Creative Idea Powerhouse

I have been absent from here since during the CNY, reason being that things are moving faster than I have expected. No feeling about economy downturn, and no fear of what economic downturn will bring to our nation, my surrounding, or my family, or more precisely, myself, my career, or my future. I have also stoped submitting to Preseed starting from Batch 15, after Batch 14 ‘bail-out’

If you ask, am I give up on fighting for my career, or my future, or to take good step to ensure I’m well protected or immue from this round of crisis, No I’m not giving up. Am I giving up on Pre-seed? No. I’m not giving up too! It just that in this early CNY, I have new plan in my mind. I will talk about this later on my CNY Plan, but first to talk about MSC Preseed program.

I enter Pre-seed solely to train up my presentation skill, pitching skill, writing proposal and so on. Since last year Aug, I have been going through 6 months of these kind of pitching session in Preseed, mainly to get the feel or rejection, and feel of been ignored by the people you are talking to. It is interesting and I think my lesson has come to a stage where it need a semester break. I need to go out and do the real ‘stress test’ on public, and get a feel of what I have make a different on myself from past 6 months and now. I am really fortunate that the first 3 rounds, I have a chance to talk to some real industry experts who are more ‘professional-being’. Now the entire business model is taking-off, and ready to fly high. It is been interesting to see the hardword on the ‘training’ never went wrong  

As for what I have done during CNY, 2 book title on Alibaba.com founder success story, Jack Ma; 1 book on Taobao.com success story to K.O. E-Bay China; 1 book on BaiDu success story; my interesting holiday daily routine. A lot of mind sparking, and it make my mind getting clearer on how to space the idea of B2B2C2C. More interesting thing comes back later when my Boss talked about Long Tail, and how to blend the idea to shape the future digital marketplace. A model we have been working for very long-long time ago, and finally get shaped out in good look. We put up this idea with all our efforts in last two weeks, and start to work on this. It become very interesting that the idea is widely acepted by public when we go and pitch the idea to some investor.

For the next coming two weeks, we already have our initial plan on hand, 6 different presentation deck targeted different market segment, and we are ready to go. What’s cool, the key word Long Tail, Blue Ocean Strategy, will soon return to become a big buzz word again in Malaysia, and other 13 countries in Asia.

Looking forward to share more soon. P/S, I will be slowing down in Preseed application, but do email me if you need information from me. You can also email me to request for my past-proposal and slides as reference purpose (anyway the idea is total reject at this moment and I don’t intent to repackage it to sell in future). I just get the idea in for training up my pitching…

Cheers!

The last working day off CNY long holiday, I recieved the email notice from Preseed, and once again, as I already know the answer, your application has been rejected by the evaluation team.

Not to my suprise at some point, inside the meeting there’s only one of the evaluator really listening when I’m giving my pitch out of 5 person inside (another person is listening but is Preseed staff so I don’t think he is able to give out any of his voice). What is other doing? Well, one of the guy is enjoying his food (Char bee hun) that served, and another lady is 3D-ing herself, and one of them is face-booking and MSN-ing. I know the outcome at the first 30sec when I steped inside the room, but I’m still doing my best to give out my whole presentation. Thanks to the support of one of the Dr. inside, I have the courage of continue my presentation and not to immediately walk out from the room due to the action of non-respectful act of the evaluator inside.

When I shared my experience with friends and he shared that it is pretty common to see the evaluator behave like that, and at some point, they purposely to act like that to give some pressure and see how the presentor react. Haha, at some point, some told me e-Commerce and content is not the core focus for the preseed to fund, they are more interest in tech rather than model.

However, I still have deep faith on e-Commerce, regardless what the other out there is thinking. No matter what is the tech is evolving, there is one thing I believe on. You can have great tech like IP Phone on Skype, great video sharing technology like YouTube, or Technology gadget like iPhone, Malaysia is still Malaysia, and Asia is still Asia. I remember when Jack Ma started his Alibaba and tried to positioin its company, he studied Western and Europe market, and then he finally position its B2B portal towards SME rather than MNCs or GLSs, for one reason, Asia is still Asia, and we need to find a niche where we are different from Western or Europe at one point.

SEA itself contained a large group of economic power, with nearly half a billion population (from below population demographic table of data I compiled from different sources, mainly from UN data) that is potentially explore to Tech and e-Commerce, and this is the untargeted group for technology at one point. Believe it or not, they are the next spending power after India, China and Japan. If you can build a great economic chain and value chain to supply needs to them, you know what that mean. Malaysia, at one point has position itself very well at the central of all these countries, and it is a great logistic hub for making this happen. What you think of the tools that can make this happen in next 3 – 5 years? It is e-Commerce. I love what my great boss said, you don’t see the economic wave only build your strength, you must see beyond 3 – 5 years, and build to drive the change. Asia going to be the next strongest economic entity (believe or not, it going to be truth some how, some one told me . Just ask yourself, in pre-1900, which country is the strongest in Financial, Industrial, and military? It is not United State, it is UK. And before that, in pre-1800, it is not UK either… every 100 years, it change, and it bring mega shift to everything. Are we fortunate to be in Asia?

Nothing to be proud of, this is an experience sharing from my past 9 times ‘Unsuccessful’ presentations to pitch the MSC Preseed Grant. Due to my friend keep telling me there’re many people interest in applying this fund but don’t know where and how to start. It is easy to write the proposal for Preseed and you can always refer to the friendly Preseed Account Manager for helps and clarifications. However when come to preparing the presentation slide and pitching, the challenge comes. I’ve been axed out for countless times from evaluation, and also approval pitching.

I have gathered all these real experience and put into the slide below sharing of how to prepare a storyboard to present your idea. I will continue to improve the guide from time to time. For those Batch 14 applicants, best of luck once again, and I shall see any of you in the evaluation pitch soon… Cheers!

For those just get ready with your idea, Batch 15 just open and it is your time to ‘try’ your luck although I dont really believe in luck but hardworks… Cheers. Drop me email or comments to help improve this slide if you can, for those senior or approved applicants.