1. Career

2. Philanthropy

3. Background

4. See also

5. References

Alvin Poh (born 10 November 1984) is a Singaporean Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, and philanthropist. He is best known for co-founding Vodien, growing it to be the largest hosting provider in Singapore, and then exiting it for SGD30 million, the largest for a pure-play hosting deal in South-East Asia.^[1].

Career

In 2002, Poh was 17 when he co-founded his first company, Vodien Studios^[2], a web design firm that provided services such as graphic design, web design, web development, and web hosting services. Later, the company pivoted, restructuring and removing several business functions and services. In August 2005, Vodien Studios renamed itself Vodien Internet Solutions^[3] to reflect the change in its core business, and became a specialised web hosting services provider.

On July 30, 2009, the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore approved the incorporation of Vodien Internet Solutions Pte Ltd^[4], a registered private limited company to reflect the next stage of the company's growth.

The main differentiating factor between Vodien and other hosting competitors was a focus on solving the pain points typically experienced by customers. Over time, Poh evolved the company to focus on the 4 pillars of speed, support, stability, and security, giving Vodien the ability to stand out from their competitors^[5].

In 2014, Vodien grew to 14,534 domains, and had a market share of 12.4622% (Country) and 0.0107% (Global), ranking it the top 514 hosting provider in the world^[6]. Vodien became the largest hosting provider in Singapore in May 2018 after its acquisition of Webvisions, the shared hosting division of ICONZ-Webvisions (iWV), growing its customer base to over 35,000 companies and 210,000 users^[7]. Eventually, the Vodien group of companies would include Singhost, IT Works Internet, Webvisions, and sgDomain^[8].

In July 2017, Poh sold the business to Dreamscape Networks (DN8:ASX), a company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, most popularly known for operating the domain name registry, Crazy Domains. The deal was valued at SGD30 million, making it the biggest pure-play hosting acquisition in South-East Asia so far^[9].

In July 2018, he stepped down from his position as Vodien's CEO and currently remains as a significant shareholder of Dreamscape Networks, where Poh owns 5.5 percent of the company^[10].

He runs a blog on entrepreneurship and personal development, and is known by his Instagram handle of @PoorWifiConnection^[11].

Philanthropy

Poh focuses strongly on education in his philanthropic efforts. As a beneficiary of tertiary education, he believes that education will produce and influence more people who can do more social good. In 2018, Poh donated to and created the Alvin Poh Endowed Scholarship at Singapore Management University with a donation of SGD250,000^[12]. The scholarship fund aims to provide funding primarily to financially-needy undergraduate students who demonstrate a combination of good academic results and student life activities^[13].

Background

Poh was born in Singapore. His family lived in Kovan and was a lower-income family where his mother worked as a clinical assistant while his father worked multiple jobs. Poh has claimed that the lack of an allowance spurred him to find ways to have an income, and eventually was one of the reasons that led him to co-found the company with his school-mate ^[14]

After nearly flunking out of high school, Poh started focusing on his grades. Eventually, he managed to do well enough to became a scholarship recipient of the National Infocomm Scholarship, which provided for his university eduation. He made the Dean's List for both years^[15][16] that he was in Singapore Management University and graduated with a BSc (IS Management) summa cum laude, from Singapore Management University, and winning the Monetary Authority of Singapore Academic Excellence Award^[17]. He also graduated with a MSc (IS Management) summa cum laude from Carnegie Mellon University.

See also

• List of Internet entrepreneurs

References

• Satoh Kohei
• Satoh Kohichi
• Satoh Kohji
• Satoh Kohki
• Satoh Kohsuke
• Satoh Kohtoku
• Satoh Kohyoh
• Satoh Kohzoh
• Satoh Kumiko
• Satoh Kyohko
• Satoh Makoto
• Satoh Marino
• Satoh Masahiko
• Satoh Masahisa
• Satoh Masaki
• Satoh Masako
• Satoh Masami
• Satoh Masaru
• Satoh Masatake
• Satoh Masaya
• Satoh Michihiro
• Satoh Michiroh
• Satoh Miho
• Satoh Miki
• Satoh Mikio