Financial Adviser: 5 Business Lessons Everyone Can Learn from Josiah Go, Founder and Chairman of Waters Philippines and Mansmith and Fielders, Inc.

In the world of Philippine marketing and business strategy, few names carry as much influence as Josiah Go. Widely regarded as one of the country’s leading marketing thinkers, Go has spent decades helping entrepreneurs, executives, and organizations understand how strategy, innovation, and customer insight can transform businesses.

Often called the “Marketing Mentor” of the Philippines, Go is best known as the Chairman and Chief Innovation Strategist of Mansmith and Fielders Inc., one of the country’s leading marketing and sales training firms. Since its founding in 1990, the company has trained thousands of executives and entrepreneurs across multiple industries.

Beyond consulting, Go is also a serial entrepreneur. He currently serves as chairman of Waters Philippines, a company recognized as a market leader in the direct selling of premium home water purification systems in the country.

But Go’s influence extends far beyond the boardroom. For many business leaders and entrepreneurs, he is first and foremost an educator.

Throughout his career, Go has conducted over 1,000 marketing and sales seminars both in the Philippines and abroad. His talks often focus on strategic thinking and the role of marketing in creating sustainable competitive advantage.

He has also taught marketing at some of the country’s top universities, including Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University.

Go earned a Bachelor’s degree in management from De La Salle University. He later pursued executive education in marketing at institutions such as Kellogg School of Management, MIT Sloan, Harvard Business School, Wharton, and the London Business School.

In addition to consulting and teaching, Go is also a prolific author. Over the years, he has written more than 20 bestselling books on marketing and entrepreneurship.

His work as a thought leader has earned him numerous recognitions both locally and internationally. Among the most notable are the Agora Award for Marketing Excellence, the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) of the Philippines award, and the Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) of the World award, where he became the first and only Filipino recognized in the field of business education.

He has also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Marketing Educators, where he became the youngest recipient of the honor, as well as the Brand Leadership Award from the World Brand Congress in India.

Beyond corporate leadership and teaching, Go is deeply involved in advocacy work that promotes entrepreneurship and youth development. He has helped establish initiatives such as the Young Market Masters Awards (YMMA) and the Mansmith Innovation Awards.

Today, after decades of shaping the country’s marketing landscape, Josiah Go continues to influence the next generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders. Through his writings, lectures, and mentorship, he remains committed to helping organizations think more strategically about markets and customers.

How did Go rise from a marketing professional to become one of the Philippines’ most respected business strategists and entrepreneurs? What mindset helped Go remain relevant as a strategist, educator, and entrepreneur through the years? 

Here are the five business lessons every entrepreneur can learn from Josiah Go, founder and chairman of Waters Philippines and Mansmith and Fielders:

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A strategy that once produced strong results can quickly become obsolete when economic conditions shift or costs rise. Companies that fail to adapt often decline, not because the original idea was wrong, but because the environment around them has evolved.

Pivoting allows entrepreneurs to step back, reassess what is no longer working, and redesign how the business creates and delivers value. It also prevents leaders from becoming emotionally attached to a failing strategy and encourages them to focus on opportunities that better match the realities of the market.

In many cases, the most successful businesses are those that treat setbacks as signals to innovate and experiment. Rather than seeing a pivot as an admission of failure, experienced entrepreneurs view it as a strategic adjustment, one that allows the company to survive disruption and position itself for long-term growth.

Go’s pivot was not a single decision but a series of strategic adjustments across product, distribution, and organizational model. What is notable is that his pivot did not begin with theory. It began with recognizing structural weaknesses in the existing business and then redesigning the model around what the market realities allowed.

The first pivot occurred at the product level. Go realized the business was no longer structurally viable because the company was an importer exposed to foreign exchange risk. Instead of trying to salvage the old business, he made the difficult recommendation to phase out the entire product line and focus on the one product that still had margin, which was the water purifier.

Many entrepreneurs try to preserve legacy products even when the numbers no longer work. Go instead treated the business as a system of economics: if the margin disappeared, the model had to change.

The second pivot involved the distribution model. Go realized that the same channel did not work for a new and unfamiliar product that required explanation and demonstration. This led him to experiment with direct selling, which allowed sellers to educate customers directly.

However, when he observed salespeople doing traditional door-to-door selling and averaging only one sale a month, Go concluded that the prevailing approach was inefficient. Instead of simply copying industry practices, he applied critical thinking to the distribution system itself.

