The person behind Freedom Startup
I'm Sze Wong.I build for freedom.
I founded Zerion Software and created iFormBuilder. After decades in technology and a successful exit, my work now is helping more people build businesses that give them ownership, profit, and freedom.
I believe startup education is starting in the wrong place. Raising money should never be the price of admission to entrepreneurship.
Here's where that conviction comes from
01 / The operating experience
A company built around useful work.
I created iFormBuilder at Zerion Software, the company I founded. First launched in April 2009, the product lets people collect data on mobile devices, including in places where an internet connection isn't available.
The work was practical. Help people carry out inspections, record information, and get reliable data back to the people who need it. By January 2024, the platform was processing nearly a million mobile inspections and surveys each week.
There were small beginnings. In a reflection on iFormBuilder's first decade, I remembered being excited to tell friends we had more than 100 users in 2009. The startup world around us celebrated companies acquiring millions of users. We kept working on a business our customers could depend on.
That experience shapes what I look for in a business today: a clear problem, people who care about solving it, and a product that earns its place in their working lives. Useful work gives a founder something concrete to build on.
From my 2020 reflection and 2024 company letter.
Guest interview
Why I build for freedom.
I joined Emi Olausson Fourounjieva to talk about finding everyday business problems worth solving, choosing your own direction, and building a business that supports the life you want.
A Multi-Million Dollar Journey of Entrepreneurship: Redefining Success & Strategy to Design a Life You Love
02 / The conviction
Why I push back on fundraising.
Over the years, I was told a technology company needed an exit strategy, outside investment, and growth at almost any cost. My instinct was to build a company that could keep serving its customers. Earn more than it spends. Make it healthy enough to keep going.
By the end of 2019, we had reached our highest annual revenue and profit to that point. We had also formalized profit sharing with our team. Control gave us room to choose what kind of company we wanted to be.
In January 2020, I began a public video series questioning the idea that you need funding to start. I was describing the approach we had used at Zerion: put profitability at the center of the business.
That is why Freedom Startup challenges the fundraising model at its starting point. Too much startup education teaches people to win investors before it teaches them to win customers. It turns raising money into the first milestone and makes capable people feel they need permission to begin.
Read “Do you really need funding to start?” and my 2020 company reflection.
03 / The craft
I care about how things work.
My background is deeply technical. I am a named inventor on seven granted U.S. patents, covering work such as gathering data without the internet, sharing encrypted information, and protecting sensitive data. Some were developed with fellow inventors.
I have also shared what I've learned through writing and speaking, from the E-Summit at IIT Bombay to talks about field service automation and AI at CodeForward. The connection is practical: understand what technology makes possible, then make it useful to people.
Today, AI makes that question especially interesting. I see an opportunity for more people to turn their expertise into something customers will pay for, with less overhead. The business still needs a reason to exist. Technology helps us build and deliver it.
Explore my patents and inventions and speaking background.
04 / What comes next
Helping more people become founders.
After decades building technology companies and a successful exit, I wrote down the mission that brings this work together: unlock freedom through entrepreneurship. Helping other people build now gives me the greatest satisfaction.
Freedom Startup is how I put that mission into practice. I'm building it around writing, tools, conversations, and community to help someone move from having useful experience to building a business around it.
The questions I bring are practical. Who needs this? Will they pay for it? Can you deliver it profitably? And will running this business give you more choice over your time and your life?
You may be exploring an idea, starting alongside a job, or already running a business that needs to work better for you. Your knowledge is a place to begin. I want to help you turn it into something useful, owned by you, and strong enough to support the life you choose.
Read “My Life Mission”, published June 2026.
Start with the idea
Build something
that gives you freedom.
The thesis explains the approach. The newsletter is where I keep working through it, with lessons and examples you can bring to your own business.