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Is our Southeast Asia Tech Boom Built On A House of Cards?

Southeast Asia has never been a more exciting place to do a tech startup. Years ago many tech entrepreneurs fretted about the lack of funding, low valuations and lack of VCs.

Today we have more VCs than ever before, more money being raised and bigger valuations than we’ve ever seen in this region. We hear about investment bankers, lawyers or consultants leaving their jobs in Singapore and joining startups in hope that they’ll become millionaires from the stock options. I’m happy that tech is getting the recognition it very much deserves and how we’re beginning to feel like we’re in a mini Silicon Valley but it’s worrying when you realize what’s missing:

1) The number of exits

In order for a sustainable tech ecosystem, our VCs need to make money for their investors. And the only way they can do that is if they have exits. Not just small exits too. It’s not good enough if a VC exits at 2X their investment when the quantum is small because that probably won’t be enough to make up for the other 8 or 9 failed investments. They need BIG exits (and companies like Viki don’t count because they’re not companies that were born out of the ecosystem here. Their investors are mostly from the US. Has anyone heard of Reid Hoffman investing in any other Singapore startups after Viki)?

Tech In Asia compiled a good list of exits SEA has had since 2008. You can count the number of sizeable exits there. We don’t have many and when you take into account the meaningful exits that’s even less. Which brings me to my next point. What is a meaningful exit?

2) VCs need REAL exits. Not paper exits.

A real exit is when an acquirer buys and pays the price in CASH or Listed company stock. The kind of exits we often get are like this:

You sell your company for a small amount of cash and the rest paid in stock from the acquirer’s private company.

We see this all the time. They normally look good in the news too. You see headlines like “Startup A gets acquired by Startup B for $20 million in cash and stock”. The local tech community celebrates that we have yet another successful company out of the ecosystem and we have new tech millionaires but the insiders know better.

The insiders know that $2 million was paid in cash. The rest of it was paid in stock in the acquirer’s private company. The stock in the acquirer’s private company is useless to a VC until they can EXIT in the form of an IPO or a trade sale. It is illiquid. None of that $18 million can be cashed out and put into another promising startup in the ecosystem.

What makes matters worse is that share swaps like that tend to happen on a very inflated valuation because it’s just an agreement between two parties on what both their companies are worth collectively. So now the other players in the industry are going to their VCs and saying “Hey… this competitor of ours got acquired at this valuation that would make it 10X revenue. So that’s my valuation now.”

3) The rise of zombie companies.

I first heard about the term “zombie companies” from this Techcrunch article. It’s a very interesting read.

What the article basically says is (and I quote)

VCs typically raise new funds every 2-4 years. However, it historically takes 5-12 years to exit (liquidate) an investment. To communicate the success of the fund to potential investors when raising money, VCs show that their portfolio companies’ valuations have continued to rise, which is great — if the numbers aren’t artificially inflated.

If a business is doing poorly, the logical move is to stop throwing money at it and shut it down. If a VC firm does this, it’s legally obligated to report it as a loss to limited partners when raising the next round of funds.

But if the VC chooses to keep the company going, the zombie rises.

By keeping the company artificially alive, the VC can tell limited partners that the valuation of the business has stayed constant or is even going up. It certainly doesn’t want to show that the company is doing worse than when the investment was made. Therefore, VCs sometimes go to great lengths to keep valuations artificially high.

This results in zombie companies on VC life support. The company receives injection after injection of capital, even though it’s not hitting its numbers, all because the VC is unwilling to write off the investment.

I’ve seen this happen a lot even in SEA. I know of a startup that raised a round at say a $5 mil valuation. One year later the startup fell apart. Some of its initial founders had given up and left, the startup had cashflow issues and their revenues had dropped from the year before.

One thing they did have though was an acquisition offer. The acquirer wanted to buy them but after their own due diligence was only willing to pay $3 million. Makes sense because the company now was worth less than a year before. It had less money, less revenue and burning even more money.

The VC who invested in them though didn’t want to take the deal because then they would have to report a loss in their portfolio. So what did the VC do? They ploughed in more money into the company at an even higher valuation.

They used good money to chase bad money. It’s a company that should be shut down but VCs incentive schemes like in the Techcrunch article was to keep the startup alive because as long as it was alive, it would still hold that paper value on its portfolio. At the very minimum it would retain its value instead of showing a negative value. In fact in this case because they put in more money at a higher valuation their portfolio value went up. One day I’m sure they’ll report to their investors that their investments have been very successful and their portfolio value is now 6-8 times their initial capital. They feel good and the investors feel good.

When does the party stop?

Eventually VCs will have the close their funds. Whether it’s 5 years, 8 years or more it comes a time when they have to liquidate their investments and return cash to their investors. When that happens they’re going to realize that a number of their portfolio companies can’t be sold at the price they valued it at. Worse… they can’t be sold at all.

