Lessons I learned from playing Dota 2

Failure is necessary and painful

Everyone would like to be the undefeatable champion, and champion are not born but trained. Can I be a champion without losing or dying (in the game)? Nope. You could fast forward your newbie period by reading guides, but learning is accelerated through the adrenaline of PVP which end in frustrated death.

The more you fail the more you should rethink

Failure is the mother of success. Does that mean the more I lose/die the better I will become? Yes, only if you give thoughts to why you lose/die, and thinks of ways how to be better. If you just blindly keep dying and playing without refinement, you are just being insane: repeating the same thing and expecting different results.

You don’t learn much if you win occasionally

Sometimes you got lucky (killed a noob a few times), and sometimes your team mate is a champion; you won and found the game to be too easy, and then you lose the next game and start to wonder why. Loosing make you thinks for new strategy, and winning based on luck only helps your ego, and winning constantly validate your strategy.

Keep calm and take over the world

Keep clam, don’t just rush into battle even though you are a tank. Know your position (Attacker or Support), and wait for your comrades. If you are alone, wait or retreat. Not dying is as good as a kill.

It’s a Team Game

“I am damn good, but my comrades suck”. Dota 2 is a team game, and it does not guarantee victory even though you are a champion hero (though it increases the odds). Coordinate attack with your comrades (doesn't mean you can shout and boss people around by massive clicking, and be angry when people ignore you).

You can blame your comrades, but it doesn't help you win.You can choose to party with a champion player, but make sure you learn something from it.

Choose your hero based on your style/character.

Choose your hero wisely based on your playing style or character. If you are aggressive, chose an attacker and melee hero. If sneaky is your nature, choose an invisible assassin. If you like support from a safe distance, choose a ranged hero. There is not best hero, only hero who suits you; you might start with a popular hero, and it takes times to find your real hero.

Leadership is not bossing

Some people expect others MUST follow their orders else these bosses will click their minions to death followed by deteriorating comments. Understand than each player play differently based on their style, hero and skill; respect them and you shall be respected, help them and you shall be helped. Leadership is not demanded, it is earned.

Blaming others only make it worse

If you die, it’s mostly your fault. Even if someone make a mistake (like trapped you to be killed), blaming them doesn't improve teamwork or the odds of winning, just move on and look forward to the next battle. If they can, they will avenge you; if they can’t, they have their reasons and limitations; if they run away, it’s because they know they are going to die (besides, one less death on friendly side contribute to the odds of winning). Angry people have natural tendency to blame others, learn to refrain it.

Be a real Champion Leader

A champion win even though the odds are against him, with noob or disconnected players in the team, when the team is losing yet be able to turn the tide around. A champion does not play the blame game, doesn't boss people, but help and lead others to victory.

I must not Quit

Repeat the above before every game. If you are a real champion, you don’t quit because there are a few noobs in your team, you don’t quit because your team is losing, you don’t quit because you are constantly being killed, you don’t quit because your team mates doesn't listen to you, and you don’t quit because someone says you sucks. You play the game until the end: you die with honour defending your team mates, and you don’t abandon them.

Ignore the Assholes

They are bad people in the real world, and sadly they exist in the game as well. With an asshole in your team, the best you can do is not to let his remark and clicking affect you. You know what your are doing, and you know your capabilities and limits, and you play the game as best as you can.

Let the metrics be your mirror of reality

If you lose more than 75% of the time, you are either a noob or you sucks, admit it (your death is not due to others incompetency, admit it). Rethink your strategy or playing style, and try again. If you win 50% of the time, you are average and doing fine. When you are a real champion, you will know it.

It's not fair

Some people are more talented than others. Is this the right game for you?

It is competitive; it's a game

You could take it seriously, but don't forget to explore, have fun and make friends.

The Forbidden Path

It’s not actually forbidden, just that no one encourage you go there, your seniors and peers don’t go there, you heard of someone gone there and struck gold, and you are drawn there by mysterious forces.

I am not the type who would take the forbidden path. I study and work hard, fairly obedient and follow instructions pretty well, and would probably live a normal life with a normal career. I think the only things which tick me off is that Bill Gates the Techie could be a billionaire, and my brother saying there is no future in employment.

After 7 years of employment in two companies, my normal career kind of ended. I had been freelancing while working and I freelance full-time when I quit my job while I try to develop some product. Some people don't know where to get customers for freelancing projects, and I guess when you are doing it for a while, word will spread with referrals, and you will get repetitive business. I think things are better nowadays with Elance and oDesk, plus various online community and offline meetup; plenty of jobs, it’s a matter if you are interested or not. Though freelancing is pretty common, but I don’t have a friend who is actually a freelancer as well, until much later. I would assume less than 5% of people in IT embark on freelancing? So this path is still less than normal.

I thought I could build a product and sell it for money, but I don’t have the sales and marketing skill, and I didn’t meet someone who could help me. Then I just follow my passion and build something which I found useful, without much market study or business model. I developed a website to list new property launches, and another one to list restaurant reviews. It took about 3 years to generate USD 100 per month (luckily I live in Malaysia), and without knowing or planning for it, I have the most bizarre form of income: Adsense money. I have the hard time explaining how I manage to make money without selling anything or soliciting advertiser myself. Then I realize it’s like those free newspaper, give it for free to increase readership and get money from the advertiser, except I have an advertisement broker which is Google (less money, but no sales and marketing cost). How many of my friends actually make money from online advertisement (including bloggers)? None, except the new found bloggers which I came to know after running the food review site.

I guess there are many forbidden paths where we heard of, and people around us doesn’t seems to do it: freelancer (programmer, designer, photographer, etc.), blogger, people who sell things online, renting out room with airbnb, people who do a start-up, or people who start a conventional business. Sometimes you get people who work from home and people who don’t sell anything, or professional gamer (make a living by playing computer games).

If you kind of doing a startup (or just making a product), there is the thing with funding, market study, business model, validating your idea with customers, etc. What if you are a person who builds a product but you do none of the above? Does that make you a planned failure or irrational optimist? There is a Chinese saying 性格决定命运 (your character decide on your fate), so I am guessing its happening to me. I am not motivated with the business and customer stuff, and I am delusionally building a product which interest me, and hoping others would like it as well. I am pretty sure I am not an entrepreneur, probably just someone having fun building stuff. I accepted the fact I probably wouldn’t become filthy rich, but I shall become someone happy building things which I like. It might be difficult to make tons of money, but it shouldn’t be that hard to make a decent living while doing what we love, in a way which makes us happy most of the time.

Life is of many choices: I can choose to live the life I desire or give in to society norm; I can try to enhance the sales and business skill which doesn’t interest me, or I could seek an alternative model like Google Adsense; I could insist on making lots of money, or live a more meaningful life with less money; even though I am not a successful entrepreneur, there are still options besides employment. There is the normal path, less than normal path or the forbidden path that almost no one could guide or encourage you.

Some say normal equal mediocre. I think normal or mediocre is alright if this is the path you have truly chosen for yourself. I always assumed people have the naturally tendency to make more money, then I realise this is not true. Most people might choose the path with the least hardship and uncertainty, and some indeed feels more money isn’t really more attractive.

The forbidden path is mysterious, but not everyone wanted an adventure, as it’s filled with great uncertainty, with the promise of great reward or nothing at all, depending on how you look at it.

Every time when you want to claim that you have no time or no choice or no money, pause for a moment and think again, think about alternative choices.

If the logical mind doesn’t favour the forbidden path, where does the logical mind leads to?

Have a look at some of my projects: Malaysia Most Wanted, hackerio (new) and travelopy (work in progress).

Why the Government doesn't listen to me?

Plenty of times Government did do some funny things

• Spying on the entire nation in the name of national security, irregardless how vulnerable the citizens feel about it
• Treat people like terrorist suspect with no dignity when going on board a plain
• When someone reveals dirty secrets about the government, that person is deemed to commit treason against the country (or the government?)
• Censor the Internet and limit freedom of speech, where you are not allowed to talk bad the government
• When the people try to voice up, the government threatens to put these people in jail through charges like disrupting the peace, treason, racial sensitivity, etc.
• When the people try to question the government, the government put up reasons like “this could not be questioned”.

