Armchair Theorist

OK, I really have to stop using that silly “un-prefix” gimmick.

unConference 2009 came and went this past Saturday. Except for a few technical glitches early on, the event was very dynamic and well-run, which is expected for an e27 event.

Like I mentioned in my pre-coverage of the event, I was really stoked to go, and thankfully I wasn’t disappointed one bit.

After last year’s Unconference (notice the subtle difference in the capitalization? Ah… branding), I hunkered down and wrote a 1800 word essay on the event.

Well, this year I’m not going to do that, for a couple reasons:

• Firstly, I really don’t want to write 1800 words for any single essay again. Ever.
• Secondly, whatever verbiage I can come up with at 3am on a weekday night won’t be able to top the great coverage already provided by folks like Young Upstarts, Andy Croll and Techgoondu. So I’m not going to bother.
• And lastly, we already have a perfect play-by-play coverage of the entire unConference 2009 from beginning to end, along with every opinion, emotion, commentary, and reaction attached to it, organized in one neat information stream for your consumption pleasure. It’s called Twitter, and really folks – it’s the next big thing.

So… I’m gonna do something different this year instead.

You know how you study two years of macroeconomics during university and the only thing you really get out of it is supply and demand?

Or you went through three years of physics in high school and the only thing you remember is E=mc^2?

Well, unConference 2009 had a lot of speakers, and all of them spoke a lot during the event. I’m gonna try and distill every session into just a few key lessons for your easy consumption. Saves me time, and saves you time.

Without further ado, here it goes. All the topic titles are copied verbatim from the official unConference schedule. I will only comment on sessions I actually attended in person.

Keynote – Market Size, Not Magic! (Scott Rafer)

• Lesson 1: Copying is OK and in fact encouraged.
  In fact, here is Scott’s money quote (via Andy Croll): “If you see something working well: copy it. There is no such thing as new ideas only good execution. It’s the right thing to do, just change the 20% you need to to make it work for your users.” So don’t spend so much time coming up with original ideas to change the world! Instead your startup should focus on what will likely be my new favorite phrase for the next few months, “innovation arbitrage”.
• Lesson 2: Always look to exit.
  Don’t bother about building a long-lasting company. Aim for achieving a turnover of over $1m-3m USD a year within 36 months and get the heck out!
• Lesson  3: A startup is really just about the math.
  It’s all about market size. The recommendation for success? