Malay-Tech-Boys “Lepak Talk” - Issue #12
Writing down some notes from last night's talking with Malay tech entrepreneurs who are currently raising funds, building startups, and sharing experiences of their journey back at NUS.
Today's digital age. Opportunities in entrepreneurship. “Balance in deen and Dunya” talk. When you run the business there is a lot of processes.
Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/751998934941065/
Speaker 1 Platform to pull in the investors in a 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 principles. 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 a 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 A lot of info learning from E27.co, tech in Asia & TechCrunch To give back to the community as you get
Accelerator program
Q&A Forum Panel — Takeaways!
Spark your 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 are for us develop thinking, Read a lot 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 a charity and something is unique you can charge higher
First-year was a basic idea, didn’t earn any income when you build something you don’t get money instantly
VC’s awareness, tactic, publicity people get interested
Very few Malay Muslim VC's in the Singapore community
How much Malay Muslim entrepreneurship is top in the world
We need to support each other in Islam as Muslims in business
The ultimate goal is to have many Malay successful entrepreneurs
VC Q&A
Never ask for 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.
The best source of funding is revenue that leads to monetization in the company
Are you ready to scale for a venture capitalist?
When somebody puts money in your company they feel they have some ownership.
Angel will always focus on metrics, growth
If you want to start a tech startup you can’t get the money fast
Optimise company on transactions and number of users
Ramen Profitable, in silicon valley, to survive every day
Sell the company with the exit thinking
When we raise the 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 makes friends, common ground interest and make money
Look at 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
Competitive or Collaborative, make it work together
Singapore Malay Chambers of E-commerce
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
Originally published at www.fajarsiddiq.com on September 17, 2016.