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Archive for the 'Startup' Category

First Vision Meeting and the Road Ahead

Published on 4 August, 2006 in Day to Day and Startup. 2 Comments

We had our first vision meeting yesterday evening. The outcome of the meeting was not clear but from the look of what the guys are working on today, I say they got a sense of where we are heading.

Which is a good thing. The past few months has been very exciting. After numerous stumbles and falls over the past 2 years, things are finally starting to take shape.

Few things happening over the next few months:

  • getting a new office
  • putting in place remote teams
  • ICP permit is in the process
  • starting development of 2 ideas we want to incubate

Sharing Office in Shanghai

Published on 2 August, 2006 in China, Entrepreneur and Startup. 0 Comments

Yet again we are expanding office (again but a good news!). This time we want to be sure we have room for expansion so we are going to get a bigger office.

We found an ideal location however there are more space than we need. So we decide to share the space with another company or even help entrepreneurs.

If you are starting (or planning to start) business in Shanghai and do not want to commit to rental and furniture, this is an option.

We will/can provide

  • an official office address
  • table
  • meeting room
  • computer
  • admin support
  • local knowledge and expertise

Please contact me in private if you are interested.

Bridging the culture gap with local partner

Published on 7 July, 2006 in China, Day to Day and Startup. 0 Comments

Despite being Chinese by race, Singaporean Chinese still have a hard time understanding and adapting to the culture differences of the China Chinese.

An example is the roundabout relationship-authority-money interplay. For someone used to a culture that is direct and systematic, the Chinese way can be a rude shock.

What is this roundabout relationship-authority-money interplay you may ask. It is hard to define, but let’s do an example.

Say you want some permit done so that you could do something. (BTW, if you think Singapore has too may permit, you have not seen anything yet.) So you ask around and maybe surf the Internet for the procedure. So you went ahead to get it done. So far so good.

At the whichever authority that approve your permit, you find that you need to have this information and that information. Maybe you don’t fit certain criteria. The officer points you to other officers and they direct you to even more officers. Hence starts the roundabout.

Eventually you realise that it is getting nowhere and you seek help. Then you discover that who knows who knows someone that have some relationship with the autority. If you are lucky enough, you find this someone and the person get your permit done in a blink of the eyes.

Sure you certainly pay more, in cash or in kind, but aren’t you glad it is done.

If you are doing business in China, expect to deal with that daily. It helps to have plenty fo cash. If you are bootstrapping like me, my advice is to find a good local partner.

In my case, I am very fortunate to have a local partner to help me cushion the differences. He dealt with all these day to day annoyances that could drive one crazy.

As I type this, he just dealt with another. Thank God.

Still playing office politics?

Published on 6 July, 2006 in Quotes and Startup. 0 Comments

Paul Graham, from The Power of the Marginal:

“Rising up through the hierarchy of the average big company demands an attention to politics few thoughtful people could spare… I think that’s one reason big companies are so often blindsided by startups. People at big companies don’t realize the extent to which they live in an environment that is one large, ongoing test for the wrong qualities.”

(via Juice Analytics Be careful what test you are acing)

Do you know what you are doing?

Published on 4 July, 2006 in Entrepreneur and Startup. 0 Comments

If you do. Good for you.

I don’t.

Everytime someone ask me what I’m doing, it is something different. Even wonder why I don’t talk about what I do in detail? Because I do not know when it will change.

Well, the truth is I do know that I have a few major pieces that I’m putting together. At the moment they do not fit together too well.

Someone close to me commented that I’m building a rocket. Nice analogy. I’m figuring out the engineering as I go along. In the end it may not fly.
Going by the textbook, this is a sure formula for failure.

On the other hand, how many people can claim to try build a rocket?

Am I successful?

Published on 20 June, 2006 in Entrepreneur and Startup. 1 Comment

I am reading blog too much. Got to stop, this is the last one.

It is always nice finding fellow entrepreneur talking about their journey. More so when the person is your countryman, one in which you can relate so much of what was written.

Upon reading Am I successful I smiled. All too familiar. Depleted bank account, CPF, housing loan, family. Not to mention the familar vocabuary that is distinctively Singapore.
Am I successful?

Yes mentally. No financially.

My business is shakely at best. Sure business is going on, contracts are paying the bills. What next? I’m still struggling with what the business should do, is doing and will be doing.

But I have past the point of no return, journey on I must.

Focus on recuitment and people

Published on 16 June, 2006 in China, Entrepreneur and Startup. 0 Comments

Browsing through ChinaTechNews’s story on Sam Flemming, this particular comment caught my attention.

For anybody else looking to open a technology-related business in China, what sort of advice would you have for them?
Focus on recruitment and people. There is significant competition for a limited pool of experienced, educated professionals.