When that happens at the end of the fund we’ll see huge write-offs. Investors get burnt and not only is there no profits to put back into other promising startups in the ecosystem but investors just walk away from tech entirely.

So we’re in a bubble? When is it going to burst?

Yes I think we are in a bubble but when it’ll burst is a question I can’t answer. In Silicon Valley, billionaires like Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca have been predicting a tech bubble crash since the beginning of this year.

I think the exact timing is really hard to predict because there are too many variables in place. It depends on when a significant number of VCs have to close their funds (which I understand is still quite a way to go). Many things could happen in between that would prolong the bubble though. The Singapore government could put in more money to fund startups. There could be more investors from overseas chasing the SEA dream putting more money in.

Or who knows… with some luck.. maybe we’ll start seeing some huge exits and some VCs in SEA making BIG money and putting it back into the ecosystem.

Our ecosystem’s cycle for now is not complete. Who knows what the future has in store for us?


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5 Ways Your Life Changes When You Become A Family Man

For much of my twenties I had a very different life. I traveled the world plenty, worked very hard and weekends for me meant waking up late in the mornings and partying hard late at night.

All that changed on the 12th of August 2013 when Fighter was born. I for the first time became a father. People always told me that life would change when you became a father and had your own family but I never really broke down why. When I reflect on it, it’s not just a change in my lifestyle but the change in my opinions or views on things. Even a change in the way I spend my time.

So for this blog entry I’m going to tell you the changes that I experienced and that you’ll most likely experience when you become a Dad.

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1) You have a lot less money to spend

The good news is that we have kids later in our lives these days so we’ve had time to build on our career. The bad news is that even with that career head start, it’s not enough. The sudden expenditure of having kids starting from your first baby hits you like a professional Filipino boxing champion. I use that metaphor because it’s not just one hit, it’s multiple hits one after the other.

It starts with the consultation costs throughout the pregnancy. The ultrasounds, the doctors telling you all is okay, and then if necessary the medication. Then just a few months before the due date you realize there are a lot of baby things you haven’t bought yet. So you go out and buy all the little things like milk bottles, clothes, towels and diapers. But all that is nothing compared to the big ticket items: The stroller, the breast pump, the crib and more.

When you reach the due date you would have spent what must’ve seem to you like a Rockerfeller’s Trust Fund only to be hit by one more big bill. The delivery charges and cod blood storage.

Of course as man of the family your responsibility is to provide for the family. So to the outside world, you look confident like this.

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But on the inside you really look like this.

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2) You spend a lot less time with friends and a lot more with family

You know how when you first get together with a girlfriend and you really want to spend all your time with her? Well having a kid is like that, only 100% more intense. You’ll end up wanting to spend as much time as you can with your baby and naturally since the number of hours in a day doesn’t increase once you have kids, you end up sacrificing time from somewhere. Most of the time it’s your friends.

You do however still spend a good amount of time with your family and your in-laws because they want to see your kids as much as you want to see them.

This doesn’t mean you completely lose contact with friends though. I still make it a point to catch up and meet up with a number of them regularly but perhaps because we don’t have much time left, we meet up with a lot less of them.

3) You don’t enjoy traveling as much as you used to

When your kid or kids are really young, you don’t find it appropriate to bring them on long trips for holidays. So if you were going to go on a holiday, you’d very often go on your own: Just you and your wife.

You however find it hard to enjoy them because you’d spend every hour talking about your kids and how much you miss them. It’s like you literally left a part of you behind. You eventually secretly start hoping for your holiday to end quick so you can go home and see your baby. But that totally ruins the purpose of a holiday doesn’t it?

4) You start looking at different kind of cars

Most men in the twenties love cars. We don’t love just any cars. We love the cars that are fast and sexy that just so happen to be expensive as well. When we look at the Toyota Camry or the minivan we’d be like eww. Why would anyone buy that?

We crave the Ferraris, the Lambos, the Porsches. Heck for some of us even the GTRs or the M3s or GTIs.

Then when you get married your mind automatically succumb to the fact that those cars aren’t practical for you anymore. They can’t fit baby chairs or even if they can they’re not spacious enough for you to fit a stroller and some groceries in the back. Minivans start looking a lot more attractive too especially if you have 2 kids or more and a babysitter that you want to bring along for your weekend trips to the mall.

My craving for sports cars have taken an abrupt halt for the moment. In fact I do have some sort of a sports car and while it was a car I used to drive every day, I now drive it only once a week at most. Suddenly the Camry starts looking like a rather interesting and practical car to me. Confirmation that I’ve just been “uncled”.

5) You start looking at buying a different type of insurance.

In your twenties, buying insurance isn’t a foreign idea. We all are insured one way or another. If you’ve read my previous articles on my blog I have really mixed feelings about health insurance even though I do buy some for my wife.

