Projects

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I really really love building on the web

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You probably have heard this a million times. Follow your passion. You should find out what you are passionate about and do that. I myself blogged about passion quite often.

But Mark Cuban have a different view on all this fuss about passion. He believes instead of following your passion (which you can have many), you should follow your effort, things that you spend most of your time on because time is a resource that you don't own.

by Hugh Macleod
by Hugh Macleod

This makes sense because if you are putting in a lot of time and effort into something, you are definitely passionate about it and most likely you are quite good at it too.  

I took a trip down memory lane and realized that besides sleeping, eating, being lazy and gaming, I've spent quite a significant amount of my life building stuff on the web.

​Here's a short summary on some of the fun, failed, lame and stupid stuff that I've built.

​Highschool years

  • ​A browser plugin review site. Back then, browser plugin was the craze.
  • Phrozz.com - Attempted to start a hardware review site with my classmates back then (John & Ed)​ hoping to get some free hardware.
  • Website for my school (KKHS). Also did a Flash intro (yuck) and interactive flash tutorials. Manage to win 1st for design, 2nd for content in the SabahNet Homepage Competition. ​First sign?

​At college/university

  • ​dx's playground - Personal site to mess around with PHP. 
  • ​Website for the college's student government so that I can stay in the hostel.
  • Mamak.phrozz.com - A site for my Warcraft 3 Guild (Mamak). Scraped Blizzard's site for guild members' rank to display on the site. I think it was on Postnuke.​
  • ​My thesis in university was basically building a 'better' CMS (Content Management System)

​Entering the workforce

  • ​My first job introduced me to Coldfusion. Built some HR system and CMS with it. I made a simple framework to make it more bearable.​
  • Managed to convince my boss to let me use PHP. Build CMS for clients.​
  • Also did some Visual Basic, C# and ASP.net. Decided to go freelance and quit my job.​

Flexnode

  • Eventnode - Web app to organize events/outings. My first app built with Ruby on Rails.​
  • Reservation system for a resort. My first paid gig for Flexnode.
  • Biznode - Failed attempt to build a project management app like Basecamp.​​
  • Ravejoint - Managed to convince John to join me and ​build a food/restaurant review site. Plan was to sell ads from restaurants. Didn't work out.
  • ​Switched to consulting and built yet another CMS for Freeform. (KLue, Junkonline & Tongue in Chic)
  • Showtimes.my - Our take on how movie showtimes site should be like. ​Probably our most popular site.
  • ​Zoecity - Joined a US start-up that is based mostly in Kuala Lumpur. Built a few products ranging from social network to news aggregator to social sharing service.
  • Startnow.com.my - Attempted to build a site for entrepreneurs and action-takers. Another failed attempt. No traction at all. 
  • ​2 months contract with Says.my. Awesome company and culture.

I left out a few projects here and there but I think it is safe to say that I'm following my effort and it's definitely my passion too.

I'm not a rockstar web developer by any standards but knowing that this is what I love to do and I'm good enough to make a living out of it, is all that I need to keep going. ​

​I really really love building stuff on the web. What about you? Is your effort inline with your passion?

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Keeping it lean

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In recent months, I've been reading a couple of really interesting books. They range from Steve Jobs' biography, a book on how to generate your business model, Michael Lewis's Boomerang on the European Sovereign Debt Crisis and the grand design of universe by Stephen Hawking. The book that I've found to be the most insightful and a must-read for entrepreneurs out there is The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. It's so good that I've put in at the No. 1 spot on my books page.

The-Lean-Startup.jpg

The great insight that Eric had about startup was the goal to learn as much as you can in the shortest amount of time possible. You do this by conducting experiments to tests your hypothesis. He called this validated learning.

In the spirit of Lean Startup, we are conducting a simple market survey to gather some information and validate certain assumptions we have for our mobile budgeting app. If you got a few minutes to spare, help us out by completing Budgetarian's survey. Thanks!

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Remember remember, the month of November

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Back in August, I've mentioned about all the things we've done so far this year, but nothing could have prepared us for the crazy month of November. On November 4th, we had our fourth and biggest Webcamp KK ever. With the support from SATA, we flew in 3 awesome speakers from KL. Premesh Chandran (MalaysiaKini CEO, Allstars.my), Kamal Fariz (Founder of Bitfluent & Fluentspace) and Wu Han (Chief Designer of Mindvalley, Founder of Webcamp KL).

The day after, John and I joined Sabah Got Ideas, a pitching competition organized by SATA. This was the Kota Kinabalu District level and we finished second to enter the finals. 2 weeks later, at the finals, the unthinkable happened. We managed to finish in the top 6 for 20k.

Our pitch was about a mobile budgeting app dubbed 'Wife in your pocket'. For all the insights and lessons we learned, check out my previous post on how to craft a memorable pitch.

Then on the final weekend of November, an old friend of mine, Edham Arief together with the support of Sabah Computer Society organized our first ever Hackathon in KK. We were tasked to build a working application in 24 hours. Our team (John , Isaac and I) finished first with the app (CityQuest) that rewards you for exploring the city.

