DBA Surabaya Live

Easily the best event I’ve been to this year!

I’ve been to so many seminars – as speaker and attendee – and only few were very memorable.

Earlier this year, I was invited by Suzanna Theresia to be one of the 15 main speakers for her first and upcoming event called DBA Surabaya Live (DBA stands for Dream It, Believe It, Achieve It).

The cool part? My flight and hotel accommodation were all-expense-paid-for! Usually I pay my own when flying out, but I suppose this is part of the perks of helping a client with her launch successfully. 🙂

I enjoyed sharing my experience as much as learning from the Indonesian ‘mastahs’ and forging friendships and JV partnerships throughout my week here in Surabaya. It also reminded myself and some of the friends I know from years ago how far we came as entrepreneurs from humble beginnings and as a person.

Oh as an added perk: I even got to meet some of Indonesia’s celebrities and top names!

This was made possible by Suzanna and her amazing Shavout team. I hope we meet again next year and live up to the same level of energy, preferably higher.

Makasi semua mastah dan para hadirin yang mengunjungi acara ini.

DREAM IT. BELIEVE IT. ACHIEVE IT!

Business Trip in Manila

This is my first time in Manila! And what brought me here? The prospect of doing business here!

2015206132935I’ve known Gian Sim online since 2012, and the prospect of doing a collaboration between Musemancer and his company Nooovle is what brought me here.

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Some things we couldn’t just communicate over Skype… So I showed up at Nooovle in person! We had a 2 hour brainstorm session on a project my company will collaborate with Nooovle for the first time! (No details to be out yet, still confidential at this stage)

Business trip aside, GS booked me a City Suite at Hotel F1 Manila, a 4 star hotel… for the price of a budget hotel in Singapore!

2015205200607If I knew it earlier, I wouldn’t have come here alone… the idea of having the whole City Suite room to myself for 3 nights at an unbelievable price is… unbelievable! LOL The more I travel to other countries, the more I realize how much more hospitable these countries are compared to Malaysia.

While my stay in Manila is brief, this meeting the following day made the highlights of it all.
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From what I know, this kind of gathering doesn’t happen all the time here in Manila.

I haven’t met Ian del Carmen and Mark Joyner since 2008.

It was my first time seeing Jeremiah Villagomez the kid designer prodigy in person (he’s taller than I thought)

Alvin Jhunne Cortez came to my office warming party in Malaysia last year, so returned the favor this time around.

And in a funny way, even though they’ve been in Manila, some of the guys here were connected through me! Haha.

Amazing meetup, thanks for making time and we’ll meet again next time, somewhere!

 

 

Agung Visits Malaysia

Starting Musemancer in the new direction is beginning to reveal its rewards. This month we have launched two products on JVZoo, one of which went on to become Pick Of The Day. I took on two speaking engagements at startup events in the short notice.

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The team is now at 4 permanent members with one more on the way in January 2015, and we are getting more done than I could had accomplished on my own all these years.

I am feeling as if all the traffic lights turned green this whole month – I don’t know if it’s just because November is my best month of the year, or the works I had been doing in the past few months are all falling into place nicely now… but hey, I am grateful!

At the same time, I am careful not to be over-excited and overconfident in the process. I have also been eavesdropping on how other seemingly successful companies that we look up to are having their own crisis and insider politics shielded away from public information.

As the leader of a still fledgling enterprise (in this new model), I am keeping my eyes peeled for any trouble and will be quick to nip them in the bud.

While we did great this month, December is going to be a very important month because this is going to set our pace for the next quarter.

That is why I got Agung to visit us in Malaysia this week, amidst my busy schedule. He is the main reason I visited Indonesia throughout the year. He had several amazing business opportunities for me which I was unable to seize due to my limited time and resources – now it is made possible with a team.

And I have gotten Elle involved as she is one of the very few business partners and friends I trust very much in my entire online marketing career.

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So the three of us had been at the Musemancer office this whole week planning our next steps and briefing the team on the new venture we are taking on (every other details kept under the wraps!)

And of course, we took Agung for some fun in the city since it’s been three to four years since he last visited here. 🙂

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This is going to be really exciting, I found myself sleeping less due to ‘being high’ LOL and if I play my cards correctly, next year is going to be a year we will all experience transcension in our business growth.

On another note, I want to say thanks to all my family members, friends, business associates, and colleagues for your birthday wishes – and the double celebration!

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At 28 years old now, I’ve got only two more years left in my ‘roaring twenties’ but for some reason, I don’t feel as old. I suppose being young at heart is the key!

Musemancer: 3 Weeks Later

So far so good.

For the longest time I wasn’t sure how things will pan out and if I had what it takes to lead the team. 3 weeks later and I am beginning to feel most of my fears were unfounded. That’s the good news. The bad news: why I didn’t start this sooner?

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Shatish started off working part-time for 2 years. He is familiar with Internet Marketing and hangs out actively in the same kind of events that I frequent. So when Musemancer went from virtual and paper to physical, I asked Shatish to continue tagging along.

Yi Wen is our content writer. She could use some more improvement in both command of English and familiarizing herself with the nature of our business, but I like her attitude so far. She’s also a fast learner.

Joey is our graphic designer. Admittedly, I had some reservations but out of all the applicants for the job, he’s go the best skills. Elle had been guiding him through Skype and email on our next graphics product.

And I’ve got one more writer coming in next month, bringing the total headcount of the team to 6, including myself.

This week had been rather eventful – we’ve had guests from Singapore and New Zealand come in. (Thanks for swinging by Jeremy Wong, TK Chin and Mr. Chin!)

Right now I am the only marketer in the team, and being the sole person driving in sales for the company we are at a vulnerable point at the moment. I am irreplaceable – and that’s dangerous.

While I am training them most of the time for the next few months, in due time I will give them the ‘stress test’ to see how fast they are able to work, plan ideas creatively and eventually become independent.

I cannot wait to recruit the sales force but not until I crack the system first. Next week I am getting my Direct Mail campaigns done to be sent to SMEs and Businesses that can be our potential clients.

I am also investing a great deal of time learning higher skills on marketing so I can teach my team, especially Facebook Advertising.

We’ll see how we fare next week, before we up the notch next month!