News

Dear Readers,

In the month of August, we have made some progress in a greenfield market. By original definition of greenfield which was used mainly in construction, it refers to land that has not been used before. Coming back to our context, we would prefer Greenfield to a new area, region or territory that we have not explored before. This month was the Greenfield Month.

What are the pros and cons of Greenfield Market (my own definition)? The pro is obvious. Read More

Dear Readers,

It has almost been a year since I last wrote about branding. I wrote on this blog in Sep 2013 on branding. Somehow, this year, in the month of July, we started to look at this topic of branding again.

We started to engage in meaningful discussions with some consultants on this topic called branding. Like any other start-ups, we probably did not pay too much attention to “branding” as compared to ensuring our product fit, market entries, customers’ satisfaction etc. Now, with 3 years of journey, we thought it would be good to take a side-step and look at what we have built up so far.

Dear Readers,

This month, I would like to focus on my people, my special team.

Many people asked me how I spent my time. I always tell the other party, I spend most of my time finding talents and great people to join me on this worthy journey. Finding gems is already very difficult, even more so to convince the gems to join me. But this is a job that a leader needs to do. I do not believe in outsourcing this task to others or external consultants. I believe, as long as I can, I would want to personally recruit. Yes, I know many would say that it is not possible for me to recruit personally when the company is big. But I would certainly like to prove everyone wrong.

Dear Readers,

In the month of May, one of the most memorable learning experience that I have was to read the transcript or Admiral William McRaven. Having spent 36 years as Navy Seal and a Commander, he gave a speech at his alma mater – University of Texas. He gave 10 amazing life lessons, drawing heavily from Navy SEAL’s principles and experiences.

I can’t help it but want to share with my entire team and my fellow entrepreneurs. Admiral McRaven’s 10 Lessons:

Dear Readers,

We have a fortunate month in April. With all the hardest issues on the table, our team put up a stunning performance. Working around the clock, we managed to strike off problems by problems. We got the some of the biggest problems off the table ! Thanks for my CTO and the team. Though it is still work in progress, we have certainly brought confidence back to our customers. We also gave ourselves a booster shot. We have a great team that can give a good crack at difficult problems, and solve them.

Dear Readers,

I must say this is really a tough month for us. While I spent the first two months doing the hardest things for the start-up – getting customers and building alliances, this month really sums up what Henry Ford’s quote has mentioned. Everything seems to be going wrong. It is really a struggle against the constant challenges. Every day, we were hit by new problems or new issues that surfaced. It doesn’t matter where this issue may come from as it literally came in all direction.

But despite these struggles in this month, I see light. I saw how our team come together and work hard to resolve the issues together. Read More

Dear Readers,

Last month, I talked about doing the hardest thing in a startup – i.e. getting customers. This month – the 2nd month of the year, I am going to talk about Alliance and Partnership. In the course of our strategic planning (yes, we do plan even though we are a start up !), we know that our size is small and our reach is limited. With limited resources, we can only be very selective in targeting premium customers and focus our energy on closing these deals – i.e. getting customers.

Dear Readers,

The year of 2014 has started. This is usually the time of the year where our emails and messaging are flooded with various versions of fortune telling stories, about how our luck will be in the new year. Though I do not believe in such stories, I read with a smile. It seems that this year is expected to be a tough year for me.

Dear Readers,

Before writing this post, I re-read my previous post in Dec 2012. I reflected on the journey that I have travelled in 365 days. Few words that came to my mind immediately. “Amazing”, “Tough”, “Hard work”, and “Teamwork”.

It has really been an amazing 12 months. So many things have happened. I could never have planned out all the activities that have happened. As in all start up, you never know when is the next dip, when is the next uphill. It has been an amazing ride so far. Tough. yes, it has been tough 12 months. The more we progress, the more challenges we faced. Each challenge seems to be a brick wall in front of us, testing how determined we are. I am fortunate that we have punched through these challenges one by one. How did we do it?

“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Chesire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know”, Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.” – Lewis Carroll, Author

This quote is from the story “Alice in Wonderland” and it has very deep meaning. Throughout my conversations, one thing probably struck out significantly is the need for the company to know the direction. If we don’t know where we are heading, then we would be going nowhere. I would iterate again – we would put our solution in every enterprise mobile device. That is our vision and that is our direction.