Knowing the Startup Weekend format back to front, you get to know the types of people that attend – or so I thought. When I arrived from New Zealand, I was expecting the same ‘rock n roll’ events we run in New Zealand. Fast moving, hard hitting and energy filled. That wasn’t the case. The events in Malaysia were slow, with students needing a lot of hand holding to get going.

Over the weekends we’ve had 600+ students attend. Some big thinkers, some small – most will zero to little experience in business. All the events are for students (who are used to working long, drawn out assignments – mainly theory) so this was a BIG learning curve for them. The task of pitching an idea Friday and presenting a finished concept Sunday was a huge mindset change. Of course, problems did arrise:

- Teams were built around good friends, not the right members
- Ideas that were ‘uncommon’ weren’t chosen (except for ‘Winner Lesbians’ – but that’s another story!)
- People sleept during the weekend
- We finished at set times, and
- Teamwork was taken to the next level – with 6 team members working on the same computer creating a powerpoint presentation!

FYI – I am not a VC. But I’ve felt like one over the past weeks – experiencing the people, ideas and mindset from students around the country (as seen below).

I’ve heard 150+ presentations – some great, some with potential and some that are average. Too often I heard the same ideas over and over and over again – It’s sad. That said, it’s only the start of a movement. Entrepreneurship is new with these students, so there’s lots of room for growth, but I can only imagine how VC’s and Angels feel getting pitched ‘unique’ or ‘must have’ ideas and businesses every day. It’s draining.

I’d like to send a big thank you to Warisan Global & Digi Mobile for bringing me over to support Social Entrepreneurship in Malaysia. I’ve learnt a lot, and can’t wait to come back.

I’ve always admired people who understand the power of leverage – that is, being able to utilise the skills and money of other people (OPM/OPT) to excel an opportunity.

While reading ‘How come that idiot’s rich and I’m not?’ I came across a paragraph that I wanted to share which I think explains leverage very simply. It said:

Think of life as a grocery store. You want a salad. Does that mean you have to grow the lettuce, tomatoes, and onions yourself? Press the olive oil? Bottle the vinegar? Carve the salad bowl? No, of course not. You go to the store and buy what you need. The same principle applies when you buy other peoples time for a wealth-growing enterprise. Think of the dozens of tasks you can use other people’s time to accomplish while you use your precious time to GROW your enterprise.

You cannot (and should not) do everything on your own. Business is a team sport, and the right leverage in any business can rapidly scale the growth of a business.

Looking around outside, I started thinking about business. It’s everywhere. Every single thing I looked at was someones business. The Building, the road, the paint, the trees planted, the cars, the cafe’s, the gutter, the drains – not including all the opportunity on the internet! Seriously, everything is a business. It’s amazing.

Those who think that there’s not enough opportunity in the world clearly don’t use their eyes properly.

While in Kuching, there were several things we noticed about the students, which seems to be a common occurrence in Malaysia:

1) Students need a clear roadmap for the weekend, as startup Weekend (and entrepreneurship) is unknown to them
2) Most students don’t understand social ventures (neither did I until I came to Malaysia!)
3) Market validation is not seen as important
4) Everyone makes assumptions, and neglects the facts
5) The focus is on a good looking presentation, not a working product
6) The students will stay in the building until we tell them to go home

The Startup Weekend team and I knew we needed to fix this before the event in Sabah – and we did. On Friday, pitches went smooth, the ideas were clear and useful, and 100% of the people got (Ok, more like 65%) what a social venture was.

Because a clear roadmap was needed, we provided everyone with some basic project management tips and made sure everyone had completed Ash Maurya Lean Canvas with their teams, as shown below.

We enforced like a prison guards that students spend Saturday doing market validation – calling potential customers, interviewing strangers, meeting with potential partners – anything to give them confirmation that their idea is or isn’t needed, and to smack away any assumptions they were making. This didn’t work. We took action… again. I gave teams who neglected Market Validation 30 minutes to find and call a potential customer or partner and talk about their problem, or they would be questioned (in detail) on stage about their MV. This worked, although I may have made one or two enemies.

Mentors who arrived on Saturday provided a huge amount of input as always. Ideas that were floundering, or even ideas that seemed concrete got feedback to improve their proposition – giving valuable input for their practice pitch on Saturday night.

In 6 hours it’s the finale. 120 attendees. 24 teams presenting. One winner advancing to the next round. Good luck to all the teams participating.

Today I went on a tour of KL, one that most ‘tourists’ wouldn’t normally receive. I went out on a startup tour and spent half a day with Local entrepreneur Daniel Cerventus – founder of this week in Asia, where I got the run down on the local tech scene and met several entrepreneurs in the co-working environment, Fluent Space.

Come tomorrow, at the crack of dawn I’ll be heading over to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel where I’ll be attending the 800+ person Silicon Valley Comes to Malaysia conference – a two day event where several big names from Silicon Valley will be speaking on what they do best, and working 1-on-1 with local entrepreneurs.

Sadly I won’t be attending the second day of the conference, but for good reason. I’m flying to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah for the second Startup Weekend with local university UMS. We’re expecting around 100+ again for this Startup Weekend, and with the learnings we gained from Kuching, the entrepreneurs attending are in for a much more execution fueled event.

As a generalisation, the test pitches on Saturday night were poor. They lacked thought, effort and execution – and the mentors made sure the teams knew it too. Thankfully, the feedback teams received made a HUGE difference to the final presentations. Sunday was a success.

