Finding a Path

November 14th, 2004. Two friends, Seak and Piseth, and I rode our bicycles from our hometown to Toul Tompong pagoda in Phnom Penh. We would live there for a few years while going to university after high school. I stayed around two years before moving to a rented house near the S21 museum, with the first rent covered by my mentor, Charles. My two friends stayed a little longer, then moved elsewhere to make room for new students from the provinces.

I studied for an associate's degree in English literature at a small private college, recommended by a monk friend who also studied there. I also took basic computer classes at other schools.

In 2006, I quit college to pursue business in real estate and internet ventures, exploring classified ads and similar ideas. I was alone. I didn't know programming beyond a little of the Linux command line, basic email, and internet search.

In 2007 and 2008, another transitional time for me, I met Charles DiBella, who became my mentor. He told me I needed to be in a space where progressive-minded young people spent time, or to create one: a hub where they could all connect. I could work with them, or connect them to work together. That idea stayed with me for a few years.

I didn't have money to rent a space, so in 2009 I created a Facebook group called Khmer Young Entrepreneur. Then I proposed that people in the group meet face to face, once a month, at coffee shops. It was the early days of Starbucks-style coffee in Cambodia. There was Baitong Cafe and T&C Cafe, and Brown Coffee had just two locations. These became our meeting places: casual meetings at Brown, private meetings at Baitong Cafe or T&C.

After a year or so, I realized I had spent much of my small savings on meeting rooms and travel. At the time I worked at an organization called PEPY in Siem Reap, and every month I traveled to Phnom Penh for the meeting. So I proposed to the people who came to almost every meeting that we should have our own space for meetings and brainstorming, and maybe start a business. Those were the seeds.

The idea of business started earlier, at home. I heard my dad talk about joint ventures in his vegetable farming and middleman trade among villagers. They didn't work, because people in the village were independent and preferred to do their own thing. He did better at acquiring land and building his farm, but he often wanted to try different businesses. That made me think about building a business of my own one day.

In a farming family, my parents wanted me to go to school so I could work away from the heat of the sun, in an air-conditioned office. Maybe as a doctor, because doctors could earn more, or at least as a teacher.

When I was about to finish high school, a movie changed how I saw business. It told the story of a Chinese legend, Shen Wansan, born into a poor family in a very poor village. He was told he could never become a businessman, as if it were a sin; he should be a farmer and protect the family's land.

He dreamed of becoming rich and owning a business anyway. He faced many obstacles, and in the end he became the richest man and went head to head with the new emperor, whom he had met when they were both young and poor.

The internet opened everything else. I learned about the internet through Khmer pop songs in secondary school, around 1997, but never touched a computer until March 2005. I signed up for MS Office and typing classes, which didn't interest me. What interested me was the free extra 10-hour introduction to the internet.

I couldn't wait for them to show me the internet, and I was introduced to Skype. That captured my imagination and pushed me to explore everything online: Wikipedia, WikiHow, and searching for so many things. What sparked me most was being able to learn anything I wanted, anytime and anywhere with an internet connection. It was one of the reasons I quit college in August 2006.

In 2007 and 2008, I cycled around Cambodia while doing consulting work as an assistant to real estate researchers and investors who wanted to invest in Cambodia.

Looking back, I wish someone had told me to build a business instead of trying to help many businesses and startups. But it is what it is. I believe the universe wanted me to learn all those things and live life that way.

Young Cambodians, me included, looked up to Silicon Valley so much that we forgot businesses need to serve what people need where they are. Only when you meet people's needs do you have a business. Otherwise you don't. Many think they need money, but what they need most is skills and patience.

A few lessons I would share. Be grateful for what you have. Work with what you have. Remember where you come from, so you remember where you are going.

I need more money, but I'm not desperate for it. I am more content. And I know I can have enough money to do what I need to do, when I need it.

Simple living means living on my own terms, not having to impress others with what they think I should have. I never wanted a car, because I didn't see what it was for. Now that our businesses need more travel and renting a car no longer makes economic sense, I'm thinking of buying one. Not yet, but soon.

Simple living also means owning fewer things, only what's needed.

Building needs balance. Cambodia's economy needs to develop and improve people's living standards: food, shelter, and leisure, including travel and fun. But we must not forget nature and natural life beyond direct human needs, or the culture and traditions that keep people together.

We should not forget spiritual life, inner peace, and old wisdom while we modernize what must be modernized. We should not put economics above the forests, mountains, air, rivers, and earth that sustain all life. This is true for Cambodia and for the whole world.

In a way, Cambodia was fortunate to be unfortunate before the digital revolution, through civil war and genocide. It let us skip many steps of technology, without having to take apart old layers of technology and development.

Adventures taught me too. The most transformative bike tour was in December 2007: from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville in one day, then up Bokor Mountain before the road was built, in the midday heat. Another was from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. Another adventure was my run from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh in 2012.

With meditation, I am more aware of my feelings. I meditate for short periods between working hours. I meditate on bad news and try not to overreact.

Every coffee shop meeting and every kilometer was groundwork. Start with the simplest tools, and with whatever is left in your savings account.