ICON Grant Finally Approved (Careful with Tricky Questions)

In my previous post I do introduced the RM100K ICON Grant initiated by government, finally is back on. My applications submitted last year Dec 2009, and we have waited approximately 4 months until April 2010 only we get a call to do a presentation. I believed the secretariats has been tortured by us for the past few months being so determined in requesting for a date of presentation. and is finally here.

Dear ICON Grant Applicants,

Congratulations.

We are pleased to inform you that your application for the ICON grant has been approved.  The secretariat will be contacting you soon for the arrangement of your letter of offer.

Thank you.

Regards,

Secretariat

Upon receiving this email, the excitements is ……zero. We have waited for too long and some of our previous plans has been overturned due to the delay of ICON Grant. However, as we expected, with full preparation of our effort from going door to door to get Letter of Interest from various parties, and with the past previous experiences in presentations and answering question, although we are still nervous, but experiences really made us when through the following presentation.  On top of that, I have learnt something from my partner which I am still very lack off in QnA. So, here is some advice with some tricky questions that my partner has answered well. Thanks to him that we have gotten through this stage.

Tricky Part: This is the most tricky question ever. Imagine if you have told them that your expected revenue/profit will be RM1 million. Wow, such a good business to do. If your idea could generate RM1mil, everyone will have started and there is no point for you to receive this grant. This question lures you into telling an unknown figure that you yourself are so unsure. Whether the numbers you have mentioned is reasonable or unreasonable it will definitely lead you to another question that will taunt you down. “So on what basis that your idea will help you generate RM1mil? how sure are you with your analysis?”

Answer: The best answer will be telling them that you are aiming to breakeven for the first year. In any start-ups, if you are able to breakeven the first year is considerably good and reasonable. Don’t try to talk BIG here, the panels are not stupid.

Tricky Part: This question is to see how SERIOUS are you with your own business. 

Answer: Even you have nothing started, just bullshit them that you had something started, whatever you have done to your make your idea come true. Of course, if you have really put in your effort, tell them! Grants are only given to people with real effort put in. (In matter affect, we have done IP and Trademark for our proposed idea, we have gotten letter of interest, we have our initial work done, now is left out with the money to push the product out)

Tricky Part: Are you trying to con our money here? The panels will try to give all kinds of reason that you do not need the grant.

Answer: Yes. Indeed that our potential clients has shown interest with our ideas, however, there isn’t a tangible product to urged them to issue us a PO (Purchase Order) yet, and that’s why we only had a LOI (Letter of Interest) instead.

April 13, 2010 | Filed Under Business Thoughts, Entrepreneur, Financing, Grant, MDEC | 6 Comments 

A grant for Contents – MSC Malaysia ICON Grant (Unofficial Guide)

According to the source from greyreview.com (The Unofficial Guide to MSC Malaysia ICON Grant) and MSC Malaysia, our PM announced the establishment of the MSC Malaysia ICON grant programme, with the amount of RM12.86 million allocation (under the second economic stimulus plan),  to spur the creation of local online contents to support Malaysian broadband strategy. We get to know the grant 2 months ago, where our company is recommended to apply for the following grant during our application of MSC Status, where our strategy and business models are align with the objective of the grant.

  1. Purpose of grant: Hooraay~~~ Malaysian will enjoy high speed broadband in the near future!! However, the authorities are afraid that the broadband penetration rate will still remain low after the implementation. Hence, the objective of this grant is to generate more local contents to encourage the nation broadband penetration. Hence, your proposal and business model must be able to align with their strategy in promoting broadband uptake in Malaysia. In actual, with or without the grant, with high speed broadband, i see a lot of opportunities ahead for businesses such as IPTV and etc.
  2. Amount of grant: RM100,000
  3. Duration: 8 months
  4. Application Flow: The application flow for ICON grant is rather different from  PRE-SEED. For Pre-seed, after submission of application, you will need to present your ideas to the panels yourself. However, for ICON, after submission, you will be assigned with a representative from the ICON community, and you will present to your representative, and your representative will present on behalf of you to the panels. There is a possibility that you will also need to do the presentation yourself if the panels has doubts and they need further information or better understanding from you.
  5. Disbursement method: I hope I did not interpret this wrongly from MDEC. If I do, please do correct me. PRE-SEED disbursement will be given upfront by MDEC in quarterly basis. However, ICON will be rather different. The phases are structured in 2/3/3 format. which means 2 months + 3 months + 3 months = 8 months. If I did not interpret wrongly from the community, the first 2 months, 20% of the requested amount will be given upfront from MDEC, but the remaining quarter, you will need to fork out your money first, and claimed back as proposed. In another word, if you are requesting for max RM100k, you need to have extra RM40k to survived the first 5 months after 20k has been disbursed.
  6. Type of Programme Supported: Please read the following links = (ICONapps, ICONedu, ICONity, ICONex)
  7. Forms and Application: Please contact them via their email to obtain the forms and application.
  8. More details please contact them personally via their email. Please download the infopack
November 13, 2009 | Filed Under Business Thoughts, Entrepreneur, Financing, Grant, MDEC | Leave a Comment 

