Interesting

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I really really love building on the web

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You probably have heard this a million times. Follow your passion. You should find out what you are passionate about and do that. I myself blogged about passion quite often.

But Mark Cuban have a different view on all this fuss about passion. He believes instead of following your passion (which you can have many), you should follow your effort, things that you spend most of your time on because time is a resource that you don't own.

by Hugh Macleod
by Hugh Macleod

This makes sense because if you are putting in a lot of time and effort into something, you are definitely passionate about it and most likely you are quite good at it too.  

I took a trip down memory lane and realized that besides sleeping, eating, being lazy and gaming, I've spent quite a significant amount of my life building stuff on the web.

​Here's a short summary on some of the fun, failed, lame and stupid stuff that I've built.

​Highschool years

  • ​A browser plugin review site. Back then, browser plugin was the craze.
  • Phrozz.com - Attempted to start a hardware review site with my classmates back then (John & Ed)​ hoping to get some free hardware.
  • Website for my school (KKHS). Also did a Flash intro (yuck) and interactive flash tutorials. Manage to win 1st for design, 2nd for content in the SabahNet Homepage Competition. ​First sign?

​At college/university

  • ​dx's playground - Personal site to mess around with PHP. 
  • ​Website for the college's student government so that I can stay in the hostel.
  • Mamak.phrozz.com - A site for my Warcraft 3 Guild (Mamak). Scraped Blizzard's site for guild members' rank to display on the site. I think it was on Postnuke.​
  • ​My thesis in university was basically building a 'better' CMS (Content Management System)

​Entering the workforce

  • ​My first job introduced me to Coldfusion. Built some HR system and CMS with it. I made a simple framework to make it more bearable.​
  • Managed to convince my boss to let me use PHP. Build CMS for clients.​
  • Also did some Visual Basic, C# and ASP.net. Decided to go freelance and quit my job.​

Flexnode

  • Eventnode - Web app to organize events/outings. My first app built with Ruby on Rails.​
  • Reservation system for a resort. My first paid gig for Flexnode.
  • Biznode - Failed attempt to build a project management app like Basecamp.​​
  • Ravejoint - Managed to convince John to join me and ​build a food/restaurant review site. Plan was to sell ads from restaurants. Didn't work out.
  • ​Switched to consulting and built yet another CMS for Freeform. (KLue, Junkonline & Tongue in Chic)
  • Showtimes.my - Our take on how movie showtimes site should be like. ​Probably our most popular site.
  • ​Zoecity - Joined a US start-up that is based mostly in Kuala Lumpur. Built a few products ranging from social network to news aggregator to social sharing service.
  • Startnow.com.my - Attempted to build a site for entrepreneurs and action-takers. Another failed attempt. No traction at all. 
  • ​2 months contract with Says.my. Awesome company and culture.

I left out a few projects here and there but I think it is safe to say that I'm following my effort and it's definitely my passion too.

I'm not a rockstar web developer by any standards but knowing that this is what I love to do and I'm good enough to make a living out of it, is all that I need to keep going. ​

​I really really love building stuff on the web. What about you? Is your effort inline with your passion?

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Pricing models for different types of product

Read it Later recently relaunch as Pocket​ and moved from a paid up-front pricing model (iOS apps) to freemium. Nate Weiner (developer of Read It Later/Pocket) posted an insightful article on why they decided to make the jump.

He categorized products into 3 simple categories.​

  1. ​Those that value fade over time like a meal. When you are hungry, it is worth more to you. After you consume it, not so much.
  2. Some products' value stay constant over time. The example he gave was newspapers subscription that shows up at your front door daily​
  3. Products with value that grows over time. These are things that you don't see much value at the beginning but as you keep using it, they become more and more valuable to you. (e.g. services like Evernote & Dropbox)​

​He realized that Read It Later was charging up-front like a meal but its actual value increases over time. By using the freemium model, they can also madeit easier for new users to give Pocket a try without committing anything up-front.

Lesson learned here is to determine the type of value your product delivers over time then choose the matching pricing model.​

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What's your evil plan?

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Finally got to read Hugh Macleod second book, Evil Plans. It is about why you should be doing things that you really love and care about. Hugh's Evil Plan is similar to a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). He also shares some interesting marketing strategies he used. Must read for anybody he wants more from their work.

"It has never been easier to make a great living doing what you love. But to make it happen, first you need an EVIL PLAN. Everybody needs to get away from lousy bosses, from boring, dead-end jobs that they hate, and ACTUALLY start doing something they love, something that matters. Life is short." -Hugh MacLeod  

Coming up with an EVIL PLAN is definitely fun and exciting but remember it is still only a plan until you do something about it.

Pricing in reverse

uite often, entrepreneurs build their product first before coming up with a price. Here's an interesting article on why we should do the reverse. Determine the price first then try to justify it. This is makes a lot of sense for those of you who sells your product online.

wrong: build something and then figure out how much you can charge. right: choose your desired price, then figure out how to justify it. -- Amy Hoy (@amyhoy) 
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Remember remember, the month of November

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Back in August, I've mentioned about all the things we've done so far this year, but nothing could have prepared us for the crazy month of November. On November 4th, we had our fourth and biggest Webcamp KK ever. With the support from SATA, we flew in 3 awesome speakers from KL. Premesh Chandran (MalaysiaKini CEO, Allstars.my), Kamal Fariz (Founder of Bitfluent & Fluentspace) and Wu Han (Chief Designer of Mindvalley, Founder of Webcamp KL).

The day after, John and I joined Sabah Got Ideas, a pitching competition organized by SATA. This was the Kota Kinabalu District level and we finished second to enter the finals. 2 weeks later, at the finals, the unthinkable happened. We managed to finish in the top 6 for 20k.

