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  • admin 11:32 am on May 9, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: inspirational, jgl, , , , startup-life   

    Taking the Juan (one) Great Leap to become an Entrepreneur 

    Juan Great Leap originally started in 2011 as an inspirational blog about Peter Cauton’s own experiences while going from an employee to becoming an entrepreneur.

    Peter’s about post quickly sums up what his mission is – to help the common Juan take the leap from nothing to starting their own dreams in business.

    Today, JGL has grown to include monthly Open Coffee meetups and has now started the Startup School where people from the startup industry share their knowledge on various topics related to startups. Startup School now has one upcoming class – PitchCraft – a seminar on how to market and pitch your idea to investors.

    These classes are just awesome and taught by experienced startup people, and though these courses can be self-taught through reading things online, they help the average Juan become acquainted with what’s out there.

    They are low-priced and pack a punch – I’m very sure that going through one of the courses would give anyone a big advantage over someone who just reads things.

    The other topics in the line up range from non-techie to techie and I really hope they could add things like Project Management, Hiring Best Practices, and something along the lines of Corporate Finance (like how to deal with investors and startup funding).

    Please check that site out and I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to take that leap below. I recommend bootstrapping – where you work on your startup while doing fulltime work on your own pocket – it is a lot of work but it is possible. Peter’s post on how toJust Start is a good primer on how to do just that.

     

  • admin 8:56 pm on January 30, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: e-commerce, international   

    The challenge for e-commerce in the Philippines 

    Random thought. Here in the Philippines, we don’t use credit cards much and people shun credit card offers, and most people run away from the credit card booths in malls.

    But what about DEBIT cards as credit cards? This promotes saving first before buying, and promotes not being in huge debt.

    Finally, about the delivery of goods. Are our infrastructure and safeguards in place for the timely and quick delivery of various goods? With regards to payment, I can attest to the reliability of LBC. I haven’t tried delivery though and I’m not sure people are really trustful of such services. For me, I do usually worry about the goods are really in transit, or will the person deliver the goods, orof any problems on the way here. Although it seems if you own a business and are in like Metro Manila, I’ve heard delivery is reliable, it depends on the area.

    It’s only on buy-sell websites that people are more cautious. E-commerce plays a big part for those with practically no social life because they a) work at home or b) work at odd hours.

    What are your thoughts? What’s hindering e-commerce from going full blast? And why is there doubt in our capacity for e-commerce?

    Right now, I’m really curious as to how well lazada/zalora and others are still doing, regardless of how evil they are perceived for having too much money that they can market their face all over the internet. It would be nice if there was an open discussion on this.

    Related links (External)

    Feel free to comment as your opinion will help would-be investors finally decide whether we’re good. As to all the Filipino-owned companies which are reluctant to globalization, it’s time to change! Let’s make this country a little more competitive by adding in some competition!

    The more investors, better job prospects, enriched lives, better startup communities, and everybody is happy.

     

  • admin 6:13 am on January 5, 2013 Permalink | Reply  

    Where are the Filipinos in JFDI? 

    Of course, I didn’t expect to see them. After checking out http://jfdi.asia/2013/01/05/startup-showcase-a-sneak-preview-of-the-applicants-to-jfdi-asia/ , I realized that these startups “fit” directly into their culture – focusing on education, finance, shopping (e-commerce is apparently a really big hit in Singapore, no wonder those Rocket guys tried to start their e-furniture store there), as well as some social apps like finding girls to date, and a way to recruit testers for your webapp (which is important, I found out recently that testing is a huge thing in most modern companies who need to ensure their software and systems are fool-proof and do run well (referring to Referoll) ).

    I looked carefully where these startups are coming from, and as of my last check, there are no Philippine teams. If there were I’d have heard of it by now.

    Which is, not really surprising I think given that we have our own culture and our own way of doing things. Most of our startup Weekends are filled with problem-oriented individuals who want to solve Traffic, Corruption, and make things better here. Think MRTTrack, Where’s my Doctor, and other socially-oriented apps that want to make our world a better place.

    Traditionally we have an education-oriented and employee-oriented culture but slowly a lot of those fed up with climbing up the corporate ladder are going on their own and finding their own ways to join the startup / freelancing world.

    I mix the two – startups and freelancers, because I believe most of those startups are from independent thinkers who could never think of working for someone at an 8-5 job. It’s usually someone with a goal, with a vision, who want more out of life.

    So I think maybe we just don’t have much entries into JFDI because we have a highly fragmented tech group ecosystem. There are the opensource people, and then the people whose lives depend on non-opensource technology. There are diverse interest groups and some groups don’t welcome the other group as much. Hopefully we can change that, by building the tools to make startups more a viable way to earn a living.

    I believe we also need to find the space and a place where people can hangout and discuss ideas. There are plenty of co-working spaces in the metro and I just think with enough “leeway” (not too much charging for individuals (cowo-asia is a pretty good and affordable office space I believe at 1,000 PHP per month or something).

    Maybe it’s also the fact that we’d rather stay here rather than go somewhere, our Filipino pride getting in the way of networking with others. Let’s hope that the next recruitment for the second batch this year 2013 will have a better turn out from the Philippines, and perhaps we could have some piece of the pie.

    Have a good year ahead, and goodluck to those who got in to JFDI.asia.

     

  • admin 11:40 am on December 20, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    News and Updates for the past Week 

    Here are some updates for the past week.

