These guys are a HUGE reason why putting up a startup has become cheaper and much more efficient. I actually currently use ALL the tools from 1-10. Wow, Google has been helping us a lot eh? So many Google tools here. I'll be checking out the trending tools as well - some look quite useful. Got some…
After finishing a good book, I typically lie back, savor the moment, and say to myself, "that was a good book." Then I try to think of ways of applying what I learned in different aspects of my life. In the middle of finishing Tony Hsieh's (pronounced "shay") super cool book, Delivering Happiness, I HAD to talk…
Last Saturday in Starbucks Masinag, I had a slightly different Startup Saturday meeting with Nico Policarpio, a promising young entrepreneur (whose team won the second Startup Weekend). I was originally going to meet 2 other people, but they each had sudden emergencies, so I met with Nico one-on-one. Partly as a result of the decreased number of…
After the first Juan Great Leap (JGL) get-together last March, I decided to create a Facebook group (separate from the JGL page) for the growing community to get to know one another better, have a venue to exchange ideas and concepts, and simply to better help one another. There were around 30 initial people in the group.…
I've recently been talking to some of the incubators that have sprouted in Manila. Let me tell you, we've come a long way from the "I want 80% of your startup since I'm shouldering all the risk!" we've always heard from angels and investors when we tried to raise money before. If your team is top-notch and…
It's been close to a year now that I wrote this post. In it, I lamented at how poor the startup support was in our country. I compared our startup scene to that of our neighboring countries and complained. Then, almost on cue, all the activity started. The first Startup Weekend was launched and was followed by…
Over the last 2 months, I have had an inordinate amount of conversations with friends who have migrated to other countries, very typically to get their MBA's and then ending up working there. The conversation invariably turns into "what's the best way to help?" In one of these talks, I was with my ex-boss and good friend,…
My whole entrepreneur life has been a series of episodes where my eyes were opened to a greater reality. I can still remember when STORM collected its first payment back in 2005. My partner Pao and I gave a gaming company 2-weeks of access to our new online survey software for P5000. (which was completely, idiotically underpriced!)…
I bought Tim Ferriss's book years ago because the title reeled me in. (it was also a bestseller and I'm a sucker for bestsellers - amazingly, it's still topping the charts up to now) Really? 4 Hours of work? Sign me up now! It's a quick read which can be summarized in the acronym DEAL. Basically, it…
A few weeks ago, my wife posted "what's a good ramen place?" on her Facebook account. We love ramen and wanted to find out if anything new was out there. She was besieged with a score of answers. She got the usual suspects - like Ramen Bar and Ajisen Ramen. Then we noticed an answer which was…