Nusea Live!

The National University of Singapore Entrepreneurs Association is the leading student organization that facilitates entrepreneurial and intellectual exchanges between Singapore and Silicon Valley. The organization is made up of students from the National University of Singapore Overseas College (NOC) program where they work for a year in various startups in Silicon Valley while studying part-time entrepreneurship related courses at Stanford University.

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Min Xuan gives a presentation on Twitter attended by 14th, 15th batch from nusea along with guests at the NOC office.

 Here’s here slides on slideshare.  

For more, see Min xuan’s post on her blog @ http://minxuan.net/blog/2009/01/21/how-twitter-changed-my-life/

and http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2009/02/how-twitter-changed-my-life-slideshow-by-minxuan.html

for more reads

This is the twitter presentation I gave to the folks at NUSEA. 

My intent was not so much to convince, but to share how creativity and imagination has injected so much life and variety into a technology I once thought frivolous. It took me nearly two months to figure the real value in twitter and how to use it effectively, and my aim was to bridge that gap for others, under an hour. As we all know, converts are the greatest evangelists.

Twitter will be destructive. I have witnessed it’s influence in citizen reporting, collective behaviour, and in shifting the power back to the consumer as corporations struggle to keep up. They are afraid of this new viral creature, and until they learn how to manage it they have no choice, but to finally hear consumers out (yay!). It’s long due, and it brings literal meaning to the customer is king.  

And as far as I turn to Google for everything I need to know, I soon discovered the limitation in my results - they are all set in the past. Looking back at the recent crises, it appears that broadcast media typically break the news 15-30 minutes after it is first seen among the twitter chatter.  Who considers what’s newsworthy anyway?  We find value in news that affect us and the people we care about, and that comes through the tweets from our circle. It won’t be long before journalists begin monitoring what’s trending on twitter to report, and I sooner or later, I’m guessing Google will want a piece of the action too. Hello Twoogle!

So after uploading the presentation on Slideshare (which was a harrowing experince due to tons of downtime), I got an email from the editorial team notifying me that my presentation’s being showcased on the Technology page. They probably saw my frustrated Tweet But no really, it’s cool for a start.

Min Xuan is set to present her sharing in Barcelona! Way to go girl! We’re looking forward to many more updates from you.

This year, RainMakers Summer ‘08 will bring together the leaders in the mobile applications and wireless space. It will consist of a keynote speech, panel discussion and also a showcase/expo of start-ups and companies within the mobile applications and wireless industry. Click here to go to the RainMakers’ Website

Why Mobile & Wireless?

In recent years, the percentage of mobile phone and smartphone users has seen rapid growth. Coupled with the introduction of 3G and 4G wireless networks and the multi-tasking, mobility-centred lifestyle of the global citizen, more and more consumer services and functions are now able to be offered.

Yesterday, the cell phone was just for making phone calls… Today, we use it to surf the Internet, send e-mails and even pay our bills. As such, the mobile services industry presents a clear and present opportunity to be leveraged. Some burning topics that could be explored at RainMakers include:

• Is mobile convergence the way to go?
• What revenue models work for mobile applications?
• How to acquire customers / market share in the mobile applications space?
• What opportunites & challenges does the Asian (Singapore, China, India etc) mobile services market present for companies and start-ups?
• Is partnerships between mobile carriers the way to go for mobile application start-ups?
• How to overcome issues of standardisation of mobile operating systems and platforms?

Contact us

For more information about the conference, please contact us at rainmakers2008 [at] nusea [dot] org. Click here to go to the RainMakers’ Website

Being a competitive sportsman for the better part of my growing up years, the dream of competing at the Olympic Games was a natural one. Three knee injuries later, that dream has evolved to perhaps attending the Olympic Games (one that is firmly within my control).

TiE Con represented somewhat of a similar aura for the entrepreneur in me. Being there as an attendee this year can be likened to being a spectator at the Games. You are present; you can feel the atmosphere and recognize the importance to those battling to secure funding or connecting with speakers. But you somehow your life’s work does not hang in the balance like those ‘competing’.

I think my one-year here set me up decently well to work the crowd and to connect with speakers. But the contacts made – while extremely valuable would not be the highlight of TiECon for me.

Two speakers – both very aptly speaking as keynotes were what blew me away. The first was Naresh Goyal, Founder & CEO of Jet Airways. His story of going from a baggage handler in a small Indian airport to the owner of India’s first privately owned airline was truly inspirational. It might have happened in a different time, but his story was a clear reminder that success, in every definition of it, is a direct function of hard work and perseverance.

The other memorable speaker was John Wood, founder of “Room to Read”. “Room to Read” is a non-profit social enterprise that aims to bring literacy and learning to children in all the rural parts of the world. His goal is noble, like many others, but his methods and philosophy is truly exceptional and unlike any other I have seen. He believes in maximizing the donors’ dollar – more than 80% of donations go directly to the children (a staggeringly high statistic for a non-profit). More importantly, he believes these children need to be helped today and now. He answers to this belief by benchmarking his non-profit with one of the fastest expanding corporations in the world – Starbucks. In the last 3 years, “Room to Read” has opened more local language libraries around than world than Starbucks have opened coffee joints. How’s that for scalability and walking the talk? John reminded me of something I lost site of for a while – that one man can exact change in the world.