Go began studying how water purifier companies operated internationally and discovered that some markets used network marketing instead of traditional direct selling. Rather than dismissing the idea, he converted a capital-intensive distribution model into a relationship-driven one.

Instead of relying on company infrastructure, the network marketing system leveraged personal networks and social trust. This dramatically reduced the company’s cost structure while allowing the business to scale faster.

“I was a working student,” Go says. “In our family, my brother and I were required to work. So I started working when I was 16.  I graduated when I was 20 and worked with RFM for three years. I was 23 at that time when my cousin, Wilson of Abenson Group, asked me to leave my job so I could manage a new business and become a partner.

“He talked to my father first. At that time, it was the Chinese style, you talk to the elders before anything else. Since he was my cousin, he called my father “uncle.” So before approaching me, he spoke to my father first.

“We were distributing Sanyo small appliances from Japan. We were always profitable except during the foreign exchange crisis when the Japanese yen started appreciating, so the foreign exchange made us very uncompetitive.  At that time, our margin was about 40 percent gross, but it suddenly dropped to around four percent. We realized we had to stop because we were carrying inventory and the numbers no longer made sense.

“It was purely a foreign exchange problem because we were importers. At that time, the water purifier product was the only one that had margin. All the rest, after the appreciation of the yen, no longer had profit potential. So I started focusing on the water purifier

“One day he was shocked because I recommended phasing out the entire product line. We had to rethink the whole business. At that time, I didn’t even know the term ‘business model.’ My formula was simple: phase out the Sanyo products, keep the water purifier, and develop a single-line water purifier business.

“We decided to pilot it and see how it would work. Wilson did not really have experience in direct selling. He was more of a balance sheet person like checking receivables and finances. He was a very traditional Chinese businessman. He knew my background was marketing, so he allowed me to explore the strategy.

“We piloted a small group and began selling first to stores. But more and more, we realized that selling through stores was not the way to develop a new product. To sell Sanyo toasters and blenders, that was the right way. But to sell water purifiers, we had to find another approach. So we started piloting a direct selling group.

“I discovered the idea after observing companies like Electrolux, which at that time had a brand called Euroclean. We had many applicants, and they were all doing the usual door-to-door selling. We tried it, but it wasn’t working well for me. I asked myself: imagine going out every day, knocking on doors, and on average you only make one sale a month. Something must be wrong. I told myself, I’m not going to do it that way.

“At that time, it was very popular. But I believe critical thinking is important. So I said, no, we have to keep searching for a better system.

Eventually we moved from Sanyo to Home Master. We were still doing direct selling but no longer house-to-house. People could sell wherever they wanted, friends, contacts, anywhere. As long as they made sales. But I was not satisfied with a system that produced only one sale a month.

“Later on we moved into Waters. We stuck with it because it had the right model, there was margin, there was good product demonstration, and it had strong features, and I started studying how Waters operated in other countries.

“Apparently, in some countries they used network marketing, while in others they used traditional direct selling. I studied the strengths and weaknesses of each system because I was open to experimentation.

“One thing led to another. We discovered the network marketing system. At that time, the prevailing direct selling system was the knock-on-the-door, ring-the-bell system. The main competitor was operating more than 20 branches, and each branch had six vehicles. I didn’t have the money to do that. So I had to find a better way of doing it.

“One way is to ask yourself: what’s wrong with the existing system? If I had the money, I could simply do what they were doing. But innovation usually starts with identifying the weakness, right? The weakness at that time was that you cannot knock on doors if the trend is moving toward condominiums. You cannot knock on doors when safety is becoming a concern. You cannot knock on doors when peace and order is not as good. These were some of the issues that made me feel that their system would eventually become limited.

“So what was a better system? We became the first home water purifier company using the network marketing system. At that time, Amway wasn’t here yet. Herbalife wasn’t here yet. So we had to experiment left and right.

“At that time, I attended a direct selling seminar conducted by an American speaker. I told him about my plan, and he said, ‘You will not last one year under your plan.’ I was stunned. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about what he said. But when I reviewed my plan again, I told myself, ‘No, it can work.’

“When we developed Waters Philippines in 1994, the first year of testing was really difficult. I kept remembering what the American said. But fortunately, just before the first year ended, the business started taking off. After that, the rest was history.

“From being number seven in Waters Asia, we became the number one distributor in just three years. From being pioneers in introducing the network marketing system in the Philippines, we also became the first network marketing company to offer installment payments. Those who came after us were mostly on a cash basis. But once they saw the profit model, the system started to spread.”

