Malay-Tech-Boys "Lepak Talk"

Writing down some notes from last night talk with malay tech entrepreneurs who are currently raising funds, building startups and sharing experience of their journey back at NUS.

Todays digital age. Opportunities in entrepreneurship. “Balance in deen and dunya” talk. When you run business there is alot of process.

Speaker 1 Platform to pull in the investors in the halal way. Journey and stories. Fundamentally learn to do sales and online business & advertise cars in early stage Next evolution in 10 years: people serve people, sharing economy, C2C We need to move faster and think what we can create, with islamic principals. Fair, Good & Sustainable

Creating things today, is not about size but about speed.

Speaker 2 Don’t know much about business but just wanna do it, to prove people wrong and not ready for it. Skillset as a developer and not sales. You don’t have network, you don’t have business Is okay to fail, are you afraid of failing? Getting good investors Took bank loan, no capital Pivoting in e-commerce

Moving to series A

Speaker 3 Started business in training Software clients in Singapore and london, people from india work for them Young entrepreneurs award, SME500 Alot of info learning from E27.co, tech in asia & techcrunch To give back to community as you get

Accelerator program

Q&A Forum Panel — Takeaways!

• Spark you interest in entrepreneurship
• Family history in entrepreneurship
• Read Linkedin articles
• Issue of mindset
• Create yourself happy and make other people happy
• Analysis Paralysis (Had idea and 10 years not getting there)
• People have interest and when you know your strength you got to perfect it.
• Whatever you do in school it doesn’t matter
• Books for startups and entrepreneurship: Art of the start books, pivot or die, baseball scouting (movies)
• Books is for us develop thinking, Read alot of articles on linkedin pulse
• Firmly believe, never waste anytime
• Time is an amanah, if you waste it you don”t get it
• Pancake people: flat, shallow and white (Like adding people on facebook but not actually your real friends)
• Move to malaysia to scale bigger because of network
• Spread awareness, build community, 2–3 years, knowing your identity and get trust
• Dress normally like put on tshirt for talks and events
• Treat everybody important, with respect, all muslims and fairly
• Monetizing is always a challenge, doing something islamic is charity and something is unique you can charge higher
• First year was basic idea, didn’t earn any income, when you build somethiing you don’t get money instantly
• VC’s awareness, tractic, publicity people get interested
• Very little malay muslim vc’s in the singapore community
• How many malay muslim entrepreneurship is top in the world
• We need to support each other in islam as muslims in business
• Ultimate goal to have many malay successful entrepreneurs

VC Q&A

• Never ask money from a vc base on control and how to run, be confident with the vc.
• Do what is practical for yourself
• Early stage, with some savings then angels then VC is for shark they are for profit.
• Best source of funding is revenue that leads to monetisation in the company
• Are you ready to scale for venture capitalist?
• When somebody put money in your company they feel they have some ownership.
• Angel will always focus on metrics, growth
• If you want to start tech startup you can’t get the money fast
• Opitimise company on transactions and number of users
• Ramen Profitable, in silicon valley to survive everyday
• Sell the company with the exit thinking
• When we raise money we don’t celebrate, when your company is successful people will buy
• UK Accelerator for investors
• I don’ believe in juggling, from studies and startup. Only do one thing to focus on better performance

Building Networks

• Competition make friends, common ground interest and make money
• Look both sides to benefit
• Choose your friends wisely
• Delivery business story: in and out of jail, drives bmw, redmart contract
• Avoiding conflict of interest, level of maturity, accept them as friends and know your boundaries
• Competitve or Collaborative, make it work together
• Singapore Malay Chambers of Ecommerce

Build Products & Service

• Crowdfunding islamic for house developers
• Waqaf Islamic
• Logistics partner support delivery and returns
• Financing university education

5 Keys of success

• Understand who you are and accept be yourself
• Appreciate what you have
• Life is the crossroad of choices
• To give more than what you get
• Love yourself