Dropship in Singapore: Not popular yet?

I'm pretty amazed and surprised (maybe more towards disappointment) that there isn't much talk or activities about dropshipping in Singapore.

Is it just me or its really reflect the nature of the small market in SG?

To those who are not sure what is dropshipping, its worthwhile to do a little more research on that. I think it is good for any aspiring online ecommerce owners to know about this.

Till then, I'm going to delve this a little deeper and see if its worthwhile for me to focus on this.

Revisiting: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

The last time I read this book was when I was 18.

It struck me pretty well into my head back then.

But I did not take strong actions to apply it to myself as what was presented in the book.

Let me list out (based on what I can remember off my head right now):

1. Assets bring money into your pocket

2. Liabilities takes money out of your pocket

3. Focus on increasing the asset column

How? By investing in different investment vehicles:
- Business
- Stocks,
- Properties
- Anything that brings passive income (of course ethical investing plays a part too, that I will discuss in a different post)

4. With the passive income, reinvest back to the asset column and continue to grow the assets

5. Reduce expense and avoid liabilities

6. Even if you want buy liabilities, generate enough passive income to comfortably afford that liabilities

7. Use the power of corporation (PRIVATE LIMITED in our Singapore context)

How does it help?
- To reduce taxes
- To minimize your liability risk

8. Remember this Quardrant:
Employee --> Self-Employed --> Business Owner --> Investor

9. Move from the 1st quadrant to the 4th quadrant, in the best possible time

10. If you are an employee, work hard and increase that income column and save as much as possible

11. When you are applying for a job, remember; Don't work for money, work to learn

12. Money is still important, but knowledge is more important to set the foundation for growth and opportunities

13. If you are already run a business, remember; work ON the business, not IN the business

14.Work ON the business to automate process and hire talents

15. Work IN the business, and you will still be an employee and slave to your business

16. Keep pumping your savings into the asset column till it is able to generate enough passive income for your lifestyle

17. Your house is NOT an asset. It takes money out of your pocket each month (mortgage loans, electricity, water, cable TV bills etc)

18. House is only an asset when you rent it out and bring you positive income

19. Stay prudent and live within your means

That's my 19 learning points from this book (could not come up with the last 20th point). I must say this book has enlightened me, yet again as I re-read it. Now that I am already working full-time (about a year now), I'm much more motivated to take actions and apply it in my life.

For my readers who have yet to read this book, I strongly recommend you to read it. It will save you lots of time and pain from the consequences of poor financial planning and financial problems that may arise if you are not taking proper actions now.

Let me know your experiences.
Till then, stay safe, stay positive and stay hungry.

2015: Reflection

Time really flies fast... Without realizing, the last time I post was more than a year ago.

Fun fact for the day:
Its been 11 years I've been blogging!

I just checked and realized my first post was back in 24th June 2004. 15 years old to be exact.

Reading that first post really made me laugh/cry on how much I have grown.

I didn't realize how much I was so in loved with football last time.

Being a professional footballer and all. Well, I guess I still managed to achieve it somewhat (SEA games, prime league, NFL etc).

With that, I shall close my history book as a footballer and move on.

Not that I'm no longer playing (still actively bulging the net when I want to :p),

but I'm looking forward to the next phase of life, which is to settle down and planning for the next 30 years of life (insya'Allah).

If you have known me well enough, I don't delete my past.

In fact, I share it with others.

My ups. My downs. My happiness. My emo moments. My best goals. My blunders.

So i'm going to continue posting with my life journey here.

I hope it help it some ways, to make you smile, laugh at my blunders, learn from my mistakes and most importantly, you feel happier reading my blog.

Till my next post, stay safe, stay positive and stay hungry.

Random Thoughts

I was looking through some figures from the Singapore Statistics Board, and got to know that the life expectancy of Singaporean males are 79.2 years.

Counting forward, I'm theoretically left with 55 years of life to go. That is, by His wishes and plans I will live by then.

What i've done so far in the past 24 years?
Any things I could have done better thus far?
What I want to achieve by then?

Asking these few questions make me realize how things are moving so quickly without us realizing that we are always chasing for time; more time, when in fact, we have that ultimate deadline to meet.

Let's be wise and time-sensitive my friends. For we may not even see tomorrow.

2013: It's Only The Beginning

2013 has been a pretty interesting year for me.