Entrepreneurs and professionals often assume that success comes only from pursuing a deliberate path. In reality, many valuable opportunities emerge from situations that were never part of the original plan.

Unexpected opportunities often appear when circumstances change or when someone offers a new role. If a person is too rigid about their plans, they may ignore these possibilities. But those who remain curious and willing to experiment can turn a small opening into something much larger.

Go’s experience reflects a mindset that combines openness and the ability to extract value from situations that were never originally planned. Go initially resisted the idea of teaching because it was not part of his career plan. Yet his colleague saw something in his public speaking ability that he himself had not fully recognized. Instead of dismissing the opportunity outright, Go opened the door to a discovery that later shaped his career.

As students began asking for his notes, he realized that his accumulated collection of newspaper clippings and case studies could be organized into something more structured. Instead of treating those materials as personal references, he transformed them into a book.

Most marketing books at the time were written from an American perspective. By focusing on local business cases, Go filled a gap in the market. What began as teaching notes for students evolved into a differentiated product that addressed the needs of his market.

“I started teaching when my friend from Ateneo called me one day and said, ‘I saw you talking. We need a teacher,’” Go says. “At that time, I was a member of PMA, the Philippine Marketing Association. He said, ‘I saw you speaking. You can talk.’ And I said, I never thought in my life that I would teach. But he insisted. He said, ‘No, no, no. I saw you. You can talk. You can grab attention, and you make a lot of sense. Come teach.’

“I was resisting it. Many times, people can see something in you that you cannot see in yourself, so I credit that to him. I went out of respect because I always had high regard for academics. My father was a teacher before, for a time when he was young.

“So I told him, ‘I’ll give you a courtesy call.’ But I went to Ateneo intending to say, “No, I’m not a teacher.” Then he said, ‘Oh sige, compromise. You can team teach. You handle one subject.’

“Then he appealed to me personally. I always feel that when you appeal personally, it is effective eh. He said, ‘Tulungan mo na lang ako, Josiah. I need help. I cannot teach. I’m the chairman of all this.’

“So I said, ‘Oh sige, sige.’ We agreed to team teach. I didn’t even know the other person. We would teach every other week or something. I said, ‘Oh sige, sige, kayanin ko yan. I’ll study how to teach.’

“So I started teaching. But I think part of it was that the students kept asking questions. Apparently, the other person had many absences eh, so the students were forced to come to me. I was then forced to be more relevant to the students.

“Eventually, I grew to like it. Anyway, one of the students later came back. That became the turning point with a cookie. She said, ‘You made an impact on my decision. I have decided to pursue marketing.’ I didn’t even know what I had done, but it was the most delicious cookie, maybe because of what she said.

“Right then and there, I realized that I loved teaching. But teaching in academics doesn’t pay well ‘no. It cannot even pay for my driver’s salary, but I loved it.

“When I was teaching, many of my students began asking for my notes. At that time, I had cabinets of newspaper clippings arranged alphabetically by subject. That was my library. Wala pang internet nun. I collected many cases before.

“People were asking for my notes, and I didn’t really have formal notes. I only had sheets of cases, mostly local cases. So I decided to write them down and came up with my first book because writing a book was already in my bucket list.

“My first book was Contemporary Marketing Strategy. It was written in the Philippine setting because most books at that time were American. I said, ‘No, I will write for Filipinos.’ The book used Philippine examples.

“When I was ready to sell my books, I went to Socorro Ramos, whom I met in PMA during the Agora Awards. She wasn’t there at that time, so I left my number. The next day, she returned my call. She was already the big-time Socorro Ramos.

“She said, ‘Oh yeah, I remember you. What do you want?’ I said, ‘I have a new book.’ She asked, ‘How many copies do you have?’ I said, ‘I printed 5,000, but I don’t know if that’s enough or if it’s too much.’ She said, ‘Ok, what’s your concept?’ I said, “It’s based on the Philippine setting.’ She said, ‘Oh, very good. How many pages?’

Then she said, ‘But you will consign it to me ha, because it’s your first book. Syempre I take the risk ‘no.’ Then she asked me a question that floored me. First I asked her, ‘Ma’am, what is your margin?’

“Because in appliances with Retail Cash Pfrice, less margin—that’s your cost. She said, ‘Our margin is 30 percent. But if you want to make me happy, make it 40 percent.’ Then she asked, ‘What do you want? Do you want to make me happy or give me 30 percent?’

“I was put on the spot. I said, ‘Oh shit.’ But it wasn’t my main line anyway, so immediately I said, ‘Forty percent.’ After I put down the phone, I wondered if I gave the right answer.