However today as a family man I hear conversations among friends now about another type of insurance: Life insurance. That is a foreign idea to me. As a bachelor in my twenties I never thought of life insurance because hey… why would I need one? We all mostly felt invincible in our twenties and we had nobody to provide for if anything happened to us.

Today though we ask ourselves this: If anything happened to us, who would help pay off the housing loan or pay for the kids education especially if your wife isn’t working?

Just last week my friends were comparing different life insurance policies.

I debated with myself if I needed life insurance and the answer is maybe. I do have some assets that I would leave behind for my family but the other thing is cash. Assets take time to convert to cash but very often what you need is cash.

So life insurance is something I’ve been considering for now. According to this study, most Malaysians seem to be under-insured.

Life insurance sponsor:

One place you can start looking at for life insurance is U For Life. It’s an online site that allows you to skip through the paperwork and the long process of applying for insurance. On the contrary you can be insured for RM500,000 without a medical check-up in 10 minutes.

All premiums are paid to Tokio Marine Life who is the main insurer of your policy. No tedious paperwork, no medical check-ups or anything like that. It’s really done in a few simple steps:

First ask a few simple questions like your gender, age and whether you smoke or not.

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Secondly, just choose the coverage amount you want and it’ll give you an idea of the premium you have to pay to get that.

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At my age to get a RM100,000 coverage, it’ll cost me RM17.70 a month. That’s like RM0.59 a day.

And then just click proceed.

Untitled7And you’re done. I thought that this was a really simple way and quick way to buy life insurance. So if you’re looking at something like that register now at uforlife.com.my . Check out www.facebook.com/uforlifemalaysia for more info.

To end my blog entry, I think my life has really changed since I’ve become a Dad. The truth is though is that I believe that my life has changed for the better. I love being a Dad a lot more than I was a bachelor with all my freedom. There’s nothing like spending a Sunday morning doing nothing but hanging out with your little toddler.

What I learned about fund raising in the past 12 months

In the past few years, we’re seeing a huge boom in fund-raising for startups in South-East Asia. Startups are raising money at valuations higher than ever before having people wonder if we’re in a bubble.

Personally I’ve never raised money for Netccentric or Nuffnang before our IPO this year. Fund-raising can be a distraction to the main business because it takes a lot of effort and we never really had the fate or the luck to meet the investors that we think would work well with us. So the Netccentric you see today before IPO was the result of our SGD65,800 startup capital that we had from the beginning. As such our DNA was to make sure our business units were all profitable and able to contribute to a stream of profits that we could use to reinvest.

That’s a good and a bad thing. The good thing is that post IPO, Ming and I still own a substantial stake in the listed entity. We own approximately 36% each of Netccentric Limited.

The bad thing is perhaps if we had raised money earlier we could have scaled quicker.

In any case this year we went for an IPO and it was the first time we properly went into fund-raising. I came out of this experience with a lot of insights about the process and learning from the mistakes that I had been making in the past. Some really newbie ones.

Here are the most important things I’ve learned.

1) Don’t over-introduce your company in the introduction of your presentation.

This is a mistake I’ve seen a lot of startups make and is a mistake I used to make myself. You only get one chance to make a good first impression. Make a bad one and the investor is tuned out for the rest of the presentation.

I’ve seen presentations that start with what the company does and then on to the capital structure, the founders, the team, the use of proceeds and then the financials.

Why is that wrong? Because investors don’t really care about your company beyond a simple answer to “What does it do?”.

What do investors care about? If you answered “Considering they are taking the time to listen to my pitch I’m assuming, my company?”.Well then you’re wrong.

Investors don’t care about your company unless you’re an AirBnB or a Snapchat. They care about HOW YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE THEM MONEY. Focus as much of your presentations as possible to how much money you’re going to make them.

So the way I would start a presentation now is first with a VERY brief introduction. Then jump into how you’re going to make them money. Your traction, your growth plans, how much money you will make when you’re there, what your comparable are and how much you can be acquired for or IPO for.

After you’ve told them how you’re going to make them money, THEN you can go into the details of your company. The capital structure, the team etc etc.

2) Use comparables to value your company

In this potentially bubbly market, investors are getting more and more cautious when it comes to valuations. Comparables are your friends. You need to find what your peers in your industry are trading at.

I imagine Patrick Grove of Catcha does a really good job at this. He started a car classifieds website for SouthEast Asia. Then he goes to Australian investors and say

“You know Carsales.com.au? The billion dollar company? Well we’re like Carsales but for SouthEast Asia and SouthEast Asia collectively is a market with a much bigger population. So this is what we think we’re going to be worth and this is why we think we’re worth this now.”.

