Web 2.0 Entrepreneur

Coffee houses are becoming my part-time office

• Posted by Tengku Zahasman on May 26th, 2007 filed in Ramblings


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Starbucks One Utama

Secret Recipe (can’t remember where tho)

I’m not sure when it started, but it is becoming a habit of mine recently to do my part-time work (ie building my web application) while sipping lattes or hot chocolates in coffee shops like Starbucks and Coffee Bean. Doing work at home makes me feel very lazy - it’s hard to be productive when your bed and TV are just a few steps away. But whenever I’m at a cafe, I find myself feeling more focused, relaxed, mentally conscious, creative and productive. So far I always leave knowing that I have done a lot of stuffs. At home, I find myself to be doing more readings and surfing around compared to doing the actual work that produces something. Even at this moment, I’m writing this very post in some cafe called The Black Canyon.

I’m not very sure what makes these places very comfortable to do work. Maybe its because of the people walking around and chatting which makes me feel energized and alive. It keeps me going. Or maybe because of the music they played which are relaxing and heightens up the mood. Maybe because of the caffeine from the lattes themselves which stops me from feeling sleepy. Or probably it’s the combination of all of them that keeps me coming back. I know, I know. These places are not cheap. A latte can cost you around 10 bucks each; and that’s only the small sized one, mind you. But in my opinion, if it can make me be productive, then it’s probably worth it anyway. Afterall, it beats paying for an actual office But of course it’s even better to bring along a companion or a teammate to boost up the productivity.

However, not everyone is comfortable doing work at cafes. In fact, some do the exact opposite -> reading and learning at cafes, getting their hands dirty at home. It doesn’t matter where you feel most productive both in development or learning, be it in a cafe, at home, in the library, in the office, at your friend’s aparment, it’s good to know where that place is and use it to your advantage. So go ahead and travel around, see which place gets you more work done.

Below are some the places I like to stick around:

- Starbucks KLCC, third floor, above Coffee Bean
- Starbucks One Utama, next to Nandos
- Coffee Bean in LCCT (It’s one of the places I liked most. Too bad it’s very far away)
- Starbucks Alamanda, Putrajaya
- Starbucks Jusco Cheras Selatan
- Craven Cafe, Ampang Petronas Superstation
- Starbucks Berjaya Timesquare, in front of the cinema (strategic while waiting for a show to start) and the one at ground floor (very cozy for discussions at the upper level)
- Burger King KLCC (they have a nice booth specifically for Internet surfers. Plus, since they allow refilling ur drinks as many times as you wish, you can be sure you won’t be thirsty hanging out over there for hours)

Hello world!

• Posted by Tengku Zahasman on April 12th, 2007 filed in Ramblings


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Ahh… The usual “Hello World” post that comes out immediately after installation. I decided not to delete this post as it marks the date of when I had this blog installed… which also marks the very first day I’m getting serious about building Web2.0 businesses and applications. While I’m at it, I’ll try to explain briefly about what I’m up to and what this blog is all about.

I love the web. I love what people do with it. Everyday we hear of new web2.0 startups building cool, sometimes simple, other times advanced web applications using various types of web technologies. And they look good too. And best of all these applications get a whole lotsa money rolling into them. Now a lot of people came to me and said that making money on the Internet is easy. When I asked how, they went on talking about blogging for profit, writing ebooks on certain niches, creating salesletter minisites to sell digital products or resell master-right copies, dropshipping, google adsense, payperpost and all that stuffs. While yes those things can make money, my gut tells me those are not to be treated as the main real business.. at least not in the entrepreneurial sense. To me, satisfaction in entrepreneurship means realizing new and unique ideas. Ideas that are different. Something creative. Something big. One that has a bit of brainworks to get it done. Something which has value of knowledge in it. The thing that contributes to the community. Developing them. Craft them. Deploy them. Market them. And see the money flowing.

That’s when I started to look into Web2.0. Having an IT background myself, I believe I would be able to indulge myself in this lucrative Web2.0 market. But it’s not gonna be easy as I still have lots of learning curves to go through in this journey. So basically this blog is about building successful web applications as well as how to profit from this business. In this blog I’ll be providing useful tips and tricks on both designing and programming Web2.0 as I go along building my own web applications. I’ll also include marketing and monetizing web apps as part of the topics in this blog. Sometimes I will go down to talk about technical aspects but I will always remember to swim up back to the surface. Let’s see how this goes in my venture