Some story to share

Just to share a story that I read in the papers which I felt very inspiring. The story is in chinese, I manage to Baidu the story from a china website, and I translated it with Google Translate…. I hope it inspires you too.

总裁的昨天
一个城里男孩移居到乡下，从一个农民那里花了100元买了一头驴，这个农民同意了第二天把驴带来给他。第二天，农民来找男孩说：“对不起，我有一个坏消息要告诉你——那头驴死了。”男孩回答说：“好吧，你把钱还给我就行了！”可农民告诉他钱花掉了，男孩想了想，就让这位农民把那头死驴给他。
几个月后，那农民又遇到了男孩，农民问他后来如何处置死驴的，男孩说：“我举办了一次幸运抽奖，并把那头驴作为奖品，我卖出了500张彩票，每张2元。”
农民好奇的问：“难道没有人不满吗？”
男孩说只有那个中奖的人表示不满，所以我把他买彩票的钱还他，这样我就赚了998元。
许多年后，长大了的男孩，成为了一家大公司的总裁。
经营需要智慧

The Past Story of a CEO
A city boy moved to the countryside, he bought a donkey from a farmer at the price of 100 yuan, the farmers agreed that the next day to bring him a donkey.

The next day, farmers came to the boy and said: “I am sorry, I had a bad news for you- the donkey is dead.” Boy replied: “Well, you just need to return me the money will do!”. However, The farmer told the boy that he has spent all his money, the boy thought for a while, and ask the farmers to give him the dead donkey.

A few months later, the farmers met the boy and asked him what did he do with the dead donkey, the boy said: “I held a lucky draw, and I put the donkey as the grand prizes, I sold 500 tickets, each ticket at 2 yuan. Farmers curiously ask: “Will there be anyone satisfied with a dead donkey?”

Boys said that there will be only one person that will feel dissatisfied with the prize, so I repay back his ticket, and in total I earned 898 yuan.

Many years later, the boys grown up to become a big company’s CEO.

Business Managements needs Wisdom

Translated with Google Translate, and refine by CheeHoong:

November 11, 2008 | Filed Under Business Thoughts | 1 Comment 

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 

Tony Fernandes is blogging now!!!

http://www.tonyfernandesblog.com/ ! Dato Tony Fernandes has a blog~! He is now sharing his business thoughts, experience and his views through his own blog. This will be the greatest news for all the young entrepreneurs, and will be the great opportunity for us to learn from a successful entrepreneur.  Personally, he is my idol among all the Malaysian Entrepreneur. He is the only entrepreneur that I think every young entrepreneur in Malaysia must look forward too. By using 1 ringgit to buy a heavily-indebted company, mortgaged his home and sank his savings; utilized today’s technology, running the airline unconventionally,  and transform the company into today’s AirAsia, making everyone can fly…. How I wish I could possess his kind of ability~

October 3, 2008 | Filed Under Entrepreneur | Leave a Comment 

There is no harm to share your ideas

Despite of doing my own project and managing my business, I have been listening to new ideas from friends to motivate and encourage them into business where the country has provide such good opportunities with grants and funds to the nations. Although I may not classified myself a true business man or entrepreneur in-terms of experience, but I would be glad to brainstorm ideas with friends to actually train myself up to think and act like one.

Lots of people will tend to put their business ideas as secretive as possible, because they are afraid that their ideas will be stolen. Yes! That may eventually happen, and that is the risky part you need to manage, and sometime when it needs to take the risk, take it! As earlier mention, I have shared my ideas with friends and family, even CEOs and Business Man. I am not afraid that the idea will be stolen by others, because I always asked and tell myself…..

