The Tokyo Dome was Tokyo's most popular check-in location on Facebook
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has just released some interesting information about the most popular check-in locations around the world on the social network. It finds that the most popular places tend to be common tourist attractions, as well as big sporting venues, or popular shopping areas.
If you check out the infographic below by Facebook, you’ll see the major check-in spots around the world. You can see both Seoul and Tokyo near the bottom, with theme park Lotte World and the baseball stadium the Tokyo Dome being those cities biggest attractions, respectively.
Facebook first rolled out its check-in feature back in 2010, and was initially met with some privacy concerns. I’m curious to hear if our readers are active users of this function, or if you’re more annoyed by it. Personally, I’m always a little taken by surprise when a friend discloses my location. I think I need to tweak my privacy settings some more…
As an entrepreneur – you get lot of advice. On product, on user experience, on marketing, on capital utilization, on technology – through multiple sources like users, advisors, investors, other entrepreneurs, or by reading blogs, tweets and all sorts of information one would be exposed to.
In middle of this information or advice overload (at times) – I always end up remembering this one small story that I read few years back. Sharing this because I truly think this is a best advice any entrepreneur can ever get.
Here is the story…
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Once a king called upon all of his wise men and asked them, “Is there a mantra or suggestion which works in every situation, in every circumstances, in every place and in every time. In every joy, every sorrow, every defeat and every victory? One answer for all questions? Something which can help me when none of you is available to advise me? Tell me is there any mantra?”
All the wise men were puzzled by the King’s question. They thought and thought. After a lengthy discussion, an old man suggested something which appealled to all of them. They went to the king and gave him something written on paper, with a condition that the king was not to see it out of curiosity. Only in extreme danger, when the King finds himself alone and there seems to be no way, only then he can see it. The King put the papers under his Diamond ring.
Some time later, the neighbors attacked the Kingdom. King and his army fought bravely but lost the battle. The King had to flee on his horse. The enemies were following him. getting closer and closer. Suddenly the King found himself standing at the end of the road – that road was not going anywhere. Underneath there was a rocky valley thousand feet deep. If he jumped into it, he would be finished…and he could not return because it was a small road…the sound of enemy’s horses was approaching fast. The King became restless. There seemed to be no way.
Then suddenly he saw the Diamond in his ring shining in the sun, and he remembered the message hidden in the ring. He opened the diamond and read the message. The message was – ” THIS TOO SHALL PASS”
The King read it . Again read it. Suddenly something struck him- Yes ! This too will pass. Only a few days ago, I was enjoying my kingdom. I was the mightiest of all the Kings. Yet today, the Kingdom and all his pleasure have gone. I am here trying to escape from enemies. Like those days of luxuries have gone, this day of danger too will pass. A calm came on his face. He kept standing there. The place where he was standing was full of natural beauty. He had never known that such a beautiful place was also a part of his Kingdom.
The revelation of the message had a great effect on him. He relaxed and forgot about those following him. After a few minutes he realized that the noise of the horses and the enemy coming was receding. They moved into some other part of the mountains and were near him.
The King was very brave. He reorganized his army and fought again. He defeated the enemy and regained his empire. When he returned to his empire after victory, he was received with much fanfare. The whole capital was rejoicing in the victory. Everyone was in a festive mood. Flowers were being showered on King from every house, from every corner. People were dancing and singing. For a moment King said to himself,” I am one of the bravest and greatest King. It is not easy to defeat me. With all the reception and celebration he saw an ego emerging in him.
Suddenly the Diamond of his ring flashed in the sunlight and reminded him of the message. He open it and read it again: “THIS TOO SHALL PASS”.
He became silent. His face went through a total change – from the egoist he moved to a state of utter humbleness. If this too is going to pass, it is not yours. The defeat was not yours, the victory is not yours. You are just a watcher. Everything passes by. We are witnesses of all this. We are the perceivers. Life comes and goes. Happiness comes and goes. Sorrow comes and goes.
Now as you have read this story, just sit silently and evaluate your own life. This too will pass. Think of the moments of joy and victory in your life. Think of the moment of Sorrow and defeat. Are they permanent ? They all come and pass away.
Life just passes away. There is nothing permanent in this world. Every thing changes except the law of change. Think over it from your own perspective. You have seen all the changes. You have survived all setbacks, all defeats and all sorrows. All have passed away. The problems in the present, they too will pass away. Because nothing remains forever. Joy and sorrow are the two faces of the same coin. They both will pass away.
You are just a witness of change. Experience it, understand it, and enjoy the present moment – this too shall pass!
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As an entrepreneur if you are building a product, I’m sure your vision for the company is to be the next Facebook / Google / Amazon or Apple. Startup journeys are long, it took Mark Zuck 2918 nights to be an overnight success before Facebook filed for its IPO, is it end of story – No.