It seems to me that the Government feels insecure, thus act defensive when feels threaten by the people, they very people they are entrusted to protect and take care of. Perhaps I am naïve and didn’t understand the concept of the Government. I thought the Government is a custodian to represent the people, and to act in the best interest of the people. Somehow I felt most government’s priority is to stay in power. What is possibly going wrong here?

Maybe Thomas Jefferson and I are wrong

“The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.” ― Thomas Jefferson

“When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." ― Thomas Jefferson

Perhaps Thomas Jefferson and I are wrong about the purpose of the government, or maybe Tyranny is still a form of government though not favored by the people. I am not sure what kind of vow the elected representative of the country takes when they take the office, but I sure hope someone has the power to make them accountable.

Why I feel the government is not doing very well "to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness"? Is this the primary objective?

Maybe I am not “the People”

Maybe I am not the intended People of the country, supposing I am the minority and everyone else thinks that the government is doing a great job. Many people could voice their discontent on the Internet, but many more didn't voice up, and even more didn't use the Internet.

When the Government proposed a law which I think is stupid or dangerous or both, how could I as the people stop it? We could do a petition or protest, but we could hardly gather the active support of 5% of the population; the government could claim that they have consulted all stakeholders and the majority support it. In fact, it was our elected representatives who pass the law. The government didn't see any unhappy people, did you?

It’s very hard to prove the Voice of the People, where it’s only actively polled once every 3-5 years during the election. Usually the ruling party shall be the upper hand in government election (access to media and resources, using government machinery for party, last minute favorable policy for the people, electoral divisions, etc.), where the results could easily skewed 10-20%. In another words, it would take 60-70% of favorable votes for the opposition to win.

Do we have a mechanism to effectively reflect the voice of the people for each intervals and events? How do we prove a policy or law is indeed stupid and dangerous in the eye of the people?

Maybe the people are too stupid?

Some people believe that people are too stupid to take care of themselves, what’s more about knowing what’s good for the country. If the people don’t know, who knows better?

Would you agree if the government give you free money even though it would bankrupt the government in the long run?

I have poor financial management skill, thus I hire a financial manager. One day the financial manager I hire thinks that I am too stupid and decided to steal my money. The people don’t know how to run a country, so we elect a government.

If the people could be stupid, the government could be a cunning smart ass, and I am betting the latter is more dangerous.

Why someone want to be the Top Public Servant?

I am in the committee as caretaker of my apartment building, where I don’t get paid, facing complaints, and with plenty of work to do. Why did I take up the role? Because the apartment operation and finance is on the verge of collapsing and there is no one else to pick up the shit. I always wonder what’s the reason other people are taking this role?

Why would you want to take up the top post of the Public Servant, where you have to serve millions of people who are literally your boss, and didn't get paid quite well given your responsibility? Why you didn't become the CEO of corporations where there are thousands of minions under you, and it’s not uncommon to be paid millions of dollars in remuneration?

People say you could get power and money by being the top public servant …

Why teacher get paid so little when they about responsible of educating our future leaders? Why our top public servants get paid lesser than CEOs while being entrusted with more power and money?

Why not we make it a policy that top public servants are paid as well as the CEOs (at least a few million per years, depending on the country’s performance), but are not allowed to be super rich (somehow manage to amass 10 extra million per  year from “business” during the tenure). If your business is prospering rapidly, I am sure you don’t have the time to run the country. If you immediate family fortune grows exponentially during your tenure, I am sure you would like to retire and spend the money with your family.

Do you know the fortune of the top public servants? Is it reasonable given their salary?

Public Servant should be paid well given their responsibility, but it’s unreasonable for them to get mad rich due to their position.

The People always complaint

A Korean friends told me the people always complaint about their government (including Korea), and the Singaporean taxi drivers complaint about their government as well.

Perhaps it's human nature to never be satisfied. Nevertheless, there is still so much room for improvement to build a better country, and I am afraid some of the current trend and policy is leading to a downhill path.

Please enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness.

Afterthought after a travel

Travel is a love and hate affair for me. Love the freedom, escape and experience of new things; and hate the planning, booking, waking up early, race against time, return to “reality” at the end and the time consuming task of “documenting” the diary and photographs.

When I am on a travel, suddenly there is no more email to check every morning, no more phone request to do this and that, and lesser of daily routines and responsibilities, which is superb. It’s like I am reborn, and no one knows me, thus there is no baggage of life, only new things to explore. There is a tendency to be more observant and adventurous while traveling, where we like to observe people and their culture, and go to places where the local don’t even bother to visit, and find fun in every little stupid thing. The most amazing thing about travelling is the afterthought, how it changes our mind and priorities in mind. I suddenly realize what is important and what’s not, what could be live without, and what could be potentially a better way of life, or perhaps what I really desire as my way of life. Travel memory (and photograph) is great, but the effect of the experience and afterthoughts are amazing.

With the abundance of tool like TripAdvisor, Google Maps and some guide books, it’s still not an easy task to find and explore the places which interest us. Florence or the hill town of Siena? Is there something closer to nature with hiking options? Seems like an easy question which is awfully hard to get the answer without hours or days of Googling and reading. If I enjoy museums and churches, then it would be much easier in Europe. Then there are the logistic stuff, like in what sequence should I visit this places, how to get there (train, bus or fly? Which departures with less transits?), which are not too hard to find out (especially for Europe), but still take some time to do research and book the right tickets. Booking of accommodations is quite a pleasant affair in Europe, thanks to Booking.com and HostelWorld.com (sadly Airbnb didn't work that well for us). Moving around is great with Google Offline Maps, sadly Search and Directions didn’t work offline.

There is an uneasy feeling when nearing the end of the trip, where I have to leave the wonderland and return to reality. I do get tired and could enjoy a good rest back at home, but it’s the uneasy feeling like I have back in the schooldays on Sunday, where Monday is so close. When I am working, Sunday and Monday seems like a normal day (though Friday and Saturday is still great), which probably means I love what I am working on. Life could not be perfect in the sense of doing only the things we love (or it could be?), so there shall be customer supports, some freelance requests which I turn down mostly but still accept some (there is money, but not that much satisfaction), and some stupid things we just get involves without gaining any satisfaction out of it. When holiday is over, there is no more time to blog about the travel or organize those photographs, and working is piling up, which is not a good feeling.

The feeling I dislike most is the distinction of wonderland and reality, and why reality is such a drag and why can’t we turn reality into wonderland? Travel is a temporary escape and disconnection from the stressful life, so it’s not a solution to a happier life. I would like to figure out a way which brings life into travelling, where there isn't quite a need to go on holiday, as life itself is a travelling experience. The idea of hacking on an Island seems to be intriguing in a certain sense, but not as an escape, but a new way of life, where work, life and travel come together in happily ever after. That’s why I love programming, it’s one of the best jobs in the sense I can do it from anyway around the world (besides the ability to build and create).

Next plan: turn travel into life, or the other way around.

Surviving a less than perfect life 苦中作乐

Though I know it is almost impossible to achieve perfectness (except in Street Fighter), it doesn’t means I didn’t try to make life perfect, or at least aiming to achieve something much better than the current state. I try to get better grades in school (did I?), change job in search of the better career, turn my life upside-down in realizing my dream, learning to live a meaningful life without regrets, etc.

What happens when things didn’t get better, but getting worse? What if we stumbled upon some problems, which couldn’t be solved immediately, but might take years or the problem could never go away all together? This reminds me of Beautiful Mind: where John Nash couldn’t get rid of his imaginary friends, but realize the fact that his imaginary friends are not real.

As much as we desire only happiness in life, we also have to accept life does comes with certain dosage of uncertainty and challenges which crop up from times to times. Sometimes it just took some planning and effort to solve these challenges, and sometimes we get some stubborn challenges with no obvious solution in sight. Even though we manage to clear the level this time, something bigger and more badass might appear the next time around.

How do we live with this “problematic” life? Perhaps I find wisdom in a Chinese proverb 苦中作乐, which means finding happiness within hardship. In a certain sense, we can’t prevent shit from happening, but we certainly can control how we react towards it. And most of the time, despite the shit that is happening, it’s a probably just a small part of our life that we over magnify it. I believe another problem is that we don’t like the fact the shit stick on us, it makes us feel uneasy and want to get rid of it immediately, but we can’t, at least not so fast, and that leads to further frustration. In a certain sense, I believe we have make peace with shit and have a ceasefire treaty, until the time is right to finish it off, or maybe not.

