A few months ago we had the privilege to meet John Gage from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers(KPCB) who was down in Malaysia. KPCB is one of the top investment firms in Silicon Valley and also the world.

Who is John Doerr you may ask? John Doerr is a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers(KPCB). Along with KPCB’s partners, John has invested and sits on the board of directors of many of America’s leading entrepreneurs including:

Larry Page, Sergey Brin: Google
Jeff Bezos: Amazon
Andy Bechtolsheim, Scott McNealy, Bill Joy, Vinod Khosla: Sun
And the founders of Compaq, Zynga, VeriSign, Macromedia, Palm and Symantec.

Just to name a few.

Courtesy of VentureBeat.com who had a round table with KPCB, John Doerr had a list of sound advice for start-ups to follow by.

Original article can be found here.

At VentureBeat’s Downturn Roundtable event this morning, Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr came prepared with a list of the top things that start-up CEOs should do. He surveyed 18 of Kleiner’s companies, and here’s what they suggest [update: Doerr has since added an eleventh point]:

1. Act now. Act with speed. Raise money. Get a loan, secure financing. Focus, cut or sell.
2. Protect the vital core of the business. But use a scalpel not an ax. Be surgical. Protect the vital core of the company. Cut once, deeper than you think.
3. Make sure you have at least 18 months of cash. Or more — on a conservative revenue forecast.
4. Defer facility expansions. Don’t spend money on tech infrastructure, such as new software or computers. Doerr noted that Andy Bechtolsheim’s new startup, Arista uses Google Docs (free web office software).
5. Reevaluate your R&D priorities.
5. Renegotiate any contracts that you can. Everything is negotiable.
6. Remember, everyone in the organization should be selling, from the receptionist to the engineers.
7. Offer people equity instead of cash e.g. in place of bonuses. (You can do this with outside vendors as well).
8. Secure your cash. Treasuries, or treasury backed securities, are more secure than money market funds.
9. For your revenue plan, develop and obsess on leading indicators — e.g. bookings, unique visitors, conversions.
10. Over-communicate with everyone – employees, investors, partners and particularly customers. Don’t sugar coat things, communicate your resolve.
Angel investor Ron Conway added a key twelfth point: Be open-minded to mergers and acquisitions. Always a good tip.

One Young World, an organization that aims to be the voice of young people under 25 around the world on critical international issues such as environmentalism, health and education. In addition, Kofi Annan has selected founder David Jones and his team to lead the global advertising for the Campaign for Climate Justice, which aims to raise awareness of the impact of the changing environment on poor communities throughout the globe.

For entrepreneurs who have invented some stuff. Head on to ITEX 2009 which is happening this weekend.

Organized by Malaysia Inventors and Designs Society (MINDS) it brings together inventors from Malaysia and around the world. Look out for some of the most bizarre business type of invention that will change the world in the future.

The opportunity here for entrepreneurs as most of these inventors are looking for investors or entrepreneurs to bring their inventions to market.

Details
Date: 15 to 17 May
Location Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

We are lucky enough to catch Unconference Project Manager a day before the actual event.
Mohan was kind enough to spare a few minutes from his hectic schedule to give us a brief on the event tomorrow.

For more details on Unconference visit here.

“Kid quit his job after selling Millions of Iphone Apps”.
We are sure you have read stories like that due to Apple’s great PR on its mobile application program for the Iphone.

One thing is true, although the mobile application space has been around since the days of Palm, Apple’s seamless platform to sell simple low cost application over Itunes was a game changer. Suddenly instead of going to 3rd Parties site like Handango to buy your applications, it can be running in your phone with a few taps.

To make this space more interesting, Palm, Nokia, Research in Motion and Windows mobile has all announced their own App Store just like Apple. Even the search Giant has got in the game by releasing their own platform call Android.

This is clearly a new trend as 1 Billion Apps have been serve in Itunes and how can someone take advantage of this trend?

If you are are a developer, then it is clear.
Think of an Idea >> Build it up>> Start Selling on the platform.
The apps are pretty simple and this is one business you can build by yourself.

What if you are not a a developer?
Here are some of the options.
1. You can learn about building your own mobile apps. Our friend at Xtrain have created a new program called Mobile Application Development Workshop. It is an introduction on 4 of the top platform how you can build your own application.

2. Work with a developer. However the demands is more than the developers and it a challenge to find good developers to convey your ideas into an application. Here more here.

BFM whatever you want to call it is an interesting start up. Started by Malek Ali who was formerly the Vice-President – Marketing at JobStreet.com

If you are driving around the Klang Valley, you will notice very creative ads strategically placed behind Taxi.

