As I ponder to share what I learnt from startup training, I realize I see many similarities in it while working in the many companies I did previously. Today I am going to talk about the fundamental thing of any company. Get shit done! When working in a company, the difference between a good employee and a bad employee is not how much they do, but how they communicate what they did. In startup life, it doesn't matter how well you can tell what you did, but what did you do. Did you get shit done? A lot of time is wasted in meetings and meetings and even more meetings to tell others what did you do. Sharing of reports, analytic studies, decision making, making sure everyone is happy and heard. It's important but many times, those who make decisions are not those who need the meetings, but those around you are the ones who do. Much time is wasted validating each others decisions to ensure no mistakes are made. But then, it is good as you will always know what is happening... right? We all don't have time to read emails because we are all caught up in meetings are more meetings. It does helps us come to a decision when we are not sure but so does a phone call. Anyway, I would like to share with everyone is to focus on getting your work done first. Reduce your meetings and always have a PAL with you during your meetings. If you don't have a PAL, your meetings are useless. Ensure you know what you are spending your time other than getting shit done. After the FI graduation, while we were having some drinks, I started to think "Will startup courses like FI be relevant to MNC companies?" Problem is that MNC's don't liek startup guys and well, startup's don't like MNC guys as well. There were so many mentors who said don't hire people from MNC backgrounds but realistically in today's economy, if you don't have a steady income or savings, how are you going to get a company up and running in Malaysia? So I started thinking, what did I learn in FI and would it be useful if I was still working in an MNC? How will it help? Will it be beneficial at all or would it make me quit my job? Well, lets break the FI curriculum down.
Later on I will expand more on to what I have learnt during this time and how I feel it is beneficial for anyone who is working at an MNC After the FI graduation, a group of us were having a chat on getting stuff done. I have met so many people who have great ideas but most of them are too scared of getting it off the ground and just following through with it. I do agree that we all must be able to sustain ourselves but I always feel that we burden ourselves with items that the media and marketing companies have ingrained into us... the sports car, the expensive clothes, the watch, the life style. Take that all away and you can do a lot of things! Anyway, today I want to talk about the tools available to get a MVP, Minimal Viable Product. So before you begin, you need an idea, then get a domain name for it. After you have your domain and your free email, you need to start conceptualizing your product, here there are many tools available to you. Some are free but some have nominal prices.
The list I have is not all encompassing, it covers what I have used and what I find interesting to be used. There are many many more tools available and it is great that being able to be used online simplifies Well, I have been involved in the Founder Institute 2013 Kuala Lumpur chapter and I am glad to say that I have finally graduated! Out of the 31 people who joined, 9 of us made it to the end! At times I was unsure whether we would make it and if the idea had enough legs to float but I feel that the final idea we have come up with will work and all I need to do now is to build the core team up and it will be able to continue on. Do keep an eye out as I write about the journey here. I think its much better for me to write it all here instead of the company blog as it is much easier for me to compile everything together! Thank you God for giving me another day, another chance to become a better individual, another chance to give and experience love. Thank you God for giving me health, for the food you provide, for the awareness you have awaken in me...Thank you for the energy that feeds my soul, the sun that warms our bodies and the air that fills our lungs... Because of you I believe in the good without the bad and the ugly, because of you I am learning to love and accept myself, because of you I believe in believing. My source, stay connected to me today and always, for I need you in order to fullfil my spiritual tasks...God, show me how to love myself, to be able to love others. Help me become the type of person that I would like to befriend, help me forgive myself and forgive others... God, make me a channel of your energy and help me understand. I thank you God for giving me another day, another unused opportunity to do it right. Keep us all close to you and listen to our prayers.Amen. A simple way I would recommend everyone is to do like what I do, go buy yourself a domain name! It's much more memorable when I tell people my email address is bert@bertlim.net or iam@bertlim.com! It makes you easily remembered and greatly helps in your own self marketing. You don't have to get a blog if you don't want to but it doesn't hurt to get your domain name first. And the best part is that it's not expensive at all! Its not going to cost you hundreds a year, there are so many free options available these days and its easy for you to get it done! Here are some tips from me
Anyway, do start thinking of self-branding yourself. Even if you don't want to use it yet, buy the domain now! I posted this out last year...