Pick a good startup idea where investors are pouring money into and you’ll be able to command higher valuations. All the taxi app companies in the world for (whether in SEA, China or India) trade as such high valuations because their comparable is Uber.

So they go to investors and say “We are Uber but for China” or “We are Uber but for India” and when investors compare your startup to Uber which is trading at a really high valuation they’re less likely to be sticky on your valuations.

3)) Line up your cornerstone investors as early as you can (Part 1): Start with the low hanging fruit

Imagine you’re an investor. Two similar companies come to you to pitch.

The first company tells you they’re raising $10 million but they’re still pitching and they haven’t confirmed their investors yet.

The second company tells you that they’re raising $10 million and about 80% of the allocation has been taken up by a number of existing cornerstone investors. There’s only $2 million left and it’s first come first serve.

Which company would you pounce on first? The second right? It’s mob mentality. Everyone wants to go for the thing everybody else wants. So the sooner you can lock down your cornerstone investors the easier it is to lock down the rest of your raise.

Don’t be shy to ask friends, family or anyone who knows you and is more likely to trust you and invest in your startup.

My uncle is a fairly prominent businessman in Malaysia. For the past 7 years of running Netccentric I never asked him for any favors and never wanted to. One day over lunch he asked me what I needed to grow my company. I answered money and he then asked why I have never asked him to invest in my company.

My answer was that I didn’t like to ask family or friends for favors and his reply was “In business you have no time and place for pride. If you need something to scale you have to explore every single option.”

So for Netccentric’s IPO he became one of our cornerstone investors.

4) Line up as many cornerstone investors as you can (Part 2): Now to the smart money.

Once you line up the investors that you know personally and will trust you, your deal automatically becomes more attractive. The next step then is to line up the smart money. Other influential people or funds.

In our case we managed to get Kevin Tsai who is the President of Want Want Media Group and comes from one of the richest families in Taiwan, Tan Sri Pang Tee Chew of Mamee Double-Decker and KSK (The group that was behind Kurnia Insurance).

People like to follow the smart money and when you have these investors on board it’s less likely that people are going to have confidence issues with you.

5) Times of exponential growth is the time to raise money, not sit still.

Most startups don’t have exponential growth forever. Sometimes you get exponential growth and then you plateau for a bit, consolidate your position then grow again.

The other mistake we often make is that when things are going really well you think “I don’t want to raise money now. I’m growing so well”.

But when your growth takes a temporarily breather you realize you need more money to supercharge that growth again and by then it’s too late. Investors want to invest in growth and not when you’re plateauing and they don’t necessarily want to wait another year for you to get your ducks in a row and hit hyper growth again.

These are the 5 lessons I’ve learned in the past 12 months. Fundraising can be a time consuming process that distracts you from your business. So if you can, get it done as soon as you can with as little mistakes as possible. Once you raise money the pressure is on to deliver which is what I’m really focused on now. To deliver long term shareholder value to our investors.

These are just my few cents. Hope you guys find it helpful.

Why this is one of the best luxury SUVs in the market now

Have you ever felt like a brand has been targeting you to at least try out their products? I do all the time and Lexus is one of them. Let me tell you how it all started.

It was sometime last year when the central locking of my continental car failed just as I was about to head out cycling. I called a locksmith and then the car workshop who sent over some people and after 3 days of coming back over and over again they managed to drill a hole through my car and unlock it.

The fun part of course was sending me a bill which was the latest of an estimated RM40K in repairs I had spent in the 5 years I’ve had the car. I started wishing I had a Japanese car instead. The type of car our grandfathers would tell us never broke down just like the old green fridge my grandmother has in her house that is still alive and kicking. The only thing though was that I wanted a reliable luxury car and the only really well known Japanese luxury car brand I knew of was Lexus.

Lexus to me is like this really misunderstood brand in Malaysia. Ask anyone on the street about the Lexus and they would tell you it’s a car as luxurious as any European car but it’s a “Toyota”.

That’s a really odd stereotype because in that same spirit we should be saying “Why buy a Ferrari? It’s a Fiat” because Fiat owns Ferrari the same way Toyota owns Lexus.

I’m pretty sure it’s only in Asia that we feel that way though. I remember seeing a lot of people driving Lexus in the US and when asked why they say “It’s a good car. Why else?”. So anyway back to my story. I started Googling Lexus and checking out the different models they had but I left it at that.

A few days later my brother asked me for lunch. They wanted to go to this Japanese restaurant at Life Center which had a good Sunday buffet. I went and guess what I saw: A Lexus showroom in Life Center itself. I literally had to walk past the showroom in order to get to the restaurant.

Then believe it or not, the next thing I started noticing in the following months was Lexus outdoor ads on Jalan Sultan Ismail. The very same road I take to work every single day. This time a model that really caught my eye It was the new Lexus NX 200t, their new compact SUV. It was a beautiful looking car. I went home and watched reviews on it but still resisted the temptation to test drive it for fear I might end up buying another car in this economy.

