Saturday, February 3, 2007

Let's Talk Business

Today I woke up early enough to have some extra minutes of sleep before actually waking up.

I slept on the cold floor again last night. No pillow, no blanket, and this time, NO JACKET! Yup. I was there, lying dead for some few hours. Blame it on the Internet (or should I thank it for being such a pain-in-the-bl**p?)

I was having an online discussion last night for the business talk today. One of us would be the first presenter of our business idea. The group was talking craps 90% of the time. I thought I missed anything important when I was offline (the Net is to be blamed!) but luckily I didn't.

So I *finally* woke up and got my bl**p moving at 8.30 a.m. I took a shower, a pretty quick one. Today I wore my corporate white shirt. Yup. The corporate look. I was thinking of donning a tie, maybe a black one. But it would be too much, I guess. I wasn't very eager the first place, so why should I dress up like I'm soooooooo into it?

I was a bit late, but the talk wasn't started yet that time. Anyway, I sat at the second row in the Conference Room. But it was OK. I was hoping that the speakers never to call me to answer questions or anything. I'm not into those kind of stuff. Yeah, I missed the chance to grab some goodies from her (the speaker). What a waste! She got chocolate bars, choc chip cookies and stuff!!!

The first slot was about what is the whole talk is about. TYIB - Turning Your Idea into Business. What does it says there? Yup, turning your idea into business. It was about being an entrepreneur. To be precise, a technopreneur. I couldn't find that word in the dictionary (yeah, I love dictionaries!) but I guess it was just some term coined to fit a situation here.

Technology + Entrepreneur = Technopreneur. The word is widely used here, I thought it must be in the dictionary, but I was wrong. Ohh... What a shocking fact! How lovely. I love surprises.

Back to the talk. Technopreneurship. Selling an idea, something to do with technology, especially ICT (Information and Communication Technology), turning it into a profitable business. It was an eye-opening talk for most of us, I guess. I can see some people are dreaming of swimming in a pool of money now. Hmm...

Morning tea break. The guys in charge of food had wrong estimation, I guess. Or somebody gobbled up more than their portion. I ate half an egg sandwich, it was T's. I truly appreciate that piece. I calmed my grumbling tummy down with some few cups of milk tea. It helped a bit, but it made my throat dry. I need plain water, please!

The second slot was about funding. Pre-seed funding of the idea-into-biz thing. Usually people have trouble in surviving the pre-seed stage, the stage before the seed stage. The pre-seed stage is where the idea is developed into a prototype, before it can be developed into a complete product (seed stage).

I did ask a question in the Q & A session of the second slot. I guess it wasn't a stupid one. Mine was:

What if the business idea submitted exceeded the maximum allowed grant of 150 k, but I am willing to fork out some money from somewhere else?

The answer:

Well, if you have some other sources to fund the exceeding costs, you should state so in your application. If we see that, we will know that you are really determined that the idea would be successful, thus, we see bigger potential and we will try our best to help.

I didn't get a choc for that one. Hmm...

Lunch break. I skipped the free meal, went to the cafe and found nothing! No food today. I'm not really a picky eater, but I need veggies. No veggies, no meal. That's pretty much how people see me. I went to my room and made myself a cup of instant noodles. No veggies, but I'm not picky about instant noodles without veggies. It tasted good. I hadn't eaten any instant noodles for a while.

Third slot - the Presentation. My group had picked a guy to represent us. I thought it was a bad choice. I just can't trust him. But yeah, he needed to learn something about the idea. They were late. We, the girls were about to present our idea, when they *finally* showed up. The guys explained the idea wrong. Luckily it was only a round-table presentation, more like a discussion. I took over (it was my idea, my concept anyway), and luckily the representative we were talking to grasped the idea well. He said it wasn't new (I know) but overall, it was a pretty neat concept (a last-minute thinking, OK?) but we need to work hard if we really want to make it successful.

I guess the whole TYIB thing made me somehow grow up. I mean, I was somehow an adult there. I was me in my school days. My early school days. Age 10 and thinking about serious stuff, being serious in stuff, no kidding around me when you talk about tasks.


What I had learned today:

There are plenty of ideas, but it takes courages (and a lot of money) to make it happens.

150 k grants for people with good ideas, to make the ideas working.

Get your good ideas patented! If it's really good, people may want to steal it. Get a patent! A copyright or anything like that! Make money from it.

I have lots of ideas, I could actually sell them. But I'm not the technical type, I can make people see the concept from my point of view, but I don't have enough skills to make it into a working prototype.

I'm a visualiser. Spatial visual is one of my things, my abilities (I may get the term wrong, pardon me). Now I can see how it's going to help me.

1 comment:

admin said...

huhu..something that i really miss. its really eye opening though any course relating to entrepreneurship. might find new stuff and info which may help in the future.huhuhu.
nk sangat pegi ari tu tp ada byk keje T_T