Thoughts | Chris Leong

January 18, 2013

Entrepreneurship and Fun

Entrepreneurship is not for everyone – that is something that I always believe in. So there are times, I frowned upon programmes that encourage students to be entrepreneurs by promoting it as a cool thing to be in. While I can understand the rationale behind promoting entrepreneurship but I sometimes wish entrepreneurship was not portrayed as a cool/fun thing for someone to jump in. To me, that is not the entire picture and can be misleading.

From my time spent in the entrepreneurship scene, I had seen different types of entrepreneurs. I come to notice that there are more and more upcoming want to-be entrepreneurs that had the wrong mindset about what entrepreneurship is. I notice that a lot of these want to-be-entrepreneurs spent more time in events than spending time running the business. A true entrepreneur would rather spent each waking hour in their business rather than going to some get-together to have fun bragging about how good their idea is. And if when you are in the scene long enough, you know ideas are cheap.

Starting a company is never fun (in the conventional way). It would be fun though if you were the type of person that defines fun as spending hours everyday to train for an Iron Man competition or to climb Mt Everest. Not everyone enjoys that, so not everyone will enjoy entrepreneurship.

The life of a true entrepreneur is full of worry and sacrifice. The first thing the entrepreneur loses would most likely be the social life. Clubbing sessions, drinking session and any other non-essential activities would most likely to be the first to go. Public holidays and festivals soon won’t draw the same excitement as it used to – everyday can be a workday anyway. Delay gratification would start to become a habit, as cash flow considerations would be the priority. (Imagine saying no to the latest cool gadget you want to buy). And the list can go on and on

So is entrepreneurship fun? Yes, only to a selected few.

For an entrepreneur to thrive, there must be a deep conviction within. A conviction that regardless of the odds, they have the “special” advantage to succeed. This conviction also would allow entrepreneurs to enjoy the fun part of a start-up: The happiness of getting 1 yes after 10 rejections, the excitement of launching a product after weeks of all-nighters and the satisfaction of proving the naysayers wrong. That’s the fun part of entrepreneurship – to assume the role of David and to try the very best to beat the hell out of a Goliath.

Entrepreneurship always reminds me of “running”. Running faster than your nearest competitor and running faster so that you are far ahead of any upcoming competitor. So entrepreneurship is all about running fast (especially for tech companies) and this quote that I read from the book “The World is Flat” sums it all up.

“Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every morning a Lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest Gazelle or it will starve to death.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle… when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” – Old African Proverb

And that ends my ramblings about entrepreneurship. And if you enjoy “running” welcome to the entrepreneurship world.

Image from the Boho Garden

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January 8, 2013

2012 – A personal recap

It is the beginning of a brand new year and I’m in a particularly reflective mood. I always felt that looking inward and reflecting back is important for ones personal development. It gives me a sense of whether I really grown as a person. And of course I don’t mean physically. That, I leave it to nature 🙂

2012 – a year of tribulation

2012 to me is a year that I was tested the most – both in terms of career and personal life. It present to me many challenges, and many of them struck me emotionally. Ironically, 2012 was also a year that bears me many fruits. I managed to get a lot of things done and some of the achievements were close to my heart. Something I can be proud of.

I guess during the testing times is where the fire will burn the strongest. The process, no doubt, would be painful but it also fortifies one’s character. I’m fortunate that it made me a better person and manage to end the year on a better note.

Looking back, I’m still counting my blessings as many of the things that I’m been working on bore fruit at the most unlikely time. The most significant one would be the angel tax incentive and my MBA. It was lobbied for 2 years and through sheer grit and support from various stakeholders, the Prime Minister finally announced it in his budget speech in September 2012.

The other thing was my MBA. I finally manage to finish my MBA and surprisingly, with a distinction. That was a huge surprise for me, as I needed a really high score for my dissertation to get a distinction. And the deadline to submit was during the most challenging time of my life (managing a regional event – ABAF for Cradle and juggling life). I’m glad that everything workout fine in the end J

I draw many lessons from 2012. But I would like to share 3 personal lessons that make me a better person.