“Anyway, two weeks later I saw an advertisement, she paid for it. That advertisement made the book a bestseller.

“When I visited National Bookstore in 1992, the sales ladies were a bit nervous. They asked, ‘Sir, are you related to Ma’am?’ I asked, ‘Sinong Ma’am?’ They said, ‘Si Ma’am Ramos.’ I asked, ‘Bakit?’ They said, ‘Kasi instruction sa amin, kanya daw ito.’ So it was just the right answer. To this day, I still credit much of the book’s success to Socorro Ramos. I owe her a great deal.”

Many businesses collapse not simply because of external conditions, but because their strategies become too scattered or they attempt to compete in areas where they lack a real advantage. Returning to core expertise allows entrepreneurs to simplify the business model and rebuild around capabilities they already possess.

This focus also helps restore credibility and confidence after failure. By concentrating on what they understand best, entrepreneurs can allocate limited resources more effectively. Instead of trying to rebuild everything at once, they can prioritize activities where they hold the strongest competitive advantage.

Josiah Go’s rebuilding of Mansmith after its early failure reveals that successful turnarounds often occur through a sequence of strategic corrections such as clarifying the business focus and gradually expanding the platform over time.

Go’s turnaround strategy was to rebuild Mansmith around his core competence. When he later considered reviving the company, he asked a fundamental question: what exactly should the business do? Instead of trying to recreate the original concept, he simplified the strategy by focusing on the one domain he deeply understood, marketing and sales.

Over time, Mansmith evolved beyond a simple training provider, particularly when Go’s wife, Chiqui, later became CEO and helped transform the company into an advocacy-driven platform. Instead of focusing solely on courses, the firm began organizing awards, industry recognition programs, and larger events such as summits and conferences. This strategy shows that long-term success often comes not from scaling a single service, but from building an ecosystem around a core expertise.

“In 1989, I had the Mansmith business,” Go says. “It went bankrupt after one year. We had partners. They came up with the name Mansmith and Fielders. Mansmith and Fielders means you develop people and send them to the fields. We hired someone to conduct a seminar for us. They were very good speakers, even Wilson Lim from Abenson came to listen.

“It was supposed to be a training business, but we were going through the program for about six months and we were not launching anything. We were the ones putting in the money. So eventually they were forced to come up with activities, then we started getting complaints about it, so I refused to put in more money. So I said, with the way things were going, we might as well close it.

“It was good karma for me. I bought out their shares, and the only thing I said was to leave the name because we still had to recover. For close to one year, wala, there was no activity.

“Then in 1990, I said that since I was already teaching part-time in Ateneo and had a little experience teaching, what if I revived the business? I was not really a trainer. I was an accidental trainer. So we revived it.

“But the question was: what would we revive? I didn’t know what they were doing before. The only thing I knew was marketing. So I said, let’s just focus on marketing and sales ‘no. That’s why up to now the company is focused on marketing and sales.

“Mansmith is now on its 35th year. But very few people know that it was actually a turnaround story. It was a bankrupt company that I took over and relaunched.

“That’s why I tell people to see opportunities in crisis. You can never tell. How would I have known 35 years ago that Mansmith would be giving awards and gaining credibility?

“Usually only public organizations give awards. Private companies do not usually give awards. But we are a private company, and people believed in us when we launched the Mansmith Young Market Masters Awards and the Mansmith Innovation Awards. In fact, some CEOs say that’s the award they are targeting. Every year the competition gets tougher.

“Many people think it was an easy climb for us. But 35 years ago it was very difficult. It was a turnaround. We started with zero budget kasi wala na eh. Zero budget, so we had to rely on ourselves.

“For the first seven years I was not getting paid for speaking. For me, I was just doing it for the heck of it. Kasi I told my partners that I wanted to turn the company around. Little did I realize that as I was learning and interacting with people that it would lead to more books. One book after another.

“Then Chiqui came along in 2004. She eventually became CEO, and she had one very important insight. She wasn’t even telling people she was the CEO. She was manning the booth herself.

“Chiqui realized something important: we were not just there to learn; we wanted people to soar. That’s why our slogan today is helping marketing and sales teams soar.

“Before, we used to say we were specialists in marketing and sales training. We were just a training company. But once Chiqui discovered that insight, we changed. We became advocacy-based. We started giving awards. We started creating bigger platforms.

“It’s not that we don’t charge anything, that’s not true. But we have sponsors. We are not running at a deficit. But the intent is just enough to sustain.