Some of these ads goes like.

Currently available for the Klang Valley on the 89.9 FM

There be some notable guest on air this week that we find is a must listen.

Thurs 10 am -Gerald Lim and Janet of YourPartTime.com
Yourparttime.com is an interesting portal that works on connecting companies with part time human resources.

Friday 11 am – Friday Jeevan Sahadevan, Action Coach
Jeevan will be talking about the two qualities that ALL super-rich people posses in abundance.
BFM is running a contest about these two qualities that Jeevan have discovered by talking to many wealthy people around the world.

If you think you know what they are, send an email to enterprise@bfm.my.

The 5 people with the closest to correct answers will receive a copy of Jeevan’s book:
Walking with the Wise 2.

Sadly, as much as we like Gwen to be in Malaysia, she taking on the position of MYE’s Chief Editor is just an April’s Fool prank. You can read about her comment at SgE.

Other pranks online includes, Jason Calacanis’ www.smellr.com which includes interesting web2.0 perfume scents such as Humility by Calacanis and Modesty by Michael Arrington of Techcrunch.

In Malaysia, our friends at Foldees had fun with their Rollees, the toilet paper version of the Foldees cards.

What was your prank for April’s Fool? Send them to us at editor [at] entrepreneurs.my

What is BarCamp?

BarCamp is basically a very open, participant-driven workshop event where people share knowledge and ideas and expand their social and business network.

There is usually no particular theme. Those people who want to share ideas and knowledge – of any subject, in any field – could register for time and room to host their session. Then, the rest of the people could come to event for free and join any session that they are interested in. If they find that the session uninteresting, they could just leave and go to the next one.

There has been a lot of interesting topics in the past barcamp events. Check out the topics at the first BarCamp KL, StartupCamp KL and the recent BarCamp JB.

BarCampKL 2009

DATE     : 4th & 5th of April 2009 (whole day event on 4th and until 5pm on 5th April)
VENUE : Level 4, Inti College Subang Jaya | More information »
DRESSING CODE : Casual wear. Preferably, wear your t-shirt from any previous BarCamp event.
ENTRY Free for those who register online »

Participants are required to:
  a) bring own drinking bottles, cups as No styrofoam will be provided  
  b) bring own name tags, be it primary or secondary school, college or university, or club or organization name tags.

More info on Barcamp

Website: http://barcamp.my
                  http://barcamp.org/BarCampKL

Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20798441507

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BarcampKL Live @ NTV7 Breakfast Show – March 30 2009
Sri Pentas, Persiaran Bandar Utama. (Ground floor, South wing)

NTV7 Breakfast show host - Nazrudin Rahman (Naz) with Daniel Cerventus Lim and Daniel YS Tan

NTV7 Breakfast show host - Nazrudin Rahman (Naz) with Daniel Cerventus Lim and Daniel YS Tan

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BarcampKL Live @BFM 89.9 The Business Station 
Want an Opportunity to Speak? – Michael Teoh & Daniel Cerventus, Bar Camp KL

Michael Teoh & Daniel Cerventus

Business Fm 89.9 Presenter - Freda Liu with Daniel Y.S. Tan, Daniel CerVentus and Michael Teoh

 
click here for the podcast

Want an Opportunity to Speak? - Michael Teoh & Daniel Cerventus, Bar Camp KL

We are here in Innotech @ Penang and we are catching up with Roslan Bakri Zakaria on Twitter to talk about technopreneurs, mindset and the future.

Do follow us at http://www.twitterfall.com/

Following  the overwhelming response of MIRC Annual Funding and Financing Forum in April 2008, the MCA ICT Resource Centre (MIRC) will organize its 4th Annual Funding and Financing Forum in March 2009. This year’s event will be held on 26th March 2009 at Wisma MCA, Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur. The Annual Funding and Financing Forum aims to bring greater awareness to all SMEs and Technopreneurs and to address the financial issues they faced during this critical time. This event is expected to attract more than 200 local delegates, including entrepreneurs, Technopreneurs, SOHO, sole proprietor, government agencies and financial institutions.

The MIRC Annual Funding and Financing Forum will significantly provide a platform for local SMEs and Technopreneurs to understand how to handle the current business economic downturn and the financial options available in the market which can assist them to start up new venture or continue to grow their businesses during this challenging time. MIRC will be organizing a mini expo where the participating financial institutions will be displaying their financial scheme at their kiosks and their relevant officers will be providing consultation services to the delegates.

Some of the selected program highlights:

• ICT Funding Forum
• SME Funding Forum
• Financial Insights 2009