Malaysia Entrepreneurs

Responds from Virtuous Investment Circle for RM 500 Application Charges

Daniel CerVentus — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:44:59 +0000

TweetSince the outrage by some of the entrepreneurs about the model Virtuous Investment Circle (ViC) choose to operate by having a RM 500 application fees. Christy Lee, the Executive Director of ViC responded with the blog post below. Christy who is formerly a VC from MAVCAP is the only full time staff for ViC and her responsibilities include operations of the organization and filtering the applications to be pass to the investors.

She writes in the ViC blog.

We have been receiving a number of feedback about our charging of a nominal RM500 application fee.
First of all, we would like to thank some of you for the feedback. We appreciate when people point out issues that are bothering them because it allows us to have an open discussion to address them. We immensely value transparency, honesty and openness. It enables us to know what we must improve on.
That being said, we must apologise for the appearance of not being very clear at this point about our organisation model on our website (i.e. why we’re charging an application fee, where does this money go to and other related issues).
Since we just started our website, we are still in the midst of heavily improving it, which means that some pieces of information may still be missing at this point. (If we did really attempt to cover all possible issues from the get-go, the website will never go live, ever.)
We hope you will be patient with us while we’re working to make more information available on our website.
In setting up ViC, we have considered many possible organisation models from researching, interviewing and talking to many angels themselves and angel networks in the industry (worldwide). After careful deliberation of the existing state of our angel investing ecosystem in Malaysia and with support from local angel investors, we have decided that our current model is the most suitable path for now.
However, we are fully aware that our model may need to change in future depending on how the local ecosystem evolves and the feedback that we get from both local angel investors and entrepreneurs. We will be prepared for that when the time comes. But for now, we are confident that the decision we made is the best at this point which will serve our mission of creating a more vibrant ecosystem for angel investing in Malaysia.
Again, thank you to some of you for your feedback. We are currently preparing the information which will address the issues some of you have brought up more clearly and transparently. It will be updated on our website as soon as possible.
Stay tuned!

As any startup organization, they have refine their offering to the community and we will be monitoring the situation more.

This Week in Asia Episode 65: Craig White from MIH Group

Daniel CerVentus — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 07:50:23 +0000

TweetWe have often talked about the success of TenCent and QQ in Asia. Inside their history, MIH Group, a division of Naspers, is one of their investors and owns 38% of TenCent in China. So, we have invited Craig White, CEO of MIH Group, a division of Naspers to join us in the TWIA virtual studio. Probably our most stellar guest so far, Craig shares his thoughts on the story on how MIH invested in TenCent, E-Commerce in Asia and also a bunch of companies in Southeast Asia, BuzzCity and Lelong that they have invested.

Other stories we have discussed together with Craig:

MyGengo raised funding from 10 angel investors
Groupon acquires QPod – Japan Groupon Clone

Pay RM 500 and You May Get Funded

Daniel CerVentus — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:07:20 +0000

TweetCharging entrepreneurs to pitch to VC is an absurd thing. With the recent Jason Calacanis’ Jihad over such acts in the States, the phenomenal of VC and Angel who charge exorbitant fees for startups to pitch to them have finally arrive in Malaysia.

The Virtuous Investment Circle (ViC) was set up on 4th August as one of Malaysia pioneering Angel investment group. According to their site, “ViC is a non-profit organisation passionate about creating a vibrant ecosystem for angel investing in Malaysia.”

An article in Lowyat Forum

The Virtuous Investment Circle is an independent not-for-profit angel investment group that aims to provide innovative start-ups with enough funds and mentorship to see them through the early stages of inception. Offering deals worth between RM50,000 and RM2.5million, VIC also has a solid list of members that poses years of industry experience in various fields of business.

ViC declares a four-fold goal which hope to help the angel and startup eco system in Malaysia:
1) To provide a platform for innovative start-ups to raise funds and for investors to invest.
2) To encourage and strengthen the local angel community.
3) To generate quality deal flows through rigorous screening process.
4) To provide guidance and mentoring for new business angels and entrepreneurs.

This is an awesome initiative to bring people to invest startup locally.

