The dying of coupon apps and websites

This picture has been in my review list for a while. Coupon sites and apps were having a tough time, and none of them seem to be able to find a viable business model.

This particular one got bought by an Indonesian e-commerce group, and trying to pivot to an online market place.

Must be tough to compete with sites like banggood, ebay, aliababa and TaoBao.

My take for new e-commerce players? Find a niche that is profitable. You do not need to sell a million dollars a month to live lavishly.

創業兩年後的轉變 #1

兩年前開始自立門戶，自家 Mobile 及 Web App 公司正式開業。

香港開公司同日本差唔多，就是老豆老母同打份工的朋友都覺得你冇錢開飯。客觀的事實就是，冇錢供樓交租，都很難在這裡生存。10 間有 9 間的公司，5 年內都是結業收場。

當時為了極速撲水救忙，就開始一邊狂接 projects，一邊自己做 product。當然日日都幻想同個客收完錢，就會有時間做 product 掛。實情係佢會逢星期一至五都會 call 爆你個電話。到星期六就當然會有工作要趕，好似 bugs 呀 (我就當然美化咗個名叫 "issue" ) ，另外有 project specifications 入面冇既 item 又因為係 grey area 入面，唔做又怕收唔到尾數順手做埋佢，總之就個 product plan 完全不記得。

冇法，吃飯要緊。

一開咗公司，就多咗好多人，想同你做下 partner，又話者要做 advisor 之類。

故事 #1，佢好有 marketing skill 又好似識好多人，總之你有個好既 product，佢就會揾 investors 或者 leads 俾你。你就係要揾地方 R 到錢或給公司股份回報佢。

故事 #2，佢好有 idea，總之就你間公司出時間人力物力，佢就負責 "business development"，去開下會呀 make 下 connections 之類，但係永遠係 50% 50% 股份，呢類「公就你贏，字你輸」既 startup 行騙手法，真係又見唔少。

要生存，就一定要有定位。你間公司要有技術，要有一定既 network 同 marketing 技巧。呢度要好強調「自己公司」呢 4 個字，core business 一定唔可以發夢 outsourece 俾人做。真係 "not in sight, not in mind"。

市場上，兩年前做 startup 最 hot 的就當然是一模一樣既 iOS 及 Android Apps 了。現在就多了好幾個出路:

- Hardware
5 年前，呢一條路，如果你唔係「廠佬」就想都不用想。自從有咗淘寶後，去大陸訂 electronic parts 可以今日下午 4 點落單，明天早上就收到。

可以做硬件產品，可以玩 Bluetooth，可以玩係曉飛既 drones。

- B2B / B2C
又係要多謝淘寶，等人知道網購都有得做。(無可避免，突然有好多新客話要「做一個淘寶」出來。) 有同化咗為同胞既朋友，會成日話「唉，香港网购唔够国内好」，只可以講，國内的政策，香港人都不要再發夢可以有份玩，你控制不了。

但是還可以 go global 的。手機購物又真是天方夜談? 香港網購真是沒有得做? HKTV 都是在玩的?

耐不耐就有 IT 人抱怨自己去到 35 歲都係揾兩萬幾，其實你有大把機會，係你未把握到。

[iOS] Fascinating stuff: NSDataDetector and CFStringTransform

I am working on a new iOS app that needs to parse address and phone number nicely.

Well, turns out Apple has this NSDataDetector thing. Nicely covered by NSHipster.

Another great stuff is this CFStringTransform. You pass in some Chinese text like "中文" and it will spit out romanized version of "zhōng wén".

How-to guide from "Day Job" to "Consulting" to full "Product Company"

If you are a developer/programmer, this guide is for you.

There are tons of blogs that tells you it rocks to be a developer or how special you are. I am going to spare you from that.

I just want to chime in on my experience on how to transition from working for "teh man" to have your own startup.

Stage #1: Save for the stormy days ahead

Rule number 1 is always have enough money in the piggy bank, to pay for rent, food and other expenses. Basically, the more you can save the more runway for you to launch your company. Ideally, you should save enough money to live off your savings for 2 years. There are always some kind of emergencies, so be prepared.

Entrepreneur classes in college teach you that the 3F: Friends, Family and Fools are you best bets to raise money. Unless you are a real genius, you will fail on your first startup, so obviously try to avoid them if possible.

Some places like Hong Kong and Malaysia have some funny government grants and loans for "high tech" startups. I personally think these grants are curses, as I have never seen these companies actually gained tractions. Seriously, if you cannot bootstrap a startup yourself, you would not be able to make it with US$40,000  from some funny grant programmes anyway. But prove me wrong. 

So in this stage, working for "teh man" is inevitable, besides you can learn some valuable skills and toolsets, whether it could be Microsoft, Java or iOS stuff. So, be proficient as you are mostly on-your-own in a start-up.

