This article was written in partnership with HP
Starting and building a business (Nuffnang) at a young age was the best decision I ever made in my career. It’s not the money I made (I’m far from what anyone would consider wealthy in this day and age), it’s not the memories (because I think I would have great memories in whatever I did). No… it was the mistakes.
In those 9 years of business I’ve made so many mistakes. Mistakes in trusting the wrong people, in managing teams, in making decisions or even in handling situations.
That all came useful about a year ago. After 9 years in Nuffnang, I left the company post-IPO, and decided to start a different business. I wanted a model that was able to be profitable in the short term and my dream was to build a P&G rather than a Facebook even though the latter is worth more today.
My ambition after all these takes is to build a profitable company. The thing about building businesses that focus on profit in the short term though, is that they tend to take heavy capital investments. Starting Colony took a scary 7-digit investment. Not just that, we also have to commit for leases that go from 9-15 years because any less than that and the window to make money and a return on the initial investment is just way too small. So, what made me make that leap of faith?
One of the biggest things I’ve learned though is how to listen more. I resist the mental block of thinking “Ah he’s saying what I already know” because I’ve learned there’s a lot more to listening than just what people are saying. There’s always something to learn from a conversation and the worst thing I could do is shut out any form of learning.
That is after all how I stumbled into the co-working business. I was in Jakarta one day when a friend of mine asked me to come visit his. A part of me wanted to be lazy and close my mind to it… that I’m familiar with the concept and I didn’t necessarily believe in it. But fortunately, that fateful day I didn’t and I learned that knowing about it and experiencing it is something completely different.
There I learned about how co-working spaces addresses the needs of not just start-ups, freelancers but anyone who needed office. Months later I came back and started a co-working space that was very different than the one I visited, but I would probably not have started it if I didn’t go that day.
Today, Colony is the most luxurious co-working space in the country. We’re looking to redefine not just the way people work but change the experience of work. A decade ago, we wouldn’t have sat in smaller spaces or in open offices or not in an office at all. We’d also expect to have technology evolve together. As businesses are forced to change with society, so do offices – in order to not be left behind.
And it’s not just where we work, it’s also how we see work that has undergone a transformation. The blurring between personal and work time is propelled by a generation who doesn’t draw a line. We see people using whatever device or app fits their location, who’s with them, even their mood state.
Now of course my job as the leader of this company isn’t to celebrate on past successes but is to look at the problems we’re going to have 6 months or a year from now and address them. And boy I can tell you there are many!
I don’t exactly sit down and try to have visions of what problems I have. A good part of this process is actually talking to people, so it really helps that I make it a good point to listen these days. So recently I’ve had the opportunity to speak to some reps at HP and learned of their new PC and a need they feel will become increasingly important in the short to medium run. Security.
The belief is that as we live in a world where we work in open areas like co-working space or the neighbourhood cafe… people more than ever are going to have be at closer proximity to our hardware. And now, security for devices have been an importance for not only big companies but SMBs as well.
So, they created a PC that addresses that need. A convertible laptop that has privacy screen that can hide your screen at a tap of a button to finger print censors to unlock your computer. The HP Elitebook x360 series reveals some key security solutions such as the HP Sure View, a built-in privacy screen, that delivers protection against visual hacking instantly as well as the HP Multi-factor Authenticate which allows for controlled access with fingerprint censors, facial recognition and a login password. Privacy is more important in today’s society, especially if you’re always on-the-go and travelling.
HP Security Solutions is embedded across the entire spectrum of security needs for companies; from Pre-Intrusion Features (e.g. Device Protection to Theft Prevention, Identity Validation, Information Protection) to even the Post Intrusion Features to help companies recover from cyber-attacks quickly.
(You can get one for yourself here!)
I found their vision of the future really interesting and it inspired me too to think about how I could address the need for data security among our guests at Colony. Making the right choice of devices for businesses has never been more important. Every PC decision is a security decision.
In the past we’ve done it by limiting physical access to room, CCTVs and heck even providing laptop locks that lock a laptop to a workstation. But maybe there’s another level… maybe HP’s on to something….
You can check out a video HP made with me in it on this. I think it’s awesome. Click here.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space