Ian On The Red Dot

There is a company that seems to provide something similar to what the MDA’s IDM fund is aiming to do.  That company is Y Combinator.  However their funding model is different and I’m wondering if maybe MDA should consider it.  The model for my country’s initiative is to put a cap on each startup, but Y Combinator’s model is to provide money based on the number of founders.  I’m thinking that model might work better because it allows a startup to have a larger team of founders which might increase the chances of success.  The compensation for that model is that Y Combinator funds for a shorter period of time of about 3 months whereas for MDA’s fund it is 1 year.

Via Tomorrow.sg, I learnt about this new site to help in my neverending quest for good food whether i am hungry or not- HungryGoWhere. It reminds me of another site which was launched much earlier - Blurbme.  Both these sites are trying to leverage community generated reviews and the power of social networks.
HungryGoWhere seems to be very focused on promotions that can be obtained with credit cards and I think this information is very useful. I personally just skim through whatever brochures is sent to me and so miss out on some promotions and its hard to keep track of them. So this feature that HungryGoWhere has is really useful.

It is mentioned that I will be notified of promotions via email, but like why some businesses are shifting towards RSS from email to push critical information, I would like to see a RSS feature for promotions (yes…promotions for places I might like to eat at is critical information).  The RSS feed that I would subscribe to can be tailored to my needs based on my favourite places and my credit cards.

Another feature that I really like is that the profile page for each food establishment would show data on what other people recommend the establishment for. However, there has to be a better way to represent the data besides putting it all in one line.

Blurbme has a feature which I haven’t found on HungryGoWhere. It allows you to send something called blurbvites to your friends. Basically, blurbvites are invitations to an event you will be hosting. Blurbme provides the functionalities for you to keep track of the responses to these invitations. I think this is a useful feature and can be a way for Blurbme to generate revenue. Sometimes, I may be planning to organise something, but I don’t really have a place in mind yet. Currently, I can search for a place to host my event from blurbme’s database of establishments but it is only by name. Won’t it be useful if I could search for a place by the type of event I’m hosting or the type of ambience I want within the blurbvite creation screen. The revenue model can be something where establishments bid to have their location higher up on the search listings akin to what Adsense does.

I think its pretty obvious that food is a big thing in Singapore and being able to create a site that can capitalise on Singaporeans’s desire to eat good food is going to be profitable. The question is whether there is space for two such social networks dedicated to food in Singapore.

There are standards and processes.  And there is ‘do it this way cos its the superior’s way’.  Subscribing to standards and processes isn’t wrong.  In fact, it is a good thing.  But once you start conforming to a certain pattern of thinking because a superior wants things done only a certain way, then there isn’t a need to bring your brain to work.

I read in yesterday’s New Paper about this match-making agency offering a package in which you can get a bride from China for an initial downpayment of $1 and subsequent interest free instalments.

I have no statistics but I can’t help thinking that the demographics for the guys looking for such brides are in the middle-aged, middle-class category. And the girls coming over are mostly young women in their twenties. So let’s say the age gap is about 20 years on average. Hmmm… How can one get such statistics? Is it open information?

When these guys are 65, the girls are 45. That for a woman isn’t that old and she still has some good deal of her life to lead. The time spent in Singapore up till then would probably have given enough experience to be able to survive on her own in Singapore as compared to the first time she came to Singapore from some village when she was young 20 years ago.

So… Would she want to spend the rest of her life caring for her ageing husband? I’m no mind reader or fortune teller, but I’m a cynic, and i think the answer is no.

Let’s be honest. Most people in such marriages aren’t marrying for love. The guy is at best marrying for companionship, at worse marrying for access to a young girl for sex. The girl is at best marrying for a better life, at worse marrying in hope to be able to leech as much as possible from the husband and then go and live her own life. In any case, such marriages are a practical decision and can only last as long as its worth both parties while to stay in it.

And I can’t see it worth the while for the brides from overseas to stay for long. Except of course if they believe that if the husband dies, they can get something and it might be worth their while to stick around. Or if they have a child and don’t think they can provide for the child well without the husband.

Can love blossom between such a couple. I’m sure in some cases it might happen. But most? Even marriages done in love don’t always do well, so what about such marriages? And what is the social cost when such marriages do fail? I can’t help but worry at that thought.

Didn’t manage to go for the launch of MDA’s IDM initiatives, so yesterday’s sharing by Aaron was really informative.  I don’t think it was possible to leave that session without feeling excited.  Got some of my colleagues from work to go down and they left excited too.  Did some sums today and we realised that the mentioned $50,000 cap per year (I think its per year…) wasn’t a lot of money for a team of four people.

Which is a good thing.  Just enough to survive with food, transport and lodging but not too much such that you get all comfortable and complacent once you get the money.  With a team of four people doing it full time, the money is not enought to cover the significant opportunity cost in terms of salary and I think only the really really passionate (and I’m sure my relatives during CNY will say crazy) will give up a job to try to pursue this dream.

Didn’t attend that session with the people from Sg Entrepreneurs on the two towers of web 2.0 but my colleague who did said it was really really educational.

I did attend bits and pieces of the presentation by Wisheus.com.  They shared about the plans for their company and one of it was being able to allow people to donate money to a pool which can be used to buy an item from a person’s wish list.  The way I heard they would allow such a functionality is to put something like a button on the person’s wishlist and people can contribute by clicking on it.  This is my simplified understanding.

Sounds cool.  But you know what I really need.  I need a birthday gift buying organiser.  Not sure if this was suggested when I wasn’t in the session.  The idea is I see one of my friend has an item on the wish list that I think might be affordable by a group of us who are the friends.  I log into Wisheus.com and create an sms campaign by keying in the numbers, emails and names of the friends who I believe will be willing to share in buying the present.  Then I blast that campaign.  My friends will receive an sms asking them if they want to contribute X amount.  If they reply yes, their handphone bills will be charged that amount and a pool of money is created so we all can chip in and get the present for that person.

I’ll definitely use such a service.  Why?  Cos it is damn hard to collect money once the present is bought and given.  Suddenly, everyone disappears!

The unconference was awesome.  Learnt quite a bit which I will write about once the CNY comes around.  It would have been nice to get one of the T-shirts.

Via Techmeme.com I found this post about competing with free.  It reminds me of something one of the founders of Tyler Projects said, “Piracy is a good thing because it shows that your product is popular”.  I am paraphrasing but his point was that piracy wasn’t a bad thing if you had a value proposition which would make people come direct to you (or return to you) and pay for your product.  His company is an inspiring example of what can be achieved with little funding, lots of skill and tons of passion.  Go check out their game at MobileWeapon.net.

I was playing around with Yahoo Pipes and I think it is such a useful tool.  It is going to make all of us become aggregators easily.  So now, its not about tech knowledge in creating a site that aggregates, but being a curator of worthwhile feeds to aggregate.

Was wondering how one could generate an RSS feed for Flickr photos and found this page which teaches you how to construct a url to generate your own public photos feed.

I think the budget hasn’t been announced yet.  But my duck rice has already increased from $3.50 to $3.80.  There is definitely more than a 2 percent increase!  It is like 8%.  Sigh.  It has begun.

A really interesting collaborative graphic novel project initiated by Josef Lee.  Chapter 3 is beautiful.  I can’t wait for more of this graphic novel.

Via kottke.org, a heartbreaking story of two childhood sweethearts. Their wedding photos are here.