Nice song.

Considering starting a business while in school? Companies like Dell, Microsoft and hundreds of others started in a dorm room and so can you. Here are several reasons why you should take the leap and take control of your future while in college:


1. Campus Advisory Board – Is there a school of business on your campus? If there is, you will have access to entire advisory departments: finance, management, marketing, accounting, legal and more.  Professors are more than willing to help use their expertise and connections to see a student from their school succeed in the business world.  Start your business and don’t hesitate to ask for help. These PhD’s are often well networked and experienced.

2. Word of Mouth – Word spreads quickly on campus and it will be your cheapest form of marketing.  There is no better endorsement to buy a product or service than having a recommendation from a friend.  It’s almost like hearing “Hey, everyone is going to this party tonight, you have to be there.”  Napster music sharing service started in a college dorm room and spread like wildfire because of the students’ proximity to one another.  Use this to your advantage.

3. Technology - Colleges are a hotbed of technology and people who understand it.  Chances are your school offers WiFi, copy and fax machines, scanners, software, a high tech library, students walk around with cell phones, iPods, and laptops.  You are in one of the most well connected places on earth – take full advantage.  Everything that you need to start your business is right infront of you.  In a real bind? Make friends with the IT department and they will help you out.

4. Campus Resources – Many colleges have amazing alumni networks, incubators, and entrepreneurship clubs set up already.  If they don’t–look into creating a chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization on your campus.  The more entrepreneurial people you surround yourself with the more driven and motivated you will become.  Entrepreneurship is a long hard battle, you will need a quality support group.

5. Access to Cheap Labor – Your college or university is full of young people trying to gain new experiences and a little bit of spending money.  Need help with your business? Look no further than other college students.  Many students will do unpaid internship if you make the experience worth their while.  Find other entrepreneurial minded students and pay them a commission based salary or find someone who wants to work part time for an hourly wage.  Need web development done? Ask around campus or post a job with your Career Services Center.

6. Now is the Time – Don’t wait until you have a mortgage and kids to start your business, do it while you have some breathing room attending college.  You could be out partying 24-7 or you could make the sacrafice now.  You might even have the option of moving home after graduation and boostrapping your business from your parents basement.  Tackle the challenge of starting a business while you have a crutch to lean on.

Extracted from http://www.youngupstarts.com/

Found this when I was browsing people's facebook.

It had been some time since I blogged. Haha I am actually typing this post in the plane on the way to Shen Zhen.

It is actually school holiday now, but I don't seem to spend much of the time in Singapore. I just came back from a KL and Genting trip 2 days ago, with my classmates, Hui Ting and Qi Jia. Well that's a fun trip; I went to the place that I had always wanted to go since young, which is Petronas Tower sky bridge. Another one of my dreams had been fulfilled, and there are still many dreams to be fulfilled. The other places that we went were the normal places that all tourists would go, which is Times Square, KLCC etc. This trip I did not bring them to Chinatown due to the rainy weather.

Now I am in the plane on the way to Shen Zhen, China to visit my uncle. It had been 3 years since I had been there, and I believe that there are huge changes there. I will update more when I am there. I had registered both my t-shirt printing business and sports accessories business. T-shirt printing business is solely owned by
me, but soon I will incorporate to combine with my sports accessories business. My sports accessories business is a limited liability partnership business running by my partner, Kelvin Ng and
me. The name of my t-shirt printing business is "AttracTEEve Creations" and my sports accessories business is "Ultimate Focus LLP".

In this year of 2009, I felt that I am very lucky. To mark the start of 2009, the most significant matter that shook the world economy will be the big crash in stock market. I made use this chance to gain a lot
of knowledge on how to invest in stock market. Do take note that I wrote invest, not play. Whenever people talk about stock market, majority of the people's mind will think that stock market is "so risky, very easy to lose money, I think I put in fixed deposit will be  better and safer". But instead, before people invest in stock market, do they look that what stock are they actually buying, calculating the intrinsic value, P.E ratio, look at financial reports? I guess majority of them don't, and that includes my father. In fact if you look at the inflation, every year if you put your money in fixed deposit, you are actually losing the value if money instead if earning. Let's see, inflation average at around 4%, your fixed deposit interest rate is only around 2%, you are in fact losing the value instead of gaining. Let's come back to stock market, if you know how to get in at the right time, and you hold the right stock as long as possible, for sure you can earn money. Because in long term, due to  inflation and many other factors, price of the raw materials and many  other stuffs will go up for sure. Buying US stock like P&G, Coca Cola, Kraft have their value there. And the stock were bought by world
richest investor, Warren Buffett too, who run the US most expensive stock company, Berkshire Hatchway. In Singapore, stock like OCBC, UOB, DBS and SPH can be bought. DBS owns POSB, which held more than 50% of the older generation bank accounts; therefore DBS cannot collapse and won't collapse unless the government collapses.