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Then whether by chance or planning, the next thing I got was a call from my talent manager at Nuffnang. They said Lexus wanted to engage me for a sponsored review of their latest car. Which car I asked? Surprise surprise! The Lexus NX 200t.

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How do I say no to that? So last week I’ve had a chance to drive the Lexus NX 200t (Well to be precise I got the NX 200t F SPORT which is a full spec version) for a few days.

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I’m not going to tell you about specs because you don’t need me for that. You can find the specs all here on the Lexus website. I don’t think people make their purchasing decisions based on specs anymore.

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They make it based on the lifestyle and emotional difference a product makes. Think about it. For those of you who bought an iPhone 6, how many of you know what processor is in there? Heck how many of you even know how much RAM is in there?

If you answered yes I think you’ll be 1 out of every 10 iPhone buyers so congratulations. So for this review I’m going to tell you how the Lexus NX 200t made me feel.

Here’s what I like about it.

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1) How the size of an SUV makes life easier for a young parent

I like SUVs because I can bring a lot of things along with me (like my bicycle) and I like driving with an elevated view of the road. What I absolutely LOVE about SUVs though is how easy it is to put my kids into their baby chair or take them out. I tried out Fighter’s baby seat in the NX 200t and it fit perfectly.

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The thing I don’t like about most SUVs though is how big they are and how difficult it can be to get around. For that the NX 200t is perfect. It’s an SUV but it is of a size that is easy to maneuver around.

2) How it’s the perfect amount of tall

It’s tall and that’s what I like about it but it’s not too tall.This matters especially considering my wife is FourFeetNine. To get into other SUVs she normally has to stand next to the driver’s door, lasso a rope with a grappling hook on to the steering wheel and then do an Indiana Jones climb up (ok I exaggerate but you get the idea).

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With the NX 200t she just hops right in.

3) How it drives

Since we’re talking about things my wife likes, here’s what else she likes. She likes that the steering is really light so it’s easy for someone like her with Smurf strength to drive. It also has a really smooth ride and handles like a compact car. And don’t be put off by the engine capacity. It makes up for it with a turbo charge, the first in a Lexus.

4) The Technology

Amongst many things, I like how the remote touch interface interact with the 7-inch Electro Multi –Vision (EMV) display. It is just like controlling the dashboard computer with this mouse that works just like the one on your laptop.

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And the small thoughts that they put into like having this wireless charger for phones that are wireless charging ready.

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And a fully working GPS .

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5) But here’s what I liked the most about the Lexus NX 200t

It’s ABSOLUTELY BAD PARKER PROOF. What do I mean by that? Well you know how sometimes you park your car and walk away only to realize you parked slightly outside your parking lot? Then you debate on whether to go back to your car and right it or risk getting someone leave you a nasty note for parking like a moron.

Well this car makes it very difficult for you to unintentionally do that because of the insane amount of sensors and cameras they have around the car. On the dashboard screen this is what you see when you’re parking.

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A simulated all round view of everything surrounding your car.

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Now I’ve seen a lot of cars in my life but this is the first time I’ve ever seen anything on a car in this price range.

It’s absolutely amazing. It’s not just parking. I found myself making a turn but I couldn’t tell if the curb was too close so I just turned on the camera and could immediately tell.

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These sensors gave my wife a newfound confidence in driving and parking SUVs.

I let go of the NX 200t a little reluctantly which was a tad bit surprising for me because when I first got the car, my colleague Jack asked me how I liked it. I replied that it was “Okay”. But as I got to know the car better, all its gadgets and use it a lot more it became some sort of an acquired taste for me. I began to really like it.

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The only catch is its price tag but I guess that goes to say for all things in life. Good things don’t necessarily come cheap.

Lexus to me is for people who want to buy a good car but don’t need to shout about it. It’s also in my honest opinion (sponsored review or not) one of the best SUVs around.

Check out more about #NXSideofLife .

How to join my LIVE broadcasts

So the latest thing I’ve been spending some time on recently apart from Snapchat is Periscope. It’s this LIVE broadcast app where you can broadcast video LIVE on your mobile phone to all your followers. Your followers can then interact with you by asking you questions, leaving comments or giving you hearts. Lots and lots of hearts.

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I read a lot about social media trends so I’ve been on Periscope for a while now but I hardly see anyone in Malaysia or Singapore using it. So just this past week I decided to give it a shot and I must say it’s really fun interacting live with all the people who follow me.

So far my videos have been of a tour of a Taiwan night market when I was there, and lots and lots of Fighter videos. So far I’m getting positive comments from you guys that you like the videos so I’m encouraged to continue with more broadcasts.

