Carlos, CEO of Human Network Labs (HNL), has a knack for putting people at ease that, coupled with his rich history in entrepreneurship, which he shared with us, made for a very interesting session.
His advice to all of us was “not to embark on the entrepreneurship track” and throughout the session, he expounded his reasons.
I don’t believe in narratives, especially when it comes to learning - thus I have listed the lessons I came away with from the session with him:

-Being able to communicate with people is paramount to becoming a successful entrepreneur
–>An entrepreneur should try to serve the needs of people and provide a solution to their needs and the best way of finding out these needs is through interaction

-Start early on the path of entrepreneurship, and expect to fail
–>Use initial startups to gain experience and hone your skills

-Be an expert in what you do
–>You must have the expertize in the area of your start-up, or you might end up losing the plot

-Getting the right individuals to form the team is vital
–>A great team leads to better innovation, a greater sense of belief in the idea and better execution and chance of success

-Ensure that people you explain the idea to come away with the same vision, especially if they’re possible team members
–>Get people to tell you what they think you told them once you have explained your idea to them to ensure they are on the same page as you

-An entrepreneur leads an ‘abnormal’ lifestyle
–>Friends and family might not understand your reasons, so be prepared to lose some of them

-Don’t bother about trivials, such as name, during initial stages
–>HNL is just a temporary name for them. The initial stages should be about developing the product and getting it ready

In hindsight, I would definitely say that there is no substitute for the impact of hearing them directly from the horses’ mouth. However, I hope the lessons were useful.

Many startups believe that advertisements are a good way to make
money. However, apart from the big players there is not much space for
others to make money. So looking at advertisement as a monetizing
model is not a good idea.

He also talked about “deportalization”. Previously people went to
sites like yahoo and altavista. There, it was possible to find about
information about many things (stocks, movie listings, weather, etc.),
catch up with friends and families, have an email account, etc.
However, it is different now. People visit blockbuster for movies,
ebay for buying/selling stuff and amazon for buying stuff. Which is
one reason why facebook opened up its API: Companies can now place
their application on facebook. Users of facebook will now visit
facebook to get everything done.

There is a large market for TV based advertising. However, it will not
be as valuable as online search of the future. Companies involved in
search are doing plenty of research to find out more about the people
who use various services online. These would involve metrics such as
how long an individual hovers his/her button over a link or button,
which part of a page a person views, how long they view it, etc. Once
it becomes possible to figure out the demographics of the users based
on this statistics, it will be possible to target advertisments to
this particular market. On the other hand, many people in a family
could be watching the same TV (the parents, a son and a daughter for
example). The father might be interested in cars while the wife might
be interested in clothes while the son might be interested in
computers or hardware. Hence it is difficult to target advertisments
that will interest everyone.

The following books were recommended for reading:
Recommended readings:
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Search
Innovator’s dillemma

Finally, this bit will be of interest to NUSEA.

Satish said do not start a company with the end goal of starting a
company. Instead, find out what you are passionate about. See if
someone else is already doing it. If someone else is doing a good job
in the field of your interest, consider working with them. As for
looking for new ideas, look at companies that have failed. Some would
have failed because it of poor management or team. There are some that
failed because they were ahead of time. Look at the current trends and
see if that technology is feasible now. For example, mobile phones
were ahead of their time. Hence most companies failed when mobile
phone technology was still at its infant stage. Once it became
feasible to mass produce phones cheaply, it became a great product to
sell. Another example is ebay. Barter trade has been around for
thousands of years. With the advent of the internet, it is possible
for hundreds of people to participate in the trade. This would be
simply impossible before internet use exploded.

Warmest Regards,
Anis

Ting Zhen, our VP of Mentorship blogs!

He walks in, Blackberry in hand.

“Hi, my name is Jim…” he spoke, torso straight as a military man would.

That was my first impression of him. The “venture customer” who started many startups with early customer funding, including Cisco and GRiD Systems.

He was early; his audience was not in yet. Jiaxing, Tingzhen and I make small talks with him as we got ready for the mentorship session.