Always stay motivated – for your next milestone. Keep rocking, celebrate every success and failure. Keep learning and moving ahead. At any stage of success or failure, remind yourself of these 4 words – “This Too Shall Pass.”
I was thinking of adapting this story to today’s world of tech entrepreneurship cycle, but left it as it is. Best wishes.
Adds Pluggd.in team: Refresh your mood with the Que Sera Sera video – an attitude every entrepreneur needs to carry!
The long-running saga over the fate of Gaopeng, Groupon’s (NASDAQ:GRPN) joint-venture in China (with Tencent) is not over yet, with the most recent rumors today suggesting that a business merger between the troubled Gaopeng and FTuan is imminent. Reports in Yi Cai say that FTuan – which is a top eight deals site in China, way ahead of Gaopeng in terms of revenue – will merge with its rival to form a new group which FTuan’s CEO, Lin Ning, will oversee.
The Deus ex machina here is the local web giant Tencent (HKG:0700), which owns half of the Gaopeng business as a joint-venture partner, and has an undisclosed stake in FTuan as well. It’s believed that Tencent will ultimately control half of the group that will form out of this rumored merger. That gives Tencent even more clout in the group buy space (in addition to its dominance in social media and gaming in the country), since it also has its own QQ Tuan and Soso Tuan deals aggregators.
This move would see both the Gaopeng and FTuan brands continue to exist. Market data from 800Tuan states that the two sites have different demographics of users, with Gaopeng’s being more upscale and more likely to spend a greater amount of money on deals. And so the two can co-exist in a complementary fashion. Our most recent report on the Chinese group buy landscape saw FTuan retain a fairly strong 6.3 percent market share by revenue in a highly fragmented and competitive sector where costs are high – especially in terms of marketing – and profit margins are low.
Portal for buying/selling cars, CarSingh has started selling car accessories online with fitment support.That is, users can get all the leading car accessories at the click of a mouse delivered right at their door step. User can choose complete range of car accessories ranging from car music and entertainment, car care, GPS Navigation, high end luxury items to off road accessories (plus imported car accessories brands).
The Seeders funded startup also provides fitment service (currently in Bangalore only) and in some cases, enables buyers to touch and feel products (e.g. car seat covers) before they buy (i.e. demo at the doorstep).
An interesting concept and fits into the core value proposition of ecommerce – i.e. make the customers damn lazy!
SingTel Innov8, the venture capital arm of SingTel, has joined forces with Australian telco Optus to start an Australian Seed Program to take young digital startups to the next stage and help them expand into Asia.
This Optus-Innov8 Seed Program will provide Australian startups with seed funding, mentoring, networking and co-working spaces. It will invest up to A$250,000 per startup.
Optus, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SingTel, is also partnering with Fishburners in Sydney and York Butter Factory in Melbourne to provide the co-working spaces, which will hold regular events to connect budding entrepreneurs with industry experts and potential investors.
The program seeks early stage startups with innovative or disruptive digital solutions, either in proof of concept or advanced development stage, in the areas of mobility and convergence, with a focus on health, education and media.
Startups that want to sign up must be a registered company that is based in Australia. They must have established a team, developed solid business strategies, and be able to demonstrate a working prototype.
Entrepreneurs can be referred for the program from July via incubators or accelerators. They can also apply directly via ‘pitch events’ at Fishburners and York Butter Factory throughout the year. The first session will happen in late July. Details will be announced soon.
The scheme is designed to help keep talent on Australian shores and encourage locals to grow their businesses within the country, said Austin Bryan, vice president, digital communities and ecosystems, SingTel and Optus.
SingTel has been pushing to expand its services beyond the traditional telco front, and this program is part of that drive. It even has a Digital L!fe that is dedicated to online and mobile ventures.
Startups that receive assistance from the telco can potentially tap on its 445 million mobile customers in the region.
Lots of times, we go looking for cool startups, but every now and then, one falls right into our laps. That’s the case with ZaoZao, an interesting service that I stumbled upon after one of its founders retweeted something I said on Twitter. Curiosity led me to click some links, and I came across the company’s official site and this cool blog about the founders’ experiences running a startup in Hong Kong. It all looked very cool, but I wanted to know more, so I got in touch with co-founder Vicky Wu, who gave me the lowdown on ZaoZao’s plans for world domination promoting indie fashion design in Asia.
Can you give us an overview of what ZaoZao is all about?
ZAOZAO [yes, the founders prefer all caps for the name!] is a web-based platform that allows designers to post projects and garner funds for production through crowd-funding. “Funders,” who are effectively shoppers, can discover cool, unique designs and fund them by placing pre-orders on ZAOZAO within a limited time. If target funds (pre-orders) are achieved within that time-frame, then ideas become reality. If not, then they won’t get produced, and those projects get dropped from the site.
So, if I were to call this ‘a Kickstarter for fashion in Asia,’ would that be inaccurate?
