Small Net Business Ideas

Dawn of personal/specialised search engines

2008-03-19T18:50:00.002+08:00

With video sharing sites, e.g. youtube.com, you can create your own TV channels. With feed readers, e.g. bloglines.com, you can create your own news channels. Now you can create your own personal or custom search engines. Below is finance examples:

A lucky one

2007-11-01T13:10:00.000+08:00

Below is my speech to introduce myself in one of the meetings of Bangsar Toastmasters club at Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.

Good evening, fellow Toastmasters. A lot of people know my name is Wan. Do you know I am a lucky one. Between 1998 and 2001, I was given opportunities to work and explore five cities in four years. I have been to Singapore, Sydney, San Diego(Southern California), San Francisco(Northern California), New York metro. In 2001, I was a programmer for an online brokerage firm. In the first few month, I worked in Manhattan office at 50 Broad Street(next to New York Stock Exchange). Each day I took PATH train(simlar to KTM Komuter) from one of the Jersey City stations(Journal Square) to World Trade Center. Before September 2001, my company asked me to work in the new waterfront office at Jersey City(70 Hudson St). The new office is much bigger than the old one. It has big glass walls. We can see buildings of west side of lower Manhattan including World Trade Center. On 11th September 2001, I was in office around 8:30am. Before 9am, I was asked by my colleage to witness the first plane crash. It was unreal. In the background was the chatter of CNBC business program. Over Hudson River, directly in front of our building, is the huge explosion caused by the plane crash. We couldn't hear the loud noise because the office is sound-proof. It was like watching one of Bruce Willis's action movie in the front-seat of a wide screen cinema. I think you know what happened the rest of that day. That is why I am a lucky one.

Map of Jersey city(70 Hudson St) and lower Manhattan(50 Broad St)

While, thiat is not my first lucky incident. I have attended a primary school in Ipoh, Perak. My school and my home in Ipoh is separated by a small road. In one rainy day, on the way back home from school on foot, I was waiting on side of the small road before crossing. My glasses were blur because of heavy rain . Having looked left and right, I decided to cross the road. Suddenly I felt something knocked me from the side. For a split second, I felt that I was off the ground and then my back landed on the road. I was still conscious. So I sat up. After wiped my glasses with my fingers, I found there was a car about two meters away. I realised that I was knocked by a car. Since I was not harmed, so I got up and tried to continue my journey.

Based on these two incidents, I am sure you agree that I am a lucky one. I am lucky to be alive to enjoy my expresso. I still remember my first taste of expresso. In one cold day during fall season, my friends and I visited Yosemite Park in Northern California. The park is big. The size of the park is around 1/3 of the size of Selangaor state, Malaysia. Aftering walking around valley of the park for more than five hours, we were exhausted. So we visted the cafe. Being a 'food critic', I was thinking hard what should I have while waiting patiently in the queue. The first few drinks are either soft drink or fruit juice. I told myself I am not going to have 'normal' drink. Then I saw the drink "double espresso". That is interesting. At that time, I had not tried double espresso. So double espresso is the drink for me. When the waitress handed me a small cup with height of less than two inches, I was shocked. For the price of more than USD 2, the double espresso is too expensive for me. A normal cup of soft drink at that time is around one USD. I thought it was a mistake. Anyway I was thirsty. So I took a sip. My first taste is it was thick, strong and a little bit bitter. Then the flavor of expresso 'exploited' in my mouth. Wow! It was good. It was smooth. The best part is after a few minutes, I felt 'energertic'. I could hike to the top of a mountain. Later I found out the coffee bean used is a full body type. Do you know how is the taste of full body? If you have not experienced the taste of full body, invite me for a cup of gourmet coffee :)

In short, I am lucky because I avoid 9-11 incident, survive a car accident and am alive to enjoy espresso. Above all, I am lucky to have your attention for the past few minutes. Thanks.

