A flea bite made one 32 year-old veterinarian student rethink his career choice and eventually founded an amplifier manufacturing company earning NT$20 million (US$636,550) annually with the help of the Ministry of Education’s subsidy program supporting entrepreneurship in young people.
Chen Chi-chuan (陳啟川) said his allergies caused him to itch for a month every time he was bitten by a flea when treating animals.
He said he could no longer take these “career risks.”
Chen said he had first served his compulsory military service after dropping out of vet school, where he studied for six years, and had started a small breakfast shop.
He said his love of carpentry led him to discover the market for purely handmade amplifiers after seeing a collection of antique amplifiers that were still in excellent condition.
After applying to the ministry’s program, Chen received NT$750,000 in funding for his fledgling company. He hired some help from some of the manufacturers in the industry and slowly came to work on his own over the course of four years.
Despite dropping out of vet school, Chen said his training gave him the patience to plow through the professional texts of the stereo industry, and his data gathering, analysis and experimentation skills enabled him to create his own computing program to establish where to cut into the wood for maximum efficiency. The program has speeded up and increased the quality of the finished product, Chen said.
“If I hadn’t chosen to change careers when I had, I would only be a common veterinarian by now,” Chen said.
Instead, Chen is now the owner of an eight-man company, along with his own factory for manufacturing.
Chen said his firm has signed contracts with renowned hotels across the nation and has even expanded into Japan, Europe, the US and Hong Kong, adding that he is expecting sales to exceed NT$300 million in three years.
Another young entrepreneur named Liu Chia-chung (劉家忠) also took advantage of the program.
A graduate of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology’s institute of medical engineering, Liu founded a company with a classmate using 3D-imaging technology to make customized medical-use shoe soles.
The ministry announced the start of applications for this year’s entrepreneurship subsidy program on Thursday last week.
Deputy Minister of Education Huang Pi-twan (黃碧端) announced that the ministry has allotted NT$30 million annually for the program, adding that to date there have already been 180 teams who have applied for funding and been successful in creating their own businesses.
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