I am reminded from many experiences that people often get worked up and go off tangent when they misinterpret words when in a discussion. And often when you are trying to clarify with these people, they often talk about their agenda and will not allow for others to explain to them their mistake. So have you encountered this before? I am sure each one of us has had a conversation like this before. And how did you handle it? Personally, I find that this happens to me when the other person is not very technical or uses another language as their primary language. The problem occurs when they interpret the meaning of a common word for something else. And they can’t understand sarcasm. How to deal with this? Normally I would let them talk until they feel they are right. Then start asking them back what do they mean. In these cases, it will then allow me to understand where did they misinterpret and correct them. Few rules to follow
In our working life, we come across some tough decision to make. It usually starts of small and you usually will not think of it much but over time, it gets bigger and bigger. What I am talking about today is on Ethics and doing the right or wrong thing. Like I said earlier, it usually starts off small like don't tell anyone that I came late, or back late from lunch or went home early. These are usually not very harmful and innocent in a way. But they grow... And what else happens is that the ones who perpetrate it are the ones you are close to at work; your staff, your buddies, your boss... And so what do you do? What shall you say? What can you do? My opinion is that no matter what, be truthful to yourself. Do you think it is right? Is this something that you can condone? Is this something you are OK with? I think it is also not right that you run off and tell on everything that you see is wrong... that makes you into the person that the whole place dislikes (Reminds me of the class monitors in school or the prefects) So, just do what you feel is right. If you disagree, say you disagree. If it's some thing serious, bring it up. If it's minor, then so be it. Be someone whom you can respect and do what you think is right for the company As you can see, the price of oil has been at its highest for quite some time. We all feel it daily as we can see the cost to refill our cars, the increasing price of goods and also especially the portions of food becoming smaller and smaller. But in a way, car manufacturers are to be blamed. They make a lot of money and are focused on selling more cars each year to make more money, like all businesses. I think that they are also to be blamed for the increase of oil demand worldwide! When you look at a car brochure, what do you see? Wow... the car looks good, it has a CD player! Reverse camera, 10 airbags etc. But what many of us immediately look at is... the engine specs. How many cc's? How much horsepower? 0-100? An of course, how may liters/100km... And we will rationalize to ourselves that we won't be stepping on the gas so much and we will drive sanely... All governments and safety groups will always tell you "Speed kills!", "Drive within the limits", "Penalty points and higher fines are the way". Public will cry out "I want an efficient MRT/LRT/Train system", "Public transport sucks", "It's not convenient to take the bus". And all these add up to more petrol being used. But there is a much simpler way to save petrol. If all governments around the world get all the car makers around the world to make cars that can't go above the speed limit, what will happen? We probably will get souped up Tata Nano's like the Aston Martin Cygnet. But won't that be much more interesting? We spend much of our time stuck in traffic jams, going to work and back. A small, comfortable car with a nice interior will be great. You can't use your 500+hp in a traffic jam at all and all that fuel saving technology like engine stop/start, cylinder deactivation, FSI, ultra high compression etc will not be so useful after all. It is just to make the cars pass through federal inspections to look good on paper. End of the day, if all car makers look at building a car that can do 100km/liter of gas, with a lovely interior will we still need so much petrol? Will companies like Ferrari, Lamboghini etc be relevant? I won't mind buying something like the Cygnet if it was affordable so I can use it as a daily driver.. but all small cars are either very cheap with bad safety or very expensive like the Audi A1, BMW 1-series. And cars like the Prius C, Honda Jazz have interiors that are not comfortable at all. Maybe I should go make my own car... but stupid JPJ won't allow it. I wrote this last year on my old site... so deciding to move it here Everyone only can work at 40% efficiency. The balance of 61% will come from your boss, his support and his motivation. So, your boss actually contributes 101% to your work. From -40% to +61%. It really depends on your boss whether you are motivated to work or not. Examples... When in a lousy company, you may feel at 0% but your boss motivates you to work. In a good company, but with a lousy boss, you feel like giving 0%. But when you are at 20% and your boss is enthusiastic and supports you, you will definitely work much better and when you raise your work to 40%, you will be giving it 101%. You will never be able to give 101% if you boss is not supporting you along the way. So decide as a boss where on the scale you will sit as your team's performance depends on it. Link to full article is here I always tell this to the people I work with. Bring solutions, not problems to your manager. It's just a simple concept that many don't get and it makes a big difference in how people perceive you. Why is this important is because you have seen the problem earlier and you would have more time to think of the problem. And the only reason you are talking to your manager is to get to know what is the best solution to move forward. So, always think of 2-3 potential solutions, be able to answer why each one of them works and also what do you think would be the best solution forward. This speeds up the decision making process and you will be perceived to be a person who can get things done instead of a person who has no |
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