The startup wave is getting warm here. Thanks to Entrepreneur 27 Singapore for helping to foster entrepreneurship among the young, especialy for those under 27.

I was invited by Justin Lee to say a few words about BookJetty.com on their upcoming event, E27 3.0: Startup Republic (hm… I know that I’m slightly overage, but rest assured I am still 18 at heart, we all are, aren’t we?). Anyway thank you Justin. There will be other speakers from ping.sg, blurbme.com and Woolert as well.

If you are free, do drop by for this rare event. I bet it will be fun. Say hi ya, shake some hands ar, ask questions, get to know some new friends there.

Seats are limited, so reserve fast, click here or image for more information on reservation details. For those who are coming, will c ya there.

Yesterday, I met Casey Chiang and Kang Ngee, founders of CodeJam Pte Ltd, known for their flagship product, MemoriesOnTV, a friendly application that allows you to create photo slides playable on CD/DVD. CodeJam has been around for 4 years, and MemoriesOnTV has been downloaded over 700,000 times on download.com; and they are growing, they just moved to a new office. It has a meeting room!! :)

They bumped into BookJetty through a link that I unashamely posted on a dicussion forum. They think that what I have done for the community through BookJetty is a nice gesture, so they invited me for a friendly visit and a chat.

We shared our lows and highs, our pains and struggles as software startups, and we had a good laugh and an enjoyable session. They gave me some invaluable advices and about the plans I have for Pluit Solutions, and encourage me not to let the flame in me being put off. We parted with a promise that we will keep in touch.

I think CodeJam can be a good inspiration for the software startups in Singapore; to be creative, let loose, and fulfill the core value of programming, to improve the quality of life. Let that spirit lives within us, and let’s help each other out, if not money, let it be an encouragement.

15 Sep 06 - CodeJam is looking for a good C++ developer, if you are one, find out more here.

Paul Graham built Viaweb in 1995, and 3 years later his company was acquired by Yahoo. He shares his startup experience in this essay, The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn. It is a bit long, but insightful.

And I especially like him quoting Ben Franklin:

If you love life, don’t waste time, because time is what life is made of.

- Ben Franklin

I read in Presentation Zen yesterday on the essence of simplicity in your presentation. Garr Reynold shared a fish story sent by one of his seminar attendees, Deepak. This story was heard by Deepak while growing up in India.

I thought, hey this is an interesting story, and here is what Deepak said:

When you talked about reducing the text on the slides, I was reminded of a story from my childhood in India.

When Vijay opened his store he put up a sign that said “We Sell Fresh Fish Here.” His father stopped by and said that the word “We” suggests an emphasis on the seller rather than the customer, and is really not needed. So the sign was changed to “Fresh Fish Sold Here.” His brother came by and suggested that the word “here” could be done away with — it was superfluous. doing?” Later, his neighbor stopped by to congratulate him. Then he mentioned that all passers-by could easily tell that the fish was really fresh. Mentioning the word fresh actually made it sound defensive as though there was room for doubt about the freshness. Now the sign just read: “FISH.” As Vijay was walking back to his shop after a break he noticed that one could identify the fish from its smell from very far, at a distance from which one could barely read the sign. He knew there was no need for the word “FISH.”

– Deepak

The story hits me with flashes of my experience in software development life-cycle. Somehow users or developers alike tend to have i-want-this-i-want-that-also attitude, trying to cover the widest range of features that they can possible think of. A simple system in the beginning may end up like a mini Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.

Project development time will stretch, the cost will increase. The longer the project stretches, the higher it will go and the hardest it will fall. It ends up everyone misses the basic ideas why the system was needed at the first place.

I too sometimes have that kind of attitude, and I willl just step back, and ask, “Is the extra jazz really required?”.

You know, once in a while you will bump into interesting people in your life. And recently I bumped into Yusuf Hashim from Clubsnap photography forum.

I visited his site and read through his amazing, inspiring, and breathtaking travel around the world. What striked me most was he travelled on his bike or 4×4, he understands and remembers the culture and history of the places that he has trodded, and he writes really well. His writings somehow give you a soothing, national-geographic feel, and combined with the beautiful shots (such as the one shown on the top — Dust and Dusk in Sahara), his site is not to be missed for those who have high dose of adventures in their blood.

I envy him for being able to spend so much time and money on the things that he dears most. He was from the corporate world, he once worked for Shell. Then corporate restructuring left him unemployed, but amazingly it ignited his passion that has streered him around the world with sponsor from Petronas. Who said corporate restructuring is always bad? :)

For me, I learned two things:

• Passion is the seed, it gives you the courage
• Passion drives you to tend the seed into a big tree and will one day be fruitful

Life I agree, should not be imprisoned by work alone, but also embellished with the beauties of this world; one way is by travelling, the other way is by taking great pictures that you can enjoy with your family and friends.

… Prior to my Sahara adventure I went backpacking to Bangladesh in the winter of 2003. Why Bangladesh ? My friends asked. And why not, I answered. Nobody has Bangladesh on top of their list of places to visit, which made me all the more eager to see that country. There are tens of thousands of Bangladeshi immigrant workers in Malaysia and I was curious to see what that country was like. And I have to say I wasn’t disappointed, although I did come home from Bangladesh with a runny nose from having to wash from an icy cold pond in the mornings, and with a runny rear end from the food which wasn’t very agreeable to my tummy. …

- Yusuf Hashim

If you are a web enthusiast, by now you should have heard of 37 Signals. It is one of the hottest web solution provider company right now. They are known for the simple and intuitive web applications that they have developed such as Basecamp, Ta-Da List, and Writeboard.

I’ve just finished reading “Getting Real“, the recent book that they’ve just relased (only available in PDF version). I am happy with how personal, inspiring and entertaining the book is. This is an example of a book where every word has its purpose. It shares their experience on getting real when developing web applications. Cut down beauracratic documentations and unnecessary meetings. How with only a small team — e.g. the developer, the designer, the sweeper (one that roam within both worlds), you can also develop a great application.

I remember how I pulled my hair, once my client asked me to fix a spelling error in a functional specification document before we could proceed with the other tasks. Being flexible and agile are some of the points preached. User interface design and simplicity are points that should not be ignored.

The quotes by prominent figures, such as Steve Job and the others at the end of each section are very fun and inspiring as well. I think this book is NOT to be missed. Great stuff in there. And I shall leave you with a quote from Steve, a snippet from the book. And let’s get real!!!

[Innovation] comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

- Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple ( from The Seed of Apple’s Innovation)

It is not an easy decision to strive on your own, being an enterpreneur in a competitive country like Singapore. And before you start, the Enterpreneurial Proverbs summarises very beautifully how it’s like to be an enterpreneur.