The mentorship session with Jim went well. He was very insightful when prodded with questions on his entrepreneurial experience. Top 5 key lessons which he pointed out were:

1. Hire good people and listen to them
2. Get the A team
3. Always hire people better than you
4. Watch your cashflow; you have more time to learn your lessons if you conserved cash than if you are short of it
5. Use your connection wisely, do not abuse it. This is how you build up connections.
   Pick your enemies wisely.

Jim was helpful with questions which our NOC student posted. We’re sure that future mentorship sessions would be helpful and look forward in seeing him again. There is still much to be learnt from someone known previously as one of the most connected person in the world.

Domo! Alvin Lai desu!

In the class of Technology Entrepreneurship I’m enjoying at Stanford University, I have the privilege of exploring creativity and brainstorming from Tina Seelig, the Executive Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Here’s an brief list of what I’ve garnered from the session:

• No bad ideas
• Build on ideas
• No hiearchy, but take turns
• No conformity, conventions and limits
• No best idea, don’t limit potential
• Wild ideas
• The facilitator and the honored participants
• Additional Tips
• Ending thoughts

Check out my take on creativity and brainstorming!

Domo! Alvin Lai desu!

With just 3 months left in the Valley, it’s a good time to look back.

Very different from a regular student exchange program, groups of NUS Overseas Colleges participants in Silicon Valley actually get a job working full time for a salary, get together to form households, rent full sized houses, buy their own cars, pay their own bills, you get the idea, it’s very much like settling down in America, for real.

The NUS Overseas Colleges program is quoted from its website to “infuse a spirit of enterprise into NUS education, providing NUS students with a globally-oriented educational experience.”

Indeed, that is true, with so many valuable components painstakingly pieced together over the years and only made possible with the work done by the people before us, with staff like Jupe forming strategic alliances with high technology startup companies for internships and previous batches of NOC students handing down contacts and relationships of worthy organizations and individuals.

Because of this we are very privileged to be able to have very awe-inspiring mentors like CEOs from Digg, Meebo, Google and so on.

The buddy system where the incumbent batch would be assigned to help the incoming junior batch to ease in and settle down is especially heartwarming, as it encourages the spirit of paying it forward, forming close friendships the process.

All these would never be easy for a single person starting up here alone (actually I know of just one, the CEO of Red Pod). We are so lucky to be able to benefit from the time accumulated fruits of labour!

But of course that’s pretty much what everybody enjoys in the process, are there other intangible and subtle stuff that is not immediately obvious to the onlookers?

Plenty!

Just being here with a couple of friends in this big wonderland called America with plenty things to do, I’ve become a more independent and resourceful person, constantly finding out the hows and the wheres to do new crazy exciting stuff.

I’ve done crazy hikes and scaled half dome in Yosemite National Park, planned and executed a successful and enjoyable outdoor camp trip where we slept under the stars, met up with a stranger who works in Intel to go para-gliding and many more!

Moving out of my comfort zone, charting out and venturing into previously unexplored places. Getting lost and finding your way around, being ever ready to take on challenges and conquer the unexpected.

I will return to Singapore stronger, better and ever ready to take on new challenges that come by my way.

Just a mere 3 months, and I’ll be back. Life will never be the same again

Hello everyone! I am Gundeep!

Last Friday, I along with Yujun and NUS Entrepreneur Association organized garageTalk – an event meant to connect global leaders, altruists, students and entrepreneurs.

The event kicked off at 6:30pm with light dinner. The food area was filled with 80 people from different backgrounds and different parts of the world. Standing at the corner of the room, I felt satisfied to see old classmates meeting each other, entrepreneurs sharing ideas with budding entrepreneurs, employers meeting potential employees and like-minded people sharing ideas and inspiring each other.

Then at 7:30pm, Tom Kosnik, one of our Stanford professors for Global Entrepreneurial Marketing shared his vision of GLEAN (Global Leaders Entrepreneurs and Altruists Network) with everyone. During his talk, I realized the diversity of the in garageTalk and how each one of us could contribute to other people’s life to make world a better place. Following Tom Kosnik’s talk, we had 3 entrepreneurs, Julian, Dev Ramnane and Michael Pierantozzi talking to us about their entrepreneurial lives. They ended their talks with different challenges each one of them was facing in their respective companies. The thing that inspired me was Michael Pierantozzi’s quote, “Leaving a big company and starting your venture is like jumping out of an aeroplane and building a new one on your way down.” Indeed, starting a company is a challenge but one needs to take risks in life to be able to start next Google or Microsoft.