Ideas that I will not proposed to MDeC for Pre-seed fund

Recalling that MDeC Technopreseed fund has divided into few clusters, such as Creative Multimedia, Hardware Design, Software Developments, Shared-Service outsourcing, Support Services, and Internet based businesses. With the recent information, of all these clusters, Software Developments and Internet based businesses (Web 2.0) are now tougher to achieved. A lot of ideas has been very much categorized into these 2 clusters, and MDeC will most probably not fund the same similar idea twice.

For the past few months, we have been brainstorming with some friends who is interested to apply for the grant. Eventually, they did not manage to get it. Some of the reason is due to the presentation was not well prepared. Here are some of the systems or ideas that I feels that is not suitable or it is much more difficult to apply for the grant.

  1. Accounting Software – There are too many established accounting software in the region, even how niche, or how well you could differentiate your software, it will be difficult for you to compete with the established one that has almost penetrate most of the market share in their region.
  2. Directory or Classified Portal – Examples, a Wedding Portal, listing of directories and branches for all the bridal house, linking up the bridal houses, or even implanting a wedding scheduling system sounds great. But it will not interest the panels. and most does not deserves 150k for development of such sites. and i do believe a lot of people proposed wedding portal in pre-seed before
  3. ERP/CRM software – No matter you are doing a small scale or big scale of an ERP system, with financial module, inventory module, production, CRM , PO and SO etc. I still feels that the situation is same as the Accounting software. where you will faced difficulties in penetrating the market. Companies like SAP, Microsoft AX, PeopleSoft has many years of experience in the field, and has done a lot of research and developments for many years.
  4. Buy and Sell Portal – If you are trying to create another ebay system, or lelong.com.my, I suggest that you do it on your own without the funds. You will faced questions from panel saying that they can used less than 5k to complete a buy and sell portal.

I believes there are more that is not suitable for preseed fund, but I just can’t recall. However, the above mentioned ideas is just an opinion, it doesn’t mean you cannot apply, but an extra effort is definitely needed. For an example, just to crap a bit on the ideas. Maybe you decides to create accounting system, you can differentiate that your system is over the Internet, and you are able to ensure your software is robust enough in-terms of security perspective, plus additional features to tackle the existing problems in the market. So, you can still leverage the existing technology or software, is just that how you can differentiate yourself in terms of technology, business model, strategy is more important. Anyway, it is just a crappy idea.

Just to recap on the tips and guideline for application for funding, you can visit here: http://cheehoong.com/entrepreneur/basic-tips-and-guide-for-applying-ict-funding-in-malaysia

February 15, 2009 | Filed Under Business Thoughts, Entrepreneur, Financing, Grant | 5 Comments 

More Fun with Funds from SMIDEC

Great news for those that are categorized as SME or SMI. Disregard of any industry, whether you are in the manufacturing, services or ICT line, SMIDEC is here to help you through the provision of advisory services, fiscal and financial assistance, infrastructure facilities, market access and other supporting programmes. (To define yourself as SME or SMI, click here.)

There are various of incentives, grants and soft loans provided by SMIDEC and their agencies to assists and promote Malaysia’s SME and SMI. Imagine at the interest rate of 2% for a soft loans with range from RM 50k to RM 3 Million, as compared with the banks, you can earn more even if you save it in a fixed deposit. (of course, there are terms and condition applies, please do check out their sites for more information). Apart from that, there are schemes for Franchise Developments, Marketing, Office Rental Subsidized, Office Equipments and etc. So, why wait. Hurry up, make your call.

Money always the first priority, I will leave the other supports and services provided by SMIDEC for you to explore, I will mainly focus to provides links that are Money related.

