Today we’re introducing a member of our staff which has been there from the very first minute: Alan is one of the bosses at modes4u.
Hello, who are you by the way?
I’m Alan. I’m 34 years old and come from Hong Kong. I am married to Sandra, the Managing Director from modes4u.com. Together with her I build modes4u more than 4 years ago. Before I joined the company fulltime I was working as an IT specialist for different companies here in Hong Kong.
What is your job at modes4u?
I am the IT manager and responsible for everything technical at the office. I developed our packing software, our shop software and website, so I have to watch out that everything is working fine. I am constantly trying to improve everything of course, to make it easier, more user-friendly and faster. It is a never-ending story, but I enjoy it a lot.
As one of the bosses I am also busy with lots of organizational stuff, negotiations, business trips and so on. And sometimes I even am the craftsman at the office, when I have to fix or build things.
What is your favourite product or your favourite category at modes4u?
I know all our products in our shop very well, because until we hired a fulltime photographer last year, it was also my job to take all the product pictures. I like all of them, because they are so beautiful, but if I had to choose a favourite category, it would definitely be our dessert erasers. They are from Japan and made by the company Iwako. And even though Japanese products are usually very high-quality, those are the best looking erasers I ever seen; they look so real and so delicious!
What do you like most about your job at modes4u?
I have been in this shop since it started with a couple of orders a week and just two staff members, so it is very overwhelming to see how our business has developed and grown. I feel very fortunate that we have such a good team as I think the most important asset for a company is the staff. Everyone at modes4u is very passionate, hardworking and happy with his/her work. Our working environment is quite harmonized and a lot of times it just feels like a group of friends are doing something great together.
Personally, I really enjoy seeing how our products are making people happy. It might sound cheesy, but since I graduated from school I often wondered what I can do to make the world a better place. But then I see all the feedback we get from happy customers and realize that these kawaii things bring happiness to our customers. That’s a wonderful feeling and a great motivation to find new products and improve our shop constantly.
You’re surrounded by creative stuff the whole day. Do you like to craft or to be creative in your leisure time?
I like to be creative not so much in the crafty way, but in the field of technology. I love technical stuff and computers and can be very creative in dealing with them. A lot of times I also HAD to come up with ideas, because when we started to build our online shop a couple of years ago, the technology was nowhere near as good as today. I had to build most of our software from scratch, which involves a lot of creativity.
Alan is showing office Rilakkuma who is boss
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