
First company
Gan's mother was very supportive of Gan's business. She went ahead to register the first company that helped Gan made his first million. Gan was only 17 and the legal age then to register a company was 21.
By 19, Gan has setup a wildly successful hosting company with over 40 physical servers, 7 Class Cs of IP Addresses (enough to build a Mini ISP) and over 3,600 customers worldwide. The company was later sold to Skydio for an undisclosed sum.
Recognition and awards
Gan has been mentioned in over 2,000 printed press media in Asia. In 2011 he received the SCS Young Professional of the Year Award from the Singapore Minister for the Minister of Communications and Information & the Arts, awarded by the MICA Minister Lui Tuck Yew. The following year PM Lee Hsien Loong presented him with the Ngee Ann Polytechnic Alumni 50th Anniversary Top 50 Most Outstanding Alumni Award in the past 50 years.
Corporate success
Since the late 1990s, Douglas has sold more than 5 web-based companies. He is the CEO And Co-founder of Vanitee (2014) Vanity Trove Pte Ltd. (2011). He is the Alumni Chairman, ICT of the Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Between 2011 and 2014, he was Strategy Guru at PropertyGuru and for three months in 2012 he was an Expert Consultant at Nemo Partners SCG. For three months before that, he was Founder and Director of ShowNearby Pte Ltd.
Other positions Gan has held in the past include: Executive Director at Global Digital Express Pte Ltd, a consultant for Companedia Pte Ltd. StreetDirectory.com, and Garena, Partner and Consultant at ZincPlay, Founder and CEO of OhGenki and PureHosting.net, Founder and COO of Global Wiz Internet Solutions, Partner at LiveDNRS.com and Within Budget.net.
Vanitee has a partnership with Uber_(company) to send Manicurists on demand and Singtel and FOX Sports Asia with The Walking Dead.
Education
Gan studied at the Ngee Ann Polytechnic in 2003 graduating with a Cambridge IT Skills Diploma. Before that he was at both Ngee Ann Primary and Secondary School.
Gan tried a year at UOL in Singapore from Stansfield University for a Double Degree in Econs and management. He dropped out after 2 semesters to focus on OhGenki.