One of the greatest advice I had for Web Startup

I usually do not spend more than 10 minutes watching videos online. However, this talk on web startup is so far the greatest advice I had for Web Startup. I have attended enough seminars on startups by VCs and some organisations for me to say "cut the crap!". This video talk truely enlightents you on how easy you can create a million dollar company!

Enjoy the talk by David Heinemeier Hannson of 37 Signals, who is also the founder of Ruby on Rails which slices through most of the hype and nonsense around startup companies I have heard for years.

How to start an Internet Business?

Despite more than 10 years of experience dealing with Internet technologies, I am still new to Internet marketing. Lately, I have been researching on Internet marketing strategies which leads me some interesting findings. I would like to start my post with simple introduction tools to Internet business.

1. What makes you special?
Internet hosts millions of sites and the number is increasing day by day. What makes your business outstanding? Having a niche product/service will help you in identifying and growing your customer crowd. Surprisingly, simple business such as language translator, grammar tools, connectivity detection tools, Sarawak handicrafts, accessories and cloths are selling like hot cakes. Have you identified yours ?

2. Where is my shop?
You can host your Internet business anywhere. Ebay & Lelong.com provides member storefronts for you to start your "shop". Alternatively, you can even sell your stuff from blogs. Just post your products and services on web! If you want to have a virtual office with hotline number, you can look for various virtual office solutions in town which starts from RM80 per month. If you want something cheaper, leave me a comment and I will share more with you personally.

3. How to collect my money?
Popularised by Maybank, online banking is the fastest and safest way to get paid. Altenatively, you can open a free payment account with Paypal and fetch business from international customers as well.

4. How to promote my business ?
If you do not have spare cash to promote in Google Adwords, Facebook or online newspapers, try the following:

a. 7-11 - There are so many 7-11 shops in town, just post your ads there, you will be surprised about the results.

b. Freebies - Give out some freebies for referrals to your website. Your freebies can be the products that you are selling or simply an RM 20 Starbucks voucher!

c. Forums- Join forums with your website's signature. Be active and get to know friends there. Start with lowyat.net or malaysianbabes.net(if you are targeting ladies)

d. Signature - Design a good signature for yourself, prefebably with some nice graphics. Find good articles online and forward to your friends with your signature. Your friends will help you to forward those.....

e. Blogs - Visit friend's and stranger's blogs. Get your friend who is a frequent blogger to blog for your business.

f. Facebook - Leave comments on your facebook friends' page and start a fan club for your website.

g. Search Engine Optimisation- SEO . This is complicated but can be a good solution which is free of charge, leave me a comment and i will tell you more,:).

h. Youtube - Send your friends interesting Youtube videos related to your product with your website advertisement.

i. Information Collection- Search for info related to your product from the web and filter them.
Publish your findings related to your product on blogs and promote your product there as well.

j. RSS- Keep an RSS subscription for your potential customers to subcribe to your website promotions.

I will share more about my findings in the coming post. Stay tuned!

Getting Rich Quick in the city

If you are approaching 30 and still not belonging to the group of rich, powerful and famous, do not be disappointed, many are with you.

This is NOT an entry telling you about how to get rich quickly. It is an entry speaking out what most of the early twenties young working adults had in their mind when they started their working life in the city: to get rich quick.

There is no shortcut for success. I have joined at least 2 MLM companies before and I know how hard people work towards their success. I also know some of their "scam" tricks on how to attract more members. Fortunately, the products I bought from direct sales membership are usable and effective for me and my family (though I did not continue to use them now anymore, the products are really good, it's just too expensive).

It is not the case for many. Many loss their hard-earned savings by investing into scams and memberships. They will not tell you their story as it is not something to be proud of. Some of them chose to create "fact exposure" sites which are widely publicised as they felt that it's their obligation to warn others about some flawed investment scheme.

Some of the young entrepreneurs found themselves to to be in trouble by trying to slaughter the golden goose. So, how should you decide what's the best for you in order to live comfortably in the city?

1. Be Patient
I have been through the early 20s stage. I must admit, 20s is a very competitive stage in life, especially for young graduates who works in the city. You don't have much experience and yet try to prove yourself to be more successful than your peers. You want to own an Altis when your peers are driving Vios. Many who are impatient to make their first pot of gold eventually loss their "investments" to some "professional scams". I grew up in the era of dotcom bubble during my early 20s, where many young, successful entrepreneurs are featured by the media. I have too, been given the limelight by main stream media featuring my startups during the early 20s . However, I have learned to be patient and analytical throughout the years in order to move to the next level. My advice for the early 20s, analyse the "opportunities" offered to you carefully before investing your time and money. Yes, time and energy is all you have when you are young and use them smartly. They will translate to success and money if you make your decisions wisely. Learn from other's experiences and try to create opportunities for yourself rather than buying into one. I will blog more about creating opportunities for yourself in my future entries.

