More Pre-Seed Workshop by MIRC and MDEC.

Time to kick start your ideas. Joint this workshop and get to know more about Pre-Seed Funding.

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For more events, please visit MIRC site for more details.

November 14, 2008 | Filed Under Financing | Leave a 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 No matter how niche or how unique your product is, your idea is obsolete within the 10 second when you thought of it, and there might be 1000 people already working on it.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 | 10 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 | 5 Comments 

A new journey begins

Right after I quit my job, 2 weeks later, I went for an interview. It’s not an job offer interview, however, it’s an interview for the application of Technopreneur Pre-seed Funding programme from MDEC Malaysia. This programme offers up to an Ringgit Malaysia of 150K for start-ups to build their prototype. During my days in the office, i have been quietly writing proposals without my colleagues notice (If they didn’t notice and I assume they didn’t), and I handed up my application the month before i quit my job.

Without knowing if I will be able to get the fund or not, I just quit my job so that I could concentrate to aim for the fund. So, after a risky, shivering, panicking 1st interview with a board of 5 presidents and directors from PIKOM, MIMOS, and MDEC, i can’t really remember all their names and position where my mind is almost at a total blank during the presentation. However, i manage to get through the 1st Interview with 70+ applicants, and which makes me and my team the top 28% that when through the 1st interview. From then, my confidence came back. and I didn’t panic much anymore for the 2nd Interview which was interviewed by a board of 10 members.

Thanks to my partner, K.C as my sales director for being so well presented during the interviews; the Yong brothers, Alan and Nelson for preparing the flash animation files for the presentation; and specially to my uncle and his friend, my father’s friend that has given me such good suggestion and guidance in my presentation skills and slides. Congratulation to us, we manage to secure the fund. So, it’s a start, and a begin of a new journey.

My feelings are so complicated when the news came to me. Besides feeling happy that my proposal has been accepted and i could kick start a dream that will benefits the children, It also means that I have committed to something big, and the responsibility and burden is much more heavier that i never handled before.

Great Powers comes with Great Responsibility, and I will takes whatever to fulfill what has been started. Joove Enterprise Sdn Bhd, is the company that me and my team formed. For the time being, we will be focusing on Animation productions for children. and this marks the start of a new journey…

Joove Enterprise Sdn Bhd

July 5, 2008 | Filed Under Entrepreneur, My Life | 2 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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