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.
- Understand your product Niche and Uniqueness.
- The Win-Win situation between you and your customers. show it in your plan. show it in your presentation.
- Understand your competition. Strategy to tackle potential competition.
- 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 No matter how niche or how unique your product is, your idea is obsolete within the 10 second when you thought of it, and there might be 1000 people already working on it.
- Show Facts and Figures to support your plan. Research, Research and Research. Google is your best friend.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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42 Responses to “Basic Tips and Guidelines for applying ICT Funding in Malaysia”
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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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i totally agree with your suggestion. BTW, i have another suggesstion for you. Perhaps, you can compile all this and sell it as Ebook.
Potential? hehe
Wow, you do go approach TV3 and UNICEFF. This is extremely good idea! I think this is the part we miss in our preparation. This is a really convincing point! Can you share some real tough/tricky or important questions that you face during the presentation (either MDEC, your father’s friends or UNICEFF)?
TianTeck, I can’t really tell you what will the panel asked cause it varies on the panel that interviews you and the information you presented.
The toughest question i encounter from mdec was “Since your idea is so good, your plan is so good, why aren’t your competitors doing it?”.
btw, UNICEF was nice, they didn’t had any though questions for us, its maybe because the way we structured our presentation with UNICEF differently. (We have a different slides for UNICEF, because different objectives. e.g UNICEF don’t want to hear your market potential or marketing plan, they want to hear how you could benefits them) So when u approach potential customers, use a different slides base on the objective.
Father’s friend asked “Show me your product!”, and sad to say, i don’t have it, i am just presenting the concept. I am screwed.
wow… it’s a good article about MDEC Pre-Seed Fund, it’s useful for me, cheers! All the best to you…
Hi Chee Hoong,
Delighted to see your sharing. I am applying and I want to be careful about the financial part. Appreciate if you could advise the following:
(a) When MDec releases the fund quarterly, do they verify/question the variances between the actual spending and the planned spending of previuos quarter?
(b) Do you need to bring along the Secondary applicant in the progress updates/presentation? I need to factor in the travelling expenses.
hmmm…reading your stuff up there really give me some insights of thing that i will face for this preceed money..been working all my life and im working on my own now..this preceed thing will surely comes in handy,,thx dude for sharing this..may u succeed in whatever u going for..
thx for your sharing.
I’m working on this funding as well, could u share with us how to draft out all those finance statement, p&l … etc as it requires projection of few yrs.
AND, is there any place to get guidance to fill up the whole biz proposal?
LCGoh, i have replied you through email. Hope you get my message.
kk, I can’t really guide you on this, cause its too subjective. You need to look for a friend in doing accounts will be the best. before that, you need to draft out the followings:
1. Cost of your product/services.
2. Selling price of your product/services.
3. Estimate percentage growth of your market every year.
4. Estimate your yearly expenses, such as Human resources, office expenditure and etc.
with these “few” info, your accountant will know how to guide you through it. anyway, it is just an estimation but “BE LOGIC”.
Thanks Chee Hoong. I’ve got your reply. My gmail has not been working fine. My apologies again.
these is another site giving extra tips, please visit: http://blog.socialtalkr.com/10-tips-to-get-mdec-preseed-grant-worth-rm150k/
[...] 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, [...]
Hi chee hoong, great tips u got there
Many thanks. I am preparing my pitching slides for mdec preseed presentation next wednesday. just wondering, who is the panel of interview? i remember reading somewhere there are 5 of them from different backgrounds. do u remember?
Also want to ask u, on that day do they allow u to give the panel supporting data eg figures and letter of support? OR all stuffs have to be in your 10 slides ppt??
Thanks very much.
Hi mellymilly,
1. who is the panel of interview?
ans:The panels are random people that are selected and appointed by MDEC. The panels mostly holds a very high position which is either from MDEC, MOSTI, PIKOM, CEOs and DIRECTORS from various organizations. on different batch and different cluster, the panels will be different.
2.on that day do they allow u to give the panel supporting data eg figures and letter of support?
ans: Yes. you can bring in your supporting data. in softcopy or hardcopy. you can show it to the panels after the presentation or during the presentation. is up to u. I did show them some newspaper cutting during my presentation. and i photostatted a few copies to distribute.
Spot on, for geeks, get a partner who is expert in marketing and people management.
Hi chee hoong, you mentioned about “Be straight forward, and write in point form”. Really can be done? e.g. Identify gaps/opportunities, Value proposition of proposed business/product/service all writing in point form? no problem with it?
Thanks.
Jack, YES. in point form can be done. Panels and CEO are busy ppl, they prefer to read something short and informative. if you don’t feel easy to write in point form, you can write a longer notes, but, highlight the important points. but trust me, they will just read the highlighted part.
Dear chee,
i have sent my proposal 25/7 yesterday for batch 17 . A few things still bugging me.
After submission,How long will they call for interview ? overall what is the percentages to get secure ? and how many applicants per batch ?
i have prepared my slides , the sequences are like this .. what is xxx , why xxx, our uniqueness, methods of making money, profit calculation, billing technology, win-win, end.
Please hit me back by emailing me. ty
Hi Sub0,
Regarding to your questions:
Q:After submission,How long will they call for interview ? overall what is the percentages to get secure ? and how many applicants per batch ?
ans: it depends, for my case. they called me in within a month. however, some of my friends, they call them for interview within a week. how many? depending on their resources…my batch, 70+ applicant.