However what happened yesterday shocked the entrepreneurial community.
In its application process, applicatants are required to summit their application in 4 step.

Step 1: Investment Proposal
Step 2: Nominal Application Fee
Pay the nominal RM500 application fee. We charge a nominal RM500 fee for each application/submission – to ensure that the companies who apply are serious about applying for angel funding as our angel investors are serious about funding companies.
Note: Paying the application fee alone will not guarantee a pitching session with angel investors.
Step 3: Email Proposal and Payment Proof

Wait WHAT? Go back to Step 2. A bunch of angel investors asking for poor founders of startups to pay to meet them and not even guaranteeing a pitching session with their currently 15 nameless angel investor?

This of course caused the entrepreneurs on twitters to raise the alarm.

As of today, ViC responded over twitter that the application fee is used to cover cost.

Teng Siong Ong wrote in his blog:

Before I move on, let’s do a simple math here. VIC charges RM500 for each investment proposal. In US, incubator like Y Combinator gets around 1k application per round, which is about 2k per year. Let’s assume that VIC only gets 10% of this number, which is 200 per year. They are making an awesome amount of RM100k per year just by reading investment proposals by poor entrepreneurs like you and me.

ViC also responded over their site to ignore Step 2 (paying RM500) for now until decide on a further action.

We’ve been trying to get hold of people from ViC and nobody seem to be picking up their phone. We will be updating here with more details.

Update 12pm 3rd Sept 2010:

We got hold of Bob Chua, one of the founder of Virtuous Investment Circle (ViC) and he said that this angel network is modeled after what most of the angel network ie Keiretsu Forum and it is not too dissimilar from what the other network in the region and even in the States have to offer. The idea behind the RM 500 application fee is to filter out people who are not too serious about getting funded and the price very little compared to other angel groups. He adds, if you are really serious about your business and confident about your startup, just summit and ignore Rm 500 application fee.

Follow Friday: Malaysian Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter

Daniel CerVentus — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:34:53 +0000

TweetTwitter is such a big thing in Malaysia that our very own Prime Minister @najibrazak been advocating its benefits. As an avid Twitter user himself, he has around 31 thousands followers and updated his status 1024 times as of this article.

As one of his more recent update states there are 9 Malaysian firms who are listed under the Forbes Best Under A Billion, we shall look at some entrepreneurs and business tycoons in Malaysia that you should follow on twitter.

Tony Fernades
His Bio States: CEO of AirAsia, Founder of Tune Group, Loyal West Ham fan, Principal of Lotus F1 team; Entrepreneur; Dreamer
Why you should follow him: There is no excuse for not knowing who Tony is and the companies he runs. He tweets about his experiences with Lotus F1 and some stuff on AirAsia.

Jason Lo
His Bio States: Musician, Rocker, Producer, Tune Talk CEO, Rock The World, Chelsea fan, love everybody and Kit Kat.
Why you should follow him: From his days singing Evening News to CEO of Tune talk, Jason is someone who has been involved with many projects such as MyTeam a football reality show and not forgetting his effort in promoting local musical talents with Rock the World series.

Bob Chua
His Bio States: Entrepreneur, investor, mentor, blogger, marketer, biker, cigar chomper, tiger, sailor and owner of www.planet-pulse.com
Why you should follow him: Founder of Pulsegroup which went from startup to public listed company in 18 month, Bob is the poster child of MSC Malaysia. (you can literally see his huge poster at MSC HQ). He is also an angel investor and recently founded Virtuous Investment Circle.

Kid Chan
His Bio States: Entrepreneur, photographer, blogger listed in 100 People You Must Know In Asia, KIDCHAN is available for commission worldwide. I eat fried frogs:)
Why you should follow him: Photographers of the celebrities and celebrity photographer, Kid Chan is a regular in the Twitterverse.

Brian Wong
His Bio States: The Meandering Tweets of a Serial Entrepreneur, Blogger and Fun-Seeker.
Why you should follow him: One of the co founders of Catcha and now he is a motivational and internet marketing guru. He is very into the Law of Attraction ala The Secret.