1) When it rains, it pours. So learn to dance in the rain

Shit happens and unfortunately shit attracts more shit. So either you take it as a lesson/test or you can whine about it. Learning to be thankful about what you have rather than what could have been will open up opportunities for better things to happen.

Looking at the positive side of a bad event and learning the skill (yes it can be learnt) will allow you to find joy in what you have. Trust me. Luck and fortune will find the people who is smiling rather than whining. J

2) Let go. Focus out and take a step at a time

Fantasizing too much about the problem does not help, especially with a problem that is out of your control. So focus out on achieving things and letting go the problem temporary would do wonders to the mind. And more likely or not, if one stays idle too long most probably you are sitting on a lot of things that will transform into problems in the future (unpaid bills, missed deadlines ETC).

Taking baby steps forward equates to one huge step for your mental development. That step would most probably take a lot of mental strength but would lay the foundation for one to conquer bigger problems in the future.

3) Do the right thing. You sleep better at night

I’m old school and like to stick on to traditional values. I strongly believe that when you do bad things, it would be like a boomerang. It would come back sooner or later.

My moral benchmark is simple. If the things I do, won’t let me sleep well at night then it fails my benchmark. A revengeful/evil heart is just bad investment. I’m the type of people who prefers to spend more energy looking forward rather than taking care of my back. And believe me, that is such a waste of time.

So, these are personal lessons of mine. And I do hope it benefits someone who reads it. Good-bye 2012. I’m thankful but I will always remember you as the year of fire.

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January 21, 2012

Silicon Valley Visit–An eye opener

I have been in the tech circle and the entrepreneurship circle for a number of years in Malaysia. I have always regard Silicon Valley as a very special place, some sort of Mecca for entrepreneurs. My visit there was a mind boggling experience and it is a place where i would like to stay longer. Maybe to do a start-up of my own Smile

After being there, talking to VCs, angel investors and visiting the tech giants around. I came into one conclusion. IMHO, Malaysia with its plans to emulate Silicon Valley has still a long way to go. Silicon Valley is special because of the soft aspect – people. Not its infrastructure, it is something that more Government officials need to realise.

Signing off from Dubai, in a 8 hour long transit.

Happy Chinese New Year!

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August 7, 2009

Sorry for not posting

The reason that i’ve not been posting lately is basically to have some time to reflect on how should i position my blog. So stay tune for more news

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July 7, 2009

Michael Jackson Memorial – Live Broadcast

Michael Jackson is a great singer and I would always remember him for all the fantastic songs that he brought to us. I basically grew up listening to his songs and my favorite song of his is “Man In The Mirror “ . I’m planning to watch the Michael Jackson Memorial live tomorrow to rekindle my childhood memories.

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May 5, 2009

Interview between the rich and the richer (Buffet vs Gates)

Buffet and Gates talk a little about Google towards the end of the interview. Near the end (skip to the 6:10 mark of the 2nd video) Fox’s Liz Claman talks about Buffett’s love of Google, quoting him: “Their moat of competitiveness is so wide and what they do is so tough to compare and to compete with that in that moat are sharks and crocodiles that no one can get near.”

Gates fires back, saying that Microsoft is undeterred: “Well, technology companies do for a period get in these wonderful positions and, you know, it’s great that there’s somebody willing to attack those moats. Microsoft is undeterred. We look at each one of those crocodiles and we say charge!”
Buffet responds “No shark wants to come up against him,” and Gates ends with “So, it is, it is a daunting thing, but consumers benefit when somebody’s willing to take that on and say, hey, we can do a better search product.”

Thanks to TechCrunch for the post.

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March 21, 2009

The Future as Microsoft sees it

Here are a bunch of video’s on YouTube how the future looks like according to Microsoft. It looks like something out of the Minority Report.

