Lys Soon is soft spoken, warm and engaging — but make no mistake. Soon is a thoughtful, powerhouse female entrepreneur.
Armed with a background in accounting and finance (“Like so many other Asian kids,” she says with a laugh), Soon dreamed of a career in the fashion industry and pursued a Master’s degree in Art in Fashion Management. After graduation, however, Soon struggled to find employment in her field, so she sought the advice of a recruitment consultant, who immediately offered her a job to try for two weeks.
Recruitment turned into a lucrative career for Soon — who serendipitously ended up in the fashion industry after all, landing a role with LVMH.
Soon, when asked to reflect on her “talent in finding talent,” says, “I discovered it through feedback and my own feelings… when I would receive a compliment from my clients when finding a great candidate, when my candidates were so grateful that I landed them their dream job, when my managing director stomped into my office telling me that the candidate I found was a “unicorn” and I had to hire her.
“I experienced an adrenaline rush,” Soon continues. “I feel so rewarded when I see my candidate thrive and be promoted. All these things told me that I’ve done the right things — and finding talent is in my blood.”
This intuition didn’t stop at recruitment for Soon — eventually, she set her sights toward other areas of expertise within human resources, including coaching. She considered training and development at first, and considered that perhaps she might be able to start coaching as a side hustle.
The entrepreneurial spirit was strong in Soon, but she admits today that seeking business as a coach was a challenge. “I struggled to find the right platform to promote myself,” she says. “I noticed that many experienced coaches are using multiple platforms, to name a few – LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and a personal website.” The affable Soon stopped thinking about branding herself — and started thinking about how she might help other coaches, new and tenured.
“None of those platforms are dedicated specially to coaching services,” Soon explains, “and my connections on these platforms were not exactly my potential clients.
“I also considered that admin work such as invoicing and scheduling takes up a significant amount of time, and to automate that, I would need to use various platforms which can be a handful to manage.”
With these elements in mind, Soon went to work on her brainchild: Coaciety.
Coaciety, a platform designed specifically for coaches and clients to find and connect with one another, and one that reduces the administrative workload on working coaches, was born of Soon’s idealistic vision of having an instrumental and helpful hub. She wanted to create a space where coaches could connect with seekers in a quicker, easier way, without the use of heavy, pricey marketing tools, but rather with the assistance of advanced AI algorithms.
“(I wanted to) focus on what coaches are best at – coaching,” Soon explains, “and leave the business operations side for Coaciety to handle. And for those seeking coaching, there would be no more excuses to procrastinate and delay your action. It’s a “marketplace” to find the finest coach in the world and get a coaching session right away.”
With thousands of learning and development resources available for everyone to upskill themselves, Soon adds, Coaciety is headed toward becoming a revolutionary app of the new decade.