Witnessing a $1,000 tip made him aspire to be an entrepreneur

Then 20-year-old was slogging away for $900 a month when he received a sudden jolt of reality

- Sue-Ann Tan

When Mr James Li was 20 years old, he worked at a nightclub where Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin was a customer.

Back then, Mr Li was earning $900 a month working "ungodly long and tiring hours".

"On one shift, I saw Mr Saverin at his table, and he tipped a staff member $1,000," he recounted.

"To me, that taught me everything I needed about money and the freedom it can buy. It also taught me that we don't get rich trading time for money."

Mr Li took that lesson to heart. The 35-year-old is now, like Mr Saverin was before, a founder of his own start-up.

The firm, Jolt, produces vegan and sugar-free energy gummies that are meant to enhance productivity. They are sold online and at Shell petrol kiosk convenience stores, for instance.

Mr Li started this business because he wanted to find an alternative to coffee, which he said made him jittery, and was inconvenient to brew or buy on the go.

"I procrastinate a lot and am prone to bursts of high productivity and focus. I found that I needed the conditions to be right before I am fully productive," he said.

"I realised that I can create the conditions myself if I have something that can give me both a physical and mental boost whenever I want. Plus, I'm quite the gym rat, so I needed it to be healthy too."

He also took the plunge into entrepreneurship after gaining experience at large multinational corporations like Samsung.

"I wanted to gain broad experience, before moving to smaller companies, taking on roles that would allow me to improve management and other soft skills.

"In my heart, however, I've always known that I wanted to create something of my own, take it to market and be my own boss. A single person cannot scale his or her own labour hours up and get exponential income, but a company can, via systems. So I set about building that," he said.