Patrick Grove
His Bio States: Entrepreneur.Online.Media.Asia
Why you should follow him: Patrick has been in the online and publishing scene for a long time with the formation of Catcha Corp, one of Malaysia earlier dotcom company. Currently Catcha runs magazine such as Juice and Stuff. He is also sits at the board of director for Iproperty.com.my

Peter Pek
His Bio States: Founder of Social Media management startup @Sociax, Reality TV Judge, Radio Talk Show Host & Rotarian
Why you should follow him: Peter Pek was the judge of the Firm(an Apprentice clone) and a PR guru. His recent interest includes social media and how to utilize it for business.

For more updates on all things business and entrepreneurs follow us at @myentrepreneurs

YouthSays launches new Groupon clone

Daniel CerVentus — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:01:26 +0000

TweetIt sounds like local chocolate chip cookie brand and it have 2 deals for far, Groupsmore is YouthSays, latest push to monazite its community of survey taking youth.

What is the pitch here?
As the quintessential Groupon clone, it provides its member with special deal of the day, which are usually offered in a steep discount as long as it fulfill the minimun amont of users interested .

How does it work?

This is not the very first Groupon clone. Sites such as MyDeal.com.my are already out for a while. The advantage of YouthSays’ effort is the fact they have a huge database of 248,420 youth looking for a bargain or two.

Perhaps the saturation of youth marketing sites or experts, we see how YouthAsia(owner of both Youthsays and Groupsmore) is diversifying from their once cash cow of doing survey and market intelligence for bigger brands such as Nike and Celcom.

BarcampJB 2010

Daniel CerVentus — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 03:13:51 +0000

TweetFolks from Johor, BarcampJB is happening this coming Sat and join us for a fun filled event which bridge technology, entrepreneurship and fun together.

Details are below.

Time
August 28 at 12:00pm – August 29 at 2:00pm
Location Sunway College JB
No 3, Jalan Austin Heights Utama, Taman Mount Austin
Johor Bahru, Malaysia

More Info Barcamp in JB then Buka Puasa with our Muslim friends on the 28, Resume schedule on Morning 29-August 9am.
28-Aug: 12pm – 9pm
29-Aug: 9am – 2pm

Registration Form – http://bit.ly/BarcampJB2010Reg

A Week in Stanford & Silicon Valley – Part 2

michael — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 02:55:39 +0000

Starting World Class Start-Ups among the Youths – How Stanford Grooms ‘Rockstar’ Entrepreneurs

From multibillion dollar investments to young start-ups, Michael had the opportunity to connect with Stanford University’s next wave of emerging youth entrepreneurs, all crediting their business success towards the supportive environment and culture embedded within the curriculum of the acclaimed university.

The special Web Panel which featured students from Stanford University, whom are already in the midst of running their own internet start-ups shed some light, from the youth’s perspective on how ideas were launched into real start-ups and how funding was raised from ground up in this exciting, yet mind provoking discussion. The panel included founders from financial portals to blog sites to social networking applications – All whom have made quite a few success stories around the Valley themselves.

Key lessons shared by the panel revolved around conceptualizing their initial ideas and business models, to gathering the right talents to work with them with minimal to no compensation, to attracting investors’ funds to bringing their start-ups global. What really caught our Malaysian delegate’s attention was the fact that all of them started with minimal to no capital and they had to convince the best skilled talents to work with them to launch their start-ups, by sharing their vision and impact that the business will make in the near future.

‘According to the session, you will be amazed on how you can attract the brightest talents in university to be part of your team, simply by having a clear vision and some strategies on how the start-up would grow in the next few years. You have to share your vision and rope people in with your passion. From this panel, I realized – Not everything or everyone are up for money, especially during the start-up phase in university,’ says Michael.

On gathering a talented team to launch the business and bring it to success, the panel recommended that as students who aspire to be entrepreneurs, they could seek consultation from their lecturers and professors in university to provide them with the knowledge, networks and tools to launch their start-ups. Surrounding themselves with a group of peers who have started their own businesses before is also very useful, in terms of exchanging experiences in spearheading enterprises. Lastly, the panelists attributed much of their successes in business is due to a supportive environment, embedded within Stanford University and Silicon Valley.