2. Be Focused
Many will try everything to get rich and famous. Most of the people in their 20s will have similar philosophy of life: "never try, never know, so try everything and you might hit the jackpot". Ask any of your friends working in the city, 8 out of 10 of them will tell you that they have joined an MLM, unit trust or insurance company as agents before. However, probably only 1 out of 10 of those who joined remains as active member now. It's hard to achieve what you want in life if you are not focused. Trying out everything is not the solution to get something out of your life. I have told myself that I would like to improve the quality of people's life through technology. I am still sticking to that goal.

3. Be Balanced
My ex-neighbour never gave up persuading me to join his MLM business. I have nothing against MLM companies, as long as they sell their products honestly. One of the factors I chose not to join is because of the imbalance workload in MLM working environment. He drives a C Class now, bought just after 6 months joining the MLM company. Frankly speaking, his C Class does not come in easy. I knew how hard he worked. Ever since he joined the MLM network, I hardly seen him at home. He came back at 3 or 4 am almost every night, even during the weekends. Though he claimed that his working hours are flexible, it's not flexible at all to me. Weekends has to be dedicated for work and you usually spent your time in talkshow events at night. You hardly have time for your family. Always strike a balance in whatever you do, maintain a healthy lifestyle, you will never regret doing that.

Though it is hard to make yourself rich quickly in the city, there are still ways to guarantee yourself a comfortable lifestyle in the city. I hope to share more about this in my future entries.

Having a mentor at different stages of your life

I am learning to appreciate things I have learned in the past as I get older. I am an engineer by training. However, I started appreciating finance at the age of 21. I moved on to history, geography and now economics. When I was young, I couldn't understand why people did their PhD in history. It was boring to me. At different stages of life, you learn to appreciate the usefulness of different knowledge domains and starts to apply them in your daily life.

Having a mentor at early stage of your working life helps you to appreciate these faster and easier. I had started to have mentors after entering university. My first mentor Dr. Ewe gave me advice on entrepreneurship when I started my first techo-venture at age of 18 . I learned a lot from how to lure venture capitalist, striking an elevator pitch to writing professional business plan in the early days of my university life. I thanked Dr. Ewe for his enthusiasm and guidance in bringing up the future generations of technoprenuer in Malaysia.

During the final years of my university life, I met Mr. Yap, an ED of a public listed company in Malaysia. He was kind enough to mentor me on starting up new companies and running a profitable business. I had a great lesson on startup essentials and know-how on maintaining a successful business cycle. I thank him for his patience with a young punk like me.

I met my ex-CFO, Mr. Chew, who was also a Finance Controller in a listed company years later. Cool and quiet person, he is a great mentor in guiding me on financial management and stock market investment. Having graduated from engineering studies, financial management is a total stranger to me. I started learning about the basics of financial management from my cool mentor when we got closer in a trip to Ipoh. I continue to learn about ways to control operational cost as well as to increase company's profits from a financial standpoint. Terms such as technical analysis and fundamental analysis were added to my dictionary throughout the mentoring process. I was trained to be a shrewed investor. I wouldn't say I am a financial expert now but my financial knowledge are much superior than my university peers thanks to Mr. Chew. I opened my first CDS account after knowing him and my stocks portfolio has been multiplied by 800 % since then.

Ms. Lee and late Elder Cheng were my spiritual mentors. Their guidance and teachings has kept me walking in a righteous path throughout my career and life. Being successful in your life without ethics leads to emptiness. I thank them for planting ethics and God's word in my life.

Good mentors are important in shaping your thinking and character. They fill your innocent mind with useful tips and advice which can be applied for lifetime to make you a better person. I could never imagined myself to be what I am today when I moved from a small town to the big city of Kuala Lumpur. My mentors gave me substantial survival skills to survive in a city. I certainly hope I could mentor the younger generation someday.

Building Zero Cost Knowledge-Based Business (III)

Money, you cannot run business without it. Though I am talking about zero cost, but money is still involved in any business. Without money, your business will not profit even if it is a zero cost business. This is why, it is extremely important to have business clients while having an investor will help you to quickly expand your business.

It is really hard to run a business while having a day job. You have limited time to approach your customers directly or even to surface for your business. It is therefore important to join a network to promote your services through your friends and strangers. Promote your solutions and skills through Facebook chats or your blog. A casual chat with your friends might bring you surprises. You will never know your friend of friend are actually looking for the solution you are building. This helps your solution to be promoted rapidly by just word of mouth.

There are plenty of "middleman" or "solution brokers" around. Many people has huge contact database and are always looking for "lubang"(opportunities). However, be very careful and selective when you encounter one. A good "solutions broker" will help you to manage your entire project and provide you with peace of mind to concentrate on solution development. Never underpay your broker. A good solution broker helps you to build your track record which is extremely important for a business to attract more customers and investors. These brokers will also be a good marketing personnel for your business if you are able to pay him/her handsomely.
Investors are able to help your business to take a leap for your business expansion. If you have a good solution which is attractive, investors are always interested to invest in your business. How you can meet these investors ? Some tips for you on investors:

1. Join Entrepreneur Clubs. Be it MCA ICT Resource Center, TeAM or PUMM, these organisations provide you with necessary information and networks to access to investors.