Lessons learned/inspired from Expara's business plan workshop

2007-08-13T18:53:00.000+08:00

I have completed a two-day workshop "From Idea to Investment For the IDM industry : Business skills master class" organized by Expara. In this workshop, I have learned about technopreneurship, business plan writing and presentation. Below is lessons learned/inspired from the business plan workshop

To increase the chance of your startup being funded, try one of these strategies
- Build the first version of your product using money from founder(s), friend(s) and/or family member(s). The reason is very few persons are willing to risk their money on a startup especially if the idea is very new. By bootstrapping your startup, it demonstrates your commitment and possibly faith of closed ones. Another reason for building the first version of your product is it helps the investors to visualize your idea.
- Try to get at least an award for your product. This demonstrates confidence of an independent party on your product.
- Persuade an experienced entrepreneur to be your startup CEO if none of the founder(s) has experience in startup.
- Present your idea to investors with some experience in the industry of your startup.
- Let investors know more about you and your experience before asking for money.
- Practice your presentation in front of your industry novices and insiders so that you can answer a wide range of questions.

In evaluating your ideas, make sure you answer the following questions:
- How are you going to get money from customers?
- What is your sustainable competitive advantage, e.g. how do you defend your turf?

To increase your chance of being successful in your startup, you need to have access to marketing and technical skills. If a necessary skill is missing from the founding team, get help from outsiders. Therefore being young and inexperience is not a problem as founder, you just have to make sure the startup have access to the necessary skills which mean that the founder may not be the CEO of the startup.

Participants of the workshop, if you have any comments, please add them in the comment section.

P.S. I did not fall asleep during the workshop. This is highly unusual based on my past records :)

A few articles for engineer-turned-entrepreneurs

2007-07-24T13:06:00.000+08:00

Incubic Venture Capital is a venture capital fund for technology related companies. They have written a few articles for engineer-turned-entrepreneurs

How to start your own business

Prepare yourself to become an entrepreneur

How to decide on a business that will work for you

How to find the right investors for your business

Choosing a product customers will buy

The nitty grity of marketing and sales

If you are interested in these articles, click here

Ways to find online business ideas

2007-01-23T21:00:00.000+08:00

Besides monitoring online traffic to uncover profitable ideas, below is other ways to generate online business ideas:

Business Opportunities Weblog is a blog for business opportunities and ideas in US. Even though it is for US residents and is not specific for online businesses, you still can adopt and modify the ideas presented.
Visit forums and blogs for your targeted areas. For example, if you are interested to provide solutions in creating websites, you may visit website creation forum of StartupNation. You should pay attention to problems, requests, wishes expressed by the posters.
Visit government's small business website. An example is Small Business BC, a website funded by British Columbia government(Canada). It also publishes a guide on business opportunities, Exploring Business Opportunities Guide
Visit websites that give exposures to startups, e.g. DEMO.com, TechCrunch/

By the way, if you want to send help-wanted post to any forum, to increase your chance of getting helpful replies, contribute first and let other members to get to know you.

Free netcast for software entrepreneurs

2006-12-16T09:42:00.000+08:00

National Unitversity of Singapore has been trying very hard to promote entrepreneurship in Singapore. Below is some of the netcast related on software entrepreneurs(Note: Effective Internet connection speed of 400k bps and above is required for optimimal viewing experience):

Techno-Venture Forum : "The Ladder Way: Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur" (Talk held in Mandarin Only)

Techno-Venture Forum : "From Silicon Valley to Nasdaq, and Creating cross border advantage between US and Asia"

Marketing Strategies for Start-up Companies

Starting and Growing a Technology Venture - System Access Experience

Techno Venture Forum : Growing a Start-up During Lean Times

International online software marketing anecdote #1

2006-12-16T08:35:00.000+08:00

Cost consideration is more important for Asian users than for European users. European users also emphasize convenience even the cost of product or service is slightly higher. Therefore software as service is more appealing to European users.

Adsense revenue from Asian online surfers is mainly related to technology/gadgets, property, online marketing/multi-level marketing. In other niche areas, Adsense publishers are better served to concentrate on non-Asian online surfers.