‘Incubation programmes like the Y-Combinator not only provides a space for young entrepreneurs to launch their start-ups, but moreover, they too provide their incubates with learning programmes – featuring renowned Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors to major networking events for market expansion to access to client databases and referrals, to venture pitching nights over dinner. The experience was simply priceless,’ adds Michael who had the first hand experience with such a programme line-up during the Stanford Summit.

Going Global, the Silicon Valley Experience

From investors to young entrepreneurs to global entrepreneurs, the Stanford Summit exposed its 40 participants to fellow investors and entrepreneurs based in Silicon Valley, responsible for bringing in foreign start-ups into the Valley, and how they have prospered while leveraging on the uniqueness of the Valley.

One of the venture-capitalist firm, specializing in bringing Indian technological start-ups into Silicon Valley commented that start-ups being physically in the Valley adds a lot of credibility towards their products and services, being offered to overseas markets. They also credited the environment where start-ups in Silicon Valley are helpful towards one and another, and often share expertise, mentoring and networks among themselves.

On a separate note, another venture-capitalist firm, focusing on bringing Silicon Valley start-ups outside of the valley to penetrate international markets, remarked that investors are always looking for proven concepts overseas, which can be implemented and is profitable for the local USA market or the larger Asian markets in general. It was also noted that investors in the valley value a company based on its capacity to grow market share outside of its home base and to think ‘Global’ to take more of its products and services overseas.

Lastly, a technology start-up incubator cum investor firm also advised entrepreneurs to be more proactive in getting involved with global business communities like TiE (The Indus Entrepreneur network), the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) and more to extend their reaches to other markets via their global database and to learn from people who have done it.

‘The most valuable lesson that I learned from this as well, would have to be a very interesting point made by one of the speaker – No one can replicate Silicon Valley. It has been our culture to spur start-ups since we started many years ago. You cannot replicate culture. You can learn from our best practices and create you own, unique Silicon Valley in your country,’ says Michael who shared briefly with the panel about Cyberjaya being Malaysia’s own Silicon Valley to stimulate technology entrepreneurship.

Attached are some statistics about Foreign Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and their Contributions;

• 52% of start-ups in Silicon Valley are founded by international people – People born abroad

• As of 2005, 25.3% of international people founded businesses and move the economy of America

• Indians founded more companies than other ethnic groups combined in the world

• 12.8% US global patents have Chinese authors – Indian and Chinese have founded the most patents in America

Source: International Sharing Panel @ Stanford Summit 2010

The Search for Asia Top 50 Apps

Daniel CerVentus — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:34:29 +0000

TweetCome this 22 – 23 September 2010 in Suntec Convention Center in Singapore, Singtel together with Joi Ito’s Neoteny Labs and our good friends E27 brings to you Accelerate.

What is Accelerate 2010?

Accelerate 2010 is the ONE show developers in Asia CANNOT afford to miss!

Asia will host the largest gathering of solutions providers and developers from around the world on 22nd and 23rd September 2010. You will have the opportunity to participate in pitching sessions to 8 major Asian markets – the largest such activity orchestrated in Asia!
Apps . Access . Asia .

This unique three-pronged approach conference is specifically designed for companies and developers looking to develop solutions and deliver applications in Asia Pacific.

ASIA. Deal Rooms
Pitch your solutions to Asia’s eight leading telcos operating within high-growth Asia markets.
Gain knowledge of key trends in Asia’s consumer enterprise markets across Asia Pacific.
Gain insights on how to operate and access key Asian markets with in-country experts.

ACCESS. Keynotes on 3 Focal Tracks of accessing the market shaping trends and ideas in Business, Technology and Design presented by global and Asian thought leaders and influencers on topics such as social gaming, content distribution, collaborative innovation and design thinking.

APPS. 30 in-depth training & Discussion workshops for developers and innovators with a comprehensive range of topics.

Why You Should Attend?

· Accelerate 2010 is the ONLY conference that gives you the opportunity to access multiple Asia Pacific markets in one go.

· You will receive an unparalleled level of insights into the key trends, market barriers and regulatory frameworks in these markets.

· Get involved in cross-disciplinary workshops that will provide you with skill sets that enable you to gain new perspectives to help future-proof your business.

