Dustin Onghanseng’s realisation that the internal environment that he was learning and living in led to him start a business to prevent others being blighted.
What’s your story?
I was born and raised in the Philippines and moved to Singapore for my university education. After graduating, I worked as a management consultant at Deloitte prior to moving to Hong Kong for my MBA at HKUST. I met my co-founder, Brian, in business school and both of us often had allergies inside the school buildings and dormitories. The indoor environment was just not managed properly. We realized that you can only manage what you measure; thus we decided to drop our classes and start uHoo with the mission of improving health and well-being both at home and the workplace.
What excites you most about your industry?
Indoor air quality is a critical issue inside homes and workplaces that people often overlook or take for granted. Thus, it is difficult to educate people and make them realize its importance. However, the moment people see what they’re breathing in through uHoo, it makes them conscious and attached to always needing to know. It becomes a revelation that they need to do something about the air they breathe to improve their own health and well-being both at home and the workplace. Demand for healthy air will just continue to grow.
What drives you in business to push beyond what other people consider normal?
We started uHoo with the aim of improving people’s health, whether it be at home or in the workplace. When we receive reviews or messages from customers on how we saved a life, improved their health at home or improved the well-being of people at the workplace, we know we’re doing something right. We want to create more impact as we grow uHoo.
What have been the most useful skills you have learnt and applied in your journey? :
1. Empathy. Listen and understand what your team and your customers are saying.
2. Framing. Be flexible in the words and messages you use and frame it in a way that the person you’re talking to can understand.
3. Be concise. Cut to the chase and be direct to the point when communicating.
4. KISS. Keep it simple, stupid.
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
…
Who inspires you?
No-one really. Concepts and ideas inspire me.
What have you learnt recently that blew you away?
…
If you had your time again, what would you do differently?
It’s important to make mistakes because that’s where you learn and grow. I would not do things differently because I’d rather make those mistakes in order to learn and grow.
How do you unwind?
Cooking
What is a major mindset change, belief shift or ‘ah ha’ moment that you’ve experienced in relation to your business?
There was a lot of learning throughout the journey and there really is no ‘ah ha’ moment. It was a culmination of experience, mistakes and learning that led to how our business is today.
Everyone in business should read this book:
…
Shameless plug for your business:
uHoo monitors your indoor air quality so you can take the proper actions to create a healthy and safe home and workplace. We’ve also developed a patented uHoo Virus index to give you a real-time risk assessment of the coronavirus surviving and becoming transmittable in the air so you can reduce your risks.
How can people connect with you?
Reach out to us at hello@getuhoo.com
Social Media Links?
https://getuhoo.com
https://linkedin.com/company/uhoo
https://instagram.com/getuhoo
https://facebook.com/getuhoo