Alvin Lai

Who said that Singapore’s lacking in the entrepreneurial scene?

A bunch of great guys I’ve met last year have been working hard to put together this awesome conference that highlights exciting fundamental changes currently happening in business and technology.

And it’s finally here, on March 24!

Check out the lineup:

Future of the web: which focuses on the long tail effect on the web

And who’s speaking? Prominent people from Salesforce, Amazon, Yahoo!, Google. I wish I were back home to attend this!

Global entrepreneurs sharing their war stores

Who? Silicon Valley startup bosses: Fazad Naimi, my NOC friend’s boss and Cory from the successful Second Life MMORPG.

Open Source innovation:

O’Reilly Radar. I’m sure you’ve heard of O’Reilly right?

And that’s not all, go check it out on their website http://www.nexus2007.com

How much to sign up? Just SGD$15 for a once in a lifetime opportunity to immerse yourself in the Digital Revolution.

Who knows, you might meet someone there to start something big

A couple of people have been bugging me to show them pictures of
what kinda house I live, so here goes

Hint: It’s somewhere in Sunnyvale, California.

Rent’s $2200 per month, shared among us 6 tenants.

View from outside.

Walking into the gate.

My backyard, got gardener come in every week trim one somore

From the main door..

My modest kitchen

Washing machine and dryer

My room upstairs. When we got the place, the room was EMPTY, my room mate
and I had to sleep in sleeping bags! We gradually got 2nd hand furniture from garage
sales posted via craigslist and made it nice and cosy.

Queen sized spring mattress, with Ralph Lauren comforter, and the reading lamp+chair combination that I’ve always wanted!

My rooom from another angle

The bathroom

It can be frustrating when things do not go as planned —
miscommunication, technical difficulties, unexpected long
waiting times you name it.

It is right for the service provider to test his system,
but not at the expense of the waiting customer, who is already
miffed at the problem.

The tipping point comes when the customer receives an
insult in exchange for an attempt to seek redress for
the inconvenience.

The business would not only lose that customer, but potentially
hundreds that customer would recommend against the service.

A mistake a startup cannot afford to make.

-

Frankness is good in many aspects like maintaining healthy
relationships to attaining better understanding.

But when it is used as an excuse for reckless venting,
it might be better to remain silent about it in the first place.

One good rule of thumb when addressing an issue frankly is
to ask yourself, am I using this privilege of being frank
as an excuse for anger?

Some good silent thought process before a frank encounter
goes a long way.

I really like Seth Godin phrase:

“Actually, every large company goes under… except for the large companies that take risks and reinvent themselves. The rest of us just fade away, sooner rather than later.”

Then he goes on to prod us, even more so we should start doing our own thing if we were to succeed.

“Actually, the top spots and large investment stakes in big companies are pretty much all taken, so if you weren’t lucky enough to end up on top, (or if you don’t want to spend your career waiting for your boss to die) the only way in the world you’re going to succeed is by doing your own thing, building your own division or starting your own gig… and by teaching the big guys a thing or two.”

Aren’t you convinced yet?

My professor John Nesheim challenged us to blog what we learnt each day, so there’d be a nice log of 365 entries by the end of the year to reflect upon when I get back to Singapore, so here’s the first.

1. You can patent the non-obvious process.

2. It’s not easy for big corporations who have established their brand name to emulate you and do a me-too — because it would only cannibalise and hurt their existing brand.

Finally, after wading through tons of work and distractions, I found some time to post this up. Enjoy!

Uncertainty was abound during the first week, when we arrived without knowing about anything. But it was also the period where everyone learnt the most about themselves. A wonderful experience!

Takeoff from Changi Airport

Transit in Narita Airport

2 hour wait, with Kaiwei looking funny

Esther and Quek

Kaiwei and I were bored so we went exploring.. and found a Akihabara store!

that sells delicious looking cuttlefish!

and some kinda small fish.

Finally, off to America!

Food-fare on board Northwest Airlines.

Some nice looking American bridge

Reach liao woo!

Breath taking scenery outside San Francisco airport

More breath taking scenery outside San Francisco airport

Waiting for seniors to pick us up. Still remember Devika coming to pick me up wearing her act-seh sunglasses

What’s my first meal in America? In and out burgers!

The burger you guys saw in the previous blog post

Fries done animal style!

Seniors kindly put us (Bernard and I) up at their place, at Bernado’s.

Bernardo’s damn hip la.

As public transport is virtually non-existent here in Sunnyvale California,
the first batch rented a Pontiac — USD$400 for a week man!

Weather’s great, nice and cool with interest flora and fauna to see..

Beautiful leaves, aren’t they?

The Vine’s household, who put up the rest. Wonder what Bernard is really clutching.

Driving around in the rented Pontiac

Vine’s mini eco-system in a rice-cooker..

David then brought us around in San Francisco..

The car got hyperdrive mode one u know.

You never know how it feels like in hyperspace.

Happy that we came out alive, 70MPH hyperspace haha.

Saw Gap!

The night streets of SF.

Try parking man.

Can eat happy liao

Shuyang no look tea pouring

Here comes the food. Jellyfish!

Crab! But still no match for my Dad’s

The walnut prawns are seriously good.

Pork, I think..

A wholesome spread!

Awesome fish..

I couldn’t resist a picture with this steep a car park.

We then drove up to Twin peaks and savored the stupendous scenery..