If you want to join these live broadcasts, download the Periscope app and follow me timothytiah.

You can also follow me on Snapchat. @timothytiah. You can also follow Shorty on Snapchat and Periscope. @fourfeetnine.

The Beginner

Some people are born lucky and some people are born unlucky. I was a born both lucky and unlucky. Lucky because I was born into a good family. I had a father who was born poor but was capable and able to earn enough for the family to live comfortably. And I had a mother who was kind, loving and taught me the best of values. Together they made wonderful parents. 

The unlucky part was that I was born different and not in a good way. In this entry I will tell you how I was born different but it is only in the rest of the entries that you will know the effect it had on me in life. 

My mother gave birth to me in the middle of the night on the 6th of June 1984. It was the year Malaysians celebrated because it was the year we launched our national car the Proton Saga. It didn’t matter that it was a entirely a Mitsubishi with a Proton badge on it. Just like in primary school, when an eraser has your name on it, it’s yours. 

I was born at Loh Guan Lye’s Specialist Center, one of the best hospitals in Penang at the time and delivered by one of the best doctors. I was the 3rd child my mother had and the first one that had complications that my mom had to deliver me by a C-Section. I came out healthy and kicking as my mother looked on at me and wondered what kind  of person I would grow up to be.  

By the time the 3rd day passed my mom started to notice something about me. She noticed that my eyes had never once opened. Without being able to do much she waited each day constantly checking back at me to see if I felt it was time for me to open my eyes and see the world I was now in.

That time came almost a week after I was born. I opened one eye and looked around the strange room I was in. Suddenly I was out of a dark warm comfortable place with a soundtrack of my mother’s heartbeat into this room that is bright and occasionally noisy.

After some tests the doctors diagnosed me with an eye ptosis. A condition where the muscles of my upper eye lid of my left eye was too weak for me to open my eyes. So I’ll only have one eye open half the time and the other one almost completely closed. The problem though isn’t just an esthetic one but a medical one too. If I didn’t do anything about it, I would eventually go blind in the weak eye. 

The doctor established that I had to go for surgery to correct it but as a newborn baby it was too early. I had to wait until I was 3 years old to operate.

It was unfortunate but let me get back to the lucky part. My Dad as I said earlier was a capable man who came from nothing. He was a 34 year old at the time building his career. I’m not sure if it was because of his training as an engineer or whether he was born like that but my father was a planner. He’s the type of person who plans for dinner before we even have lunch.  

He had 3 years to plan for my surgery and in that time he did enough research and put aside enough money to make sure that I went for the very very best doctor. Based on his research, the very best doctor for my condition at the time was in Singapore. 

So at age 3, my parents brought me down to Singapore for my surgery. I have this vivid memory in my mind of me being in an operating theater and the doctors pinning me down while they cut me open. It was like a scene out of a Steven King book but my parents brushed it away. They say it was impossible. Impossible because I was fully asleep at the time. 

That makes sense. I don’t know what kind of doctors would cut open on a fully awake screaming toddler of age 3. Perhaps it was a dream. In any case the operation was as successful as Operation Overlord (me being the Allies of course and the evil ptosis being the Axis powers).  

There was just one catch. The surgery had corrected the ptosis on one eye but my other eye still had a bit of an issue. The doctor suggested I go for a second operation to correct it but by then my parents thought that they had put their 3 year old son through enough and declined.

The result of not doing the second operation was that while there wasn’t any medical effect to it, my eyes weren’t even. One of my eyes consistently looked bigger than the other. So I kinda look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Now that’s all fine and dandy when I’m a toddler knocking toy trucks against one another at home all day. But things got a bit more brutal in school.

So there I was, a boy with a huge mole on his face and one eye bigger than the other checking into primary one. I was like George Bush (Jr), everybody couldn’t wait to make fun of me. That’s something I’ll leave for the next entry.

A List of Things I like about Taiwan

I’m in Taiwan this week on business. I’ve been having full days of meeting so the only time I really get to experience Taipei is after work. I make it a point to go out for a good dinner and tonight I took a bit of a walk. If you want to see my updates on my day you can read it from my Dayre here.

In this limited time I’ve had to experience Taiwan there are some things I’ve really grown to like about it. here’s a list:

1) The people here are super friendly

In restaurants or shops the staff are always really friendly. In my business meetings so far I’ve met very friendly people who are always keen to share things about their industry and their business even though I may not be in a position to give them any personal or corporate gain. Still, they take time out of their really busy days to sit down with me and give me insights into the Taiwanese market.

I believe the most valuable thing you can give anybody is time. So for them to give a perfect stranger from Malaysia time to teach… that is something I don’t take for granted.

2) The Food is awesome!

I’ve had all sorts of food. Last night I had toast, today for lunch I had xiao long bao and tonight for dinner I had one of the best steamboats in a long time. You can see the pictures from my Dayre.