Hmmm one question though, the doors in the future still looks the same. You still need to push it to open it.

Wonder whether its one of the things that would never change like the umbrella. The basic form of the umbrella still looks the same from the Ching Dynasty till now. (There’s no facts with this statement, just my observation from HK movies) 🙂

Microsoft’s 2019 Future Vision Montage

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March 20, 2009

Snippets – What I have been reading about (Tony Robbins, IE8, Gmail)

Quote about Faith & Fear

What’s the difference between fear & faith? Both are made up. Fear is imagination undirected & faith is your power to direct imagination – Got from Tony Robbins tweet

A fantastic video about the “Failure: The Secret to Success” By Honda

Love this short video. Since I’ve been facing some obstacles lately, its a good dose of motivation and inspiration for me.

The official launch of Internet Explorer 8

Been trying out IE8, Chrome and Firefox for a while. But Microsoft just launched IE8 officially. So for folks who do not like to use beta software, here’s a chance for you to try it out

Something about IE8

Safer. Built-in phishing and malware protection along with click-jacking and cross-site scripting prevention protects you from threats on the Internet. InPrivate browsing & filters let you maintain confidentiality when needed. See the whitepaper here.
Easier. With Web Slices, content updates from your favorite sites are now accessible right from your favorites bar no matter where you are on the web. See the gallery here.
Faster. With IE 8, it takes much fewer steps to complete key tasks than in FF. E.g. Mapping an address in IE8 takes 3 steps, while in FF, it takes 7. In side-by-side measures of speed in opening the top 25 websites worldwide, IE8 was as fast or faster than Firefox and Chrome. IE8 is faster than IE7 by 80% in common micro-benchmarks. See the video here.

Download Internet Explorer 8 here

Gmail’s new feature – Undo Send

This got to be a life saver for me. I don’t know bout you folks, but I’m one of the few who manage to “jump the gun” by sending emails out without attachments. I always think how nice if i could “stop” the mail from being sent out. This folks from the Gmail team added a new feature that would be useful. This is especially true for folks who often write angry emails and sent it out.

Check out what they are saying in Gmails blog. To use this new feature, go to Settings –> Labs and look for undo send

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March 18, 2009

Blog Snippet – Online Pay to Pray is definitely not a good use of technology

Anyone who follows my blog will know that I’m a strong believer in technology. I truly believe that technology use correctly, can improve the life of people. Not only in terms of productivity but also in terms of relationship with friends and families.

Look at how Facebook helps you connect with long lost friends. And the magic of MSN messenger and Skype in helping you talk to friends and family from afar. Technology should help people as a “tool” to reach out and touch more people.

To me, technology is never here to replace the actual relationship building process. You should never use technology to replace yourself in playing with your kids, having fun with your friends and family and definitely not building your relationship with GOD.

That’s why when i read the article from TechCruch’s Too Busy To Pray? Don’t Worry – Indulgences Are Back!, i feel that i need to let my “2 cents” about this. I’m not a religious person but i do believe that no matter what your religion is, it should be a sacred relationship between you and GOD. You can’t and should not ask a computer to pray for you.

Here’s the description of service offer by Information Age Prayer and the picture to its services it offers.

Information Age Prayer is a subscription service utilizing a computer with text-to-speech capability to incant your prayers each day. It gives you the satisfaction of knowing that your prayers will always be said even if you wake up late, or forget.

Enough of my 2 cents. My point is, praying is a choice not a task. Don’t hire a machine to do it for you.

Note:

If you folks out there who like the idea of paying for a computer to pray for you and seriously think of subscribing. Let me offer you a “free” solution. Go to Control Panel –> Ease Of Access. Look for speech to text. Type in what ever prayer you want and the computer will pray for you.

Yes i still think its stupid, but at least its less stupid for someone to pay for the service (You are paying good money for nothing). Better save that money to boost the local economy. At least, someone working hard can benefit from it.