“We don’t want people to say, ‘Eh nine-negosyo na.’ Kasi may negosyo naman ako, I have Waters naman. So one thing led to another.

“For the first seven years it was very small. Things started changing when Chiqui began taking over. In her first year, sales went up by 300 percent. At that time, it was just parang laro-laro for us. We had very few people. But she pursued it seriously.

“Part of the transformation came from shifting away from purely intimate seminars. We still do intimate seminars, both public and in-house, but we pivoted into bigger events, summits, and conferences.

“From a small seminar-based business, we evolved into an ecosystem that includes awards, summits, and conferences. That was a major shift.”

Businesses that avoid risk entirely often remain stagnant, while those that carefully evaluate opportunities and act despite uncertainty are more likely to discover new markets or create competitive advantages.

Calculated risk-taking allows entrepreneurs to pursue opportunities while still managing potential downsides. Taking calculated risks also helps businesses stay competitive in markets that are constantly evolving. By making thoughtful bets rather than avoiding uncertainty altogether, companies can test new ideas and position themselves ahead of slower-moving competitors.

Go’s first calculated risk involved launching a book despite lacking credibility. At the time, he was only thirty years old and openly acknowledged that he felt too young to be considered an authority in marketing. However, instead of allowing this perceived weakness to stop him, he reframed the situation strategically.

Because he was still early in his career, failure would not have serious consequences. If the book did not succeed, he could simply try again. This reflects his practical entrepreneurial mindset that he did not ignore the risk but understood that the cost of failure at that stage was limited. Realizing this gave him the confidence to act when others might have waited for more experience.

Go’s second calculated risk was the financial commitment to print the book. Go understood that his time carried little opportunity cost because he was still relatively unknown, and the worst outcome would simply be unsold copies.

This shows an important principle of calculated risk-taking. Entrepreneurs often move forward when the potential downside is clear and manageable. By limiting his risk mainly to the printing cost, Go turned what could have been a big gamble into a manageable experiment.

Go also took a strategic risk in positioning the book at a premium price. Pricing higher than competing books could have discouraged buyers, especially for an unknown author. However, this move also signaled confidence in the value of the content and differentiated the book from other offerings.

“I wrote my first book when I was 30,” he says. “At that time, I thought I was too young to have credibility. But on the other hand, I also thought that if I failed, I was young enough to start all over again. I thought of that. And I said, so, if I fail so what? 

“I said my risk was the publication cost. What was the risk of my time? Zero. What was the worth of my time? Nothing. I was an unknown.

“See, that’s the problem. But in hindsight now, when I think about it, I start laughing. In business, sometimes you shouldn’t know too much. If you know too much, you might end up not launching. Sometimes it’s really 90 percent courage.

“And yet I was talking about marketing, and the book was sold at a premium price compared with other books at the time. In hindsight, when you start thinking about it, you ask yourself: why did I do that? But one of the lessons is that there is God’s grace.

“To this day, from my books to so many things in my life, when I look back at history, I see God’s grace. It’s like Him saying, ‘I’ll take care of you. You may not perfect it, but I’ll perfect it for you in due time.’ So you develop this unshakable belief system.

“For me, that’s an important thing to understand. But through the years I also realized that human beings have many thinking biases.

“One example is efficiency. When you go to the supermarket, and when I go to the supermarket, we don’t stop in every category. We just grab what we need. Why? Because we want to get out in less than an hour. Otherwise, you will get stuck there in the supermarket.

“But that same efficiency in life also creates biases. Even you and I have biases, but we need to be mindful. Some biases help us. Some biases do not help us. Some make us unnecessarily fearful.

“At that time, if I were to analyze my thinking, my bias was simply: so what if I fail? My only risk was the printing cost. How much was the printing? Five thousand copies. In fact, I didn’t even know the basis for choosing 5,000. I just decided unilaterally. I asked the supplier, ‘How many copies should I print for economical printing?’ Kasi when you print brochures, you need economical quantities. The supplier said, ‘5,000.’ I said, ‘Okay, 5,000.’ My first book sold out in three months. I had to reprint.

“Socorro Ramos helped a lot because of that. To this day, I still support National Bookstore. They have about 200 stores anyway. They have stores in Greenbelt and elsewhere, and they also have an online store. So when people ask where to buy my books, I always say, ‘Buy from National Bookstore. Ito yung link.’

“When I joined the Philippine Marketing Association, I felt I needed to do something relevant. I started thinking that maybe I should write a book. Then when I was invited to teach, half of me was saying no, but the other half was saying maybe I could use the loose files I had collected in my cabinet.