So while TiE Con was meant to be about contacts, business and understanding entrepreneurship better. It turned out to be so much more than that. It was about fanning the flames of passion and an awakening to closely held yet recently marginalized values in life.

Times are crazy but when the World starts spinning at its regular speed again, I do believe these lessons would be the ones I will carry with me through beyond my remaining time in the Valley.

Today the weather hits 85F (29C), which reminds me of the first time I arrived in Silicon Valley and Singapore.  Having only 3 months left before I return to NUS, I start to recall my experience in NOC SV. Things I’ve learnt during the initial months – how to select and buy used cars from total strangers, drove for the first time and started to become independent for real. I am thankful for having placed in Neterion Inc, where I interned as an Operations Support. I had the opportunity to go on an all expenses paid for trip with my supervisor to Ottawa, Canada, Neterion’sanother office.

Besides school and work, I found meaning in solving business cases. As a business student, solving cases has been part of me since day one. I started to look out for case competitions.

BizBuzz 2007

The first one was Biz Buzz 07; a case competition pioneered by NOC alumni 11^th batch Da Xiang and my buddy, ShuYang. The case competition was heldat Stanford and competed amongst overseas colleges and NOC alumni.  The case was on product marketing strategies for Zazzle.com a startup company. One of the key objectives of the competition is to promote diversity and cross learning amongst local students. I was fortunate to from a team with two students from Stanford, Ricky Yean (Economics ’10) and VridhiTuli (Psychology ’09) as well as two fellow NOC students, Jia Xing Lee (Engineering ‘10) and Dalvir Singh Sunny (Arts and Social Science ’09). Our team emerged runner-up from the competition.

4^th Annual Venture Capital Case competition

Having forge strong friendships from BizBuzz case competition and seeking for more challenges, Ricky, Sunny, Jia Xing and I went on to join the 4^th Annual Venture Capital Case Competition.  This competition is held amongst Stanford, UC Berkerly, and UC Santa Clara Just like a VC, we have to indentify and present a compelling product in the market today that targets the consumer and analyze the investment attractiveness of the startup company. We like to call this the “Be a VC” competition. This competition help us to see from the VC perspective and Alice Wang from FT ventures, our assigned mentor taught us greatly about the essentials of a pitch. Alice has been exceptional in advising our team answer those questions that VCs always look out for. Important things that VCs look out for: 1) Sustainability of the venture business 2) is the management team capable of execution 3) defensibility and others such as business model, ROI etc.

The most difficult hurdle in this particular case was selecting the right start-up company. We did market research, searching through Techcrunch, venturewire, Red Herring and other resources. Trends we noticed were many companies are tapping on the web2.0 space, with technologies such as collaborative video creation, user generation. Keeping in mind that we should aim to present a novel idea and opportunity for the VCs, we decided to go with something that is close to heart, Made in Singapore and from NOC origin. We choose TenCube, a mobile security solutions startup founder by Darius Cheung, NOC alumni. Darius was key in helping us understand the landscape of the mobile industry so quickly.

The team emerged as the top two teams to represent Stanford in the final round against UC Berkeley and Santa Clara University at Plug and Play Center. After weeks of effort, we gave our best and emerge 2^nd runner up. The BeaVC case competition has reinforce our skills from entrepreneurial courses at Stanford – High Technology Entrepreneurship and Global EntrepreneurialMarketing which is truly valuable.

Cisco-Deloitte Case Competition

Fueled by the passion of case competition, Sunny and I went on to compete in the Cisco Case Competition, supported by Deliotte LLP right after BeaVC Case. The toughest challenge for the past few months is the juggling between work, school and competition.  The team was formed with other two Stanford students, Susan and Stefanie. We emerged winner of Stanford and represented Stanford for the finals of Cisco-Deliotte Battle of the Bay against San Jose State University and UC Berkeley. It was an excellent networking session with the Cisco Media Solutions Group (CMSG) and Deloitte’s senior management. We too had a chance to experience first hand the state of the art of Cisco TelePresence.

In conclusion, NOC experience has given me a very good opportunity to work with VCs, entrepreneurs, Stanford students an fellow NOC peers. NOC honed my skills on time management, creativity and networking which are essentials in entrepreneurship.

Zazzle Case Competition:

 Cisco Final Round:

 Cisco Stanford Round: 

Career choices - startup or large company?
It’s better to work for a company with a good brand name, because “if you don’t learn how to get things done, at least you learn how not to get things done.” Also, having a brand name on your resume builds a good track record when starting a company. It’s important to “raise VC funding from a position of strength,” and that is what a good track record provides. References from well-known companies, especially, have a lot of credibility.

On recruiting for startups
It’s difficult recruiting for startups. Gokul mentioned that the best people for startups are those who are willing to sacrifice cash for equity. To circumvent the problem, oursourcing is a good alternative. Though the cost of outsourcing is higher, it is offset by less time spent on managing and not having to deal with HR issues. It’s also the fastest way to get a product to market.