November 7, 2008 | Filed Under Financing, Grant | 1 Comment 

Basic Tips and Guidelines for applying ICT Funding in Malaysia

I am just sharing my opinion here, please do not take this as guaranteed information. I considered myself to be a very LUCKY man for being able to secure the Pre seed Fund, although I did a very bad presentation but I was lucky that I brought in my partner with me which he has more experience and to cover my mistakes. From than onwards, I manage to overcome that fear after getting through the first round of interview.

Hence, I would like to share some information here that might be useful to those that are in the middle of applying the fund. No matter which funding option that you are applying for, please be aware for the few issues that I highlighted here. I don’t mind to re-mentioned the tips again.

Info 1) Understand your Business Plan from Top to Toe

I am not an expert in writing business plan, but i had everything in my mind. I am not going to elaborate on value proposition of your business, marketing plan, targeted market, competition, financial plan and technology plan, I believe you know better than me.

  1. Understand your product Niche and Uniqueness.
  2. The Win-Win situation between you and your customers. show it in your plan. show it in your presentation.
  3. Understand your competition. Strategy to tackle potential competition.
  4. Never say there is NO COMPETITION, and thats the most stupid thing to mention. No matter how niche or how unique your product is, your idea is obsolete within the 10 second when you thought of it, and there might be 1000 people already working on it.
  5. Show Facts and Figures to support your plan. Research, Research and Research. Google is your best friend.
  6. 1 Plan is not enough. A plan is just a guideline, plan changes. Thats why always have a Plan A, B and C. Put Plan A as priority.

Info 2) Filling up the Application Form correctly:

Your application form determines whether you stand a chance to present your ideas.

  1. The person to approve your form does not really care about your idea, but they care more if you have fill up the forms correctly according to their standards.
  2. Do not make assumption on filling up their application forms. Specially on the financing part. example, if the fund does not includes for marketing purpose, don’t assume and don’t be so clever to include that when filling up the form. Your application will be rejected due to your clever actions. Assume stands for making an ASS between U and ME.
  3. Call them up directly, arrange an appointment with them, or get a 1-to-1 advisory to advice you on how you should fill up your application. It’s best you fill up the application form first, then arrange an appointment, let them comment on your application, and repeat until you get your form correctly written.
  4. Don’t write grandmother stories for your applications. Be straight forward, and write in point form. Who the hell is going to read your stories where there are 100+ applicants waiting for them to approve. Concentrate on Executive Summary, the interviewers might only read that! but don’t forget the rest of the content as well. (there might be one picky one that reads all of it).
  5. The person to interviews you are the one that evaluates your ideas, and most of them don’t read your proposal, they will read the Executive Summary.
  6. Hence, Fill up your forms correctly. You don’t fill up correctly, you have eventually marked an end for your GREAT ideas.

Info 3) Get ready for Defense and Attack Game

I had my first presentation slides ready after i handed over my forms, instead of waiting for an interview, i did extra preparations by presenting the business plan to my father’s friend, which is a CEO of a financial consultancy company, and my uncle’s friend, which was also someone who holds a high position in a big corporate. Both has nothing to do with the industry within my business plan, I just want to get screw up and receive some feedbacks from someone at the top level management, and i treated them as potential VC’s. Both of them has different opinions. One of them is more picky for my presentation skills, the other wants to know how my money is earn. 2 of them guide me in on my slides, my presentation skills and the things i needed to prepare.