There are a lot of romantic Silicon Valley stories about bootstrapping a company from credit card. Either these are mostly outlies or they are made-up by some PR companies.

If you do moonlight as a pirate, you should keep pillaging some more ships. Start networking with some people for business opportunities and fun purpopses.


Stage #2: Getting ready to launch your tech company

Don't quit yet
It is probably a myth that you really have to quit your job in order to "commit 100%". That is really not necessary. All you have to do, is to spend 15 to 20 hours after work to start building your product, or consulting for some clients.

Idea time
Start planning for your own product, whether it is a big giant AI robot, iOS app, Android game or some enterprise product. You definitely want to get your idea and products validated if possible. That is another post.

Consulting
Now is also great time to start consulting for some clients. Start asking for consulting work from your network. Build a nice company website with excellent CSS frameworks like blueprint css. Start shipping _some_ apps to be your portfolio. 


If you can finish an app for your client _alone_, you should probably be alright, otherwise, you should just probably forget the startup thing, and go back for paychecks until you have the chops. 

Incorporating the company
You may consider to incorporate the company when you start getting tractions on your clients. USA (at Delaware) and Hong Kong are great places for developers to register your LLC or Limited. These 2 places also have great credit card gateways support, such as authorize.net, Stripe and the lesser known AsiaPay.

China is definitely a mess, so unless you think you have the energy to spend 3 to 6 months on it, don't bother. Adjust your business plan to collect money elsewhere from China if possible.



Number of co-founders?
Paul Graham's Y Combinator would recommend you to have at least 2 co-founders. I would agree with it, but do not afraid to start one if you think you have a great product anyway.



Stage #3: Going solo


You can consider to quit your job and go solo if:

1. You are mentally prepared for a roller coaster ride
2. You really have 2 years of cash in bank
3. And have the complete support from your significant other(s). 
4. You have got your product prototyped

Congratulations, your sufferings have just begun.


Consulting vs. Product
To stay afloat, you just need decide how much you want to split between "Consulting" and "Product" while having cash-flow positive.

Ideal case: You spend 0% of your time on Consulting, and 100% on Product. Your app got listed on AppStore frontpage, then company either cashed-out, get bought out and live happily ever after.

Of course, this is not likely to happen. Keep looking out for local opportunities on developing apps, especially during these period of sky-rocket growth period. US, Europe and East-Asia developer should avoid work from outsourcing site like ODesk. Your app startup could obviously undercut bigger players initially, with lower operating cost.


Office
If you are an app or web developer, trying not to have an office will be a great money saver initially. Your clients simply will not go to your place 99% of the time. Offer to go to their office, or meet at a Starbucks. If your work is good, they would not care where you pound the code out anyway.


Of course, office is a must if you start to hire. Do your best to find a quiet and convenience place obviously.

Practice makes perfect
New app startups would definitely inevitable sucks at shipping app at the beginning stage. Therefore, ships as many as 10 to 20 apps a year so you can to perfect your skills shipping apps.



Here is the part 1 of "Day Job" to "Consulting" to full "Product Company".  Part 2 is all about product.


Reference:

1. We are entering the age of developers
2. You Are the Exception to the Rule

Introducing Commute.hk 香港交通相機 iOS App

I just released a new iOS app called the Commute.hk 香港交通相機. This app gives you quick accesses to all the traffic camera views in Hong Kong.

You can browse the cameras easily by using map, list and grid views, as well as adding your own favorite cameras for easy referencing.

All traffic news and camera imagery are provided by the Data.One service operated by the OGCIO of the HKSAR government.

If you drive a fast car, I am sure you will find this app very helpful. By the way, this app will push any special news traffic info right to your app as quick as it gets.

Here are some more screenshots:

HK eTransport vs. Google Map, and just open up the bloody GIS data!!

There is a new transport app called HK eTransport (iTunes AppStore) for those who gets lost all the time.

And here is what it looks like on the app:



And here is what it looks like on Google Map:



Apparently, the difference of Google vs. your garden varieties GIS app is, they understand the concept of "ranking" better.

Okay, as a developer, I can understand that "HK eTransport" have put a fine job, but please, just open up your bloody GIS data for the pros to do it!!! The only thing Google Map missing is those mini-bus routes, and I bet it is the bureaucrats who are getting into the way.

Check out the NYC Big Apps 2.0. Are you listening?!!


Update: it looks Google Maps have all the HK minibus routes properly supported.

Smartone Vodafone Callguard 來電管家

I am pretty happy thatSmartone Vodafone has done a junk call filter, at the operator level.

While they charge you $15 HKD, I think it is a reasonable price for a simple peace-of-mind. I have yet to see what kind of filtering implementation they are doing.

Ideally, operators should do a "Google Voice" service, so you can report spam with Bayesian filtering.

Bravo, Smartone Vodafone.