Web 2.0 Entrepreneur

How to build your Startup in 16-steps

• Posted by Tengku Zahasman on October 27th, 2007 filed in Entrepreneurship, Financing/funding, Startup


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While I was browsing through my collection of downloaded e-books earlier today, I came across one titled “How to Build A Bulletproof Startup” which I found on Business 2.0 magazine somewhere last year.

What’s really interesting about this e-book is the use of illustrative pictures with easily understandable English to explain the processes of how Startups are found and built. It throws you the big picture straight into your face without digressing so much. The e-book lists down 16-steps guide in chronological order of how you can create your own startup from as early as establishing your company to developing your idea to funding strategies to launching your app to marketing your product.

While I noticed that most of the financial requirements stated in the e-book seems to be exagerrated A LOT (I mean hey… $500K needed to build a prototype and $1 million to build the beta app?? Come on….), but they did raised some major important points that needs to be considered for establishing a professional startup such as staffing considerations and how your end-product might evolve and change from your initial idea.

So go ahead, download the e-book and read it. Just remember to turn a blind eye for any financial figures found in it, because you want to create a bulletproof startup, not shooting a bullet through your startup.

Talk about being a busy entrepreneur…

• Posted by Tengku Zahasman on August 2nd, 2007 filed in Ramblings, Entrepreneurship


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This was me at 8PM yesterday, happily playing squash at the Cyberjaya’s Community Club with an unknown guy from MMU who dared to challenge me for a match when suddenly I received an SMS message from one of my users who’s complaining about my site being inaccessible. I wasn’t playing happily anymore the rest of the game because I knew I have hundreds of users unable to access the site at that moment and I’m in the middle of a match! (no, I’m not talking about this website. This is just a blog.. come on.. )

So because my mood have been sapped, 20 minutes later I had to cut the match short, went looking around for a wi-fi enabled hotspot area around Cyberjaya and ended up squatting on the stairs of TMNet’s front door (a Malaysian broadband provider) to get access to their office’s wireless Internet to solve the problem. I just had to get online quickly!

Apparently my whole dedicated server was down. And it took more than 4 hours for my provider to actually get the server back up and running. That was the third time in a row my server went unaccessible and when you had to pay RM840 (USD250) every month for the server, you’ll expect a much better service than that. It was found out later that they had problem with the network cables and switches which were unfortunately connected to my server. So they sent some men all the way down to the datacenter (which was funnily at the same place I was squatting at) to fix the problem.

This is just one of the challenges you had to face of being an entrepreneur. Your sweet time can suddenly be interrupted by unexpected (and unwelcomed) circumstances. It can happen anytime and anywhere; while you’re having your dinner, while you’re in the cinema enjoying your long-awaited movie, even while doing your “business” in the toilet. Suddenly a problem creeps in and you had to immediately change your mindset from whatever-ur-doing-at-the-moment to having the problem fixed, unless if its not an urgent one.

And I haven’t yet talked about how I had to deal with users’ complaints afterwards.

Sometimes it can be tiring… but that’s what keeps entrepreneurship interesting…