If we are going to use startup analogies, the best way to describe ZAOZAO is probably Kickstarter meets Fab meets Moda Operandi.
What kind of market is there for this sort of service?
There is an untapped market out here in Asia, particularly Hong Kong, Singapore, and other parts of Southeast Asia. Many young, talented designers see their work and dreams disappear overnight because they do not have the means to sustain a business. The way our model is structured allows designers to manage the creative process all the way through production, while minimizing excess inventory and warehouse costs. In this manner, ZAOZAO provides a space for designers to experiment creatively with mitigated risk.
So what led you to create ZaoZao?
While Ling and I are equally passionate about supporting designers and obviously share a mutual love for unique fashion, we also possess complementary skill sets to make this startup work. Ling studied fashion at NYU and counts Oscar de la Renta, Lanvin, Intermix, and Harper’s Bazaar in New York amongst her work experiences. Prior to ZAOZAO, she did a stint at Gucci in Hong Kong. My first introduction to the fashion world was through modeling, as a teenager in New York and then in Boston. Although I studied neuroscience during college, I spent most of my time starting and running the fashion show called Identities at Harvard. Post-graduation, I helped set up hedge fund businesses with Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong (great training) which I intend to parlay into the set up of this fashion business (infinitely more sexy). The culmination of these experiences lent naturally to ZAOZAO as a next step for both of us, which brings us to where we are today.
What has it been like running a startup in Hong Kong?
So far it has been pretty nuts and you can read about our travails and triumphs on our blog. It started with me being homeless, crashing on friends’ couches while using AirBNB to offset rent so I could save up to survive on $0 salary. I figured it was totally doable in Hong Kong because if I ran out of friends, there was always 24-hr McDonald’s or Tsui Wah! Then, shortly after we both quit our jobs, Ling found out that a family member had been diagnosed with leukemia, with six months left to live. Without question in either of our minds, Ling hopped on the next flight to Singapore to effectively become a full-time caregiver. Fortunately, Ling was a compatible bone marrow donor, which ultimately saved her loved one’s life. While undergoing the transplant, she would send me these grotesque photos of tubes protruding out of her neck (tricking me with subject lines like “check out my new accessories! LOL”) yet still generate amazing new ideas for our business.
Working from different countries the first few months was not the initial plan but we adapted to the situation – emailing, Skyping, whatsapping – to keep each other in the loop. Since being reunited, we have continued to find ourselves in interesting predicaments. Once, during a designer scouting trip, we got horribly lost in an abandoned warehouse containing what resembled medieval torture devices and potentially unhealthy levels of asbestos. Often in business meetings we end up leveraging our extensive knowledge of hand gestures and a smattering of Cantonese and Mandarin (sometimes Korean or Hokkien) in addition to English vocabulary to convey our thoughts. When language is not an issue, bullshit sometimes is. People who don’t know us well say ridiculous things expecting us to eat everything up, only to be stunned silly when we call them out. In the startup world, you don’t know what to expect on a daily basis, and passion for these challenges in the unknown are what we wake up for (if we sleep at all) every morning.
On a related note, if the target for this service is Asia, I’m assuming you’ll also have at least a Chinese version of your website as well at some point?
Correct, traditional and then simplified Chinese is the plan.
When will the site launch? Any plans for mobile apps?
ZAOZAO will launch in July. Mobile app plans TBD.
What advice would you offer to anyone else considering doing a startup in Hong Kong?
“[Be] the opposite of moderate, immaculately polished with the spirit of a hustler and the swagger of a college kid.”
The digitisation of cable TV services in four metros — Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata — has been delayed. After ruling out extending the June 30 deadline for switchover of analogue cable TV networks to Digital Addressable System, the I&B Ministry on Wednesday extended the deadline by four months. The ministry admitted that installation of set-top boxes has not picked up “necessary pace” for the transition. [source]
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India among worst affected by malware: Microsoft
The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool detected malware on 13.8 of every 1,000 computers scanned in India in the fourth quarter of last year. This is very high when compared to the global average of 7.1, said Mr Tim Rains, Director, Trustworthy Computing, Microsoft. In Japan, it was less than two per 1,000 [source].
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Wipro launches affordable desktop PC for SMB sector
The AMD FX 6100 is a low-cost advanced technology CPU with high-speed and Windows 8 compatibility.
“Our endeavour is to offer high-end graphics and sharp HD entertainment to our users at an affordable price bracket. AMD FX 6100 provides high performance with complete customisation and flexibility for PC enthusiasts,” Wipro India Head Client Systems Saumitra Rai said in a statement.
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Corporates can set up ATMs on rent for banks
Corporate entities have been allowed to set up ‘white label’ automated teller machines (ATMs) under new norms issued by the Reserve Bank to grow the ATM network in the country. However, there is a stiff entry barrier of Rs 100 crore networth and high investment targets, ranging from 9,000 to 25,000 machines, over a three-year period. [source]