“In hindsight, when you connect the dots, you realize that it was all God’s grace. It was as if God was saying, ‘I’ve been preparing you. You just need to say yes.’  Then you realize, oo nga ‘no? Parang everything is a rehearsal for the future. You just need to be more sensitive to what is happening in your life.

“I kept asking myself: what will I do with those files? How am I going to use them? I was just filing them away. But I wasn’t teaching yet. I wasn’t writing yet. Why was I collecting them? What would I use them for? Sell them in a junk shop?

“Eventually, I had to throw them away when my son took over my office. Those were articles from the Wall Street Journal. I loved collecting them. But the cabinets were full, three big cabinets, and they were bulky. So I had to throw away boxes and boxes of files.

“To be honest, selling books wasn’t difficult at that time, because there was hardly any competition. There were not many local authors eh. I thought it would be difficult, but actually it wasn’t.

“So it was never in our mind that we had to make a lot of money. Even with the books, it was never about making a lot of money. Sure, we made money. But it was not really about making money as a livelihood. It was more about making something so that we could help others.

“You can never tell. You have books, and one day somebody stops you in Greenbelt. This happened during the’97 financial crisis. He said, ‘Are you Josiah Go?’ Syempre stranger. I said, ‘Why?’ You don’t want to answer immediately, baka bigla ano mangyari. Then he said, ‘Because I bought your book, and we were supposed to close the business. But after buying the book, we decided not to close the business anymore.’ I was stunned. I had never received feedback like that before.

“And you know, these are the things, those cookies, the strangers you meet, parang you were not expecting them to give you feedback. For me, these are God’s grace. It’s like God is saying, ‘I’m sending somebody to you to give you inspiration.’ Di ba?  Then one day you tell your own story, and people ask, ‘So what kept you going?’

Partnering with people who can guide you and help you grow is important because experience shortens the learning curve in business.

Entrepreneurs who are just starting out may have ideas and technical skills, but they often lack the practical judgment that comes from years of running a business. A more experienced partner provides perspective. This guidance helps the business avoid common mistakes and make better decisions early.

Go’s partnership with his cousin, Wilson Lim of Abenson, shows how the right business partnership can provide not only capital but also mentorship and guidance. Instead of choosing a partner based on friendship or convenience, Go partnered with someone whose experience and resources complemented his own strengths and limitations.

One key lesson from this partnership is the importance of complementary strengths. In his twenties, Go had time and talent but lacked capital and business experience. Lim represented the other side of that equation.

By combining these strengths, the partnership solved two problems at once. Go gained resources and guidance, while Lim gained someone who could run and grow the business. This shows how strong partnerships often work best when each person brings what the other lacks.

Go later adopted Lim’s principles as part of his own philosophy when advising young entrepreneurs. His advice to partner with someone older who has resources and experience reflects more than a financial strategy.

It shows that young entrepreneurs can learn faster when they work closely with experienced business leaders. Through these partnerships, they gain insight into strategy, negotiation, and long-term decision-making that might otherwise take many years to develop on their own.

“Most of my businesses in the past were partnerships with my cousin from the Abenson Group,” Go says. “We always had a very good relationship. In fact, to this day, they are still sponsors of many of our events. Wilson Lim was the chairman.

“When I started, I had a small share in Waters. I eventually had a bigger share when I became the CEO. I always tell young people this: if you are young and you want to start a business, don’t partner with your classmate. If you are young, you have no money, and your classmate also has no money.

“Partner with someone older who is busy. He has money but no time, so he will let you run the business. In my case, I had the time and the talent, but no money. I was in my 20s.

“Another thing I tell entrepreneurs is that in your first business, you tend to want control. But beyond business sense and market sense, you need to understand what the other party really wants. What the other party wants depends on where he is in life. Is this his first business, or not?

“We define things clearly because in both our families we experienced situations where businesses failed. When I was a working student, I saw my grandfather’s business split up after he died because things were not communicated well.

“So when we started, everything was in writing. What is your share? What is my share? What is your profit share? Everything was written down.

“That was really the wisdom of Wilson. It was my first business, so he was guiding and mentoring me. I appreciated that, and to this day I still practice it. I always say that we should put things in writing so that hopefully we never even have to bring out that piece of paper. But at least we have already talked about it.”

Henry Ong, RFP, is an entrepreneur, financial planning advocate and business advisor. Email Henry for business advice [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @henryong888