Rent commercial space from HDB Hub

Here's a link where you can go to if you are interested in selling your wares at HDB Hub.

http://www.hdb.gov.sg/emall

You can book the kiosks by date. But take note, the bookings are usually very full and you have make advance bookings.

Lots of business ideas

I always have a lot of business ideas in my mind. Sometimes people ask, how do you have so much ideas?

It often comes out of my mind when I am trying to solve a problem and voila, it just comes out like that. But ideas aside, an idea without a good marketing plan is a bad idea after all. So bad that sometimes I chuck my ideas aside in the "kiv" department in my mind that I forgot that it exists.

The other thing that I need is vitamin M too. I still believe that you need Money to earn Money, big idea aside.

Here are some of the ideas that I have, if you happened to be the filthy little jerk that steals my ideas and got rich from it, share it with me.

1. Last minute Exhibition space bidding portal - If you are in sales or marketing, you probably encounter this before: sales has been dropping and in order to gain more sales, you need to increase your exposure. So you go online to search for any tradeshows or exhibitions in your country or other foreign country. Hmm..this looks good but heck, it's a bit expensive or this tradeshow will be starting in one weeks time. But you badly want to be in the tradeshow, even though you might not get good places but at least you can still get a share of the action. This portal helps you to get cheap last-minute spaces in participating fairs around the world.

Idea rating: ****** (this is a totally marketable idea, but the backroom preparation is too huge)

2. update you soon.

New Concept! New Business Model!

Recently I have been working on a new business model. Applying new business principles to a business that is considered commodity. Was given a lot of ideas from my friend from projectsenso who acts like a mentor to me, and the social enterprise element for this business was thus born.

My partner has been quite nervous about not earning money yet, and it seems that this is what every entrepreneur will face in the initial beginning. I have been through that several times before and I know how it feels like when you have no money and you longed to return to a salaried employee and get a fixed pay.

How do you measure a success of a startup business? By reflecting on your financial status or the reactions that you get from potential customers? Do you count it by the number of dollars in your pocket now?

Having little cash in your pocket is bad enough if you are a startup entrepreneur, but you must know that you NOW have the vehicle (which is your business) that can allow you to earn more money. So, what are you waiting for? Start driving that vehicle of yours instead of worrying.

Crowdfunding EcoRefills - Appeal for funding

I have recently been thinking of a new startup which combines both offline and online tools and I decided to gather the masses to start my new venture, EcoRefills.

This will be the first crowdfunding approach using my blog as a vehicle, and if there's anyone who is interested to contribute to the birth of EcoRefills by sharing your expert knowledge or money, please email me at triftan337@gmail.com.

If EcoRefills is conceptualized and running, this blog will serve as an updates to the company's happenings.

Company background and information

EcoRefills is a professional printer consumables refilling centre that promotes environmental awareness by recycling unwanted empty ink cartridges by refilling them and also promoting their refillable ink cartridges. By refilling the ink cartridges, one is actually reducing e-waste and protecting the environment.

EcoRefills hope to establish such outlets in reachable areas in Singapore, and will see future plans in expanding into the South East Asian region and the Middle East markets.

Crowdfunding plan

The idea of crowdfunding EcoRefills is to allow all people to be able to contribute to the growth of the company, share ideas and cast their votes in relation to the company’s plans.

Members may pay for eco-shares (or shares) of $50 and get a share in the company with a voting right. Members can start to make decisions about EcoRefills, participate in the forums, and vote for whatever ideas that we might have be it store location, product range, advertising and promotion and etc.

Once $50,000.00 is reached by selling eco-shares to members, a new outlet where members can have a chance to decide the location will be setup within 6 months time.

When the new outlet is setup and in operation for a year, 30% of the profits from the sales of that particular EcoRefills outlet will be distributed among members in the form of either cash or green credits to buy products on the website or they could choose to donate part of their profits to the charity that supports eco-awareness of their choice.

Members can buy eco-shares in more than one outlet and also buy more than 1 eco-share. Payout will be accordingly to the particular EcoRefills outlet’s sales performance.

