By RACHEL CHAN

NOT every Singapore brand makes it to not-so-common places, such as landlocked Kazakhstan in Central Asia and impoverished Bangladesh, to do business.

But Mr Clarence Lai, chief executive of Gmask, which makes and sells vinyl-film wraps for electronic gadgets, is not quite your run-of-the-mill corporate honcho either.

Clad casually in jeans and sneakers, the loquacious 32-year-old hardly looks the part of a towkay who has expanded his brand name to more than 12 countries and regions within two years.

Mr Lai founded the gadget-wrapping service in 2005 with just $20,000 and a pushcart at Junction 8 shopping mall in Bishan.

Today, there are 55 Gmask outlets in Asia, the Middle East, the South Pacific, North America and Europe, including nine in Singapore.

Mr Lai's company manages three outlets at Junction 8, Suntec City, and Lot One Shoppers' Mall in Choa Chu Kang, with the rest being franchises.

While declining to state the exact amount Gmask earns every year, he revealed that it costs $700,000 a year to maintain overheads across the nine outlets in Singapore.

The fast-talking businessman, however, likes to stay low-key.

"We're conservative businessmen running an SME (small and medium-sized enterprise), not a multinational corporation," he said.

"We're doing well, but (there's) no need to create the impression that we're rolling in big bucks," he added with a chuckle.

Mr Lai chanced upon the trend of wrapping electronic gadgets with custom-print vinyl film while on holiday in Japan five years ago.

Fascinated by the idea, he sank his savings and bonus from his previous job into a shop here to sell the products.

"My family was not supportive at all. My father, a businessman himself, thought I should remain an employee and not be my own boss. But I persevered," he said, grinning proudly.

Determined to strike out on his own, he juggled the demands of holding down a full-time job and running a business at the same time.

By day, the then senior account manager sold information-technology training courses and IT solutions for his employer. In the evening, he would be at Junction 8, tending to customers.

There were only two customers on the first day. But business became so good that he decided to quit his day job in 2005, four months after starting the company.

Mr Lai's business has since grown from a pushcart to a combination of small booths and outlets, with each of the outlets averaging 20 customers a day. The best-performing franchise at Plaza Singapura shopping mall gets around 30 customers daily.

Talking at his usual speed of what sounds like 100 words per minute, Mr Lai shared details about Gmask's roadmap for the years ahead: To break into Oman in the Middle East as well as Britain; and to secure a breakthrough in technology that will make Gmask wraps 70 per cent thinner and more than 90 per cent cheaper, while being more durable than the original version.

His experience of being his own boss, however, has not been without hiccups.

He had to close six pushcarts run by franchisees between 2005 and 2006, as they were managed poorly.

"I was very demoralised, but I strengthened my faith in myself and examined what went wrong," said the divorcee, who looks up to home- grown shoe label Charles & Keith as a role model.

One problem with his business model then was the lack of a proper system for quality control, including the selection of the right people to be franchisees.

To overhaul his system, he registered Gmask in 2008 as a franchise in the United States, where franchises are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission.

His franchise consultants are based in the US head office in Nevada. A psychologist, who helps to recruit staff, would analyse an applicant's suitability to be a franchisee.

A legal consultant is also hired to make sure franchisees follow guidelines prescribed in a 200- page textbook.

Every week, mystery shoppers would visit the outlets worldwide to check on the franchisees and see if they have complied with the guidelines.

Gmask also contracts a research- and-development team in Japan, as well as a 92.9 sq m factory in Taiwan which processes between 400,000 and 600,000 sheets of vinyl film every year.

Gmask claims on its website that its vinyl film is the only one of its kind that can cover curves and keypads on devices. Its mobile-phone skin is the most popular among customers worldwide.

It costs $39 to "Gmask" a mobile phone or $89 to wrap a laptop, without extras such as Swarovski crystals (at $1 apiece).

So, what is it about Bangladesh that made Mr Lai set up nine outlets there?

After all, the country's gross domestic product per capita - ranked 193rd worldwide - is only US$1,600 (S$2,270).

While acknowledging that many Bangladeshis are poor, Mr Lai said their mobile phones are their source of joy.

"It's one of the very few lifestyle products that they have," he said.

Over there, it costs only $20 to wrap a mobile phone with Gmask products, thanks to low rentals and overheads.

What about Kazakhstan?

The savvy businessman pins it down to the size of the country's population - about 16 million - and its enormous consumer-base potential.

"Such countries should never be ignored due to their huge populations," he said.

rachchan@sph.com.sg

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