Q:The percentages to get secure?
ans: on what basis you are talking about? u mean the percentage in within a batch ? if percentage within a batch, it can be 100%. if all ideas are good, or it can be 0%, if all sucks~
Q:i have prepared my slides , the sequences are like this .. what is xxx , why xxx, our uniqueness, methods of making money, profit calculation, billing technology, win-win, end.
ans:I can’t make any comment on your slides cos i don’t know much about your proposal. Profit calculation… hmmm… I dun think is necessary, unless they ask how u project your profit, but prepare that in other documents, in case they ask and u can show. instead, try to convince them with potential of your market…how huge it can grow.
yes chee hong just an update,
wish me luck then,
i got my first interview this early June for batch 17. sent my slides already.
hope it going ok
in which i have 100% confident in my idea & slides
Hey, just curious after the interview when they reply to you saying that u are success or not?
Mike, they will reply you via email or call u up within a week or 2 or maybe longer….
Sub0, great confidence bring great lucks~!
wah… have to wait so long ah? the moood of waiting really bek tahan lah.. in fact, ur business still running?
mike. after the evaluation meeting there will be another one which is approval meeting. (result will be announce 3-4 days after the first int).. after that im not sure… will let you know later
Hi Sub0 ,
Im batch 17 as well! approval meeting on end of June .. just got the notification.
Wish both of our team luck ! haha
Good Luck to you guys. Janice, Sub0 and mike. If you have gone through the first round. you are 80% guaranteed a winning team (I say only,
). Text me a message here if you won. hope to meet up with you all to share the joy together.
Hi! Thanks for the tips, these are very helpful. I am submitting my application soon. As I am not from an IT background, I would be engaging a web developer to build the website if I get the grant.
I am thinking of getting a web developer from India to do that – anybody has any experience on this? The advantage is lower cost but there could be difficulty in communication since they are far away.
Do you know the market rate for a local web developer to design a web portal such as ibeli.com or alibaba.com?
Any thoughts are appreciated…thanks!
Anyway, I went to the evaluation meeting in Zamrud room, batch 19.
Serious looking; 3 men + 1 woman in the panel.
I heard of scary stories of how they will grill you over your product defect; but for my case, I think it’s a pretty easy going presentation.
Well, I admit there are some shootings from them, but I manage to handle them because I know my product damn bloody well. Just like in business, you need to act/show/present superior than your opponent.
Read this book – BE A WINNER – from Khoo Kheng Hor
and one more thing…Don’t think too much after submission. Let it flow naturally… If I get, it’s a bonus … if not, it’s normal… Just act like you are buying lottery on CNY
Good luck y’all!!!
Dear all, thanks for this blog in advance, its really beneficial. I was notified to attend the Approval Stage presentation next week, but was limited to 5 minutes presentation. Anyone been thru this before? What are they looking for and what type of stuff should i focus during the 5 minutes? got extra tips??
thanks for the compliment Dennis, hope you could go through the 2nd round. the 2nd round is basically almost the same as 1st round. wow, i didn’t know they cut shot to 5 minutes presentation. that’s tough.
for those who are reading this article, you can read this too: http://cheehoong.com/entrepreneur/recommending-howstuffworkscom-must-read-for-grant-applicants
Really appreciate your sincere sharing, thanks. We are going for TPF22 batch and have arrange an appointment with the lab manager on next week. You have mentioned about the important of support letters, we are going to ask for a few. To make their life better, we are going to prepare the standard format for them just to fill in and sign. Do you have any standard format of support letter as reference?
I am sorry Jane. I do not have a standard format of letter of interest. I drafted based on the best possible interest of my potential customers and reviewed by a lawyer friend of mine. You can download some of examples via google by typing keyword “Letter of Interest”.
Hi Chee Hoong,
Can i have the email that you send to LCGOH on the following
(a) When MDec releases the fund quarterly, do they verify/question the variances between the actual spending and the planned spending of previuos quarter?
(b) Do you need to bring along the Secondary applicant in the progress updates/presentation? I need to factor in the travelling expenses.
Thanks
Hi Chee Hoong,
Can you please forward your email to LCGOH also? Thanks a lot! You are really a great person for sharing your experience! Thanks again!
Clement, FCHong, did you receive my mail?
There was also a First StepUp program by MDeC to prepare the applicants, tuning the importance, and pace the presentation according to priorities and how to hit the hot buttons within the short 10 mins opening. Did you attend that 2-day course at TEC prior to your presentation to the panel? What’s your call regarding the level of relevant and any variations that you think you like to emphasise on? Thanks.
Re: TPF22
Hi Denison, nope. I did not attend the courses cause there werent’ one during our batches. Whats my call? Go if u think you need it.
Done it. There’s a lot of emphasis to grow local creative industry, my idea actually fall outsaide the boundaries- internet business which I beleive there’s some stereotype thinking towards such concepts. Nevertheless, hope they smell the good stuffs and really sense the cognitive feature of the learning platform we are creating. Can you name me one of the panel who is your batch? I like to gadge their background if possible. Besdies TEC, how was your experience when comes to pitching to angel or VCs? DC
I can’t name you the panels. cause the panels are random volunteer from different industry selected by MDeC. Don’t worry too much bout the panels o whether your idea falls outside or local, as long as you believed the concept works. you never try you never know.
Hi Chee Hoong. How many slides we need to prepare for 2nd presentation? 10 slides and 10 minutes as well? you have any structure?
hi, jack, I did not change my slides for both presentation. In-terms of presentation structure, styles and no of slides are very subjective to the comfort level of the person who presents. although the committee asked to prepared 10 slides, but we had 20. and we manage to finish the slides with less than 10 min. Were u asked to changed your slides? If you are comfortable with the 1st one. then stick with it.