· Share knowledge with veteran developers and thought leaders on topics such as open source, cloud computing, social collaboration, social networking and mobile applications.

Who Should Attend?

Are you any of the following people?

· A business operations manager looking for solutions and business innovations?

· An investor looking for the next BIG thing?

· A researcher who wants to expand on their perspective on innovation in Asia Pacific?

· A software developer looking to create synergy between yourself and the best minds in the business?

· The founder of an up and coming solution provider or technopreneur?

· A web or mobile technology designer?

If you are any of the above people, then Accelerate 2010 is something you definitely do not want to miss!

Conference Keynote Highlights

· Unleash the Power in Asia

Speaker: Bill Chang, EVP, SingTel

· Riding the Open Web – Collaborative innovations for success

Speaker: Mitchell Baker, CEO, Mozilla Foundation

· Disruptions in Media: How Technology Changes in Content Value Chain

Speaker: Joi Ito, CEO, Creative Commons

· Design Thinking – Asia

Speaker: Diego Rodriguez, IDEO

· What 1 billion non-apple downloads mean to Asia

Speaker: Bill Scott, SVP, GetJar

· Farmers and Mobsters: How businesses can decode social gaming

Speaker: Robert Goldberg, Zynga

· Cloud & Asia

Speaker: Ismeal Gahlimi, CEO, Intalio

· Investing in future of Asia

Speaker: Edgar Hardless, VP, SingTel

Workshops and Subtracks

Business

Technology

Design

Future of Mobile Payment in Asia

Presenters: Singtel, 2C2P, MOL, Paypal

Future of Voice (India case study)

Speaker: Mrigank Tripathi

Plenary – Future of Music &Content

Moderators: Joi Ito, Cory Ondrejka, Jean Miller (EMI), Anthony Volodkin

Scaling a Web Startup: From Asia to the World

Speaker: Amit Ranjan, Slideshare

Product Management Techniques from Google/ MakeMyTrip

Speaker: Amit Somani

Plenary – Innovative Social Graph: From Asia to the World

Moderators: Benjamin Joffe (e27)

Panelists: Eto Batara, CyWorld, MOL

Term Sheets 101

Speaker: Joi Ito

Cultures Around the World: Insights from Xerox Labs

Speaker: Pratyush Prashanna

IP Protection Essentials

Speaker: Gilbert Leong

Plenary – How Cloud Computing will Impact Asian Enterprises

Case Study – Grid Computing: Alatum, Altium, Haier

Agile on Development

Speaker: Rob Mee, Pivotal Lab

Enterprise Collaborations in a Web 2.0 World: Social networks, micro-messaging, security, and mobile access.

SaaS in Asia

Presenter: Intalio

Mobile Developer Tool Kits (3 sessions)

SaaS Developer Tool Kits (3 Sessions)

Innovation Lessons in Design Ogilvy Labs

Speaker: Mark Seeger, Ogilvy Digital Innovation Lab

Design Thinking – The practical tips by IDEO

How to Design Virality

Speaker: Noah Kagan

Intuitive design anything – Aviary Revolution

Speaker: Michael Galpert

Game Design Fundamentals by EA

Mobile Application Design Philosophies: By The Digital Agency of The Decade
Speaker: Ronnie Liew

Quantitative Design -Testing Techniques from Youtube: A/B testing

Speaker: Hong Qu

Deal Rooms

Deal Rooms have one goal – to reveal the best ICT innovations and discover the next star products that will transform regional markets.

As one of the top 80 companies that will be selected to participate in Deal Rooms, you can pitch to panels made up of representatives from SingTel Associates including SingTel (Singapore), Optus (Australia), Bharti (India), Telkomsel (Indonesia), Globe (The Philippines), AIS (Thailand), as well as International Enterprise (IE) Singapore Centre Directors from China and other Asian nations.

Reservation is required as there are limited seats available. More details coming soon.