Living an imperfect life, might be the journey required to lead a perfect life. Without frustration, happiness shall have a lesser value.

你有遗忘吗？

虽然我的文笔不是很好，但中文对我而言，还是最能让人抒发情感的语文，只是太多理智的英文让我遗忘了中文。最近看了一部电影“遗忘”，是林心如工作室的微电影；它的“遗忘”有双重意义，一是失忆，也是忘了生活。电影拍得不错，但更重要的是，让我有所启发。

我们大多数时间，都在忙这个，忙那个；然而，我们为生活而操劳，那我们有真正过生活吗？我们所忙的，都是我们想要的吗？都是值得的吗？电影中的女主角攀上了事业的高峰，失忆后，很自然的觉得事业一点也不可贵，一点也不恋倦；最开心的事，都是一些平凡琐碎的事，谈谈心事，煮煮菜，一起看看书。要在竞争激烈的社会当中成为胜利者，要付出的代价，要改变的自己，这一切都值得吗？

如果不拼事业，那该拼的又是什么。人生本来就有很多梦想，挣钱肯定不是其中一个。有人想当画家，小说家或漫画家，环游世界，喜欢音乐或舞蹈，回乡耕种或搞民宿。或没有追求什么梦想，只是多陪陪身边的人，多看自己喜欢的书，听音乐或看电影，多与朋友家人相聚，谈谈心事。到底哪些是重要的事，那些是无聊的事，那可要真正醒悟的你，摸摸心底才知道。

所谓物极必反，凡是太多也不是一件好事：工作太多，或休息太多。我们总有个想法，就是趁年轻时或还没成立家庭就要拼；我也很难去评论这是对或错。人生吗，就是要懂得何时去拼，何时去休息，何时去享受。在拼与享受之间，有没有失去不应该失去的，衡量想要得到的东西有没有价值。钱本身是没有价值的，只是废纸和号码；如何运用得来的财富，才能得到人生中的幸福，才是我应该要懂得的。

废话一大篇之后，哪又该怎么样？明天的人生又会走得如何不一样？对我而言，人生是不断的探索，尝试，学习和改变；十年前所定下的生活方针，十年后又可能不一样了，但原先的原则，又好像有部分保持不变。忙要忙得有价值，不时要思考自己忙的是什么，有没有把自己卖了，有没有把最珍贵的东西当了。脚步停下来时，这一切还值得吗？失忆了，这一切是能令你幸福的事吗？人生吗，不就是要过得无悔。

忙归忙，脚步还是要不时慢下来，做自己应该做的事。人生吗，不要把它遗忘就是了。

The Unglamorous Chairman

Unexpected in the month of December 2012, I volunteered myself as the committee member of the Management Corporation (MC) of my apartment while the ex-committee and management company decided to quit due to financial difficulties and disappointment with the residents. In the next 2 days, I was voted as the Chairman because I was late for the meeting 5 minutes. Now, I am the Chairman of the MC of my apartment, on a rescue mission to save the apartment from turning into a cowboy town, with only RM 7,500 in the bank account, RM 40,000 of water debt, 30% cost overrun and residents reluctant to pay maintenance due to the worsen situations.

I landed on an unglamorous job (with a glamorous title) with a whole load of shits to handle.

Why shit happened?

The apartment is having a water leakage problem since 2007 (suspected due to aged water pipes), and our monthly water billed had increased from 2007’s RM 7000 to 2012’s RM 13,000 (at its peak, we are paying RM 17,000 per month). Countless committees and management companies for years had tried to solve this issue, but the water bill fails to go below its RM 13,000/month mark.

Poor man can’t be chooser; as we get poorer due to the water leakage (loosing between RM 6000 to RM 10,000 per month), we still try to maintain the “luxury” life of 3 security guards per shift, a private management company, full-time cleaners and etc. Even though the maintenance fee is raised 50% last year, it just couldn't sustain its current operations. Any logical person would ask why not reduce the services? I believe the answer has very much to do with the psychology of the residents, which I shall explain shortly.

To Rescue or Punish

Like all company with in bad financial situations, it’s time to come up with some serious cost cutting measures and prioritize spending. It’s slightly “easy” for us that the previous management terminated all the services, thus we basically start with zero cost.

In the beginning, some residents suggested that we should “punish” those who didn’t pay the maintenance charges by not restoring the security guards and let SYABAS terminate the water, thus forcing these people to bear the consequences of their actions. I was swayed by this argument for a while, until I realize this is not wise for various reasons (I got persuaded by another Committee member):

• We will end up disappointing 70% of the “good residents” just to punish 30% of the bad apples
• If someone get hurt due to the lack of security, it shall haunt my conscience
• Water termination will cause much inconvenience for the children and old folks
• If we punish everyone (even though some agreed to be punished), there shall be no hope in restoring support and order

Basically, we acted against the will of the vocal residents and restore security guard. Then we went to SYABAS to negotiate an installment plan for the debt, the tabled the solution in the resident meeting, where a majority (sadly only 10% of the residents attended the meeting) voted to pay SYABAS to avoid water termination.

Our plan is to control the expenditures, increase the collection rate, solve the water leakage, restore operations and restore fairness. Luckily we have a cooperative committee, and some helpful residents.

How people think?

After talking and interacting with lots of residents, I realize I learned a lot about human nature in one month than the last 30 years of my life.

• During the week where security is absent, security is not at risk but parking chaos happened. Residents who park used to park their cars outside the apartment compound (they have 2 cars but no second car park) started to park their car in the compound on others’ parking space, or park inconsiderately on the walkway.
• Surprisingly, when only one security guard is restored and stationed at the gate entrance (there is nothing much a one man guard could do), the parking chaos is 90% gone.
• Surprisingly, some residents’ main concern is whether someone sweeps the floor of the compound, not about better security or solving water leakage or financial problem.
• Even in time of crisis, most people couldn't make the painful choice of cost cutting.
• Most residents despise unfairness, wanted the committee to take action against those residents who didn't pay maintenance charges.
• Most residents just wanted an avenue to rant about the problems, but still willing to pay the maintenance charges and be a “good citizen” for the common good. The main tasks of committees are listening to the residents, and assure them things are under control. Talk less, listen more.
• Some of the debtors refuse to pay due to “personal” reasons, such as broken relationship with the committee members, clerical errors and disappointment with the services, lack of communication channels, etc.
• Even at time of crisis, some people still expect optimum services and refuse to participate in resident meetings, and perhaps think that things will magically be restored.
• Most people would start to make their own assumption without approaching the committee for clarifications, which allow false rumors to spread easily. I personally believe communication channel are important, where we put notices on notice board, request for resident’s email to send out weekly updates, have resident meetings, but I believe we hardly reach 60% of the residents effectively.
• The chicken and egg situation: some residents expect “the good old days” and optimum services to return before they are willing to pay the maintenance charges, but the entire operation could collapse if less than 70% of the residents pay the maintenance charges.
• There is always a 10% hardcore people who resist or oppose, and another 10% who are helpful and supportive. Another 40% are "good citizens" who do their part and continue to pay maintenance, while another 40% sitting on the fence with a wait and see attitude. Our job is to convert the last 40%.
• Personal conflicts between people, lack of tolerance for people with different views and harsh tone and languages are the main causes of failure in this conflict. Be polite, be listening, willingness to sacrifice, explain your plans and views, and ask for support and show gratitude. It's somehow like a politician running for election, except that there is no financial or power gain here.

Take for Granted Expectation

There are certain things in life where we take for granted, where we assume as long as we pay our taxes, there shall be policemen, firemen and doctors to take care of us; as long as we pay our bills, there shall be water, electricity, communication and Internet; as long as we pay our apartment maintenance, there shall be services like security, cleaning, maintenance of basic amenities and etc.

What if these things suddenly disappear, and what should we do? Suddenly it’s bestowed upon us to take over the management of the country, or become policemen, or required to take actions to restore water and electricity supply.

Would you rather sit still and hope for the “good old days” to return, or decide to take actions and make it happen? Or would it be possible that someone unconsciously prevented order from being restored?

Why become the unglamorous Chairman?

Logically, it doesn't make sense to become the Chairman of an apartment in dire financial where the supportive level of residents are dwindling. The job doesn't pay, and consume plenty of hours and sleepless night, and the committee would probably be blamed if we fail to turn this around, and we don’t really expect rewards or thanks even if we made it. Why not spend the time and effort with our family, or develop our career and business?