Our pitch was about a mobile budgeting app dubbed 'Wife in your pocket'. For all the insights and lessons we learned, check out my previous post on how to craft a memorable pitch.

Then on the final weekend of November, an old friend of mine, Edham Arief together with the support of Sabah Computer Society organized our first ever Hackathon in KK. We were tasked to build a working application in 24 hours. Our team (John , Isaac and I) finished first with the app (CityQuest) that rewards you for exploring the city.

To end the month with a bang, on the last day of November, we attended the Sabah ICT Month Gala Night to receive the prizes for Sabah Got Ideas and Hackathon. Crazy month indeed...

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Crafting a memorable pitch

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Recently, we (John and I) joined Sabah Got Ideas (a pitching competition organized by SATA) and we unexpectedly ended up in the top 6. That was awesome! Something else was awesome too. We realized that our pitch was one of the more memorable ones. Some refer to us as the guys who are building the second wife. Another one even ask if it could replace his real wife.

We pitched what we dubbed a 'Wife in your pocket'. It's a mobile budgeting application that's a little different than the rest. We want you to consult it before purchasing anything similar to asking your wife for permission to buy the latest gadget.

Of course, I wouldn't say we are an expert at pitching as this is only our second time trying to present our ideas to the world. But I do want to share what I think were important factors that made our pitch memorable.

  1.  Tell a story - One of the best way to start a speech is to tell a story. I think it works well in presentation too. John started with a story about buying coffee at Starbucks.
  2. Relate to them - The reason why a story works so well is that the audience can easily relate to it. It also makes it easier for them to follow and understand what you are trying to tell them.
  3. The elevator pitch - Our 'Wife in your pocket' tag line actually came up when we were trying to shorten our pitch to just 60 seconds. Known as the elevator pitch, (time you have before the person gets off the lift) this is useful in helping to compress your message.
  4. Make an impact - Try to get a reaction from the audience. Laughter is a good reaction. If you got a reaction from the audience, it means they are paying attention and that's what you want. Tell a joke, show a funny picture or call your app a 'Wife in your pocket'.
  5. Practice, practice, practice - Both of us probably rehearsed 20-30 times by ourselves and another 10-15 times together. Because you have limited time, (5 minutes in our case) you need to make sure everything goes smoothly. Remember, even Steve Jobs practice and rehearse before he goes on stage.
  6. Slides should complement your presentation - It is also very important to remember that the audience is there to listen to YOU, not read from your slides. (obviously you shouldn't too) The slides are there to help you deliver your message better. They are not the messenger, that's your job.

These are just some of the points you should keep in mind when preparing your next pitch. Pitching isn't science so there are many ways to deliver a memorable one. Happy pitching!

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Steve Jobs on Telegraph and Telephone

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As you all know, we have lost the greatest inventor of our time. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and creator of the Mac, iPhone and iPad has passed away. Like many, I've been reading a lot about Jobs' inspiring journey. There's a particular interview with him by Playboy that reminds me on how different he sees the world compare to the rest of us.

When answering a question on why would someone take the leap of faith and buy a 3000 dollar Macintosh, he said this.

PB: Then for now, aren't you asking home-computer buyers to invest $3000 in what is essentially an act of faith?

SJ: In the future, it won't be an act of faith. The hard part of what we're up against now is that people ask you about specifics and you can't tell them. A hundred years ago, if somebody had asked Alexander Graham Bell, "What are you cooing to be able to do with a telephone?" he wouldn't have been able to tell him the ways the telephone would affect the world.

He didn't know that people would use the telephone to call up and find out what movies were playing that night or to order some groceries or call a relative on the other side of the globe. But remember that the first public telegraph was inaugurated in 1844. It was an amazing breakthrough in communications. You could actually send messages from New York to San Francisco in an afternoon.

People talked about putting a telegraph on every desk in America to improve productivity. But it wouldn't have worked. It required that people learn from this whole sequence of strange incantations, Morse code, dots and dashes, to use the telegraph. It took about 40 hours to learn. The majority of people would never learn how to use it.

So fortunately, in the 1870s, Bell filed the patents for the telephone. It performed basically the same function as the telegraph but people already knew how to use it. Also, the neatest thing about it was that besides allowing you to communicate with just words, it allowed you to sing.

PB: Meaning what?

SJ: It allowed you to intone your words with meaning beyond the simple linguistics. And we're in the same situation today. Some people are saying that we ought to put an IBM PC on every desk in America to improve productivity. It won't work. The special incantations you have to learn this time are the "slash q-zs" and things like that.

The manual for WordStar, the most popular word-processing program, is 400 pages thick. To write a novel, you have to read a novel––one that reads like a mystery to most people. They're not going to learn slash q-z any more than they're going to learn Morse code.

That is what Macintosh is all about. It's the first "telephone" of our industry. And, besides that, the neatest thing about it, to me, is that the Macintosh lets you sing the way the telephone did. you don't simply communicate words, you have special print styles and the ability to draw and add pictures to express yourself.

If I were to analyze why telephone is such a big leap forward compared to telegraph, I probably would talk about how it is much more efficient and faster because you are transmitting voice messages instead of just dashes and dots. Or I could say how it's more usable and easily adoptable since there's practically no learning curve.

But Steve Jobs sees the potential of telephone way beyond the specifications (speed) or even the experience of using it. He realized that the fact telephone is able to transmit our voice, not just words but the tone too, changes everything. This means that we are able to express ourselves when transmitting our messages. We are not just sending words over copper wires but also our own interpretation, touch and take on the meaning of our words.

If there's only one thing I could learn from Steve, it would be his insight, vision and foresight on how technology can change our lives. It is sad that such a great visionary had his time here cut short but what he did with it makes all of us feel so insignificant.

Thank you for everything, Steve. I will try to stay hungry and foolish.