Ideas, ideas ideas….
We’re all full of it.
Maybe it’s just me, but it suddenly dawned on me that Malaysia has recently started off with a whole new breed of young entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs that share that huge dotcom dream just like the dotcom entrepreneurs of the famed Silicon Valley.
I myself have had the privilege in meeting many of these young ambitious personalities. Like it or not, the one thing I find in common with each and every one of them is how their success is benchmarked against the success of internet titans like Google, Yahoo or the most recent… YouTube.
That’s right, benchmarked against success that happens abroad, not within our borders.
With all this entrepreneurial drive in our homeland of Malaysia, why is it we don’t draw inspiration from the success stories closer to home instead? Success stories in which would be far more realistic benchmarks in our local environment.
I sat down and started thinking.
Thinking of a good Malaysian success story from a young entrepreneur that I could draw inspiration from. Sure there were companies like Jobstreet or even MOL that sold out to Tan Sri Dato’ Vincent Tan for RM 12 million but that was millenniums ago.
It’s true. In recent years I couldn’t recall many real dotcom success stories.
So the question is… if there were so few success stories of Malaysian dotcom entrepreneurs making millions or selling out… why is it that yet so many people are itching to start a dotcom of their own.
Almost as if it’s the “IN” thing to do right now when many of us on the other side already know that there’s nothing “IN” or “COOL” about it and unlike the Silicon Valley in California, this Silicon Valley is not crowded with office car parks full of Ferraris. 
And as if things weren’t bad enough, where the success stories are scarce, the failure stories are filling up a warehouse so huge it could fit Subang Jaya in it.
As I write this, I had just gotten news that a fellow Dotcom entrepreneur and friend of mine is on the brink of shutting down a dotcom he started just a few months before Nuffnang launched.
I recall the first time I met him.
He was extremely passionate about entrepreneurship and his new business. His passion ran so deep that when anyone tried to play Devil’s Advocate on his business model, it would never put him down.
I always imagined that people with this level of commitment and passion will succeed but I was wrong.
So why… why do people long to join the growing trend of dotcom entrepreneurs?
Why? Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?
What or how much do people think they’re going to achieve when they forgo proper jobs with security? Do they think that they will make 1 million? 2 million? 10 million or 20 million in their lifetimes?
Even then it wouldn’t be worth it since I happen to know of some professionals in Malaysia that have made RM40-50 million in their lifetimes, and that’s without taking any risk.
So where are all the Malaysian success stories for us to draw our inspirations from?
Someone please enlighten me!
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space