Initially, I refuse to accept that this situation could not be solved, thus I volunteered. Then, I hate the lousy feelings of having to quit and give up. Perhaps in a certain sense, I felt it’s time for me to do good to others (besides my family), to give back to the community so to say. Now I try to convince myself this could serve as a valuable lessons in my life, where I could learn something from it. Deep down, I naively wanted to believe that human are intrinsically good in nature, that there is still hope for humanity so to speak. I believe in kindness and hope. I refuse to believe that residents in my apartment are somehow more inferior than others.

In the time of darkness, hope and trust is the only beacon of light: trust that people are genuinely good, and hope that people would be understanding and do the right thing.

PWNED: WebCamp KL Online Culture

I believe WebCamp KL is the most interesting and engaging tech group in Malaysia, I have no doubt about that (but there is always room for improvement). The community is smart, knowledgeable and helpful; but sometimes I felt something is missing there: humility and respect.

Authority

There are bound to be some influential people in a community (maybe it due to their charm, background or contribution), and they are usually the most vocal one as well. But with great power comes great responsibility, as they could “skew” the direction of the discussion.

Sometimes I am not sure people agreed with them because they are popular or cool (fan mentality, like following TechCrunch), but most of the time their comment garner more support (or likes) than a more insightful one posted by a loner. The discussion always go in favor of the most popular person, not necessary the most insightful one. As someone with such “power”, I hope they are aware that their actions are watched and followed closely by others, and I do hope they would put their power into good use.

IMHO: someone with authority who is at times pessimistic, yet people still cheers on his quality; someone felt the responsibility, thus being cautious in posting.

Pwning the Noob

On the other extreme of the spectrum is the noob, who always get pwned by someone with no humility, the mob, and sometimes the Authority.

“Who want help me build a social network with 5 million users” might sounds like noob request begging to be pwned, but every actions has it consequences. My wife told the about something she heard on the radio show, about a famous music producer refuse to be a judge on those TV singing contest, and he persuaded his fellow colleagues not to do it as well. His reasoning is: basically what the judges do are squashing people’s dream, or giving them false hope, which are cruel things to do. What makes you think you have the power to judge others and predict their fate?

We talk about passion and dream, yet we unconsciously eating people’s dream for lunch. Are we trying to role-play Simon Cowell or Donald Trump here? It might not be a smart or insightful question, but if possible, try to refrain from sarcasm or personal attack which bruises someone’s pride.

Ever wonder why only a handful of people are the most vocal on the community? All the newbies are so afraid to try to say something and get pwned (or already pwned).

Pretending to be pwning the Noob

There are always some fraction wars, like HTML5 vs. Native, PHP vs. Ruby/Python, and NoSql vs. RDBMS, which are legitimate questions with no clear winner, depending very much on who are the fan boy and use case.

I still remember I raised a light comment of HTML5 for games, then some people jump to the gun saying they HATE people like me for following the hype, claiming HTML5 is not for games. I can accept his argument, where traditional PC and Console games does require higher hardware capability (then again, I saw some FPS build on HTML5), and I agree developing game on HTML5 is pretty darn challenging; but think about casual games, and HTML5 provide no-install and play instantly (which are critical to higher play rate).

The dude saw an opportunity for pwning, and go straight for it. If someone of authority made the same statement, I doubt the dude will do the same. People are so eager to prove that they are right and more superior, that they are willing accuse someone else of being lesser in order to push their values and views into others, and claim victory (PWNED!).

Humility and Respect

I hope we can agree that most successful people are humble people (e.g. Robert Kwok), as they would not dare to say that they are right and others are wrong, and they usually brush off their success to some luck factor. I have no doubt Donald Trump is a smart and successful businessman, but do we want to learn from him as role model? Why not Warren Buffet?

I have no doubt a lot of people in WebCamp KL are smart, knowledgeable and probably successful; I do hope there is more humility and respect shown in the group. A humble person doesn’t point their finger at someone, and say that someone is wrong, underprivileged or deserved your pity. You can voice your different view in a general manner, but personal attack is not cool.

Most people would agreed they could respect someone with different political or technological views, but most of the times their actions speak otherwise.

Guidelines for commenting

Before you post your opinion, ask the following:

• Are you being humble and respecting others’ view? (You are SO WRONG and you know shit!)
• Are you noob pwning or pretending to be noob pwning? (DIE, you stupid minions)
• Are you giving your personal views without hurting other people in the process, directly or indirectly? (I despise those people who believe in HTML5 hype)
• When you click like, it is because it’s insightful or something you agree or you are just supporting your friend and authority? (try to show support for good stuff, not just the popular stuff)

Maybe it’s my fault 

Then again, I feel like I am the only one noticing the problem, so there are chances that there is nothing wrong with WebCamp KL Facebook Group, the problem is just me: am I too sensitive?

Maybe it because I am not the “Authority” voice (no charm and reputation), yet I like to be vocal at times (I have spent enough quiet days at school, it’s time to speak up). So I have been in the receiving end of what I would like to call “pretentious noob pwning” (I am a noob? NO!!! Haha). Sometimes I pity a newbie got noob-nuked by someone with no respect for others, and the worst case when the mob join in the fray; and the only thing I could do to salvage them is finding something likeable in their comment (hopefully there is one), and click like.

Sometimes, I do feel like refraining from posting anything anymore. The “cyber-bullying” phenomenon is not that serious yet, but I do hope it’s not going to get worse. If WebCamp KL is to be an elite club (natural progression), let it be the elite club with humility and respect, not ego and pwning (head hunter culture) as its core culture.

Use your judgement and power of likes wisely to upkeep the balance, and refrain from personal attack (directly or indirectly, intentional or unintentional).

Passion in Startup, how important is it?

I believe most people preach about the need of passion in startup, but I believe most investors don’t care shit about your passion. I believe most entrepreneurs started something because they see the potential, or because they have the advantage, or just by chance; no matter how inspiring the story of someone who turn their passion and hobby into a successful billion dollar company, but how many of us actually started with a passion. Or can you be passionate about money?

Should you be passionate about your business idea? A startup isn’t just about the idea (or the things the startup is supposed to do), but also about developing the business, growth, hacking and perhaps, make money? How many aspect of doing a startup is the founder supposed be passionate about?

As a programmer for a long time, obviously I am passionate about hacking (a more glamorous term for programming). I wanted to be a programmer for life, and I still do, and that’s the main reason I quit my job (so that I don’t have to turn into a manager for the sake of career advancement). I do the occasional cursing, but the power of creation is just too awesome to let go. I might not be the best, but it doesn’t matter, as long as I can create stuffs which I am interested in. Since I can do it well, and love it, so I should do it more often (freelancing and startup seems to fit the profile).

Am I supposed to be passionate about the business idea? One of my early ideas is about Document Management System (the idea is born out of convenience because I used to work for a company which make such product); it might seems like a nice product to build and use, and the market is there, but I didn’t develop it. Then I thought it would be cool to build something to keep track of property prices, since none is available in the market; I did develop it to a certain extent, but didn’t follow through the end. It is not something I am passionate about (property market), just that I happens to be looking for some property during that time. Then I wanted to develop an application to keep track of grocery prices (because I started doing grocery shopping more frequently after marriage), and an application to keep track of events (hoping to find some cool events, but there are only exhibitions and party which I no longer interested in). All the ideas and ventures probably born out of convenience, or to serve my own needs; so far none of them “succeed”, but one survived. I understand that a interesting idea or monetary reward is not enough to make it happen.

I develop a Restaurant Review app, and it did take off in Malaysia. I develop it to scratch my own itch as well, to find good restaurants to bring my girlfriend to. Many thoughts I am good at “Cari Makan” (finding good food), but it’s the exact opposite; it’s because I don’t know where the good food are, that’s why I need an app to help me with it. I always ask myself, why this idea takes off? Perhaps I have some ideas to solve the chicken and egg problems (I apply the same strategy to subsequent apps, but it didn’t quite work), perhaps I am in the right market (restaurant review vs. property/grocery prices) or perhaps I started at the right time (the competitors are fairly weak during that time). Do I have passion for restaurant/food review? I am not quite sure, but I like trying out new places at times, and sometimes I do really need a helping hand to find suitable places (solving my problems). I am not a food critic (contributors), but I would like to find out interesting food places (consumers). Perhaps one of the important elements is that I eat my own dog food: I use the app, and still found it more useful than other apps.

