Quite a Talent

I had the opportunity of meeting Tzang Merwyn Tong (Director & Producer) of the a Wicked Tale - a 45-minute film by INRI studio.  The film was very well received at the 2005 Montreal FanTasia Film Festival.

What intrigued me about Tzang is his talent in film production (he is raising funds for his 4th film - FRVL) and how he could produce pretty professional looking movies very efficiently (monetary sense).  Furthermore, he was willing to try new talents.  In fact now he is collaborating with another start-up to identify and shortlist his cast - artists.

Beyond raw talent is his ability to balance reality with passion.  Knowing that life as a film maker can be tough in Singapore, Tzang has also taken up assignments with a local education institution to supplement his living expenses.  This way, Tzang will not be a pure dreamer waiting for support from other folks. 

Way to go!  I do look forward to more film makers, creative personnel, and entrepreneurs to add colours to our startup landscape.

Great Story for Singapore Entrepreneurs

Today we read of McAfee's acquisition of tenCube - a Singapore startup which had its beginnings at NUS.  tenCube's proposition lies in its ability to wipe out all data on the handphone should one lose his phone.  Losing a phone is a painful exercise to the pocket book especially if we change and upgrade handphones regularly outside our phone plans; but losing our data - pictures, videos, sms, even passwords... is another thing altogether... we feel invaded even though we were probably the ones to blame for being careless of our phones.

That tenCube is chosen from among the world of mobile security providers to be an acquisition target sits well with entrepreneurs from Singapore - afterall, how often do we read of Singapore companies - much less startups being acquired by such giants?

To the team at tenCube - it's great that they have stuck with each other for the last few years, the long hours put into their dreams.  With one experience of being acquired under their belt, I believe the team will continue their entrepreneurial journey again... Congratulations!!!

Win-Win-Win for young companies

Young companies often encounter multiple challenges ranging from trying to gain market foothold, to raising funds, to assembling a reliable team.  Having followed the progress of a number of young companies, I am convinced that execution is key to any companies.  Execution is dependent on the team members, yet young companies have barely sufficient team members and most are multi-tasking already.
As a priority, young companies often prefer to charge after technology development, market adoption, and will leave key aspects such as HR and Finance functions to the incidental 'admin' officer - thinking he/ she can cover all aspects.  Now, if this is deemed a lower priority, the admin officer tasked is unlikely to be empowered to pay for professional advice and guidance.  This can spell danger as companies that are unable to provide proper accounts usually will encounter a delay in fund raising - which in turn, can jeopardize their market deployment efforts.

One option is to work with MumsAtWorkSG a venture started by a business contact, who has since left the corporate work to start her part time venture after having her baby. Like her, the pool of working mums within Mums@WorkSG are likely professionals who have chosen to hang up their suits in exchange for time with the kids.  By tapping them and working out a flexible schedule, not only will the young companies be able to tap their expertise, these mums can also contribute to the companies and stay in touch with society; yet spend time with their children.

This is indeed a win-win-win situation - the company, working mums and kids! 
Salute to working mums!

MicroFunding

Start-ups are often plagued with multiple issues ranging from having the right team, right market (including penetration strategy and pricing) to even right investors. This is on the pretext that they already have good product / technology.

One interesting site that I chanced upon is MicroFunding. The site allows entrepreneurs to submit their business plan which will then be channeled to investors on the database. At the same time, startups are also able to list their funding requirements along with project details as well as minimum investment quantum, so that browsers such as myself, can check out the companies before deciding whether or not to be a micro-financier.

While this is convenient for the start-ups, it also raises the question of whether the deals shared at this platform are really great, as the best of deals would have been invested and unlikely make it to this MicroFunding site.

To think differently, it provides entrepreneurs with the option of checking the investors out, and for folks who are looking at co-sharing investment risk, it's also a chance to evaluate and see if they can find common investors based on the investor profile.

As I moved around the website and checked out the deals, my sense is the information is pretty dated and likely resulted from lack of maintenance as well as a weak business model. Pity though that the site should go the way of the start-ups... ie unlikely to have raised the necessary funds to maintain the business...

No More Bills!

In light of the cautiousness in ensuring mother earth continues to thrive despite economic progress, one way where we can play a part in is to decline receiving physical bills.

GreenPost, a company founded at the National University of Singapore, has set itself a goal to provide convenience to corporations and consumers to receive different e-bills all at one spot. How it is different from other e-bills is that instead of logging to my email and clicking on a link and forgetting my password (which is a usual thing), I now have access to my phone and hydro bills all at one location. This way, I only need to remember one password, and yet can view all my bills at the same time.

As a consumer, this feature helps me get rid of my ever-growing stacks of bills which I have to spend time filing and shredding (every year or two). At the same time, its software feature allows me to monitor and track my consumption pattern (on hydro and phone bills) online. Now GreenPost comes with the iPhone feature and even my husband can access!