What’s just as fun is shopping at the 7-11 or Family Mart that is full of the widest selection of food, snacks, drinks and even really misc stuff. Today I broke my USB 2.0 charger cable and was able to buy another one from a nearby 7-11.

I don’t really like the “smelly tofu” though. Can’t get past the smell. Took a bite once to give it a shot but had to spit it out.

3) Taipei isn’t very congested for a really big city

I’m really surprised at how empty the roads in Taipei are. In my two days of being here I got caught in heavy traffic for the first time today and only during peak hours. The traffic in Taipei though is nothing compared to the traffic we see back in KL.

On a regular weekday afternoon the roads around Taipei have really light traffic. The pedestrian walkways also quite empty. I can’t help but wonder where all the people are or how is it that this city is so well planned such that it doesn’t feel at all congested.

4) Mobile Data is Cheap 

I paid about RM60 for a week of unlimited mobile data and 300 minutes of talk time. That’s cheap to me especially considering it’s unlimited. From my understanding it’s properly unlimited. Not unlimited in the sense where I get throttled after 500MB.

The LTE network here is great too. In my hotel I’m working off my phone hotspot to check my emails and even to post this blog entry. It feels fast enough for me to not even need to subscribe for the hotel wifi.

5) Taxis are awesome

You know how in some cities you flag down a taxi but you don’t dare get in until the driver tells you he’s okay to take you where you want to go ?

Well in Taiwan the taxi drivers here take you basically anywhere. Or at least so far in my experience, I’ve never had a driver turn down a destination. They’re all really friendly too and helpful. Everywhere else like KL, Bangkok, Philippines and other countries we have had to deal with some difficult taxis. Heck even in Beijing I found taxis unpleasant or often picky about where they want to go.

No such problem in Taipei. Taxis here are awesome and affordable too.

6) Bicycle Lanes

I notice bicycle lanes all over the city and I hear from my cycling friends that cycling in Taiwan is awesome especially in the countryside. In the city, many other cities that have the bicycle lanes as part of the road, the bicycle lanes in Taipei seem to be on the pavement instead. Feels a lot safer.

Perhaps that’s why cycling seems pretty big here in Taiwan. I see a lot of bicycles parked everywhere. If I lived here I would probably try cycling to work.

All in all I can’t help but feel that Taiwan feels like a little Japan. It’s certainly just as clean, organized and the people here are just as polite. It’s no wonder my colleague who came with me for this business trip loves it so much she almost wants to stay here to work.

autobiography

I had dinner with my uncle over the weekend and he told us the story of his life. How he and my father grew up in an attap house in small town Kluang (Johor), the adventures they had growing up and the struggles. My late grandfather too played an important role in much of that story of course.

It made me remember that before my grandfather passed away he wanted to write a memoir. Not for a publishing deal because he wasn’t necessarily anyone famous but for his kids and grand kids and great grand kids to learn about the life he had. Something I wish I could read today.

He never got to doing it though and was consumed by his illness. Taking a page from my grandfather I want to now take my time to write what would in 50 years or more be my memoirs for my kids and grandkids and hopefully great grandkids. So I’m going to start writing piece by piece on my blog and tag it as “autobiography”. I imagine this to take 50 years or more and this will be the beginning of it all.

I’m going to take the next few day to think about where I want to start. Maybe somewhere from my early childhood and I’ll update it here.

The Easiest Holiday with kids

So Shorty and I decided to take the family back to Penang for the Raya weekend. We haven’t been back to Penang in a really long time. When I say a really long time I mean the entire year this year.

We didn’t go back even for Chinese New Year because Shorty was in the later stages of her pregnancy then and the doctor advised against traveling cuz of her preeclampsia tendencies. And after that we didn’t go back because I was really busy working on our IPO.

With all that done though it was time to go back and we picked the Raya weekend for it. We were kinda worried though. We had just recently brought both the kids to Sydney with us and we learned two things:

1) Fighter is a really bad traveler. He hates traveling and is very uncomfortable in foreign places.

2) Penny needs to feed or sleep every few hours which makes it hard for us to go out at all.

Penang though we thought might be different because we would spend most of the time in my parent’s home. Fighter always seems happiest when he’s at home and Penny.. well she can just nap all the time.

It turned out to be a really wonderful trip and one that I’m sure Fighter thoroughly enjoyed. Sometimes I feel that Fighter gets really bored of our apartment because there’s really limited walking space and it’s just 4 walls that he faces every day but my parent’s home is a little bigger, giving him room to roam around.

Here are some of the more memorable pictures of the trip.

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Shorty and I went cafe hopping quite a bit. Just like KL, Penang has a lot of little indy hipster cafes. The thing I love about them even more is how they’re all in really old colonial shop lots which add to the more rustic feel.