The two winning teams who have made it through to the next round, and for a chance to win RM200,000 in prizes are A.C.E and Sonar Tribal.

A.C.E helps the rural people of Sarawak (Kuchung) generate electricity.
Sonar Tribal creates, markets and sells tribal music from Sarawak (Kuching)

These are some of the tweets I pulled from our Twitter Hashtag (#SWkuching):

I’m so thankful that I was invited to Kuching to help facilitate such a different, but equally rewarding Startup Weekend. I’ve learnt a lot from the locals and look forward to smashing out another great event at Kota Kinabalu this Friday.

Teams quickly realised that making assumptions (something the students default too) really are the mother off all F&*K ups.

Mentors threw hard questions at the teams, testing their knowledge and probing for more information about their market validation and business model. Some teams took the advice well… others not so well. When we arrived this morning to greet our participants, the room was a little emptier than expected – with four teams missing from the venue! Maybe because they’re working from home, or from a cafe… or maybe the harsh realities of their pitch got the best of them. Only time will tell.

At Startup Weekend, the aim of the game is to help teams grow and experience starting a business – so of course we made sure that the advice, although blunt, was always looking out for their best interest.

Presentations to the judges and local leaders will start at 4pm (local time). I hope all teams make it back in time and take the lessons learnt from last night and build them into tonights big finale.

Here’s what’s been developed:

1. Urban Hands – Creating smartphone applications to benefit the unprivileged people in the community.
2. ACE – Helping rural people to generate electricity
3. Crafttech – Selling local home made crafts online
4. FBTutor – Integrating educational games for facebook
5. L.vincere – Supply local rice wine (Tuak) to GAB (national liquor company)
6. Pingme – Mobile alarm security for your house
7. The very far East movement – Pua Kumbu (woven fabric) on everything
8. help. me – Counselling the local people about Stress and Depression
9. Rural wind – Wind Energy Systems for Rural users
10. Slumbuster – Raising the living standards for people in the slums
11. Agrisensor – Wireless sensor network for agriculture
12. Tribal Music – Promotion of Tribal music from rural communities
13. Single Mothers Touch – Teaching single mothers to sew & sell their clothes
14. Borneo 4 Change – Upgrade villages social and economy responsibility
15. Corporate Cupid – Matchmaking youth’s with no money with private companies

Friday night started out quiet, with students (aged 17-25) turning up and sitting in their ‘groups’ awaiting dinner and the next steps for the weekend.

We kicked off with two local talents: a social entrepreneur, talking about his business that help people in war struck countries, and another who spoke on being a Technopreneur in Kuching.

With Students still keeping to themselves and their close friends, we played a game called half-baked to shake things up – which worked wonders! Everyone was given a number from 1-10, separated into a new group and asked to shout out random words to the front. Each team was then allocated two of the words to build a hypothetical businesses in 10 minutes – which was then pitched in 60 seconds…. and the results were great! My favourite was ‘Winning Lesbians’ – a website dedicated to the local Lesbian community, and a place for men to ‘understand’ lesbians. Very funny pitch!

After Half-baked we got straight into the best part of the night, pitching ideas. After a very slow start, and only one person coming up to pitch, we found our momentum and eventually had 24 pitches.

As of today, we have [16] ideas being developed by the students. Mentors have just started arriving, courtesy of Digi Mobile (our sponsor) and a range of local entrepreneurs in Kuching.

Lets see what happens in the next 12 hours…

On Monday I found out the great news that I (along with my family next week) will be relocating to Malaysia to help facilitate Startup Weekend’s throughout Malaysia. I’ve been itching to get back to Asia ever since I moved home from Thailand, so when the opportunity arose it was definitely a no brainer.

Starting tomorrow (Friday 14th) I’m straight into it. Here’s the lineup of places i’ll be visiting Facilitating Startup Weekend.

1. October 14-16 UNIMAS, Kuching, Sarawak

2. October 21-23 UMS, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

3. October 28-30 UTM, Skudai, Johor

4. November 11-13 Universiti Kolej Syahputera, Kuantan, Pahang

5. December 2-4 UiTM, Shah Alam

6. December 9-11 USM, Penang

As a bonus to facilitating Startup Weekend, I’ll be participating at ‘Silicon Valley comes to Malaysia‘ – and event organised by friend and thriving Malaysian entrepreneur, Dash.

Here’s the line up:
Jawed Karim, co-founder of YouTube, Shawn Fanning of the legendary Napster and LinkedIn’s founder Konstantin Guericke will be in Kuala Lumpur for this conference to meet local entrepreneurs and hear about their startups. Entrepreneurs with the most inspiring startup or startup ideas will be selected to meet these three iconic entrepreneurs in special one-on-one session!

The exclusive conference will also feature Steve Koskie, an experienced entrepreneur of high technology startups in the United States. Steve and Will.I.Am from Black Eye Peas co-founded DipDive.com, a startup for all production of live and taped content and all social media for the award winning group.

At Silicon Valley Comes to Malaysia, there will be opportunities to gain insights and investment strategies adopted by successful investors such as AngelList founder Naval Ravikant, who has investments in Twitter and Foursquare as well as Priceline.com’s CEO Jeff Hoffman.

The companies represented at this conference are valued at over US$40 billion and have transformed the way we communicate, travel, shop and entertain.

I’ll be blogging regularly throughout my time here, during which I’ll be covering off anything from interesting people I’m meeting, startup culture in Malaysia, businesses being built and general Startup Weekend stuff.

Stay tuned. Boom!