What I have accomplished throughout the 12 months:

Jan 2013 Part of the Islamic Gift Economy Conference (IGEC) 2013 committee that addresses financial and investment ethicality issues for the Malay Muslim community in Singapore, and we were featured in Berita Harian on 19th Jan.



Got booted out one last time in my swansong IVP football career. Strong favourites to qualify but for countless times, opponents came back in the dying minutes and deservedly eliminated.

Feb - Apr 2013 Study like I have never studied before for the notorious Final Year Exam that all UOL student dreaded. At the same time, achieve a personal success of doing Mendaki tuitions 5 times a week, sacrificing weekends to save up for the most-anticipated event of the year.

May 2013 Finally graduated after 15 years of schooling. Degree with Honors in Accounting & Finance (yay). Realize that accounting is too mundane (thank god for part-time jobs) and I won't survive not sleeping in front of the computer. Finance was more interesting and I did pretty well in those modules. That's it.. I'm set and ready to become an investment banker once I'm back!

June - Aug 2013 Most anticipated event of the year: Bought a one-way ticket to Guangzhou with 3 good friends and we're off to explore the world. At the very first night, we were chased out of the airport because it wasn't open 24 hours. Lost in Guilin jungle (NO, Bukit Gombak is no little Guilin, it's a little mini-tiny nanoscopic one) with tracks of tiger footprints left behind to find our way, got cheated by Taxi mafia in Hanoi, forced out of bus in the middle of nowhere in Savannakhet at 2am, uncontactable after jumping into a waterfall with my phone in Luang Prabang, slept with tigers in Chiang Mai, fevered after 20-storey-high bungee jump in Pattaya, and were robbed of valuables in Penang that left me with only 30 ringgit to come back to Singapore. So far so good.

Aug - Dec 2013 Job & Soul-searching. Endlessly sending resumes with no success in getting a single interview. Dejected, I went back to do Mendaki tuitions and cleaning projectors from school to school to pass time. Got enlightened after watching The Social Network and started to fervently read up on technopreneurship from TechCrunch and TechinAsia. Registered Kruz as a company, set up Kruz Football e-commerce website, bought a stack of name cards but I have no idea how to raise funds. Cleverly, I registered it as a LLP. Realized that I have a long way to learn entrepreneurial skills and run a proper business and decided to scour for tech start-up jobs opportunities instead. On the last day of 2013, a 24-year-old serial entrepreneur (yes he's of the same age but with more business experience) take me on board as a biz development intern in his spanking new company called ClassWright, a social network for discovering classes.

2014: Exciting Times Ahead
I'm pretty excited of what may come this new year. 3 months make-or-break for ClassWright to achieve substantial traction in the market and hopefully securing a full-time employment and equity shares in the company. Feeling psyched up to be an entrepreneur is one thing, execution and JFDI (just freaking do it!) is one HUGE mantra I have to constantly remind myself.

I'm gonna give this entrepreneurial shot a chance. I'm not going to lie, it's a pretty scary thought how uncertain the future looks. It's going to be a struggle for sure; study loans are coming at me like Typhoon Haiyan and I have to repay my loved ones who have put faith in me thus far. I will have to take up as many tuition jobs if I need to. Just like a 2 months backpacking trip, you only live once. Do what you feel its right.

Widening Of Horizon

I had probably one of the best 2 months trip this year.

A 56 days expedition (It was supposed to be 60 days but something happened, I'll explain it soon) from China and across 5 Southeast Asia countries was truly a remarkable journey which brings out new perspective of travelling, adventure and cultures.

Coming from a typical middle-income Singaporean family, I grew up in a metropolitan city which is a hotpot fusion of different races and cultures from Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Caucasian and spanning across all the different religions you can think of. From young, I was taught to be tolerant of other races and their practices and we learnt the importance of racial harmony (in which Racial Harmony Day, in conjunction with Total Defence Day, is held annually in Singapore on 15th February. It serves as a reminder of the dark times when Singapore was under immense national security threat of numerous racial riots in the 1960s after the independence, but let's save this space for my trip.)

Therefore, it wasn't a culture shock for me travelling in this strongly-cultured Asian countries, but what actually open my eyes were the travellers I've met along the the way. They've made me realize how contented I am living within my comfort zones, when these people, coming from all of the different sides of the world, travelling alone and accomplishing more than I do at a relatively young age.