We went to Big Fat Hen, Secawan at Hutton and this placed called the Rocket or something.

Speaking of old school we also visited this this old toy shop.

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Fighter loves cars. One of his favorite words is “kar!”. Something he says every time he sees a car.

So I wanted to buy him one of those remote controlled but also self-driveable toy cars but I found that they’re really expensive in the shops in malls. So I went to this shop

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and found one. Tadaa…

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Fighter didn’t immediately like it though. In fact when I turned on the engine he got kinda scared and didn’t want to come near the car when it moved on its own.

This is him at Coffee Journey, another coffee place we went to owned by my cousin.

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My friend Melvin told me that the coffee there was really good so I went to try it out. 

Then of course there was the swimming. Probably Fighter’s favourite activity. 

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We brought Fighter swimming every single day when we were in Penang and Fighter loved it to bits. Penny too. She was rather expressionless in the water so we couldn’t tell if she liked swimming or not but we knew because when we took her out of the pool she started crying.

Here’s my little Penny.

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She spent much of Penang sleeping, eating and smiling at people.

So that was one of our most relaxing trips in a while. Next time we want a holiday with the kids we might just go back to my hometown.

Why a man with many luxury watches doesn’t wear one any more….

I came into the world of luxury watches only in my second or third year of working. I had just earned my first small sum of money and was looking for something to spoil myself with. My friends at the time were all big on watches and told me I had to get one. They say a watch is the only accessory a man can buy (we don’t carry hand bags).

So what watch can I buy? I was recommended a Tag Heuer. A Tag I was told is like the BMW 3 series of luxury watches. It’s the entry level. It’s not the Maserati or the Porsche but it’s a nice watch. I went shopping and forked out about RM6,000 for my first Tag (after some discounts).

After the Tag, I heard of even more watches. The Rolex was the obvious one that stood out. Now every watch has a message that the wearer sends out right? So I asked of what message a Rolex sent and the common reply I got was “I’ve made it”. So when you wear a Rolex, you’re saying

“I’ve made it”.

Out of interest I started doing research on a lot of different watches. Rolex was nowhere close to the top. In the range of the Rolex there was Panerai, Hublot and many other similar watches that you can get for RM20-40K.

Above that there is the Audemars Piguet that go for RM40,000 to as high as the hundreds of thousands. Above that there is the Richard Mille that starts at RM300,000 (for a watch… I know). And above that there are many many many more watch brands I had never heard of before and never bothered to get familiar with because I often can’t even pronounce their names.

These luxury watches look absolutely beautiful and I can understand why people who want to have them just to have them. They’re a great piece of art and it takes a lot of work to make some of them. But there is a little more to that.

What does your watch say about you?

A watch tells people who you are and what you stand for but “success” doesn’t necessarily have to be the only message you send out. I heard this story of a judge in Singapore who always wore this cheap Casio watch. The message he sent out was

“I am incorruptable”.

It’s just that somehow with the media portraying success as a very important thing, we all rally around trying to portray success by the things we carry. Guys do it with watches and cars. Women do it with bags and bling.

My father

My father is a successful man in his mid-sixties who has spent the past 40 years of his life working to earn money. In his lifetime I’ve seen him buy and wear a wide range of luxury watches probably to send the same message that many of us young people long to send today. That we’re successful or we’ve made it. For my wedding present he gave me one of his old watches, something I keep with me and only wear on very special occasions. It’s a watch I will likely pass down to my son one day.

In our recent conversations he told me that he wanted to buy a new watch. I was thinking maybe an AP, Patek or something like that? But he said no. He wanted a SEIKO.

I was a little taken aback. Why would you want to buy a SEIKO when you have many other nicer watches to wear and his reply was “Why? It’s a nice watch”.

I then realize how clouded we sometimes get from all the advertising or branding that we get hit with. We often buy things because of the brand and fail to see that when something is nice… it is nice. Regardless of the label it carries.

So for his birthday present, my siblings and I went out to buy him a nice SEIKO. It cost RM1,580 after discount.

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As I was buying the watch I remembered the things that my father told me about luxury watches from someone who has had many. He doesn’t want to wear them any more because he’s afraid he gets robbed (he specifically says he’s afraid his hand gets chopped off for it). He doesn’t want to wear them because he feels upset whenever he knocks it against something hard and damages it.

But most of all,  he doesn’t want to wear them any more because he doesn’t feel like he needs to prove anything to anyone any more.

That made me ponder today that maybe we don’t need luxury watches to send any messages. We can have them if we love them and they make us happy but we don’t need it as affirmation for who we stand for or what we are.

The message after all I was giving my Dad for that SEIKO was this:

Here’s one of the most reliable watches in the world that will tick for as long as you want it to. Just like the watch, I hope your life will go on as long as you want it to.