Whenever good ideas crop up in my mind or some friends suggested we work on something together, I always asked would I be passionate about the idea and interested to use the end product; profitability and market size is my last consideration; and a good strategy to penetrate the market is essential (hope for the best doesn’t count).

How do we know that we are passionate about something (in startup context)?

• Knowing your startup doesn’t make enough money, you will still push on.
• You will do things to create a better product, a better user experience, a better solution.
• You try to forget about it or put it aside, but it will still come back to haunt you.
• You will use the product you created, and feel that it’s the best product.
• You believe that you could and will do it for life.
• Whatever makes you doesn’t hate Monday, and probably motivate you to work 7 days per week.

I understand that sometimes we do things for survival out of necessity, and I understand and respect that; but bear in mind that this is just an interim phase, the heart’s desire will outdo the mind’s logic eventually. Sometimes I tried to work on elements which focus on logicality without interest, but I just can’t seems to pull it through: the mind can’t do what the heart doesn’t believe in. Passion could be overrated (it is supposed to be good for you, but not many actually believe it), but I am a true believer. Without passion as the foundation, eventually things will not hold up and fall into pieces. It is not that things will definitely work out with passion, but it probably wouldn't last without it. The mind and heart need to go in sync to achieve happiness, and work is not an isolated part of life which we constantly sacrifice on.

To truly gain freedom in life, we need to find passion and go for the dream :)

An Awkward Entrepreneur

I believe I am not a true entrepreneur, because monetary reward is not my primary motivation, interest or objective. Traditionally, we think that entrepreneurship is the process of creating a business which makes money, right? Before I make a fool of myself, perhaps it would be wise to understand what entrepreneurship really is.

What is an entrepreneur?
Someone who take risk to start a business. What is a business? A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. What about profit? Isn’t the sole purpose of business is to make a profit? I like the following explanation

“In my job as a university professor, the question sometimes arises in class discussions about the purpose of business. One usual answer is "to make money", but I don't think that is right. It is unsatisfying to be in business and have as your only reason that of making money. There is a saying that "you need health to live, but you don't live to be healthy". Profits are like that for business. A company needs profits to continue, but profits are not what the business is for. “ – Richard Field

According to Steve Blank, a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for repeatable and scalable business model. What is a business model? A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value (economic, social, or other forms of value). Interesting, so it’s about creating value, where money is just one of the value.

My Definition
IMHO, a business needs to be profitable eventually (might not be initially, depending on your financial runway and patience) to be sustainable, which I totally agree. After sustainability, should we try to derive more profit? I believe a little bit of extra cash would enable more freedom and levies to explore other opportunities or to experiments with new ideas, which is good. After good profitability, should we aim for great profitability? My answer is no, because profit and money is just a meaningless number game.

It kind of feels like the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, where we need money to satisfy some basic needs such as food, house, transportation, health and etc. Once those basic needs are met, using money to buy a sport car or diamond ring isn’t much more satisfying than spending good time with friends and family; the satisfaction difference between a private yacht trip and a backyard BBQ isn’t by a big enough magnitude.

Since super profitability is not my game, thus it wouldn’t make sense to pitch my business idea to potential investors, as these people are looking for profit, like a 10x to 100x ROI kind of thing. Every time I wrote a business proposal or do a pitching, I felt kind of absurd to pluck numbers from the sky and doing some projections where we shall make millions of dollars 3 years down the road; or to come up with some business model where I am not interested about. In my mind, we are lucky if we didn’t go bankrupt and achieve sustainability or basic profitability. Then again I got ridiculed when I told people the business will make one or two hundred thousand per year; I realized not that long ago that this is called a lifestyle business. Now I know that I like the idea of a lifestyle business (making enough, not necessary more). Ever since then, I feel that there is no point in attending any pitching sessions; in fact, I don’t think I would dare to take money from investors for 2 reasons: I am not motivated to give him a high ROI, and perhaps the extra adult supervision to make sure I focus on profitability go against what I am really interested to do.

Little Money Required
Don’t we need money when we start a business? Yes, but not much is required. Basically the startup cost of a software/Internet company could be pretty low (I'm not doing research or production intensive stuff), and the major financial burden is to be able to sustain my lifestyle for one year or more. I have savings, and my monthly expenses is really low: I own a property which cost less than RM100K on loan, didn’t own a car (share with my wife and dad), have no kids or parents to support, and my monthly expenses is probably around RM 2K per month. Theoretically, I just need RM 24K to survive the whole year; in worst case scenario, I could take up a few freelance jobs to ease the burden.

Play on Strength and Limitation
I don’t do a startup which cost RM 1 million to build and to compete, or need to depend on sales and marketing skill which I don’t have to succeed. I didn’t build a product (e.g.  accounting software), because you need sales people to push the sales (the SAAS thingy might ease the pain slightly, but great sales and marketing effort is still required). I didn’t do a Groupon clone in regardless the insane number of monthly revenue posted, because I know it’s a sales and marketing game which I am not good at. I need something which my software development skill could give me a competitive edge, and a mechanism which could generate profit without the need to do too much sales. Thank to Adsense (income without sales), I opt for a publisher model; since I can't churn out an article everyday like a super blogger, I did a crowd-sourced review site.

Passion + Eat my own dog food
I always believe I need to do something which I am passionate about (or at least have some interest), and I need to create something which I would be using (eat my own dog food). Someone says I should build a recipe portal because it’s wildly popular and profitable, but it’s something I have neither interest nor understanding of why people are obsessed with recipe. In fact, some gossip blogs reap more page views and profit that what I did; it’s just not my cup of tea. I used to develop lots of software products for customers which I would never end up using; the process is unsatisfactory, and the result is mediocre.

I enjoy exploring new food, but not talented enough to do it on my own; so perhaps an app could help me with that.

How do I choose on which idea to work on? 
It needs to solve a problem, usually my problem (if I am the user, then I could understand the pain well). I need to have a strategy on how to tackle the problem, besides believing that I could do it better than others. Sometime when we look at a lousy product, we think we could create something better by adding a few cool features or design a better user interface. For example, Jobstreet might not a very good website, and we could probably come up with a dozen checklists to create a better product. The real question is: how do we shake the market dominance of Jobstreet? Or how do we solve the chicken and egg issues (no advertisers/job, not users; and vice versa). Tips: truly believe that there is a smart solution to the "chicken and egg" problem (I was inspired by an article about how MS-DOS beat PC-DOS by using the emulator strategy, can't find the original article).

I have problem searching for good restaurants when go out on dating; some restaurant directory websites are not working very well, and I figured a way to source/organize the required database.

Dream too small?
I think most people are encourage to dream big and change the world, so a lifestyle business isn't really interesting for them. Once I try to get a co-founder to develop a local restaurant reviews site (already good tractions) with me, but my "vision" is too small for him. He wanted to be like Instagram, be a global player with millions of users. The same thing apply to investors, they wanted something scalable and global.

Once I share the idea of a lifestyle business to a friend, and he claims that I am sort of anti-capitalism, didn't dream big enough and not confident. The strange thing is, I felt the exact opposite of his remarks.

Practical I may be, but I don't think my dreams are by any means small. I don't believe size are measured by the millions of profit (it's a nice bonus, but not the primary motivation). How big is Wikipedia? Is Instagram big before bought by Facebook, or suddenly it became huge?

I start small and local due to financial and manpower limitations, and by choice (or lack of choice) for not pursuing the funded path. I would be glad to take a bigger leap if there are more resources at my disposals; perhaps my current startup shall provide the basic financial foundations for my future startups. One of the funny thing I like about Southeast Asia is the lack funding and successful exits; meaning less chances of bootstrap startup like me being stampede by well funded businesses, and less people doing startups means the window of opportunity for me is wider. But I sense things are going to change rapidly in the coming years, so it's time to step up the game.

Conclusion
I admit that profitability is not my primary priority, where I am more interested in solving a problem and getting user validation through tractions (I am happy when people actually find the app useful). I believe in creating value, and economic value isn’t the only one. I can’t get myself to build a business for the sole purpose of making money; it needs to be something which interest me, meaningful and serve a purpose (solve a problem). I am not anti-capitalism, neither do I worship capitalism.

