Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business

Hi all,

There is an interesting debate between featuring Milton Friedman (Professor, Nobel Prize winner in Economics, Chicago University), Whole Foods’ John Mackey, and Cypress Semiconductor’s T.J. Rodgers.

If you have any interesting thoughts, please share it here with us.

Updates:

HuiChieh from Singapore Angle has shared his thoughts on the piece in his latest blog entry.

yours sincerely,
sgentrepreneurs Editorial Board

Viewing the Crystalball – Forseeing Trends

To obtain sight without time, to see into the past and the future. If only all of us could look into the future. If only. Then, all our fantasies can come true: we’ll be able to know which stocks will do well but are selling for really cheaply in our present; which property is hot in the future so that we could start investing in real estate; who will be the next Bill Gates so you could go check out which circles he/she is running around in present and make sure to rub shoulders with them. And many, many more. (Of course, for those nerds or geeks out there, that’s assuming that it’s a self-consistent time loop. And not gazing out into another timeline altogether and thus getting the future of your own timeline wrong.)

But even if we mere mortals can’t do so, I say, we should try! Yes, attempts may be futile at times (no pun intended), but the potential yield could be far greater than you can imagine – like say reaping you a cool $20 million overnight. What I’m referring to is the special skill of foresight. The ability to predict waves and trends and prepare for them. One of these could be blogging. Blogging got on a slow start many years back but never really took off until a few years later. Now, it’s an exploding phenomenon that even corporations are making use of blogs as marketing tools (Check out famous blogs like Google Blog and Yahoo! Search Blog.)

Elaine Ng (elaine.ng@newstoday.com.sg) writes in Today on Oct 11th 2005 in an article titled: It’s cheap and softens your company’s image, too. But how long will the trend last? (Apologies, the article isn’t available online.)

An excerpt:

“Besides, a corporate blog acts as a good “personality and face” for the company. It provides a space to get information out to customers and to develop better relationships with them.”

Thus why we see so many blogs being created every single minute. What if you had forseen the trend earlier? You would have had more time to create and sustain a better and more compelling blog that would hopefully add value to your company. (Fine, this isn’t really a good example of how forseeing a trend is useful, but let’s move on.)

Let’s take another trend/wave for example, portable videos. Vlogs (VideoBlogs) have a small tight community of loyal followers but due to the lack of ability of technology to keep up with the high resolutions wanted, fast upload and download time per video, vloggers still remain a small number. But perhaps Apple is seeing this as the next big thing and will be preparing to offer some easy way to videoblog. The latest iPod allows you to buy episodes of TV series at a good rate and this is one way to start people off to get them more comfortable with watching videos on small screens and perhaps in that fashion, also get them to subconsciously fantasize being on the small screen as well (ego boost, akin to 15 minutes of fame). So maybe this is the next big thing, but if it is, it will do companies good to start thinking of how they can potentially capitalize on this. By say creating short catchy advertisements optimized for viewing on small screens and for short attention spans. Always thinking along what might happen in the future and relating that to what one can do now to be in the forefront in that future should do a company good. Aim to stay ahead, to be ahead.

Carat’s CEO, David Verklin says: If you’re on the wrong train, every stop is the wrong stop. Lesson to be learnt: predict the arrival time of the right train, hop onto it, hang on and keep up with the bends of the route (change with the market), and eventually, you will get to your destination.

LKY Business Plan Competition

Hi all,

The 3rd LKY Business Plan Competition is open to all university undergraduates, college and polytechnic students (participants who are university undergraduates, college or polytechnic students during the period 5 October 2005 – 29 March 2006 are eligible to participate).

For those who are interested to take part in the competition, please refer to this URL.

Bests regards,
sgentrepreneurs Editorial Board

Apple continually reinvents the iPod

They have done it again. A new iPod, with video to boot. What else is coming up? Makes people wonder eh? That’s why they’re so hot, that’s why they’re at the top of the game. And that’s why you should also read my previous article on why continual reinvention is sometimes good for a company.

Virtual Office Singapore

Looking for an office space and business solutions? Virtual Office Singapore has everything you need to get started in your business. Definitely saves those few initial hurdles when you’re struggling to formalize your business idea and to get the whole momentum going. Worth a try, I say. They say: If you ain’t happy, 7 Days Money Back Guarantee. How cool is that?

Should you go IPO?

And why not? You might ask. “Isn’t it obvious that one should always aim for IPO?” Not so, I say.

It is a common goal for first-time entrepreneurs: the rush towards getting one’s company publicly listed in the hope that after having done so, the many benefits like fame and sudden wealth will make up for all their years of slogging at their desks while being underpaid. Of course, they chose to be underpaid, choosing equity and options in the company instead – which would yield much greater monetary benefits if the company goes IPO.

But what most fail to realize is that sometimes, an IPO may not be the best exit strategy. Plus, it ain’t that easy to get there. According to research:

(1) The chances are 6 in a million that an idea for a high-tech business eventually becomes a successful company that goes public.
(2) Fewer than 20% of the funded start-ups go public.

- taken from John Nesheim’s High Tech Start Up:

Okay, okay, I didn’t mean to be discouraging but those are facts have been garnered through painstaking and in-depth research. But this doesn’t mean that your company isn’t one of those 6 eh? I firmly believe that everyone should still believe in their dreams and passions and do their very best to try to make it work and to make the company a success. Try for that 6 in a million. Nevertheless, keep your feet on the ground and have a plan B in case your company somehow cannot really go IPO.

And what is a possible plan B? Acquistion. Yeah yeah, the word stinks. Why work so hard only to have your baby sold off to some multinational big Fortune 500 company who doesn’t give a damn about your vision? Though it’s true that such acquistions occur because these big guys want your technology to expand their business, it’s also true that they can be willing to pay you big money for it – sometimes even more than an expected IPO valuation (though this is always hard to tell). Skype was acquired by Ebay for a whooping USD$2.6billion and hell, if I were part of the founding team, I might have jumped on this chance to cash out early with certainty than wait and slog for a few more years in the hope of IPO and yet, even after IPO, am not allowed to sell my shares!

Yeapz, that’s the rule. You will be locked – can’t yet convert theoretical money to real cash. This is to protect your investors who have thrown in millions into your company and also your shareholders who are buying your shares during your IPO. You can’t well expect them to invest in you and then watch you cash out and abandon the company right? That is irresponsibility and thus the law protects the public from horrendous entrepreneurs whose only aim was to cash out ASAP.

Thus, think carefully if IPO really should be the path your company will take. Granted, there are huge amounts of fame and wealth associated with an IPO, but sometimes, selling your company for a billion dollars and making yourself an instant millionaire sounds good enough to me.

Note: For the uninititated, IPO = Initial Public Offering. Also seen by some as the Holy Grail to success.