I don’t deem this as some sort of startup ideas but rather a hobby that I am fond of.
I have recently become clearer of my current career goal (let me put it in a period of ten years), to be involved in the future of information technology as a leader of a company which excels at specific technology or idea and is able to monetize this technology or idea.
However, I have to make it rather straight that the goal of this endeavor is certainly not money – I will be able to earn enough money as I wished, I have no doubt about it, the goal is being the leader, being the one who takes charge.
It’s 1st January 2012 today, and my plan starts.
About current technology
The most popular terms are, “cloud computing” and “mobile technology”. You can find them in almost all the IT news, discussed thoroughly in every possible way. While Google is putting all its service onto the cloud, Apple starts to compete it with iCloud; Amazon, Google, Microsoft, RackSpace and many other small companies are all having their cloud hosting service; supermarkets today are utilizing mobile technology to label their goods; NFC (Near Field Communication) enables smartphone to do almost everything that IC card do; people are accessing internet more from mobile devices than from stationary computers; a more scary thing is that with all these portable yet powerful mobile devices digital media is slowly taking over print media. There are however many more things can be listed here, but one thing is for sure, our world is being transformed gradually.
About my position
I have loved technology since I was, perhaps 7, 8 years old, I have come all the way here to choose my career as a mobile application developer and I am 25 years old now. While the world is rapidly changing, I see opportunities, its just like the world when Apple and Microsoft were born, when the internet bubble was blew, this is perhaps the third technological evolution. And history tells us a technological evolution won’t last long, if I miss this time I would miss forever.
About Singapore Bulletin
My notebook tells me at what time I came out with this idea. It was at 20th Dec when I was struggling looking for a suitable restaurant for the post Christmas gathering organized by me. Though there is a myriad of information returned by just googling “restaurants in Singapore”, it’s still hard to find a really suitable one, because the information is not filtered. I can of course refer to the many websites, such as www. hungarygowhere.com, to refer to in-depth reviews, but this kind of so called specialized website is merely reducing the scope of searched information to a certain level, it does little on helping user to make the decision. Moreover, there are so many different websites on reviewing restaurant, you don’t know which one to trust.
When I encountered this problem, I immediately realized that it’s not just about booking the restaurant, but organizing event, ultimately, find a place to hang out, while booking the restaurant is only an element of it.
I quickly related this to lifestyle, especially the lifestyle in Singapore. The lifestyle here has been boring for me since I came here. Movies are cheap, restaurants are everywhere, year long constant temperature, a sleepless city, a mini and wealthy country. We almost do the same thing every time when we are hanging out, seeing a film, having a dinner, drinking some liqueur, clubbing, utterly unhealthy and stupid. I am always asking – when else can we do? You might want to argue, Why not play golf, join the wine party, trek on the Bukit Timah Hill. But in my opinion, those activities are either too expensive or too exclusive, you can’t bring them to mainstream so easily, or is there a way missing to bring them to it?
I might be wrong about this judgement, but if I don’t try to find out I would never be able to know. I wish to find out if there is a way currently missing to bring those “high-end” activities to mainstream.
The result is simple,
If I am wrong, I can realize how little I know about Singapore, about this society, I would have learnt so much that I can’t learn from school or even work. And the process of looking for the answer will grant me new skills and knowledge to deal with my future endeavor to achieve my goal.
If I am right, i would be so happy to invent a new, exciting product. I should be able to monetize it.
Either way, I am the winner.
The Singapore Bulletin is going to be a website that exhibits all kinds of activities (dining, even finding a nice place to sit together belongs to my definition of activity) happening in Singapore and help users to get themselves involved in those activities with their friends, in a convenient and interesting way.
Just like the project named “MegaBind”[1] I had previously been doing, this is another approach to reduce the information overload.
[1] MegaBind is the project I worked on during Idea.Inc’s business competition 2011, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ijdmg2zEzJJ5NN_cbwBHvf3haSA7hEaI4h1Y9uePrgE/edit?hl=en_US