The event ended but the 3 challenges posed by the entrepreneurs were still roaming in my mind. I also met other like-minded people who were willing to help me for the next garageTalk.

Indeed, the event was PRICELESS for people who had come with an open mind. I could see new friendships forming and partnerships nurturing. It was great organizing such an event and meeting people of different genres.

Thanks Vid!

Domo! Alvin Lai desu!

I can’t believe I’ve had the chance to step afoot in to my favourite web based IM company Meebo in Castro, Mountain View!

Imagine! Having AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber all in one instant messenger program! How convenient is that!?

And we’ve got to chat with the Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg! Woo!

And here’s what I gathered:

Meet get to know people who have complementary skills to yours! In school, we tended mix around with peers who are very much like us, and as we think the similar thoughts, I reckon there probably was little out of the box thinking.. Get to know people who have skills that complement yours and that can probably improve on your weakness!

Seth isn’t really a techie person, but he got to know his techie friends’ friends and together he started a company with them! Awesome isn’t it?

Autonomy from Venture Capitalist is great to have, imagine the flexibility to make strategic decisions that could make or break the business!

Launch first, do what you yourself want first, without thinking what others say, get some traffic then get advice and comments! Otherwise you might just never get started!

Be clear of what you want and be prepared before opportunities come your way!

You NEED VCs because you need them to hire people!

Revenge is the wrong answer. STOP. Cut losses early. Ask! Why do you feel that way?

Respect people and have intellectual conversations.

Approach job interviews like a conversation, it’s just conversation about business!

He joined IBM and learnt a whole lot about business – his advice to us is to join a startup or a business before starting our own, because there are so many aspects of a business to learn about, a little contrary to what Farzad saying that the best way to learn is to do your own startup. As they say, there are many ways to get to the final destination!

Startups!

• Be really flexible, let chaos and ambiguity be the norm!
• Be a self starter, just do stuff that helps!
• The less time you need to be managed, the more you’re actually helping and doing things!

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is smart and he surrounds himself with smart people.

Got more to add? Fire away with comments!

Domo! Alvin Lai desu!
Look! Our dear Shao Shao having a wild time in the Vasquez household! Smile until sooo happi!

Here in Silicon Valley, National University of Singapore (NUS) students on the NUS Overseas Colleges program work full time at high technology startups and take courses at Stanford University in a bid to experience and do entrepreneurial things like start startups, organize events and pursue their passions (ok that was a mouthful :D).

6 of us rent a nice place called Vasquez Court and we soon became the Vasquez household. Our dear happy friend Shao Shao (Shaorong)’s a guest today and from the looks he’s so happy to be here!

Okay enough messing around, here’s what really happened.

What started out as a simple invitation for a group of GEM students became a big gathering where people invited more people and their GEM classmates, to the point it became like a big meetup. We had nice Singaporean dishes and we got to meet and make new friends!

I personally met GEM classmates who work in Google and Microsoft and even people who are really excited to pick up Ruby on Rails! How cool is that!

We should do this often man! Ok, nuff said! Pictures!

See everyone so on pose and pose! Especially Bernard damn gek seh Eugene’s like tickling Weichong’s tongue, Shao Shao posing like Farmer brand peanuts and Gavin’s forking his nose and both Zai Zhuang and our teh ping hui looking pretty.. Hmm..

Our nice Chinese friends, huan yin guang lin!

Cool dudes!

I can’t wait for the next gathering!!! :D

The Singapore American Business Association (SABA)
brings us this very interesting seminar about.. ok the blog post title is pretty self explanatory..

At the center of the limelight would be  Patrick Yam, who’s the CEO of Sensei Partners LL, a Menlo Park, CA venture capital firm, who has a pretty good history in the finance realm, check him out!

In short, this seminar would touch on:

• Validity of historical investment myths
• Return on Location (ROL) – which refutes the popular contention of the “on-hour” rule of venture capital investing

Patrick would proceed to elaborate why ROL is “an answer to better venture capital investing today and beyond”.

Check it out from SABA’s website!