Marketing Initiatives

Tapping into the social networks of online communities like facebook and friendster, we see it as a breeze to expand our idea through online word-of-mouth and publishing it on forums.

Everybody is talking about GO GREEN and saving the environment nowadays and it makes great sense for people to be able to do a bit for the environment while earning some attractive money and have their say in a company without having to invest huge capital.

Singapore will be our first location, and we will be moving in to Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, U.A.E, Dubai and Bahrain.

Once again, if there's anyone who is interested to contribute to the birth of EcoRefills by sharing your expert knowledge or money, please email me at triftan337@gmail.com.

A website will be setup soon, meanwhile read about the latest updates in this blog.

Sometimes, even the big ones will make mistakes..

Starbucks new logoStarbucks evergreen logo

Never change your corporate identity including your logo or company name once you have defined it for years, and all your customers know about it.

Starbucks have recently made a bad move by changing their corporate logo to a distasteful picture of a mermaid-like figurine with her breast exposed and her fishy legs spread open, resulting in a wide resentment from the Stakbucks faithfuls.



With her long flowing locks, elegantly curved tail and enigmatic smile, she has always been a symbol of ancient marine mythology. But they did it wrongly this time in a recent revival of their original 35-year old logo.

Sometimes you got to stick with what goes best and don't change it. Customers don't like to companies to mislead them.

Tighten Your Wallet, Prepare For The Crunch.

You might have heard the word out:"Prepare for recession, the economic downturn is here."

Why is that so? Some say it's due to the poor-performing USA market, people are getting loans from the banks and defaulting them. Some say it's the rising oil costs, that pushes prices of other commodities up resulting in rising inflation.

What is inflation? In other words, it means that the things that you bought before costs more now. But heck, the salary is still the same! So what do you do? You start to spend more on the things that you buy, but you buy less.

When you buy less, your friendly shop owner (that was forced to rise her prices) starts to earn less money, and when she earns less money, she starts to worry about her high rental costs, thus order less goods. So less goods = less opportunity to earn more money.

This vicious cycle goes round and round affecting everyone of us. So what should we do now?

1. Buy local.

Just by buying more local products from local companies. The next time you decide to go to Carrefour to do your groceries, why not stop by your nearest wet or dry market or visit NTUC? Firstly, you could get better prices there and you are doing a part in sustaining a positive business environment for the local market stall owners. The foreign companies can take care of themselves, not to worry.

2. Leave your car behind.

That is totally very true, if every car owner can leave their car behind once every one or two days by taking public transport, the consumption of oil will significantly decrease and you can also save on your petrol costs.

3. Practise the 3Rs.

By reusing your old items and finding ways to utilize it, not only that you save money, you could also help to save the environment. (I know, saving the environment is an overused word nowadays.)

4. Buy gold.

Now I finally understand why older adults like my mum and other aunties like to buy gold. Buy them when the gold price is low and sell them when the price is high. It can also be exchanged for emergency cash in the pawnshop when you are financially tight.

5. Be positive.

Some things are beyond our control, and stop whining and worrying about how this may affect you. Being positive makes our mind clearer and sharper to prepare for the steep road ahead. You stay healthy by worrying less too.


Tighten your seat-belts and be prepared for a bumpy ride.

Crazy Ideas

In this web 2.0 era, everything can happen. You can get to see countless of millionaires getting rich from their web projects and crazy ideas.

But how about any websites in Singapore that has hit it big like facebook or youtube? From my personal point of view, it's very crucial that you have to capture the larger audience like USA and Europe if you want to hit it big..

I recently got to know that there's a PRC who had earned her millions from developing virtual real estate in the online game, Second Life. What else cannot be done?

Maybe, I should hire 1000 people in PRC just to play World of Warcraft and hunt for gold and special items so that I can open an online trading business?

Any sponsors?

Leadership

It's very important to be a good leader and to communicate well with your staff. Or else they would never tell you anything. Your staff are the most important resource. Hear from them. You might find out something that you might never know.