PrincetonMind

The way back can start in a kitchen.

We helped people leaving prison build businesses of their own. Through practical training, mentoring and help finding finance, we worked with aspiring entrepreneurs to turn an idea into a way to earn a living.

A chance to start again

Leaving prison did not mean leaving its stigma behind.

Finding someone willing to offer a job could be difficult, even for people determined to make a fresh start.

We wanted to give them another way forward. We helped aspiring business owners work through the practical details: what to sell, where to trade, how much they needed, and where to turn for advice.

Our aim was straightforward: help people earn a living and build a future they could take pride in.

From an idea to a business

Our first entrepreneurship class ran in August 2012. We worked with the Industrial & Services Co-operative Society (ISCOS), which supports former offenders, to reach people who wanted to start a business but needed help getting started.1

  1. Learn

    Participants worked through the basics of starting and running a small business. The courses were open to former offenders and others facing barriers to work, including people from low-income families, people with disabilities and young people at risk.

  2. Make a plan

    Mentors helped participants develop their ideas, find suppliers and look for suitable premises. We also helped them prepare business plans and find financing. The Social Enterprise Hub (SE Hub) ran a microcredit scheme for people who struggled to obtain a bank loan.

  3. Get started

    By early 2013, about 20 people had attended our first two courses, and four were running businesses. One participant opened a food stall with a S$25,000 loan from SE Hub, serving prata and claypot briyani with help from his family.2

At the workshops

Our “Get Funded to be Your Own Boss” workshops brought people together in small groups. Kaiwen and volunteer trainers shared their experience, worked through business ideas and made time for questions. ISCOS subsidised places on the course, and we adapted the training to participants’ needs.3

That support continued as participants put their plans on paper, from working out costs and expected income to preparing cash-flow projections.

Kaiwen introducing the workshop.
From our January 2013 posts
Small classes gave everyone time with the trainer.
From our January 2013 posts
A question opens up the discussion.
From our January 2013 posts

Learning on the job

Got Food? brought the training into a working food business. Former offenders joined as apprentices, learning to cook and handle the daily work of running an outlet: serving customers, organising supplies and marketing the business.

The idea was to give suitable apprentices a route to running a business of their own through a sub-franchise licence.1

The founding team

Along with founder Kaiwen Leong, Wenyou Tan and Edward Choi built Princeton Mind to help people leaving prison start businesses of their own.

In print

“Princeton Mind helps ex-offenders reintegrate into society through entrepreneurship.”

National University of Singapore, Faculty of Engineering, Annual Report 2013

“Everybody makes mistakes and deserves a second chance.”

Kaiwen Leong, HORIZON, Nanyang Technological University, March–April 2013

“I’m really happy to have a business of my own.”

A programme participant, The Sunday Times, 3 February 2013