To end the month with a bang, on the last day of November, we attended the Sabah ICT Month Gala Night to receive the prizes for Sabah Got Ideas and Hackathon. Crazy month indeed...

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Web Design 101

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Even though I spend most of my professional career as a software developer, I do have interest in web design. I have also done some design work for clients and Flexnode's own sites. Since I couldn't get someone else to present at Webcamp KK so I decided to try it myself. Here are the slides and a ton of useful links for web design. I'm glad I decided to do this because of the sheer amount of things I've learned in the process. Hopefully, you'll find something useful here.

Web design 101
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The year so far

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After about 8 months into this year (2011), it feels that we at Flexnode did a lot of stuff but yet seems like we aren't really moving forward. Here's a short recap for 2011 so far.

  • StartNOW - We envisioned it to be an online community for entrepreneurs, visionaries and action takers. Maybe the features on the site is too confusing or doesn't fit the target audience. Or could be that we need to find ways to seed content to the site and make it useful. Right now, the site is practically dead. For now we are trying to form an offline community first and see what's needed there.
  • Showtimes.my - So far, it's been a rather good year for our movie showtimes site. We added a mobile version and favourite cinemas feature.
  • Showtimes.my iPhone app - We spent a few months getting into iOS development to try to build an iPhone version of Showtimes. We got a prototype built but it's still very far from what we have planned it to be. So meanwhile, we made a mobile site first.
  • Ok.Bah.my - This is more like a pet project to mimic lolcats. The idea is basically to seed the site with funny pics that aims to cheer you up if you are having a bad day. Haven't really put much effort into promoting it yet. Might pivot into something else.
  • Webcamp KK - As mentioned above, we figured we needed to form an offline community to find out more about how it works and what it needs. The first Webcamp was awesome and hopefully we can keep this up. It's nice to have a local support group for web enthusiasts in Kota Kinabalu.
  • Idea on Permission Marketing - Back in July, we pitched this idea at NINA (incubator/startup event) here in Kota Kinabalu. Our aim was really to gain more experience in pitching our ideas. It was a good try and we are currently considering whether to pursue the idea or not.
  • Revamp Flexnode.com - All this while we never had a proper company site so this year we took some time to put one up that is at least presentable.

There's still 4 months left before the year is over and hopefully there will be more awesome stuff in store for us. The next 2 months will be exciting as we are going to work with a client in KL on an interesting project.

How's the year been treating you so far?

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Webcamp KK

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Last night, we had our very first Webcamp KK and surprisingly about 30 people attended.  Although mostly dominated by developers and programmers, we had some photographers, designers, bloggers and marketers in the mix. My hope is that eventually we will be able get a better mix of web professionals together to share and create awesome stuff. For those who missed the event, check out the slides:-

Mobile web application development

View more presentations from edthix

I consider this event a success and hopefully we will be able to keep the momentum going. As I said to attendees of Webcamp, I want everyone to gather together to not just share their knowledge or expertise but also lend their hand in creating and building awesome work/projects. I hope it will be more than just a gathering but also a catalyst for cool and exciting projects between the community.

If you are interested in Webcamp KK, check out our Facebook group. Webcamp KK will be held on the first Tuesday of every month. Come join us!

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Seeing it through

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Every time I start working on a fresh new idea, I get really excited and motivated. The first few weeks will be extremely productive as you have momentum and optimism on your side. It's similar to the feeling when you first got a book. You'll go through the first few chapters really quickly. If you're fast, you might even finish it on the same day.

But unlike reading a book, working on an idea and developing it can't be done in a day or two. It's a marathon not a sprint. So what happens when your initial enthusiasm and motivation wears off?

You'll start to be less productive and suddenly everything seems hard. At times, you might even ask if you should continue working on it. You'll start to notice all the flaws and problems with your idea.

My advice is that you have to see it through somehow. Nothing great and worth doing has ever been easy. You'll learn more from finishing it and fail than abandoning it half way.

It is said that failure is the best teacher. I think success is a better one but to get to either, you actually have to reach the finish line. Whether you succeed or fail, you win. You lose when you give up half way.

The only other reason you lose is that you didn't even start. So get started and make sure you persevere till the end.

 

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Taking action

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Around the same time I started this blog, I also started a brainstorming group with a few close and smart friends. We called it Idearum and met up every fortnight to share ideas and discuss certain issues. Then early this year, we restarted the group and with some new members and started discussing about business ideas and things we can do. We all agreed that instead of just brainstorming ideas, we should try implementing some of them.

Inline with this new direction, I've decided to start an online community that encourages people to take action and work on their ideas. Hopefully, with the support and resources from the community, it will be easier to realize your dreams and bring ventures to life.

At this moment, we are still developing the site itself so hopefully soon we'll be able to launch it and inspire more people to take action and create value. After all, life is too short to not do something that matters.

If you got an idea that's been stuck in your head for a while, it's time to take action and work on it. Start a newsletter or work on that painting you always wanted to do. Lead a movement or build that iPhone app you wanted.

Whatever the idea, nothing will happen unless you start taking action. And maybe, just maybe, with enough of people doing great work and stuff that matters, we might be able to change the world.