  1. First of all, My Ideas are still in the Idea Stage, it’s not even proven that is profitable.
  2. Even your Idea is proven profitable, how many hassles, time and risk do you need to take to execute an idea, to change an idea into a profitable one?
  3. Execution and Strategies are more important than your ideas! One may have great ideas, but bad executions and strategies may bring down the whole business.
  4. How many of your friends are real entrepreneur? How many will really sacrifice their day jobs, commitments and luxuries life to start a business on their own?
  5. How many could really sees the potential of your ideas? I will say, 10 out of 9 will turn you down, and they will make you feels like an idiot. And the only 1 that sees the potential of your idea will definitely become your business partner.
  6. Throwing an idea to a business man is most risky? Yes, business man may sees the potential of your business. Seeing the potential doesn’t means he will steal your idea. First of all, business man is already very busy with his own business. He/She will need time and extra effort to start a new one, and to really start an idea, it needs approximately 3 – 6 months of hard effort, 1 – 2 years to really secure the business.
  7. Business Man thinks differently. Your idea may be a rubbish to him. Feedbacks from business man are the most valuable information you could get.
  8. Business man can be a potential investors to your idea. Successful business man will try to reduce hassles to start a new ideas on his own, because he has gone through the difficult stage. He/she will most rather invest in a potential business and guide you as a mentor in order to secure his investment.
  9. Carefully selecting business man to throw your ideas with is important. Try to avoid proposing to a direct competitor. Try to look for a potential investor to guide you along.

Last but not least, Don’t ask me what my ideas are. Cause I am in the Execution Stage, which my idea has been recognized, it’s time for me to prove my idea to be profitable and to reduce competitors. Kekeke….. :P

September 23, 2008 | Filed Under Entrepreneur | 2 Comments 

Penang Food (Penang Road Trip July 2008) – Part 1

Penang is also known colloquially as “The Pearl of the Orient”, one of the most liveable city in Asia. Among all street foods in Malaysia, Penang offers the best variety of delicious street cuisine. Penang Asam Laksa, Penang Prawn Me (虾面), Penang Fried Kuay Teo (炒粿条), food name started with the word ‘Penang’ can be found in other states around Malaysia, however, Penang still serves the best Asam Laksa, Prawn Mee, and Fried Kuay Teo.

Being at Penang, the only thing you can’t miss to enjoy, must always be the all time favorite asam laksa. The dish is a mixture of noodle cooked with red hot chilies, asam, rich sardine meat, mint leaves, lettuce, cucumber slices and pineapple slices. You could find this dish all around the hawkers in penang, however, there are only a few place that is famous for this. One is located near the Kek Lok Si Buddist Temple and The other is in Penang Road. On this trip, we tried the one in Penang Road.

Apparently, when you have asam laksa, you will not miss out the famous Penang Cendol as desert. In almost every famous Asam Laksa stall, there is a Cendol Stall beside. Cendol is a kind of deserts that contains cendol jelly, santan, brown sugar and kidney beans and mixed with crushed ice. On such a hot climate in Penang, cendol is always the best cooling desert. Since we are in Penang Road for the Asam Laksa, hence, we had cendol to cool us off after the spicy meal. I always wonder who makes the business hot first? the cendol stall, or the Asam laksa stall?

August 18, 2008 | Filed Under Food | Leave a Comment 

Ipoh Food (Penang Road Trip – July 2008)

Ipoh, apart from being famous for mass production of pretty and gorgeous Ipoh girls, the town is also famous for its food. Majority of the populations in ipoh were chinese, where most are originated from Canton or GuangZhou. There is a saying that “Eat at GuangZhou”, “吃在广州”, where the cantonese are very particular about food. Famous chinese food in Malaysia such as Ipoh Beansprout with steam chicken (“怡保芽菜鸡”), Pork Satay, Dim Sum, Ipoh Old Town white cofee and etc, originates from Ipoh.

26 Jul 2008, 09:15 a.m, reaching ipoh Restaurant Foh San Sdn Bhd. Located in Ipoh New Town, Jalan Dato Tahwil Azar (used to be known as the Ozbourne Street). Foh San Restaurant is famous for its Dim Sum (“点心”). The place will be packed with early risers in the morning, having the wide variety of light dishes and enjoying a nice pot of chinese tea. There are a few varieties of dishes which I can’t find it anywhere in Kuala Lumpur, specially the garlic chilly source, that makes the food sooo tasty and it’s very different from KL. It is not surprise that you are unable to get a place to sit. Don’t forget to check on the old lady boss in the counter while paying your bills, she is able calculate faster than you using the calculator.