     

  • admin 9:03 pm on November 21, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: habits, inc   

    Habits of Successful People 

    It’s a nice short read. But very true.

    Take this part about selling from Inc.

    When you truly believe in your idea, or your company, or yourself then you don’t need to have a huge ego or a huge personality. You don’t need to “sell.” You just need to communicate -Inc.

     

    Even if you look at the well-known and influential as well as outspoken techies, all of them have communication skills. Well of course, some of those who speak well just have things to say and nothing to show, but in general, good communication skills is a huge door opener.

    As we like to sometimes say, a good school gets us through the door, especially one where communication in group collaboration skills are highly emphasized. In fact a lot of good schools are like that. Although the individual can definitely gain a lot through the internet.

    Thiking about it, the Internet is still a communication method. If it ain’t speaking skills you got, sharpen up on your writing skills and maybe that one site visitor that sees your company site might take a second look at it.

     

  • admin 1:14 pm on October 6, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: coding, , python,   

    startups running python 

    For folks who have never talked to a computer programmer or just never heard of python (aside from the snake), Python is a programming language that is easy to understand and is run by several web-related startups.

    Now most startups who want to go it cheap would output things with simple shared web hosts supporting PHP and MySQL. For the technologically sophisticated tech startups, something more object-oriented and robust is usually used. Hence, Python.

    Anyway to help people gain interest in this versatile and open source language, here are a few startups who run python as their primary language behind the scenes: (More …)

     

  • admin 4:55 am on September 30, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: idea splurge   

    Check your paper shit first before joining a startup 

    I keep running into the same things again and again. Typically, a startup will try to reduce its initial risk with a new employee by hiring you “as a consultant”.

    You know the main problem with being a consultant? It’s getting PAID.

    Anyway  I mistakenly thought words are more important – what the interviewers tell you is so than that written. So actually there is nothing more important than the piece of paper they sign and you sign. Hopefully it’s not that bad. I hope I get paid on time given the effort I gave this week (first week)

    A couple of days ago some person’s name came up on PHPUG, the PHP Users Group, who apparently got a bonus and then bye bye, went to Tahiti or somewhere where other people who don’t honor their word go to.

    I’m not blaming anyone for this, I’m just writing this as a warning others to well, get a grip on the contracts you sign.

    I’d even recommend ripping the contract in front of the employers eyes if you think its against labor laws.

    So there, I hope I have somewhat helped startups think about the best practices on hiring and firing (especially you, Rocket Internet, LOL :D )

    So anyway..

    I’m still thinking of cooking something up along the lines of a new Twitter for Filipinos, but I think facebook and twitter are already more than enough as a tech to try to compete with them, but anyway the only solution might be to niche into some target market which currently don’t use twitter yet.

    Enjoy :) And if I forgot to mention, don’t do startups if you will harm your career. Don’t do startups if you don’t have the emotional stamina to deal with problems related to money, or have kids to be with.  If you want to learn more about reasons why not to do a startup,  I suggest watching this video.

    I still think I’d work for someone else (be employed) til I reach some point when I think I can handle things – all sorts of work – from accounting to management, and doing things, and do all that without having to hire people, that I think I can handle my own business. I think if you run your own business before launching a startup, you can avoid many of the gotchas that come about out of running your startup right off work. That is unless you’re a freelancer – in a way, yourself is a business

     

    • Andre 7:03 am on September 30, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      If you find a company that will pay you for a job before you actually do anything let me know. Its also not in the law to pay an employee every 2 weeks.

      If you are a contractor you might request a downpayment for your services but who’se fault is it if you don’t read what you sign?

      • squawknet 2:48 pm on September 30, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        not sure if which questions were meant to be rhetorica questions. not sure what your problem is with my post. i’m already admitted my mistake, no need to rub it in.

        • Andre 10:33 am on October 1, 2012 Permalink | Reply

          you edited your post… so the comment isnt relevant anymore.

          not rubbing it in but the tone and writing in your post made it seem like the company you applied to was the one who wronged you when what you described seemed to be typical company SOP.

          • squawknet 10:09 pm on October 1, 2012 Permalink | Reply

            Yes as a consultant you are not bounded to the company and company will take its time to pay you

  • admin 2:24 pm on September 22, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: aboutme, experimental-writing, how-i-code   

    Things I, as a scatter brained developer, wish people who work with me knew 

    Hi. I’m Joe. I like thinking about ideas and though they are all sound in my head, when I talk about it, I sound like an incoherent and illogical person.

    Here’s what I wish groups which I usually join knew about how we (or I), a scatter-brained developer, tend to think. (More …)

     

  • admin 3:22 am on September 22, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    shoutem 

    While looking for a way to build your own twitter clone I came across http://chris.pirillo.com/ youtube on shoutem.com

    So.. they earn money from making a social group. For a basic account, its just 19 dollars a month.

    I thought about it but you could technically build one quickly over two months using PHP or Ruby on Rails (which twitter uses, I think or it’s a custom framework). It would cost you of course. But as a quick way to get people to signup, you could temporarily use shoutem.

    Twitter, for the most part, here in the Phils., I believe is mainly used here by yuppies, and mostly young adults  and of course by the media.

    (More …)

     

  • admin 11:06 am on September 18, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: new features,   

    thebobbery.com – startup events 

    Did you know? Thebobbery.com has a new page for startup events you can check out?

    (More …)

     

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