Find out what Ohmyhome CEO Rhonda Wong thinks about effective branding story

Wong will speak at the Singapore Business Review’s 20 Hottest Startups Panel Briefing 2017.

Rhonda Wong is the CEO and co-founder of Ohmyhome. Her technical know-how in the real estate sector brought to light the various issues home seekers face. Wong graduated with distinction from Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, with majors in Finance, Entrepreneurial, Accounting and a minor in Economics. While in University, she was also awarded the Carson Scholarship to study public policy in Washington D.C.

Wong’s personal real estate investments prompted her to join Savills as a salesperson in which she was quickly the best newcomer and was promoted to sales director within a year. She started consulting for developers in 2013 and subsequently founded Anthill Realtors, a real estate agency at the age of 29 in 2014. Headquartered in Singapore, Anthill Realtors' forte in sourcing investment grade properties from within and abroad with a one-of-a-kind concierge service is guided by the one belief that if you take care of your clients, your business will take care of itself.

In March 2017, Rhonda was recognised as a Women Icon at the Inaugural Women Icons Summit & Awards. She received the award for her entrepreneurial spirit and efforts to add value to the local HDB market.

We spoke with Wong to find out more about his thoughts on speaking at the upcoming Singapore Business Review's 20 Hottest Startups Panel Briefing 2017, happening on July 11, 2017, 8:30-11:30AM at the Meeting Room 3345, Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre.

What are your previous experiences and positions held that contributed to who you are as an entrepreneur today?

After graduating from the business school at the University of Michigan, I started my first job as a treasury bonds options trader at Nico Trading in Chicago, where I was the only female trader in the company. After a few years, I decided to go back to Singapore to be with my parents and started a bunch of businesses.

Being serial entrepreneur at heart, I worked on several businesses including retail in Singapore; import and export of equipment from USA and acted as a consultant on other businesses such as children’s education in Suzhou, China, saved up some money and eventually begun investing in real estate. That started my journey into the real estate sector.

Living in Singapore we are generally very blessed but we do face first world problems. 82% of our resident population living in HDB traditionally have a lack of options in transacting their own homes. But in reality they are fully capable of helping themselves if someone were to just make the process simpler. So we started Ohmyhome, simplifying the process of selling, buying, renting your HDB, so that today, everyone can manage this process themselves completely free of charge. And if they were to need an agent to assist, our flat fees are more manageable at $2,888. We have an exceptional team of highly experienced agents, and we’ve been getting wonderful reviews from our customers, which reaffirms that we’re on the right track.

What are your key business philosophies?

I believe that businesses are very powerful. They have the ability to change the world, change the way people behave and even change the way we think about ourselves and one another. Therefore, I believe that businesses should be meaningful and be built with integrity. So that as the business prosper, at the same time we would be building a responsible world, a better world.

Can you give us a glimpse of what you will talk about at the Hottest Startups Panel Briefing 2017?

I will be taking part in the ‘Creating a brand story’ panel. A company’s brand story is like your own personality. It has to be genuine, something that you truly feel during the creation of your business and your operations should set in place plans to execute and deliver that story. When you try to be a story that someone said you should be, unless you have a flawless marketing team, you’ll find it difficult to upkeep that image because the real story will show in your business making decisions, in your customer service, and your consumers will feel it.

The SBR 20 Hottest Startups Panel Briefing will be on July 11 at the Meeting Room 3345, Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre.

If you are interested to attend, you may contact Nikki Quiniquini at [email protected] or at +65 3158 1386 ext 238.