27 Jul 2008, 17:30 p.m, reaching ipoh for Ipoh Beansprout with steam chicken (“怡保芽菜鸡”). Restaurant Lou Wong is the one which is famous for the dish. However, my friends prefers the one opposite corner of the restaurant where both are almost the same. You could get a few shops selling the same dishes, however Lou Wong will be the one which is the most packed. The place is located the same area as Restaurant Foh San. You will definitely feel enjoyable with the tender juicy chicken meat and the crunchy beansprout with a hot bowl of Hor Fun noodle or Rice. Check out this place around late evening, where business starts to get hot.

Some other blogs/sites that recommends Ipoh food:

  1. http://www.bestfoodnetwork.com/tags/ipoh
  2. http://www.journeymalaysia.com/MC_ipohfood.htm
  3. http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2762
  4. http://www.heritage.com.my/ipoh/tour_guide/
  5. http://www.pbase.com/ilikemnms/what_to_eat_in_ipoh
  6. http://www.explore-ipoh.com/ipoh-food.html
  7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipoh_cuisine
August 2, 2008 | Filed Under Food | Leave a Comment 

Penang Road Trip (July 2008)

Before things get busy with my project, I decided to pampered myself for a 2 days 1 night Makan trip with some friends. Sight seeing has never happen along the trip, the main purpose of this trip is all about food, food, food and food. I tend to blog with the foods which we had in the entire trip for the upcoming few entries. Too bad, I forgotten to bring my camera along, the pictures taken with my phone wasn’t that good quality. However, the following is the summary of our schedule:

Watch out for my other entries on the follow up of this penang makan trip. Anyway, anyone got anymore good recommendation of food in penang, drop me a comment here. So that we could visit some other days.

July 30, 2008 | Filed Under Food | 2 Comments 

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 

cheehOOng.com vs cheehong.com

To readers of this blog, my name is Chee Hoong, Hoong with a double “O“. It’s pronounce a bit like William Hung’s “Hung”. cheehOOngI m frustrated with people that get my name wrongly spelled, specially when they misspelled chee Hoong as chee Hong. Imagine a name with a difference of a single alphabet “O“, your property, your insurance, your bank account, your money is all NOT belongs to you, and how pissed off will that be when it comes to money.

Gogleif gOOgle, is mis-spelled as Gogle, it’s no longer gOOgle anymore. However, google is smart in buying gogle.com, it both redirects to the google site of your country region. Unfortunately, I am not as lucky as that, cheehong.com was acquired by a china manufacturer in Hui Zhou, China. My friend accidentally fall on to the misspelled site, and that is the reason to inspire my to write this entry. “Hey dude, Do you know how to spell my name !!???”

Yahoo has published a list of most misspelled names in their search engine, and the top goes to “Wallmart” instead of “Wal-Mart”. With reference to www.jenniferslegg.com, a Search Engine Marketing consultant, that some web masters utilized the misspelled trick, to get their sites rank to be push up. Imagine with the correct spell for Britney Spears already has a 488,941 searches from a list that google published, the one with the misspelled has a 40,000+ searches, it’s definitely a brilliant and a lousy trick to implement in SEO. and if you do realized, some number 1 ranking sites in search engine, is definitely not an official site, specially for those gaming sites.

Some product manufacturers even uses the existing famous brands, misspelled it and endorse as a new brand to their own products, for examples, i have seen “Adidas” is spell as “Abibas“, “Panasonic” as “Pansonic“. It’s so brilliant for these manufacturers to invest on a misspelled word to gain its product popularity, save a lot on marketing their brand names, and capture the market locally and internationally. Hence, to some people which can’t afford a branded item, eventually they go for a cheaper one, and a similar name of the product. and surprisingly, with a misspelled name, how many sales and traffics has been loosing to competitors. Eventually, Pansonic in Malaysia is quite well known in electrical goods by the Malaysians.

So, do you see the impact of a misspelled name? Just to remind you, my name is Chee Hoong, “HOOng”, with a double “O“.

July 13, 2008 | Filed Under Marketing, SEO | 3 Comments 

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    Life is interesting, its all about experimenting, trial and errors and self improvments. This blog is all about my personal experience. I am full with ideas, and i will achieve every one of them step by step.

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