Karen Tan founded The Projector, an independent cinema in Singapore showing arthouse films, cult classics, and hosting comedy nights. After eight years including the pandemic, her advice to entrepreneurs is simple: build a community that feels ownership of your brand, turning audiences into ambassadors who spread the word.
Today I'm really excited. I'm in Singapore and I'm sitting opposite Karen Tan, who is the founder and CEO of a company called Projector. Karen, well, I'm going to say welcome to the show, but thanks for welcoming me to The Projector.
Welcome to our space.
It's beautiful and so creative. Now explain a little bit about The Projector, because I know this is a community-based sort of theater and cinema that you've got here. We're going to talk about how you've managed to build probably the leading independent and indie film cinema and community here in Singapore.
So big question is, what is The Projector? I suppose to loosely describe, The Projector is an independent cinema in Singapore, and we're also a kind of arts and cultural space as well. So our tagline from the start is, not your average cinema, and we literally, we actively strive to be what it says on the tin. So yes, we're an independent cinema, we show Lots of alternative content, film content. So anything from arthouse to indie to foreign film festivals to National Theatre Live, for example, you know, to anime, to cult classics like The Godfather or Saturday Night Fever. That's just the film content. And then we're also, you know, a space for non-film content. So comedy nights, film quizzes. We partner with, you know, animal charities to do like cat adoption drives.
Yeah.
So lots of basically non-film content we play host to lots of non-film content as well, and that's deliberate. The whole point of this space is to sort of create a space in Singapore where it's just— I like to think of it as mental breathing space, where things aren't quite so regulated, where things aren't quite so polished and finished, you know, where it's kind of rough around the edges. It's quite relaxed, it's quite open, and crucially, you can kind of come here, be yourself, and engage with interesting content, which you may or may not be familiar with, but, you know, hopefully you have a sense of curiosity. You'll come away with a sense of discovery of something that maybe you hadn't come across before. And that for us is one of the reasons why we exist, you know, it's to create that sort of a space, that sort of atmosphere, a space for alternative communities and interest groups to feel at home.
Karen, you've managed to survive 8 years including COVID. Unnoticed Entrepreneur, Darren. What would you say is the number one piece of advice you'd give to anyone that's trying to get their business noticed? What would you say has really worked for you with the projector that someone else could apply?
I mean, there are loads of, you know, lots of things that you could do and tricks that you could pull, bells and whistles and all that. But fundamentally, I think it really is about getting people, your customers or your audience, whatever you like to call them, behind you. you know, to get them to feel like they're part of whatever you're creating, to have a sense of ownership of the brand almost, or, you know, even a sense of pride that they're part of the community, you know. And I think they're going to be the strongest advocates, you know, that are brand ambassadors, if you will, whatever you want to call them technically, that a brand could have. And it's really so then therefore thinking about what they want and allowing them to also somehow shape whatever you're creating.
Now, this was just a 2-minute trailer for a full 20-minute show. The show will be dropping into your feed in the next day or so, so do look out for it and do enjoy it, share it, and review it. Thanks for listening to this trailer of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur.
2 people, infinite agents, 1 billion dollar idea #AIAgents #Startup #Productivity
