Alvin Yong

In the late 1990s, Alvin was exactly where ambitious young professionals dream of being. As Regional Content Director of LycosAsia during the dotcom boom, he was leading teams across six countries, working hard toward the company's IPO, building something he believed in.

Then September 11, 2001 happened.

The shockwaves reached Singapore swiftly. Alvin was handed one of the most devastating tasks a leader can face: reduce a team of 60 to just 6. In one week, 54 people — colleagues he had recruited, mentored and worked alongside — were let go. Not because they had failed. Not because they had stopped working hard. Simply because of forces thousands of miles away that none of them had any control over.

As he sat with that reality, Alvin found himself wondering about his own position. Would the VP above him receive the same call? Was he, too, just a number on a spreadsheet?

That week, something fundamental shifted in Alvin's worldview. "The corporate ladder is an illusion," he realised. "No matter how hard you work, how loyal you are, how much you contribute — when the axe falls, you are a faceless number."

He wanted something different. Something built with his own hands, in his own name, that no boardroom decision could erase overnight.

A colleague who had been made redundant from LycosAsia reached out to Alvin about a network marketing opportunity. Alvin's first reaction was the same as most educated professionals: this must be some kind of scam.

But curiosity won. He agreed to meet. And when he sat down with Pauline Lim and Josephine Chang, something clicked. He didn't just see a business model — he saw a philosophy. An architecture of freedom. A system that rewarded genuine effort and leadership, where your income grew with your network, not with your employer's goodwill.

In 2002, Alvin resigned from LycosAsia and joined the network full time under Pauline's guidance. He worked diligently. He recruited. He trained. He bought his next car entirely in cash.

In 2007, alongside Josephine and Pauline, he was one of the founding distributors when avita launched in Singapore — and he hasn't looked back since.

When Alvin joined the avita business, his goals were simple and deeply personal. He wanted to be present for his daughter Robyn through primary and secondary school — to attend the events, to be the parent who showed up. He wanted to build an education fund so Robyn would have complete freedom to study any course, at any university, anywhere on earth. And he wanted one family holiday every year — not a rushed long weekend, but a real, unhurried journey with his wife Jin and daughter Robyn.

He got all three. And then the business gave him something he hadn't even thought to ask for.

In 2011, when Robyn finished primary school, Alvin took his family on a full year of sabbatical — travelling through India, Kenya and Uganda for seva, the Sanskrit concept of selfless service. For twelve months, he poured himself into communities far from Singapore's boardrooms and business districts.

Throughout that entire year away, his avita network continued to generate a six-figure passive income.

That year became the first of many. Alvin has since returned to support Children's Garden Home in Kenya in 2012, 2016, 2018, 2022, 2023 — and again in 2026. Each trip, funded by the passive income of a business that works whether he's in Singapore or standing on African soil.

Today, Alvin's days are filled with what matters most to him. He reads voraciously. He meditates. He visits his aging parents often — sitting with them when they are unwell or hospitalised, giving them the gift of his unhurried presence. He designs and builds websites. He mentors the next generation of Scent'al World entrepreneurs.

"Without avita, it would be impossible to take one month for seva and another month for family travel — and to have the financial abundance to do the work I care about. Network marketing is the perfect career for me to live out my motto: live full, give all, die empty."

Alvin was skeptical once. He thought it was a scam. He almost didn't make the call.

If you're reading this and feeling something — curiosity, doubt, a quiet recognition that the life you're living isn't quite the life you imagined — Alvin wants to have a conversation with you.

Not to sell you something. But to help you answer the question he asked himself in 2001:

"What would I do with my time, if money was no longer the reason I couldn't?"