  1. You only got 10 Minutes to present. You need to cramp up your 30 pages business plan in 10 min. The sequence of my presentation slides: What is my product? > The niche and uniqueness > Targeted market > Market Potential > Competition > Barriers for competition > Potential Growth of the business > ROI as summary > Thank you. (Note: The sequence is just a guideline for you. Don’t follow my sequence, my sequence is based on my Business plan and my way of presentation. 10 min is considered long, i was given only less than 5 minutes to show what i have when i present to the CEO)
  2. Practice more on your presentation skills. I can’t remember how many times i have practice alone in front of the mirror. But i have presented to both of the 2 top managements at least 3 times each.
  3. Time your presentation. Practice with your business partner. Time yourself with a stop watch. Try not to exceed the time given. Go slow and Steady.
  4. Continuously refine your presentation slides until you feel that it is enough to convince the panels. example: I replaced Sales and Marketing Plan with Market Potential, is because showing the potential market is more convincing than marketing plans. Marketing strategy is important, but my objective is to convince the panel that this is a viable business, so, Market Potential tends to weight more important at this stage and time is limited for presentation.
  5. Get support letter from potential customers to strengthen your idea. Call up your potential customers or targeted markets, present to them, get feedback and get a support letter from them. We called several potential customers which includes TV3 and UNICEF. However, we only manage to present to UNICEF right in the morning before our 2nd interview with MDEC in the afternoon, we got a good feedback from UNICEF, but we did not manage to get a support letter, cause that needs a lot of process and approval from UNICEF internally.
  6. Spot the Q&A question. Write down the potential questions, and your Answers, then from the answers, what will they question again, and answer again. Bring in the piece of Q&A you written during your presentation as bullet prove vest. When one is tackling the question, the other is searching for the right answer.
  7. Get a Sales and Marketing Partner, some one who could present and up sell your ideas. Technology Geeks mostly are not good presenters, like me. Technologically you may be good, but technology is only part of the business. You need a marketing representative in your business. They may not be able to help you in developing your idea, so what, in long run, u still need someone to do the sales for you. You can sell the product yourself? Trust me, you can’t, unless you are an experience marketing guy. If you are a marketing guy, you won’t be sitting 24 by 7 in front of your pc.
  8. Wear and act professional. Get a tie, shake your hands when u meet the interviewers.

Last but not least, this is just an opinion, hope it is useful. Good luck to your application.

July 17, 2008 | Filed Under Entrepreneur, Financing, Grant | 42 Comments 

Funding for Malaysian ICT Entrepreneurs

Attention to all Malaysian ICT Entrepreneurs, If you have any great ideas, which you think is unique, it will be a hit in the market, or its the next big thing; here is the chance for you to fulfill your dreams. Get funded for your ideas! The government had allocated RM80 million under the Ninth Malaysia Plan for funding as part of the effort to nurture home-grown technologies and talent pools.

These are the few options that you could get funded from:

1) Cradle Investment Programme (RM50,000 – RM150,000)

CIPCIP, a RM 100 million fund managed by Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance (MOF). Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd is a subsidiary wholly owned by MAVCAP (Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd). A conditional fund for RM 50,000 – RM 150,000 for groups of innovative individuals with technology-oriented ideas, who are 18 years of age and older, and permanently residing in Malaysia can apply. Each application form must have a minimum of 2 applicants and a maximum of 5 applicants. Read their FAQ to understand more about them and how you could apply for the fund.

2) MIRC – MCA ICT Resource Centre

MIRCA RM5mil fund to IT entrepreneurs in Malaysia. This is a partnerships between MCA’s Technopreneur Venture Fund with venture capital organizations. There is not much detail on the MIRC site, is best for you to contact them directly at +603-2161 1618 for more details on the fund. This may be their first fund. So, be the pioneer for the first batch, you may get a lot of publicity if you manage to secure the fund. I wonder if this fund will be a conditional funding or it acts as a VC funding? since it is partnering with the venture capital organizations, will it have any of the VC’s restrictions occurs?

3) MDEC Technopreneur Pre Seed Fund

MDECA RM 150,000 conditional fund which was introduced by MDEC to develop your viable business plan into commercially focused ICT project for venture funding and commercialization. Apart having the advantage of its mentoring services and the facilities provided by MDEC, approved applicants has a chance to apply for MSC status during the development of prototype. The fund is open to all Malaysian Individuals who doesn’t owns a business. Application Form download here. FAQ download here.

Last but not least, some other sites that mentioned on Funding in Malaysia:

  1. http://www.it-sideways.com/2007/05/funding-for-technopreneurs.html
  2. http://www.edwinwang.com/Cradle-investment-Programme-MSC-TDF-National-Incub.shtml
  3. http://web2.0entrepreneur.com/6/how-to-get-funded-for-malaysian-startup-entrepreneurs.html
  4. http://www.mobileworld.com.my/v2/index.php/20071105394/Mobile_Industry/Articles/Who_said_there_is_no_funding_.html
  5. http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/MSC+Malaysia+Status+Funding
  6. http://hatchlings.wordpress.com/2007/01/05/funding-options-for-a-malaysian-entrepreneur/

Don’t wait when there is a chance.

July 15, 2008 | Filed Under Entrepreneur, Grant | 8 Comments 

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