2. Look for Listed Companies. There are over 1000 listed companies in Bursa Malaysia alone.Listed companies are owned by many shareholders. Their money belongs to public and most of these companies are always interested in acquiring potential companies to boost their revenue and improve business portfolio. If you happen to know any friends working with or owning(as a director) a listed company, you can always approach them to help you to sell your company.

3. Private angels. There are many people who are rich and do not know what to do with their money. Socialise around and you might get surprises. To expand your social network, join Toast Masters to get to know more professionals. You can also visit trade shows and free conferences to get to know more people from different industry.

These are some basic guidelines to start a zero-cost business and by no means a comprehensive one. I hope to cover more from time to time in future. Feel free to drop your comments if you have any. Moving to more interesting topic soon... :) . Why city folks are always reluctant or late to get married ?

Building Zero Cost Knowledge-Based Business (II)

Have been busy lately, it took me such a long time to blog again. Anyway, I hope to finish this series as soon as possible.
The Power of Collaboration. Many knows that collaboration and partnership is important for businesses but do not exactly know how to benefit all parties involved in a collaboration. There are many ways to work on a collaboration but I am only going to mention one of the most crucial collaboration or start-ups--resale.
When you have a knowledge-based business, the value of the solution is intangible and subjects to the importance of your clients' encountered problem. Packaging your solution with some existing goods gives your customer an impression of "value-buy". For example, you can package your solution with Windows Server software license, server hardware or even a data hosting subscription. Collaboration with distributors in such cases, will help you to solve a lot of software and hardware related problem as those problems can be directly directed to your vendor/partner. Furthermore, software/hardware sales commissions are quite lucrative and will be able to boost your company's profit. Packaged solution also gives more revenue to your business which provides a good track record for financial institutions if you need any facility.

So , how do you start your first collaboration? Here's some tips for you:
1. Google for software or hardware from overseas which complements your product/solution. Approach the contact person and strike a partnership. Why overseas? Overseas products normally hopes to get some sales rep/agents to expand their business to other regions of the world. If you are genuine, they are more than willing to work with you. For example, Flekx.com, a Malaysian FREE Calls provider collaborates with PORTSIP to distribute their free calling software. This allows Flekx to concentrate on free calls solution while leaving the soft phone features development to PORTSIP.
2. Brainstorm on how you can benefit your potential partner with your current solution before approaching them. This will help you to convince your potential partners.
3. Provide updates to your partner. Updating your partner with the latest development gives more confidence to your partner and encourages them to promote your solutions more aggressively.
4. Demographics. If your partner comes from a different region or industry, share and exchange your market demographics with them to help both parties to expand faster.
5. Distributorship. Seek for distributorship of your partner's product if you think their product is robust and strong. This will provide you with a lucrative side income for a start. However, never forget that your solution is still your core business and always stick to your business goal.

The final chapter, I will talk about Client & Investor, source of your income and capital. Watch out!

Building Zero Cost Knowledge-Based Business (I)

"白手兴家" (bai shou shing jia), a term to address successful business man who started with just penny-like capital. Its seems hard to start a business without much capital these days. My friends has been asking me, how do you start selling and stop dreaming without capital?
As what the Chinese proverbs says 创业难，守业更难, starting business is never easy, maintaining a business is even harder. However, if you start with limited risk running business within your domain of expert and interest, it would be much easier than thought. Some of the tips are as below.

1. Service, Solutions, Product
Many of us just don't like working for people. I have friends making Rm20K and above a month with average 3 months of bonus every year who quit their jobs. You can be making RM5K, 10K, 20K, and yet you will still quit for the same reason: I want to be FREE! However, many people quit for the wrong reasons, they just want to be FREE without preparing themselves for financial freedom. Many end up returning to employment with even more grouses and depression over their employers and jobs. Generally, I classify businesses into service, solutions and product.
Without much capital, most of the people started out by self-employing as a service provider a.k.a free-lancer. Freelancer will not keep you going far as you might be "hitting-flies" during low-business-cycle. Therefore, freelancing might be something good to start with but one must quickly turn him/herself into a solutions provider or product seller. A lot might ask, what is the difference between service and solutions? Service generally involves exchange of labor or knowledge for goods/money. Solutions on the other hand, involves problem-solving. Solutions can be documented and reapplied to different parties easily. Thus, solutions are valuable and might contain some sort of intellectual properties.
Let me quote you an example. I have a friend who is a web scripting programmer, took up a freelancing job years back to create a server monitoring web-based application. It's a simple job with little wages. However, he managed to turn the scripts into an SMS-based server monitoring solution, which is currently sold to 32 countries worldwide at http://www.hyperspin.com. He managed to quit his day job to run this business full time after slowly building up the business for more than a year.
As for products, you can turn your services into products and engage resellers to sell for you as well. Just burn your software product into a CD/ USB drive and package them into a box. Alternatively, you can use a serial-key controller to control your software distribution through the web and get paid using Pay-Pal.
Yes, service is just a short term solution for business-running and you can't go far with that. You need to try to turn everything you do into a sell-able solution or product.

In the second section, I will talk more about the using Power of Collaboration to build your zero cost business. Watch out for more,:).

To be continued.................