I've met a Belgium guy, William during our first week in Guangzhou, China and he the the first traveller we've made friends with. At that point, he was travelling alone for 3 months across China, and at the last leg of his trip in the country before continuing to the other parts of Southeast Asia. He just graduated from the University of Brussels with a degree in Sports Science, and I suspect he is younger than me. To think about it, a fresh graduate from Europe backpacking alone in China for months! When asked why he was travelling alone, he said none of his friends wanted to go with him because they thought he was crazy to backpack in a country with huge communication barrier and being the 4th largest nation in the world (I've googled and realize USA & Canada are ahead with 3rd & 2nd respectively, apart from Russia which everyone knows). However, that didn't stop him. Apparently, we went our separate ways in a most unglamorous way, by getting lost in the Guilin jungle. It was a shame I didn't manage to get hold of his personal contacts, but he somehow strikes a resemble of Bear Grylls, and he was sure living up to his doppelganger as he has no choice but to leave us behind to reach his destination before dusk at a Chinese village on the other side of the Guilin mountains.

Another guy worth mentioning here was a young Argentinian dude, Nico. I've made friends with him when I was in Hanoi, Vietnam. It was on a Sunday, when my 3 good friends and I had planned to visit the Ho Chin Minh Museum (apparently that's the only opening day of the week), and our hotel receptionist arranged Nico take a taxi with us since he was travelling solo. He was an avid photographer and his photos were amazing, always capturing the essence of it. To our pleasant surprise, he was our roommate in our shared dorm that night, we managed to catch up our dinner at a vegetarian shophouse stall (sadly, there wasn't any cheap halal food) and i've learnt he had worked for 8 years to save enough money to travel the world for a year. A South-American backpacking for a year across Asia? You bet it. It was interesting to hear his insights on Asia in general, and strangely enough, earlier that day we ourselves had a bitter experience dealing with a Taxi Mafia which has its meter digitally modified that makes the fare goes up at a ridiculous rate. We manage to negotiate for a lower price (if we didn't pay he would drive us to his armed Mafia gangs), but Nico almost did his South American move and gagged that taxi driver from behind. Thankfully, that didn't happen and manage to resolve the issue peacefully, albeit a sour one. After we went our separate ways, Nico went on to Nepal, India and the other parts of Asia and having to see his wonderful pictures, I can't help but to feel happy for him.

Both of them resembles the new travellers of our time, exploring places to widen up their perspective and pushing themselves out of their comfort zones. We too, should, inculcate those values on top of the existing cultural roots which shouldn't be marginalized.

On a personal level, as a Muslim, I would want to travel, not just for the sake of travelling, but with a niya' (purpose) to find the path that will bring me closer to Him and my religion. Where it is all started from the Middle East with the holy lands of Jerusalem, Madinah, and Mecca, and not to forget some of the Islamic regions in Turkey, Spain and the other parts of Europe. Learning the history of it and seeing the historical places ourselves will bring out the best and strengthen our beliefs.

Travelling intrigues your mind and question your purpose in this life. When you come across a beautiful scenery before your very eyes, you cannot help but to feel blessed how beautiful this world is crafted. It leaves us wondering and be mesmerized with the wonders of this world. Only He, the Creator, knows and to whom we seek for His Mercy and His Blessings.

P.S: Apologies for being a doing more of a reflection for this entry.. I would surely want to share my 2 months backpacking adventure across the 6 countries to you guys soon!

Musafir

Someone came up to me at a Kapitan Keling mosque in Penang one fine day asking, "Salam bro, i'm a musafir (traveller) and I need money to survive.

I told him, "Salam, i'm a musafir too, and i just got robbed yesterday. I have only 30 ringgit to return home in Singapore before Aidilfitri.

From one traveller to another, i wish i could help him...

Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.  I spent a large part of my youth traveling the world as a hippie. And what money did I have then? None. I barely had enough to pay for my fare. But I still consider those to have been the best years of my youth.The great lessons I learned has been precisely those that my journeys had taught me.”

-Paulo Coelho

2012: Breaking personal barriers

Apologies to all my readers (hmm i wonder if there's readers to my blog in the first place) for not doing much blogging for the past months, due to my packed schedule and a little tinge of plain laziness (i shall blame myself on this, perhaps i've found something better to do. More to that later)

However, I noticed something. My tagboard just got SPAMMED. I don't offer advertising space for you guys, please. (I don't mind if i got paid for it)

Since I didn't really write much (or nothing at all in fact) about the year 2012, here are the lists of highlights i've managed/achieved this year (not in any order).