Feelings? I guess that we can only be friends, maybe what numerology state is right, 8 and 33 do not really match. Sometimes I wish I do not need to stress about this kind of matters. Just me and myself, no other people, not need to care about other things. But as long as she's happy, it's enough already. I will be expanding my business, but with someone to share my joy of course I will feel happier.

Just a short summary of my current life, will update more when I am back in Singapore.

A successful team is made up of team members who:

1. are interdependent. They are willing to ask for help when they need it and offer help when they can provide it.

2. compete outwardly, not among themselves. There are three things you can use to create healthy competition: a competitor in the marketplace, a team goal to be achieved or a common problem to be solved.

3. are self-starters. Since they understand the big picture, they don't need to be told what to do.

4. share rewards and sacrifices. Don't expect people to make sacrifices if they won't get to share in the rewards later.

The best thing to strive for is no a team with a great leaders, but a team of leaders.

Extracted from "The Straits Times", Recruits section.

I heard this question while walking with my friends during our break time yesterday afternoon. I had given it a thought and decided to blog on it.

In my opinion, both family members and friends are important people in our life.

Family Members.
Why? Because family members are that showers love on you since you are born. It's countless effort that they stayed up the whole night just to take care of you when you are sick despite they are tired. They brought you to the doctor immediately when you are sick. Your mum had a torture time carrying you around in her womb for 9 months, and not to count the pain during giving birth. You might wonder why I kept talking about mother but not father.
Alright, Father's time. Before you read the next sentence. Think. How noble is your Dad? Is he wonderful? If I asked you to describe about your Dad, how will you describe him?

My Dad had the same routine for the past few decades which is to work and feed the family. He is an electrical engineer, and yes I am proud of him. During my primary school and younger days, I didn't talk much with him, because I was closer to my Mother. But it was during the day when I collected my PSLE results, I had got a result that was terrible and not within what he had expected. It was a big surprised to me too, because I didn't expect myself to get such a low mark. I can still remember that Dad still brought me to have Fish ball noodle for lunch. But we did not talk, and that time I did not know what to say either. Time went past; I got to choose which secondary to enter. For my terrible results, I could only enter to the nearby school which is Yishun Secondary School as my first choice. My best friend, Danny, entered to Catholic High School. I did not expect my results could enter into the first class there, I was surprised too. Dad would drive me to school on every Tuesday and Thursday. And he would drive me to school during raining days too. My thinking began to change after I entered into that school. It seems weird but true, this neighbourhood school had moulded partly to what I am now. I had graduated from YSS since 2007 in Express.

Friends.
Alright! It’s time to describe about friends. Why friends are also important key personnel in your life?

I will like to say there are 2 kinds of stage in 1 life, which is the inner stage and exterior stage. The inner stage is family, and exterior stage is friends.
Why is the exterior stage so important in one person's life?
It's because for most of the time, especially during maturity period, teenagers will find parents' nagging a torture. (Which I passed through too.) Teenagers will think that they are very long winded, and whatever they say teenagers will treat it as nonsense. They will prefer to go out with their friends. At this stage, Friends are the important key personnel that could either bring them to be better or become bad! It's because normally if you have any problems that you faced you will sought help from friends. At this point of time, it's to open your eyes, ears and heart big enough to know who's good and who will lead you bad. Not everything of what your friend say is correct, but it's to listen, digest it, absorb what is correct and discard off what's wrong. Family members' advices can be sought after 99% of the time, because they want you to be better too. 1% is when they gave the wrong information. You must open your eyes big to find true friends that will guide you along, be with you during your hard times, that you can learn a lot of things from them(Vice-versa).

Well that's what I think about it. You might want to sit down and think about that question.