Entrepreneurship, technology and life

I was talking to my mom about investing in lands and she was telling me all the stories she read in newspapers about how people got their lands transacted without their consents and how the lawyers and land office personnel teamed up to cheat the land owners.  She told me that that was the reason she didn't invest in lands, the fear of being cheated. Photo credit: Samer Daboul I was brought up in a family that is very prudent and skeptical about almost everything, especially opportunities.  I have to admit that it has served me well in some situations but most of the time it made me paranoid about every single thing in life.  It is good to be prudent and careful, I was told. After all, the chance of getting cheated is much less. There are already many people making money from renting out rooms on Airbnb.  At the meantime, there are still many people who are afraid that the items in their unit get stolen and afraid that the guests ruin their place, etc. Th...

Slide 12: What Is In For Me? Now that I bursted all the myths and bubbles, why am I still running a business?  Other than I like to torture myself, here are some of the reasons. Lots of Learning: If you love to learn, this is where all the learning is.  As OffGamers grew, I noticed that none of the partners have any knowledge in financials and I decided to attend the CFA course.  Even though I didn't pass the exam, I learnt enough about financials.  I also learnt more about law and trademark after we received the first lawyer letter. Entrepreneurship expose you to all areas of business, not just a very narrow scope as an employee in MNC. Lots of Challenges: Economy outlook, GST, currency, haze, etc, are all challenges.  If you don't like challenge, please stay away from entrepreneurship. Self Discovery: I figured that everything that didn't work in the company or business can be reflected back to me.  For example, when we can't hit sales ta...

Slide 7: Myth #1 - I Will Have Flexible Time For the first 5 years of OffGamers, I don't remember taking any vacation and all partners worked through most of the public holidays.  My phone is next to me when I go to bed, as OffGamers is an online store running 24/7.  Good thing about online store is that we have orders and sales coming in even when we are sleeping, bad thing is that there are also complaints and issues coming in 24/7. It took us about 7 years and 120 pax later, to be able to work 9 to 5, and have annual leaves like other employees. “Entrepreneurship is working hard for 40 hours per week so that you can save enough to start a business and work 60 hours per week.”  I can't seem to find the author of the quote. Slide 8: Myth #2 - I Will be Super Rich I am still getting less pay than my first job as a programmer in USA.  Most business owners pay themselves very low as most profit are put back into growing their business.  Grabcar and U...

I was invited by UCSI University in Malaysia to give a talk on entrepreneurship in their inaugural SEE (Student Entrepreneurial Experience) Conference. I put together the following slides for the event. Five MYTHS about Entrepreneurship (UCSI University, 2015) from Stanley Chee Here are the notes of the slides and I noticed that I have missed some of them during the talk. Slide 1 Cover page: UCSI University Student Entrepreneurial Experience Conference 2015 Five MYTHS about Entrepreneurship Stanley Chee Slide 2 A recent photo of me and my wife in Tblisi, Georgia. She started a new business importing naturally semi-sweet wine from Georgia to Malaysia. Slide 3 Many businesses that I am involved in, also illustrated my fair share of successes and failures in businesses. I now run a digital marketing agency, Gapture.  Gapture is a certified Google Partner and I am a certified Google regional trainer. UPDATE (2019-07-10): I have exited Gapture in Octo...

First of all, let me disclose that I have attended the training, I did my AsiaWorks Basic training back in 2012, then Advanced and Leadership Program (LP) in 2014.  All these three trainings were conducted under Asiaworks Training Sdn Bhd in Malaysia.  The reason I'm writing about this is because when I did a Google search on "AsiaWorks review", almost all results point to negative reviews.  Best yet, some of these reviews are from hearsay of the writer's friends, family members, colleagues, etc.  I will bring you through my journey based on my first-person experience. Photo is for illustration purpose only, not a real photo of the training.  Photo credit: Luis Quintero Cult and Secrecy Imagine someone told you Bruce Willis is dead before you even watched the movie "Sixth Sense" (sorry to those who have not watched "Sixth Sense").  This is the main reason why they want to keep the content of the course so secretive.  The course is d...

This is one of my favourite quotes: "Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- Lao-Tze Photo credit: Luke Miller Words are good reflections of your thoughts.  In order to watch your thoughts, observe the words that came out of your mouth.  Here are some words to avoid or at least to be aware of when you are using them, especially when you use it regularly. 1.  "I will try." As Yoda said, "Try not.  Do, or do not."  Make up your mind on whether you want to do it or not.  If you want to, then do it.  If you don't want to, then don't do it, don't try to do it.  Telling others that you will try leaves such a big backdoor for you not to do it.  It is also a way for you to lurk in the grey zone.  For example, if you were asked whether you will be going ...

I believe most entrepreneurs have this conversation before, "Are successful people just lucky?".  I have talked to many businessmen who have made it and they attributed a big portion of their success to luck.  I have also talked to some who haven't made it and they were also attributing it to the lack of luck. Photo credit: mentatdgt Some of my friends argued that it is plain luck since everything is uncertain in the business world and some of these people are just "lucky".  My counter-argument to them would be, are you saying that if Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, or Richard Branson were to start a new business (assuming that they have no access to their established network and wealth), it is as good a chance to succeed as any random person from the street? After a few conversions on this topic, I decided to write about some of the conclusions that I have come to.  First of all, I believe even for a seasoned entrepreneur like Richard Branson, there will ...