I believe I am a techie/hacker who accidentally became an entrepreneur (it wasn't possible until Bill Gates, Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg came along and show us what's possible); sometimes I still put technical awesomeness before business priorities. There are things I’m willing to explore and learn (growth hacking, marketing, etc.); but there are things where I prefer to leave it to someone else who could do a better job than I am, if there is such a person for me to depend on (e.g. Sales).

An awkward entrepreneur I may be, but at least I understand who am I, what I'm doing and what I wanted to do. Whether my way of life is acceptable to others or fit general wisdom is not really my primary concern, unless I am taking money from others.

Free Willie: The Complicated Quest for Freedom

You know how movie nowadays starts with the opening of a poor guy working his ass off in a corporate world (in dull color), getting his ass kicked, asked to conform and yet not getting the recognition he so much desired. Living in a cold city, with not much of the money he tried so hard to earn, losing out in life, time, health, family and yet still couldn't game the system. He lives in a rat race with no future and no way of getting out, until one day, something happens …

Morpheus to Neo: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

In a certain way, all of us employed is the poor bastard in the movie,  may we be an executive or a manager; either you work in a cubicle, or run around getting rejected day in and day out. We sell our time and some part of our soul for money: our salary. The company make no promise to take care of us, or do they care to understand us; they make the commitment to shareholder to make more money, and that’s all there is. Why anyone in their saint mind would want to be employed forever and ever. I understand there is the need to put food on the table, and perhaps to join a company to learn a thing or two; but what happened after that? How do we come up with the conclusion to do this for life, and what do we expect out of it?

I been through the corporate life, and understand how it is both delusional and comforting at the same time. We just need to clock in day in and day out, handle some shitty work (sounds like challenge at times), complaint and gossip a little, believe that promotion is a good thing coming and retrenchment is something not going to happened to us. Even if it’s true that no really bad shit happened to us, what do we really get out of it? It feels like a safe and comforting path, but then again it boils down to the questions that how to we want to live our life, and it this the right way for me? Something is missing, and it doesn't feels right, but I don't know what else to do, and it becomes obvious once I snap out of it. What was once my only way of making a living, become something worthless and a waste of time.

I believe some of us live in the present moment, where we take our job easy, and understand really well that there is a life beyond the job, and the job provides for that life. I am happy for those who can life in the present moment, which is what I was not that long ago. Some people live in the past, which is something I couldn’t comprehend or explain, as I have no experience. I at this moment live in the future; I plan the patch for the future, work for the future, and perhaps sacrifice for the future. Whenever I do something, the questions which always play in my mind are: is this good for my future? How long can I continue to do this? Does it satisfy my ultimate desire, freedom!

My thinking is kinda ironic, it’s like saying we need a war to end a war; I sacrifice freedom to gain freedom. Human is a complicated being, we wanted something so much, that we are afraid to get it immediately. I know the city is a cold place (though convenient), and I desire to live in the country side, but I can never quite get myself to pack my bags and go. I manage to satisfy that desire with a 1 month holiday, but I still can’t cross the line or 3 months, and maybe 1 year, or perhaps forever. Why is that so? Besides my dad will frown upon me if he knows I am enjoying myself with no work for a few months (which I know it’s just an excuse for myself), what’s really stopping me? I suspect it’s security, and the need for money to feel secured; sooner or later the money will run dry, or we would require more money in certain cases, that we would need to break our holiday dream and get our sorry ass back into reality and start earning money again. Why can’t my country side lifestyle be just another way of life (an alternate reality to the city life), where I work as a farmer I supposed? I guess all those movies show that farmer always get into financial difficulties one way or another, haha.

So, life is complicated again. I know what is shit to me, so I don’t do shit. I desire freedom, and believe freedom requires money, so I can sacrifice for money. But I don’t really work for money for the sake of money (else, I would be doing shit), so I choose my passion and live a dream. There is some necessary evil, which are not really evil because sometimes we are just too comfortable before our time comes. Until then, let’s work our ass off in something we really believe in; something which shall lead us to happiness in the end.

How to Kick-ass in VC/Grant Pitching (Malaysia)

They are on the lookout for the Innovation / Disruption / Breakthrough. 
There are a few problems. New Innovation are very risky, and most people don’t understand it. Can you actually see Innovation or did you see a Clone? Google in the Early days, you see it as new Innovation, or just another young kids trying to challenge Yahoo (and they probably would fail). VisiCalc is new innovation, but what about Lotus Notes and Excel? Can you foresee Facebook overtook Friendster and MySpace? Can you identify them before it happens? iPhone is Innovation, but what about iPad? What do you think of Android and iOS? iOS wins because of better usability/interface/experience? What if I tell you that we are going to build a better TripAdvisor, because we will create a better user interface and great user experience? How are you going to quantity and evaluate that? If you recognize an innovation, are you ready to take the risk? The idea sounds good, but the evaluation method is just not reliable.

How much track records is enough?
Do they investor really focus on the idea, or the team? Big time VC always say it’s all about the team, but I get more questions about the Idea than the team. Maybe they doubt my team, but you don’t get a chance to defend it and they never openly question your capability (they’ll conclude that you can’t, and that’s it).

I had seen a CEO fascinated with someone graduate from Oxford, so I guess if you graduated from Harvard or MIT, it helps. I guess it helps if you worked in Microsoft, Google, Facebook before (agreed by AngelList). And perhaps it you are a Celebrity (or a pretty Girl), it helps as well. If you have the connections which helps the business, that's valuable as well (if you try to sell online musics, and you have connections with the music labels).

If you are a serial entrepreneur, it helps (but some agreed that people who had make the big bucks before, aren’t pushing as hard as they used to, but investor still think it’s a safe bet). If you are a first timer or done some small projects before, then you are screwed.

Since I don’t have any of the above, I try to leverage on my best project: Malaysia Most Wanted Food & Restaurants. My pitch is that it’s the best online Food & Restaurant Guide in Malaysia (proven by Alexa), that it had 300,000 monthly visitors. Somehow this track record doesn’t really work its magic. Maybe I need the number to be 1 million (then I won’t be here begging for RM 100K), or people just never really use or heard about it before (thus they don’t really believe me, but they don’t question me publicly as well). Perhaps I sound too arrogant? My thought is, if I repeat this statement enough times, people will actually pay attentions and start to believe.

Knowing their prejudice or preferences?
I guess everyone have their own preference and prejudices: some like apple, and other like orange. If you try to sell an apple to someone who likes orange, you are going to have a tough time; if you sell it to the right person, then the magic just happens.

While I was proposing my Travel idea, there is all kind of oppositions (perhaps people like to take a travel package instead of planning their own travel?). Then one of the panel browse through our sites and found Malaysia Price Checker, and he was amazed by our database; his words, “There are many people proposing a price checker, and none of them have the database; and here you have it.” Then I mentioned maybe there are limited potential with price checker, and they actually defended the idea and say, “You never know.”

This brings me to human psychology: people always like their own idea better than others. I like my own ideas better than the panel, so it’s hard to get them to like my idea. If I can turn my idea to become their idea as well, then miracle will happen. I am no longer selling my idea, but they will automatically buying their own idea.

Tips: turn your idea into the investors’ idea. It’s not the same as changing the idea (from Travel to Price Checker), but get them to believe that Travel is their idea as well. I know this could be tricky, but it’s extremely priceless as well.

It’s facts and words, or emotion and personality?
As a technical person, I tend to focus on facts rather than emotions. I believe in reasoning, thus my slides are populated with facts, features and numbers. I found that though I may speak a lot, but very little of those actually goes into the head of the Investors. I show a slide about our unique selling points, but people still ask me again. Someone asked why I don’t have XXX, and I just show a full slide talking about XXX.

Something is not working here. Either my presentation skill sucks or I speak too fast, or I talk about too many things which loses focus. Last time I jumped straight to be point, thus some people don’t understand what it is basically about; now I add in more basic information to cover the grounds, then people got bored and lose focus on the in depth stuff.

Again, I think emotion and personality play a very important role. Most of the time I am quite nervous, so I am not sure I portray what kind of personality or emotion (Confident? Rookie? Defensive?).