Conference Program Highlights

· Overveiw of South East Asia Market

· Overview of China and IndoChina

· Pitch Pads:
Consumer Segment:
o Mobility Solutions: 16 Sessions Available

o Web Application: 12 Sessions Available

o Content: 12 sessions Available

Enterprise Segment:
o SaaS Solutions: 16 Sessions Available

o Mobility Application: 12 Sessions Available

o Vertical Solutions: 12 sessions Available

================================================================

Event Date : Wednesday – Thursday, 22 – 23 September 2010

Venue: Suntec City Convention Centre Singapore

(click here to view map)

Ticket Prices :

S$299 (Early Bird Price valid till 14 August only)

S$399 (Standard Price)

S$699 (Onsite Price)

This Week in Asia Episode 61: This is Social Media!

Daniel CerVentus — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 21:32:06 +0000

Tweet Starting off with congrats to Mike Foong with his 4th kid, Myra Ines Foong, the TWIA crew is back to discuss the interesting stories that dominate the Asian mobile, web & tech landscape this week. While we look back at Open Web Asia Conference & Google Dev Fest in KL, we also discussed interesting stories covering from iPads selling out in Singapore to an Asian company called Bubble Motion funded by Sequoia and how it’s kicking ass in India. If you are not impressed, then the gaffe from MOL CEO, Ganesh Kumar Bangah on his rival OffGamers’ FB page surely hits the most entertaining story of the week in Asia.

Congratulations from the TWIA crew to our fellow co-host Mike Foong & his spouse with their 4th kid Myra Ines Foong – and is she the first child with her own hashtag #babym4 and have her name crowdsourced via twitter?
Past Events: Open Web Asia & Google Dev Fest in KL – What an exciting week and we have a lot of feedback coming from our live show asking us for a video version. If you have any thoughts, please let us know. We also talked about the Google Dev Fest that followed after Open Web Asia in KL. Also, we reveal the next possible dates & venues for the next Open Web Asia Conferences: Taiwan & Indonesia next year.
AntennnaGate from Apple & iPad sales furore in SG: So, we skipped this issue relatively quickly and talked about how iPad sales were so fast and furious that Smithy did not manage to get one for himself.
The story about Bubble Motion: Interesting Asia start-up in Singapore and funded by Sequoia Capital (the same one who funded Google) which have made headway with Bubbly in India.
Japan tech going regional? : With the launch of an interesting app, Sekai Camera from Japan with none of us installing it, we discussed how Japan has lately focused its efforts towards China & Korea while also being the first destination for US start-ups to launch in Asia.
The MOL CEO, Ganesh Kumar Bangah and his blunder with his now famous comment on his rival’s OffGamers’ FB page, “Too bad for you, this is social media.“. If you do not know by now, MOL is the company who acquired Friendster and made a deal to distribute Facebook credits in Southeast Asia.
Upcoming Events: Asian Blogger & Social Media Conference next week, Social Media World Forum Asia & Accelerate by E27 both happening on 22-23 Sep.

Sembang Sembang in August

Daniel CerVentus — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 21:16:12 +0000

TweetSembang-Sembang is a monthly networking session for women entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs-to-be. It is an exciting event where you can meet other successful and cool women entrepreneurs, expand your network and learn some useful tips & lessons from other women.

This time around they will be focusing on having work life balance especially for women entrepreneurs.

Sembang Sembang is brought to you by the US Embassy in Malaysia and Warisan Global Sdn Bhd as a Global Entrepreneurship Week activity.

The event details are as follows:

Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Time: 5.00 (Registration opens)
5.30-7.30 (Sembang-Sembang)

Venue: Meals Station, Level 1, Sooka Sentral, Jalan Stesyen Sentral 5, 50470 Kuala Lumpur.
(Located right across KL Sentral. You can just hop on Putra LRT,KTM Komuter, KL
Monorail or the KLIA ERL to get there!)

Parking is available inside the building. Please bring along your parking ticket to get 50% discount!

Help us spread the buzz and feel free to bring your business partners, colleagues and friends.

Seats are limited! So please book your seat now before 5pm, Friday July 30th, 2010.

Click the link below to register:
http://www.gewmalaysia.com/events/384

or contact the GEW Secretariats for details.

Tini : 016 2112682 / nurhartini (at) warisanglobal.com
Mimi : 012 456 8097/ mimi (at) warisanglobal.com