1. Part of the executive committee of the Freshmen Orientation Camp'12 of SIMCMS (SIM Malay Cultural Muslim Society). I was basically the programmer of the whole event, and, undoubtedly being sabo-ed to the become the emcee for the event too.
2. Part of the title-winning team Yew Tee CSC in the Inter-Constituency Games and SNG (Singapore National Games). I must say I was pretty honoured to be playing alongside Ali Imran Lomri, an ex-national player.
3. Sunig... *cough*... first-half... *cough* champions! We played really well throughout the tournament, i must say, but were let down by lack of fitness and concentration in the last 10 min of the games and were duly punished by last-gasp goals for 3 games in a row! (from 2-1 to 2-2 with NUS, 2-0 to 2-2 with NTU, and from 2-1 to 2-2 with SMU and eventually winning SIT 4-2) Noticed the pattern? Yes, we conceded two goals throughout. We ended up as 3rd out of the 5 universities. It was very disappointing for such promising campaign and I was actually silently hoping we could finally win it in my final year but, i guess, it wasn't meant to be.
4. My 2nd year academic results was almost-there-yet-still-falling-short to my expectation. I'm still searching for the formula to achieve outstanding results. Anyone?
5. IVP disappointment. Losing out to SP, ITE and NP, and eventually beating NTU. The only takeaway for me was the match against SP, facing my own brother on the same side of the field and manage to score my only goal for the tournament. The last time we faced was the CCKSS vs TWSS and that was also another epic derby battle. It was also sad to see Marko, our coach has to step down and focus on his new coaching stint at Woodlands Wellington. Its been one of my best experience playing under his tutelage for 2 years, and putting faith on me every game on the right midfielder role.
6. Got called up from my Marko, what to be, my only chance to test my ability on professional level to play for Woodlands Wellington, in which I turned it down due to school commitments. If not because of the exams looming, I would have definitely accepted the offer.
7. Played for Suria football team in the Piala Dollah Kassim tournament, which we were disqualified due to 'infringement of the tournament rules'. Disappointing way to bow out but glad to play with the quality players from the FirstXI reality TV show.
8. My part-time working stint ends with NEC Asia Pacific in September when they moved over from HawPar TechnoCentre in Commonwealth to Boon Keng. It was indeed an invaluable experience learning from my superior, Julia (Cik Ju whom i addressed as), Joanne and my fellow colleagues Rani, Faridah and Hairi to name a few. Definitely will miss the Chicken Noodle with extra rice that i ate almost every lunchtime. Perangai PBG sey, but its only $3.50!
9. Had my first ever Mendaki classes this year. My kids are great bunch, love every single one of them and I will definitely missed their unique characters and behaviours. I hope you kids will grow up into good people and contribute back well to the society. Insya'Allah.
10. This probably go down as the most significant achievement in my footballing 'career' (Hahaha though to some it may not be much) when i was selected to be part of the 20-man squad Singapore Football team to play in the Asean University Games (AUG) in Vientiane, Laos from 9th to 21st December. It was the most memorable event for every aspiring footballer to experience; playing in the packed daunting Chao Anouvong stadium, the national stadium of Laos, having to see ourselves playing live on the national TV and getting mobbed by fans. I never thought it would be such a grand event, let alone, feeling like a celebrity over there. Haha. On top of that, the teammates and friends I've made there were awesome. We had such a great team bonding time, in every training sessions and leisure activities. Though i wished i could have played more there (I didn't get to play against Malaysia, and came in as substitute for the last 30 minutes of the Laos game), but it was still a good experience playing with good players in the ASEAN region. Sadly, we lost to Malaysia 1-0 in a nail-biting encounter and were deservedly beaten by the brilliant Laos side 4-0 (were told afterwards that 14 of their 20 registered players were from the Suzuki AFF team.)
    
    Yeap that's it! Darn.. i have to rush off now. Till the next time, i'll write again Insya'Allah.

2nd year UOL exams is TOMORROW.
Praying for the best.
Everything will be fine, Insyaallah.
Ya Allah, berikanlah hamba lulus dengan cemerlang dalam peperiksaan ku ini.
Sesungguhnya engkaulah Maha mengetahui.

Help?

The wisdom tooth growing is really affecting the nerves to my brain. Growing to be wise is a painful process i guess. Like as if it is not depressing enough, my body decides to add another misery. Swollen left eye. Great, JUST GREAT.

Well, at least i got a reason to be in front of this computer rather than the books, for now at least.


UOL exams in exactly 2 months' time. *Gasp*