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Keeping it lean

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In recent months, I've been reading a couple of really interesting books. They range from Steve Jobs' biography, a book on how to generate your business model, Michael Lewis's Boomerang on the European Sovereign Debt Crisis and the grand design of universe by Stephen Hawking. The book that I've found to be the most insightful and a must-read for entrepreneurs out there is The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. It's so good that I've put in at the No. 1 spot on my books page.

The-Lean-Startup.jpg

The great insight that Eric had about startup was the goal to learn as much as you can in the shortest amount of time possible. You do this by conducting experiments to tests your hypothesis. He called this validated learning.

In the spirit of Lean Startup, we are conducting a simple market survey to gather some information and validate certain assumptions we have for our mobile budgeting app. If you got a few minutes to spare, help us out by completing Budgetarian's survey. Thanks!

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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.

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Web Design 101

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Even though I spend most of my professional career as a software developer, I do have interest in web design. I have also done some design work for clients and Flexnode's own sites. Since I couldn't get someone else to present at Webcamp KK so I decided to try it myself. Here are the slides and a ton of useful links for web design. I'm glad I decided to do this because of the sheer amount of things I've learned in the process. Hopefully, you'll find something useful here.

Web design 101
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The year so far

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After about 8 months into this year (2011), it feels that we at Flexnode did a lot of stuff but yet seems like we aren't really moving forward. Here's a short recap for 2011 so far.

  • StartNOW - We envisioned it to be an online community for entrepreneurs, visionaries and action takers. Maybe the features on the site is too confusing or doesn't fit the target audience. Or could be that we need to find ways to seed content to the site and make it useful. Right now, the site is practically dead. For now we are trying to form an offline community first and see what's needed there.
  • Showtimes.my - So far, it's been a rather good year for our movie showtimes site. We added a mobile version and favourite cinemas feature.
  • Showtimes.my iPhone app - We spent a few months getting into iOS development to try to build an iPhone version of Showtimes. We got a prototype built but it's still very far from what we have planned it to be. So meanwhile, we made a mobile site first.
  • Ok.Bah.my - This is more like a pet project to mimic lolcats. The idea is basically to seed the site with funny pics that aims to cheer you up if you are having a bad day. Haven't really put much effort into promoting it yet. Might pivot into something else.
  • Webcamp KK - As mentioned above, we figured we needed to form an offline community to find out more about how it works and what it needs. The first Webcamp was awesome and hopefully we can keep this up. It's nice to have a local support group for web enthusiasts in Kota Kinabalu.
  • Idea on Permission Marketing - Back in July, we pitched this idea at NINA (incubator/startup event) here in Kota Kinabalu. Our aim was really to gain more experience in pitching our ideas. It was a good try and we are currently considering whether to pursue the idea or not.
  • Revamp Flexnode.com - All this while we never had a proper company site so this year we took some time to put one up that is at least presentable.

There's still 4 months left before the year is over and hopefully there will be more awesome stuff in store for us. The next 2 months will be exciting as we are going to work with a client in KL on an interesting project.

How's the year been treating you so far?

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10 Actions Points to build your Minimum Viable Product

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Andrew Warner of Mixergy interviewed KISSMetrics CEO, Hiten Shah on his experience launching products and some action points on how to create a minimum viable product to test your ideas. 

Here are the 10 Actions Points by Hiten:

  1. First write down your assumptions.
  2. Then survey and interview potential customers.
  3. Look for patterns in their responses.
  4. Build your Minimum Viable Product.
  5. Don’t worry about the ghetto launch.
  6. Look for early adopters who would accept flaws.
  7. Get feedback on your launch.
  8. Pivot, if you need to.
  9. Don’t worry about the competition.
  10. Discover your mistakes early.

Go to this page to grab a copy of the PDF containing the entire interview. Trust me, it's worth your time.

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5 lessons for entrepreneurs

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For those of you who are addicted to self-employment and solving problems to make a living, here are some interesting lessons and tips.

  1. Passion - We all know how important passion is as a driving force for anything you do. But your passion can also be your business greatest weapon. Jonathan Betz makes an interesting point where the founder's passion can make a huge difference.
  2. Find (and solve) problems that others have ignored - Quote from Intuit's co-founder Scott Cook in an interview about how they built Quicken and Quickbooks.  This should be obvious but it's worth reminding that unless your product solves a real problem, it's not a business.
  3. Test your idea first - It's very common for you to want to jump in and start working on your idea right away but you should test it out first. Test if there's a market and if anyone would pay for it. What Buffer app did to test their idea is something we should all learn from.
  4. Advertising isn't a business model for everyone - The idea of starting a site and slapping Google Adsense to make a quick buck sounds easy and attractive but it isn't viable for everyone. Advertising is only valuable when a user arrives at your site with an intent to buy/search for something. Read this post on how the position of your product/site in the customer's decision process makes a big difference. Ideally, you'll want to be first in the process like Google/Facebook/Twitter.
  5. Patient for growth, impatient for profit - Clayton Christensen said in his book, Innovator's Solution that there are good money and bad money. Businesses should become profitable before they become big. Raising money to grow and scale before finding a solid foundation for profit can be very dangerous. This is exactly what's happening with Groupon.
Personally, I've been trying to apply these lessons but hardest thing is to identify a problem that's worth solving. But when I do find it, I'm going to test it out by building a minimal viable product first.