A guy wanted funding to setup a photo studio, and he bring along all these beautiful child photos for display. Though the judges criticize his business plan sucks, but they are still willing to give him a chance (I do feel the photos do stir up great emotions). Perhaps they judges don’t know much about photography, thus can’t comment much, haha? (Tip: if they judges don’t understand about your industry, you might have an advantage). And he got a pleasant and humble personality, and perhaps I am too “arrogant” and “defensive” thus not so likeable?

Then again, do we want mister goody two-shoes as entrepreneur?

Attack is the best Defense?
Most of the time, we are playing defensive as the investors throw questions at us and challenge us. I try to dissolve that with reasoning and arguments; which might work or might not (you might have the right reasoning, but some people just don't buy it; but neither do they voice it further). My feeling is we are always at the disadvantage here.

Perhaps we should break an attack with a counter-attack. If people say your site sucks, so what are the better sites? If they say your number is low, so you mean you actually have a higher number than us? Be careful playing with fire thought, as sometimes people takes these things quite personally. If they are not happy, they ain't gonna invest either. So, how much backbone do we need?

Experience, and more Experience.
Yes, experience is doing presentation and giving pitches do helps. There is always room for improving the slides, and improve your presentation focus. Once you kick the “nervous” element out, perhaps you would be more aware of what is actually happening. Perhaps we can kick the “defensive” element out as well, and be as cool as a cucumber.

Though I usually come out quite dissatisfied from each presentation, but I did learn how investors behave, how to improve the focus of the presentation so that the panel really get it (avoid confusion, avoid lost focus) and maybe some new idea about my product. And perhaps how to handle the usual questions as well.

Warning: You are getting advice from someone who had never secure any funding before :) Read about our failures and lessons.

Understanding the mentality of Investor in Malaysia (and about fund-seeking entrepreneurs)

I had applied for 4 government grants before, and entered 1 pitching reality TV show, and I am still out of luck with 1 chance still pending. I might not know a whole lot about success, but I do know about failure, haha.

There is this hype about government grants many years back, with the launching of Cradle, Mosti and MDEC funds. I was still employed then, but I guess it’s the best time to write up some business proposal to see if I can get some FREE MONEY to start my first business.

My first idea 6 years ago is Document Management System (DMS), as I was in software business consulting and companies are paying a few hundred thousand for such system. I thought maybe we can create something simpler and better and sell it for less than one hundred thousand, but then there are many such solutions out there (including open source one).Our proposal is accepted, and we went to the 1st meeting, and it kinda end there with no feedbacks whatsoever (it’s common practice for them to keep silence about the reason for rejection).  I guess we don’t have much of a unique selling point, except that we think we can do it better and cheaper than others (and the market is there). I guess we fail because our idea is not unique, and we probably don’t have track records to show as well. Then again, they are approving “funny” projects like Sang Kancil animation, some sales system, etc.; eventually they stop publishing about the projects they funded. Learn about what they don't fund.

My second idea about 5 years ago was Property Prices and Statistics, where the website will show you the current and historical prices, and you can do a comparison. Our business model is selling report (or premium access) for detailed records. I think it’s pretty cool and useful. But the same thing happens, our proposal is accepted, and we went to the 1st meeting and then it stopped. About 1 year later, one of the grant we applied finally get back to us (there have a 1 year backlog, OMG!) and ask us to do a presentation. One of their panel say the people don’t need such services (there is no need to compare property prices), because he doesn’t need it. Then he say RM 20K is too much money for such project, then he tried to slash it down to less than RM 10K (OMG, just pathetic). At the end, we didn’t get an offer as well. Why did I fail? Perhaps we don’t have track records; is it my failure to persuade them there is such a need, or they don’t have the foresight? For me, how can you ask a bunch of middle management who didn’t start any business before to provide insights into evaluating other businesses? A few years later, I did start Malaysia Property Price as a sub project, to test if it really works. It gotten some eyeballs, but not enough traction (I can’t afford to spend more resources on this idea at the moment, perhaps later). Maybe they are right? But it still sounds like a good idea, shit.

Then I stop to believe in these Grant thingy. If I have so much faith in my own idea and capability, why not use my own money and start it instead? I finally quit my job and started MalaysiaMostWanted.com (MMW), where the initial focus is on new property launches. It gains a small traction over one year, but not enough. I left to start a consulting business with a friend, and come a year later to “reboot” MMW. This time we are slightly smarter and better, and we venture into Food & Restaurants (because the other similar sites in Malaysia are just not good enough, and the best stuff actually comes from bloggers). After a small success with Food, we redo Property, launch Event and Map. Event and Map didn’t quite pickup, but Food is great, and Property is doing well. I guess I got complacent for a while, because iProperty is too big for us to challenge (not something can be beaten technologically), and other food players just didn’t keep up. In 2011, I decided to take MMW more seriously (I cut down my freelancing jobs, but sometimes couldn’t resist the temptation of money knocking on my door). I manage to launch MMW Foodie (Android App) and Malaysia Price Checker. I started to think perhaps it would do me some good if I can get some funding, so that I can resist these freelance jobs, and employ someone to speed things up. So I applied for a grant, and saw a chance on a reality pitching show, and go for that as well.

My last proposal is about Travel, continuation from MMW Food. The reality pitching show didn’t turn out good for me, mainly due to 1) Some judges misunderstood my idea (my fault) 2) They feel I shouldn’t do Travel because I have no track records, and I should focus on Food 3) They feel the market is saturated. What can you do when people don’t trust you, and ignore your track records? Market is saturated? It’s like because there is Yahoo (and Altavista), so you don’t need Google; at the other end of the world, another VC just invested USD 4 Million into Gogobot (a travel website), WTF!

My last adventure is a presentation for a grant, and we have the usual doubts 1) We don’t think you can handle Travel, just stick with Food 2) TripAdvisor is so great, so you can’t be better than them 3) MMW is not that great (Ouch!). We are a failure until proven success, so I should ask for Grant for something which I already did (Food); perhaps I should. I did list out our “unique” features which TripAdvisor doesn’t have, but I guess we “speak” but no one actually “listen”; then someone get very “emotional” about our food search cannot sort by popularity (which I later tested to be working, maybe he is using a Mac/Safari, which we didn’t test on because the user base is less than 5%) and start making remarks which make the impressions that we make shitty application; and he love TripAdvisor so much that I have an uphill battle (is he really emotional, or it's a "test", hmm). I am not saying TripAdvisor sucks, but they are the champion because they have the content and reviews, but they are complacent with features and usability (and user experience); actually the same happen to us with MMW Food, thus I want to make things right and better. Is 300,000 monthly visitors an achievement? You can say it is pathetic, or it’s okay, and maybe it’s great. Can you build a website with 300,000 MAU?

Everyone knows Google is great after it is successful. Given that if you have the chance to invest in Google in the early days, are you the one putting in money, or you are the one saying “There is no money in search” How sure are you about the remark and decision you make today, and how much are you willing to bet on it? I guess this are the questions investors (or evaluators) should ask themselves.

As a fund-seeker, there is a lesson to be learned from the Kentucky Guys: fail 3000+ times before finding an investor. Keep trying, haha. Prejudice, everyone have it; both the Investors and Entrepreneurs. Keep trying on a bigger data sets to get the "real" picture.

This post is getting too long; read the next post for How to Kick-ass in VC/Grant Pitching (Malaysia).

PS: Will my "exposures" back fire on my reputations and future chances? Probably, but then again; this is who I am. If you can't accept this, then probably we can't work together.  道不同不相为谋； 千里马要伯乐。

Steve Jobs' Wisdom: 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

Steve Jobs, R.I.P 05 Oct, 2011. Though he was not my favorite, but I do admire his talent and how he manage to change the world (in a not so subtle way, and a good way, IMHO). I am sadden by the lost, the fall of an icon.

Notes:


The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only collect them looking backwards.

You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

I had been rejected, but I was still in love.

The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.

You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As will all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.

If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heavens don't want to die to get there.

Death is the very single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by godma which is living with the results of other other people's thinking. Don't let the noice of others' opinion drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Friday Thoughts

I like Friday night, where it’s always calm and quiet, where I have time to digest TEDs video before hitting the movie for another 2 hours pass midnight, and it made me realizeor think of something before I hit the bed. A little bit of time for self-reflection, I would say. To understand how we are going to come to terms with our own life.