Well, Sam hit it squarely on the head. Despite the huge population, the number of talent is extremely limited. Couple that with rapid growth, influx of foreign capital and the people’s insatiable appetite to move up the social strata. What do you get?

A situation where companies are paying more and more and workers move around at next better opportunity.

What can a startup with neither money nor resource do?

Let me tell you. NOTHING.

It’s a constant struggle. The only choice seems to be running fast enough with whatever people you can get hold and then take them to the next level with you.

For more than a year I had been struggling with that. (Read this, this, this and this.)

Selling myself better

Published on 14 June, 2006 in Day to Day, Entrepreneur and Startup. 0 Comments

Another dinner, another thing to talk about.

Last night, a Malaysian friend invited me for dinner. He said he had another friend with him whom he like to introduce. We had steamboat (again!).

At the door he told me that this person might be a potential investor.

I was unprepared.

About a week before, I just spoke to him about an idea. Didn’t did I expect that he would bring an investor so soon. I wasn’t myself during the dinner and it was uneasy. It might have been better if he had not revealed to me at the door.

Long story short, after the dinner, he gave me a little debrief. He told me that 3 times he tried to create opportunity for me to present my idea but I did not even realise.

Man, I was caught totally unprepared and I really need to sell myself better.

Focus

Published on 29 November, 2005 in Entrepreneur and Startup. 0 Comments

Focus - an important trait of entrepreneur that I badly need to improve. 

As of now, I am spliting my time into far too many things and more ideas are cropping up each day. Need to stop, reorganise and focus on, perhaps not one but definitely not too many things at a time.

For past number of months now I had stopped building a single business but going for multiple activities that I anticipate will provide multiple revenue streams and options. 

Mainly I grouped them under 3 categories - online, sourcing and investing.

Online. Here I am building up a portfolio of sites (of which 3 are started on this site already) as well as related services. Currently revenues are still limited to minuscule ads income and service fees.

One thing about web is that success can be built built upon success and most of the time effort are accumulative over time. So I am expecting this activity to slowly grow. Spend sometime each day and accumulates.

Sourcing. Sourcing, purchasing and providing business services is what I am physically doing with 2 partners here in China.

We had some success in closing a few good deals but supplier quality problems, payment issues and other challenges sapped away our time and effort.

We are still pretty far on this one. Not only my focus but focus of the team had to be aligned. This is the most uncertain but certainly has great potential for development and growth.

Investing. This is my cash cow at the moment. The stock market recovery over the last one year plus had helped financed my bleeding activities. I fear though I am slowly suffocating the proverbial golden goose as I liquidate my investments to fund my other activities. Time is running out.

Also with more time spent on other activities I had lesser time to monitor the market. Most of the money remains in unit trusts (mutual funds) as I liquidate the stock holdings.

Selecting Technology and Business

Published on 7 November, 2005 in China, Development, Entrepreneur and Startup. 0 Comments

Technology changes fast. So fast that before one can decide which
technology to use, a new one is out to replace those in consideration.

At the same time, there are too many competing technologies. One can hardly find time to fully understand one, let alone so many of them.

Add
these all up and sprinkle in ample amount of business activities. You
can be sure a small technology-based business owner has his hands full.

Bill Gates coined Business at the Speed of Thoughts. I wished. One thing is for sure, it is not arriving as soon as Bill thinks.

Today I took a step back and looked at what I had done, after a year of probing in China. Not very comforting. I hasn’t progressed far. In fact, certain things had even came a full circle, bringing me back to the starting point.

It is not to say there isn’t any achievement. I learnt alot, did alot, know alot of people (both good and bad, though more of the latter).

One of the thing I learnt is about selecting technology.

For a small business, selecting technology isn’t so much about what you like. It isn’t even matter so much what you know. I am talk about a small, one man, maybe two, business.

It really is about what technology people know in the market.

Fine, I should have know that. But I was idealistic, stubbornly so.

Take PHP for example. Where are the PHP developers in China? I am sure there are. Some of the wildly popular applications are coded in PHP. Some major websites are in PHP.

I can only speculate,

  1. They are all taken away by those companies or some MNCs
  2. No one cares about PHP, just use ASP whose software and books are widely available.
  3. Everyone that knows PHP decides to start a business on their own and not work for others.

While I’m still trapped with the lack of PHP developers, I starting to think whether PHP is my bet for the road ahead.

Ruby is looking very bright. Python is rearing its head.

On the development platform front, I’m not sure if developing for the web is the way to go. Sure, web 2.0 is reviving the interesting in using standard based HTML interface. Stealing the limelight from Flash and Actionscript altogether.

Eclipse is casting its shadow over many areas and possibility. Konfabulator makes developing for the desktop fun once again. Cross platform is a major overarching theme.

One year later, I am back to deciding.