Gold in monitoring online traffic

2006-12-15T09:27:00.000+08:00

For those who are struggling in online businesses, finding a profitable niche is often a huge task. Instead of asking people what they want or assume what you need is also marketable to the world because Internet is so huge, why not follow online traffic(a.k.a follow the money trail)? For newbies in online marketing, the questions is how? Some visit lots of websites, blogs and forums. This method may work but it is very slow. An easier way is to let search engines do the traffic monitoring for you. Interested? Read this article on sabahan.com, a technology blog written by an East Malaysian.

Learning basic tactics of Internet marketing in one month

2006-12-12T11:10:00.000+08:00

We know Internet is great. Internet is the largest library ever. However to learn something useful, you may need to visit a lot of websites. Well, sometimes some nice folks will create a comprehensive article directory for beginners for the subject. The Best Warrior Threads is one of them. If you want to know whether a product is saleable and how to reach the target market, learn(not read) from all the articles in the website for one month. I learn more about Internet marketing from this website than what I have learnt on the subject for past two years.

How do I know a business idea may generate income?

2006-09-30T16:40:00.000+08:00

Since the target audience of this blog is people from middle-class and below, income generation is an important requirement of a business idea. How does a person make an educated guess that a business idea may bring in the money? There is a few condiitons to be met before attempting to execute a business idea:

There must be existing demand for the proposed product or service

Current supply is at or below current demand

You have competitive advantages to meet the demand

The first question is how do I know there is demand? Based on your personal experience or worst, personal opinion is not enough in most cases to make an educated guess on a business idea. An exception is there is already a few potential customers expressing their interests when you mentioned the business idea to them. To gauge demand, you can try to use search engine keyword tool, e.g. Google keyword tool. You can enter the keyword releated to a business idea. For example, if you are thinking about organic food business, enter "organic food". Below is global demand and supply related to organic food as of September 2006 according to Google search engine:

As you can see, there is demand for organic food, however competition is very keen.

Another tactic to gauge demand is to ask potential customers to comment on your business ideas. This tactic is crucial if the product or service is new to the target customers. Don't be afraid someone will steal your business ideas. Besides having good business idea, execution strategy is also important. Someone may adopt your business idea but they may not be the right people for the execution of business idea.

Second question is about supply. An ideal business idea produces a product or service which has limited supply but huge demand. You may wonder why the ideal business idea is that you should not be the only one who has such business idea. The reason is huge marketing cost related to finding and educating potential customers for a new product or service. To gauge supply, keyword tool can also be used as shown in the organic food example. Another tactic to gauge supply is to use search engines to find out existing direct and indirect competitors. For example, enter keyword "organic food" in Google search engine. After browsing through these web pages, you will get an understanding of your potential competitors and their strengths and weaknesses.

The third question is are you the right person to execute a business idea? Do you have a realistic execution plan? Do you have or have access to sufficient capital to execute the plan? Do you have or have access to right mix of marketing and technical skills? Having experience in the industry of a business idea is a good start. If you do not have certain skills, you can either spend time and money on learning the skills or hire specialists. During execution of a business idea, there will ups and downs due to mistakes and unforeseen circumstances. Having sufficient working capital to meet cash flow demand is crucial in execution of a business idea.

What types of products and services can leverage Internet?

2006-09-27T09:27:00.000+08:00

As long as the deliverable can be delivered electronically, Internet can be used. Examples are software, photos, illustrations, drawings, icons, videos, songs, words, essays, articles, books and reports. In the future, I will post specific business ideas.

What is Small Net Business Ideas?

2006-09-25T11:55:00.000+08:00

Small Net Business Ideas is a blog about business ideas that Internet is a strategic component. For example the business idea may be related to selling a product/service which has very few local customers in the country of the operator. However Internet is used to meet demands from overseas customers. The blog also covers experiences of a microisv in South East Asia.

OK. What do you mean small ideas? The ideas presented here must be able to be funded by an individual or a few individuals. Initial funding requirement could be between USD 1,000 and USD 100,000.

Alright. Who is the person behind Small Net Business Ideas? The person is Encik Wan, a Malaysian. He has received his tertiary eduction in Singapore and had worked as a programmer in Singapore(7 years) and USA(3 years) for financial industry.