[TEACHING IN SCHOOLS]
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Japanese freestylers like "Tokura" Tokuda Kotato and Ko-Suke as their role models, respectively.
Japanese freestylers like "Tokura" Tokuda Kotato and Ko-Suke as their role models, respectively.
After gaining some mastery of the art, they took part in a few local freestyle football competitions and were called to perform at a few events and in television commercials.
"The freestyle football scene in Malaysia has not gained that high level of popularity yet, so there are not many competitions for freestylers in Malaysia," said Tee.
But having seen the potential in earning money through freestyle football performances, they decided to get serious about it and started investing in advertising their services over the Internet.
Rather than going through a talent agent who would take a cut for their services, they decided to apply what they learnt in university and manage everything themselves, from talent management to their own marketing.
"We decided to focus on advertising ourselves over the Internet, so to make it work, we needed solid platforms like Facebook and our own websites," said Tee, explaining their marketing strategy.
Together, Tee and Saw forked out between RM 5,000 and RM 10,000 to spend on building their website and Facebook page, as well as advertising on the Internet.
"But we also had some luck on our side because the start of our company coincided with the FIFA World Cup this year and before long, we had so many companies calling us up to perform at all kinds of events," said Saw.
In addition to performing in television commercials, they perform at events in five to seven minute stage performance, and a 20-minute performance that includes audience interaction.
So far, they have performed more than 30 events this year and managed to earn about RM 90,000 in just the three months leading up to the World Cup.
Although managing PCFreestyle is strictly a two man show, they do have guest freestylers that perform together with them whenever a client requests for more than two performers.
"We made friends with other freestylers when we took part in competitions in the past and we meet up sometimes to practice and share tricks with each other," said Tee.
"Right now, we have three guest freestylers with us, so we can have as many as five people performing in one show and they will each receive an equal share of the pay from the event,"
However, realizing that earning money through performances is a seasonal thing, Tee and Saw are planning to keep their company afloat by starting their own freestyle football coaching classes.
"Instead of teaching just juggling tricks, we thought it would appeal more to people if we also taught fancy dribbling skills that can be applied in real football games," said Tee.
Named "D Skills Academy", Tee and Saw will start their first classes next week, targeting two different markets - one that is open to the public and another that will be conducted in international schools.
"We thought it would be easier to approach international schools first and propose our classes as an extra-curricular activity for the students as they are more adventurous with extra-curricular activities," said Tee.
He admits a lot of preparation was needed in drafting the proposals for their targeting schools, but they were very happy when the proposals were accepted.
"But getting the public to sign up for our classes is uncertain and more challenging because we need to attract they through our own marketing strategies," added Tee.
For a start, the public classes will be held in a community hall in Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya, with limited places to enable them to give more attention to individual students.
Running costs are low, as they need only allocate money to rent a venue, footballs, and marketing material such as bunting and flyers.
"Another reason we are having these classes is also because we want to promote freestyle football in Malaysia, especially among young people," said Saw.
"A lot of people have this misconception about freestyle football skills.
"They think skills come from having the talent for it, but this is untrue," said Tee.
"When we started out, we did not have any talent for it at all. With hard work, determination and diligent practice, skills are something can be learnt and mastered."
The classes are open to anyone aged seven and above, and those who are interested can learn more at their website, www.malaysiafootballfreestyle.blogspot.com or their Facebook page, PCFreestyle.
[URGENT UPDATE] PCfreestyle is conducting football freestyle academy in Malaysia - D Skills Academy and the class will commence on 4th October 2014. For more information, please click the following link :-
