Friedbeef’s Tech

Welcome to BarCampMalaysia coverage day 2.  Noticeably fewer people today, but because the sessions were slightly smaller, I found that it really made for more personable, more interactive and less hectic talks.  I also learnt my lesson about picking sessions in barcamp yesterday, as I found out the hard way that technical sessions in barcamp are VERY technical.  So here’s something to remember all you future Barcamp and unconference attendees…

Before you attend a session, ask (preferably the speaker) if it’s going to be a technical one.  Because if you are not a code monkey, and you attend the wrong session, you’ll get lost - easily. 

So without further ado, here are some quick takeouts of the sessions attended for day 2:

11am: Journey of a Startup (Silicon Valley Style)

Meet Vyasa.  In 2000 he founded Sires Labs in an effort to become Malaysia’s first Microchip company.  By 2003, he was flying high with a bright future.  In 2007, his business went under.  In BarCampMalaysia, he shares some excellent experiences about his start, his ups and his downs and how we can avoid making the same mistakes. 

Quick takeouts: 

If you’re pitching to investors:

1. Keep things simple.  You’ve got to have an elevator pitch because by and large, investors won’t understand the technical elements of your proposition.  They’re mainly interested in the money.
2. Persevere.  Vyasa took 2 years to get proper funding for his idea and was chasing every trade event and networking session in town to pitch to investors (during which he got a lot of feedback from investors how to improve his proposition)
3. You’ve got to have a minimum target return to investment of at least 5x - 10x over a 3-5 year period.  Ideally, your plan should target a 10x - 20x return.  This is because most startups will fail, and investors need to have confidence that it would be a worthy investment.
4. Ideas are brilliant, but experience is essential.  If you don’t have the experience, make sure you rope in someone who does.  A strong team is one of the key things investors look for.
5. Your startup team will run on passion, and very little money.  Your vision of what the company will be and exciting your team to reach that goal is completely essential during the initial lean times of a startup.
6. Image is half the battle.  Look sharp when meeting investors.  Yes you are a web 2.0 programmer who hates ties.  No, your investor is NOT a web 2.0 programmer who hates ties.  Just because you dress up, doesn’t mean you’re compromising yourself.  It just means you’re respecting the other party.

12pm: Social Media Optimization (SMO) for online publishers

This is Anthony.  He’s a Social Media Analyst based in Malaysia who gave us a talk on Social Media, and how people have used it to optimize their web presence. 

Quick takeouts: 

1. Ping.FM (still in private beta) visit Anthony’s site and drop him a line if you want an invite.  This is a web 2.0 mass notifier.  Hook your social networks up to it (eg. Facebook, Gtalk, Twitter etc.) and when you update Ping.FM, it will update all your networks at once, thus building activity and in turn - community presence - without extra effort. 
2. All-in-one-SEO.  A free Wordpress plugin package which just eases up the typical SEO process.
3. Friendfeedspy & popURLs are 2 great sources to get updated on the latest interesting news - fast.

2pm: Leverage Facebook Now!

Tzu Chjeh Wu presented a session on Facebook marketing, and app development.  A good mix of both tech and non-tech aspects of the subject matter.   He’s also talking from experience as he’s a Facebook app developer as well.

Quick takeouts:

1. It is possible to obtain a full set of user information via a Facebook API
2. Malaysians sell contact details and demographics wantonly in the open (!!!!)  
3. Facebook ads are not effective in terms of contextual relevance to the user
4. Groups and Product pages are simple was of getting the word out on your product
5. The investment is so low, you really have nothing to lose by investing a bit of effort in Facebook
6. If you want to develop a Facebook app - FBML is the easiest language to do it in, but the least efficient in terms of load
7. Make sure your developed Facebook app adds value

…and that’s a wrap of the final day of this excellent unconference.  Do check out Cheryl Goh’s website as well as barcamp.my for all the coverage as well as materials presented during barcamp.  Don’t fret if you missed out - due to this event’s unqualified success (packed rooms with all the pre-walk in tickets snapped up in 4 days), you will expect to see future barcamps in Malaysia. 

If you are from another country, check out the official barcamp.org website for details of a barcamp happening in your area.  If there are no barcamps happening where you live - do what these guys did…Just start one!

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