Speed is a vital issue. For Gokul, market research is not as important as identifying a problem and then quickly releasing a private beta to select users. Rapid iteration of the product based on feedback is a great way to get the product right.

The importance of public relations and brand-building.
Public relations are vital to the success of many great companies, including Apple and Google. In essence, it’s free advertising. Google’s various products are also launched with brand-building in mind.
On Google’s venture into offline advertising - is it a good move?
Effective advertising is based on targetting and measurement. While it is harder to target and measure in terms of traditional media, the use of digital TV is making it easier to target TV ads through set top boxes.

Radio and print is more difficult to measure and target due to the lack of interaction. However, using recording apparatus, it’s still possible to measure the reach of radio advertisements, which leads to better measurements.

Google wants to develop the tools that ad agencies use to measure ad effectiveness. As with Google Analytics which is used to make sense of traffic data to websites, similar tools can be made available to people to make sense of the data from their advertisements.

At the same time, there is still a huge opportunity for online advertising. A majority of search traffic from Google comes from outside the US.

Startup opportunity: For markets outside the US, ad networks can be built to represent international traffic on US sites. For example, an ad network in Asia can cut a deal with US-based websites to place ads for traffic coming for Asia.

What is the mindset to work at a startup?
For Gokul, it is much more important to prioritize and decide about what adds the most value. That requires a huge shift in mindset. For example, instead of having several meetings a week, Gokul cuts it down to a meeting every week instead. His advice, is to treat it like a marathon instead of a sprint - don’t burn out trying to do too much in too short a time.

Gokul also made the difference between getting things done, and doing things. At a startup with a limited budget, you have to do things yourself to get things done.

At the same time, there needs to be a process where you need to build trust with investors. Most importantly, make sure there is transparency so that if there is a change in direction for the company, the investors are fully prepared for the transition.

Social networks and advertising
Social networks have been a huge driver for time spent online, but advertising on social networks is a challenge because it is not intent-driven like search is. Creative e-commerce-focused applications will drive monetization.

On why Sun is giving away it’s software as open source

There are five reasons why making Sun’s software open source drives hardware sales, which is Sun’s core business

1. Zero barrier to entry for developers. Developers can create software for Solaris easily, which adds to the functionality and robustness of the OS.
2. Interoperability. Open source allows other software to run on Sun’s systems. For example, open source standards allows Microsoft’s .NET frameworks to be run on Sun’s servers. The increased flexibility offered by Sun’s hardware and open source software improves Sun’s product offering compared to proprietary software standards.
3. Lower R&D costs. Open sourcing it’s code allows Sun to save on software development R&D costs. Java ME, which is licensed under the GPL, would have cost Sun $2 billion to develop in house.
4. Security. Open sourcing allows for a more robust and secure code base for Sun’s software.
5. Eliminates barriers of exit for users. By using open sourcing Sun’s code, it’s easier for users to move from other platforms to SAlso, startups seldom have huge IT budgets, and using Sun’s enterprise hardware allows startups to reduce IT costs dramatically. As a result, Sun’s hardware is more cost effective for startups, which helps drive hardware sales.

With the Internet allowing information to be accessed almost anywhere in the world, the local state is increasing dangerous: the network IS the computer. And opensourcing allows Sun to tap into that trend.

On Leadership
“To grow as fast as we did, we were making mistakes left and right.”

There should always be a balance between grey hair and black hair in a startup, because experienced people are sometimes blindsided by past experiences, and make bad strategic decisions.

Decisive execution, especially when you hire people to make decisions. That means not being afraid to let people go if they are not making good decisions for the company. Never be afraid to ask prima donnas to leave the company, because “people will thank you for it.”

When bad things happen, who takes the blame for it? The key is to be open, transparent and courageous. That means owning up to mistakes, and doing things to make them right.

Create an environment where people feel trusted. People should be able to work with integrity, and not be afraid of telling the truth.

Dealing with people with a velvet glove is important. “Anger no one”, and make friends instead of enemies. That means being gentle with people whom you have to let go. When dealing with errant employees and executives, it’s important to be firm but fair. It’s better to move them to another position in the company and give them a second chance if they want to stay.

On future computing trends
Computers will be increasingly replaced by access devices. With computers becoming increasingly networked and users becoming more mobile, there will be less need for full computers. Instead, mobile computing platforms will become more prevalent.

There is no privacy. Get over it. At the same time, you can be anonymous.

Don’t bet against bandwidth. Future applications will require more bandwidth, and infrastructure will support that.

On character and Life’s most important decisions
Stay grounded. Only by doing so, you can keep your success and failures in perspective. If you allow your ego to take control, you can make some really bad mistakes.

Marriage - “if you’re going to get married, you may as well be in love.” When people get married, they keep forgetting that nothing is perfect. A good marriage is when you can see past the flaws and love the other person.

The most important character traits of a successful person is Courage to do the right things, Intelligence and Smartness, Integrity, and Fairness. Also, you must be physically capable to do your work well.

On how to become a leader
Ask yourself, “why do you like working with someone?”, then distill the answers. Most importantly, trust your gut.