I guess there are too many shits going on around us, we have corruptions which made us uneasy, people with their own agenda until they start to hurt others and good people have their hands tied. Are the politicians whom we voted still looking over our backs, and does the laws still uphold justice? Does Democracy and Capitalism still works well enough, or the rich and the immoral are running the world and the country now?

As an individual, it’s easy to escape the undesirable environment. If the company we work for sucks, we can always find another one, or start our own. If the country or government sucks, we can migrate to some other place as long as we have the cash. After a while, you realize there are always shitty people and shitty places; as if there is nowhere to run. No place is ever safe or good enough, and the knight in shining armor which we hope will come and clean the mess, just doesn’t appear anymore, or fall short of our expectation. Is it there is no one left to save us, except for ourselves? Like it or not, perhaps we need to be the hero to save the day.

I guess we do need a lot of hope and faith to live in our time. Sometime we need to forget, and sometime to look at the brighter side, and sometime to remember again. It’s like the movie where a group of people completed a big heist after facing numerous obstacles, and they get their dream and freedom in the end. Life is full of shitty challenges … you never know what you’re going to get.

I demand FASTER and CHEAPER Internet in Malaysia!

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

• The Government need to FORCE Telekom Malaysia (TM) to open up the last mile connection to other competitors (leasing the connection to them at an affordable rate, like what is done at UK's British Telecom)
• Broadband is not 512K/1Mbps connections, it is supposed to be 10Mbps by today's standard
• Broadband should cost USD 10/RM 30 per month, not RM 50-100. It some of the most expensive cities in Europe can provide that, why can't Malaysia?

The Place Promised in Our Early Days

Premonition: anticipation of an event without conscious reason.

Velaciela: the Vessel to bring you to the place, where you always know you should be.

Whisper of the Heart

It's nice title, nice music, nice anime, nice story, and a nice lesson too precious to be tucked away.



Do follow your heart, as you would find peace, and purpose.

No matter how disagreeing the world or the people around, follow through, as it's meant to be a test.

If you have forgotten or given up, don't be lost and start looking again.

Even if you don't have yours, don't stop others from finding theirs, help them.

Follow your heart, as there isn't any other ways, to live the life you always wanted.



Country road
If you follow this road onward
It continues to that town, I think
Country road

By myself, without fear
I dreamed of going
Shutting up my loneliness
Protecting my strong self, I'll go

* repeat

Getting tired of walking then standing still
Floating closer, my hometown
The uphill road winding around the hill
I'm scolding that me

* repeat

No matter what discouraging times there are
I'll never show any tears
Without heart, I'll hurry and set myself free
In order to get rid of my memories

Country road
Even though this road continues to my hometown
I just can't go, I can't go
Country road

Country road
Tomorrow, the me I always am
I want to go back, but I can't, farewell
Country road

Anyone for Parti Kebebasan Internet?

With the recent “hotness” of Bersih 2.0 and promising sign rallies (and objection to suppression tactics), and politics are suddenly “sexy” again with lots of “gossips a.k.a conspiracy theory a.k.a insider news” flying around, and the battle had gotten more interesting as the opposition actually had a chance (though the hope fluctuate quite dramatically), with dissatisfaction, disappointment and fear of the people rising rapidly, perhaps this is the best time to setup a Political Party and be a Politician?

If I am a politician, what should I champion? Since I can’t fake it very well, so I have to champion something dear to my heart, which is Technology and Internet. On the bright side, Malaysian has the most Facebook friends, everyone loves their iPhone and iPad (and perhaps some Android fans), we still love our local blog celebrities and we get non-government propaganda news from the Internet (newspaper and TV no longer have the balls). There is still a lot to fight for, such as The Censorship of Internet is getting out of hands with disregard to MSC’s Bill Of Guarantee of No Internet Censorship, such as censorship of RPK’s blog, TMNet blocking of Pirate Bay and other file sharing sites (a knife cannot be deemed illegal just because it can be used for killing), and of cause freedom of expression (at least on the Internet front), plus we all hope for better quality of Internet services. On a more drastic front, perhaps we should learn from Pirate Party to defend our rights for free software, games, movie and music (since most of us love it; and we pay when we can afford it, or when it’s worth it); and also to prevent the Government from spying or wiretapping our online activities.

Source: JDS

There is no better time to be an “Online” politician, as the Internet dramatically lowers the cost of running a campaign and increase exposure. First of all, we don’t have to apply for a police permit for Ceramah, as we can do a webcast (later archive it on YouTube) and people can send comments or ask questions by SMS, twittering, facebooking, etc.; and you can have millions of viewers and supporters without causing a Chaos. Secondly, your political party is a Facebook-like page, where everyone one who likes you automatically become your member (no form filling), and can proudly claim with proof that your party is 100,000 strong (of fans). You can do your party EGM and voting your Committee online so it doesn’t interrupt your member’s busy life and schedule, which is great! Then we will have the usual blog to let voters know us better (it’s virtually impossible to know your representative is like or what is he doing to help without a blog) and a Facebook page (or a more organize Q & A website or complaint tracking) for interactions (know the people through Facebook, better reach and time saving as compared to on the field tour).

Our Online Party is not meant to solve every problem or serve the need of every Rakyat (as each Rakyat have different needs and priority, which shall be served better by others), but we can become really good at what we do: champion our rights for good quality Technology and Internet. We fight for Internet Freedom and No Censorship, we fight for access to free Music, Movie, Software and Games, we lobby for better and cheaper broadband, and we vow for an Open Party (transparency in all our donation received, spending, etc.) and protect your online voice from richer bully who threatens to sue you for 100 million by setting a legal fund like EFF, and of cause the abolishment of ISA that try to instill fear into every citizen (the Government should fear the people, not the other way round). We shall focus on Urban area with high Internet penetration for competitive advantage. The whole point? To garner enough votes to form a better government with others of similar ideal.

So what do we need to make this work? A lot of courage and passion to make things better, a great speaker (ala Steve Jobs or Obama) and some cash to burn, plus the strength to withstand bureaucracy, threat, slander, betrayal and corruption; and pray very hard we don’t turn to the dark side after all these troubles, and doesn't end up a political prisoner.


If the government can preemptively arrest people for "illegal" protest and gathering, and they already behave such under the lenses and public scrutiny; what will happened to those who are captured? Who will defend them? Given the "power" you see in this video and online media, won't you think online media is the next frontier the government will try to crack down?

Anyone for Parti Kebebasan Internet?

A meaningful life, anyone?

I guess I wanted a meaningful and fruitful life, yet I cannot ignore the fact that I am still in the rat race having to make time to make money for a living. What is meaningful? Doing something I really wanted to what, whatever it is.

Once I thought I wanted to be a freelancer (as compared to be an employee), as I wanted more control and making a living purely based on my own capabilities (as compared to feeling disappointed with others and companies). It was quite challenging and interesting in the beginning, but it sort of got bored and gotten fed-up with certain aspect of it.

Then I wanted to switched from pure freelancer to a web entrepreneur (building online services and databases which people require), which seems more fun, have a greater impact with better sustainability. I do really like it most of the time, but certain aspect of the work is quite boring and cause procrastination (as in right now). I felt it is a right balance between my interest and making a living.

Lately, I tend to skew the balance towards my interest rather than making a living. Psychologically we do indeed want to do something fun and interesting, but the logical and worrisome mind will be still thinking about making a living. Of cause the ideal situation would be that we have enough dough for a comfortable living, thus we can focus on your interest and meaning in life, rather than making a living. Again, my balance is temporary disrupted by my inner desire to do something “better”; so it’s of utmost importance that I get out of the rat race as soon as possible to achieve happiness, freedom and meaning (thus the luxury to do whatever the f*** I want, bypassing my worrisome mind). Or, if I can convince myself forget about making a living (which seems impossible due to my Chinese gene).

So how much is enough (can't be too abstract, right?)? I am not a financial expert, but perhaps achieving semi-passive RM10K monthly income or RM 1 million in cash in the next 5 years? Sound far-fetched? Perhaps, but it’s meant to be difficult but achievable; else everyone would have done it. Making a good income but with no freedom and time is equally meaningless.

As for the rewards, what do I really want to do?

• Develop a semi-passive business to sustain my comfortable living
• To develop a game which I would enjoy the most
• To travel and experience life in foreign places up to a year
• Take up some art & craft as hobby
• Perhaps to start an urban gardening business

It’s all started with a dream :)