CameraTradeZone

Way before we hit on with the project in Astro , I was too free, so I plan to utilized my rotten programming skills by creating 2 websites for fun to learn about SEO and hope it will grow into a secondary business of mine. From the inspiration of AsiaPartTime.com, I started a camera trading site called cameratradezone.com. The idea sparkles me when I found that the camera market started booming up as out of every group of people that i known of at least 1 person has a DSLR camera. It was amazed that within only 2 months the site had a good response 37,000 page views, and now has an average of 400 pageviews daily, with average 160 unique visits daily.

By knowing such a good results, a friend then approach me to developed a property website (propertytradezone.com) with him. Although these market has been dominated by iproperty.com, but i felt that there are still chances. With the mindset of “JUST DO IT and F the Competitors”. So I take up the challenge, and do it without second thought.

PropertyTradeZone

Both sites are still in a very preliminary stage. Although I have drafted a business model for both sites for me to earn some passive income, however, I don’t have time to improve and move forward as the project with Astro has consume most of my time. Now I put myself into a super busy mode, but I am happy with it although my financial status still not in a positive cash flow. I had a positive feeling that both of this site will slowly grow but now time is the main concern.

BUSY is good.

CTZ Stats

CTZ stat2

Entrepreneur

1. Initiates, Innovates and converts an Idea into a tangible product/trends
2. Creating a product/business model/services/trend from nothing, zero, or something that does not exists.
3. Higher Risk of failure. The entrepreneur will not know if their new idea or a new concept is acceptable by the market.
4. earn little from the start, multiplies by millions.
5. looking for a Long term goal and profits
6. Utilises Business man to expand and distribute and grow their licensed product.
7. Live at a greater cause.
8. Entrepreneur possess the characteristic of business man and Innovators.

Business Man

1. Follow trends and utilized a product that was created by the entrepreneurs to meet their short-term goals
2. Do not create products/trend/services.
3. Lower risk of failure as in the idea and product has been recognized by the market.
4. Focusing on Short-term profit. Earns direct cash and money by selling the product of an entrepreneur.

So…What you are? Entrepreneur or Business Man ?

Reference Links:

1. http://entrepreneur2007.pbwiki.com/Entrepreneur%20vs%20Businessman
2. http://www.millionaireacts.com/473/businessman-vs-entrepreneur.html
3. http://globalwealth.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/entrepreneur-vs-businessman-pros-and-cons/

1. Provide a world-class physical and information infrastructure. - MSC Status companies will required to move into office area which was awarded with MSC Status. There are now approximately 14 office area are classified as MSC, namely Bandar Utama, Cyberjaya, KL-Sentral, KLCC and more will be coming in within the next 1 year.  World class infrastructure really sounds great, however the cost is respectively high as well.
2. Allow unrestricted employment of local and foreign knowledge workers - as from what I know, MSC has direct collaboration with the Immigration department to speed up the process for hiring foreign knowledge workers, which reduces your hassles in foreign employments.
3. Ensure freedom of ownership by exempting companies with MSC Malaysia Status from local ownership requirements. - is this means by foreign investor are able to take up majority ownership? I will have to check this out.
4. Give the freedom to source capital globally for MSC Malaysia infrastructure, and the right to borrow funds globally.
5. Provide competitive financial incentives, including no income tax for up to 10 years or an investment tax allowance, and no duties on import of multimedia equipment.
6. Become a regional leader in intellectual property protection and cyberlaws.
7. Ensure no Internet censorship.
8. Provide globally competitive telecommunications tariffs.
9. Tender key MSC Malaysia infrastructure contracts to leading companies willing to use the MSC Malaysia as their regional hub.
10. Provide an effective one-stop agency – the Multimedia Development Corporation.

Being an MSC Status company, you will also enjoy the services such as Business Matching provided by MSC. MSC will collaborate with agents of MARTRADE, MIDA and etc around the world to match your business with other businesses in foreign country, providing you an opportunity to venture into the foreign markets. Middle East countries are very favourable to MSC Malaysia Status. Apart from that, employment of internship will also subsidized by MSC with an amount of RM500 each.

As a recipient of Technopreneur fund, our company is eligible to apply for the status, however, not all Technopreneur recipient are qualified for the status. MSC will look into your business model, and the revenue source as the based line, specially your revenue model. If your revenue model are too complex or too exaggerate and it does not matches your business model, or it sounds too un-logical to them,  your chances are limited. God bless me, hope my company are qualified for it.

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

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

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

CIP, 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

A 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

A 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.

I seldom and not very actively involve in such events though I have been to a few just to network around. Social Networking is essential for all entrepreneurs whether they like it or they don’t. From here I met a lot of pro-bloggers, webmasters, internet entrepreneurs, some technical gigs and SEO experts, exchanging ideas on how to make more money online, how to prevent fraud, internet marketing, etc etc. And you will be surprise that these people are earning more income than people that has a full-time day job.

Featured speakers for these events are Famous bloggers, Mr C.F.Liew from liewcf.com, Microsoft experts, Mr. Rohan, e-Commerce specialists, Mr. Adrian Oh from Neowave.com.my and web/graphic designer, Ikram Omar from filament-phase.com were all sharing their knowledge in their areas of expertise.

LiewCF, he is not what i have expected, he is not a very well speaker or presenter, he doesn’t speak very well English and in fact his English is kind of broken; However, he is earning an USD X,000 (he don’t want to disclose), which is more than his previous job employment with his blog liewcf.com, and he is now a full time blogger. Looking at C.F.Liew, which makes me to conclude that, “You do not need a well spoken or written English to blog“, as liew mentioned, as long as, your readers understands, and you yourself understands, you can make a difference with blogging.

Rohan, speaks of Microsoft SilverLight, mentioned on a camp called Silverlight camp, which i am quite looking forward to it, however, i can’t manage to get his email and blog details, hope someone that is reading this could update me on the silverlight camp in malaysia.

Neowave, Adrian Oh, The guy that i can’t miss to mention him, without his magical finger, I don’t even get a 80GB hard disk for FREE. Adrian is an expert in eCommerce, selling things over the internet, and he runs a company that provides eCommerce solutions. He is sharing to us on fraud prevention and his personal experience in handling fraud situations. I believe his sharing is very practical to every webmasters that would like to earn a penny over the internet. Visit his site for more information on eCommerce @ Neowave.com.my.

Last but not least, Ikram Omar’s “Grid Design for the Web” had really inspired me that how shall we design our site, and i like the way he redesign theStar website, and is much better than the existing site design.

some other sites recommendation from the people in this event:

Eddie Law’s eLawyer.com.my, a site that provides law jobs over the internet. you can visits his blog for some law tips at laweddie.com

Mr. part time, Lam Poh Ee, founder of the famous part time portal asiaparttime.com. a direct competitor to Iamfreelancer.com

Home Tuition Care, the founder Andy Low. The sites provides free home tuition matching tuition for parents.

The famous freelance job portal, IamFreelancer.com, founder Elvin Lok was there as well.

last but not least. LetARoom.com, which is a site that I am partnering with asiaparttime.com founder, mr. part time, to provide free service allowing everyone including students, teachers, executives, working adults to post their rooms or houses for rent, and for those to wanted to rent a room to search for a room or houses.

Photos and Pictures are grab from webmastermalaysia.com, exabytes.com, asiaparttime.com, IamFreelancer.com, eLawyer.com.my and Home Tuition Care.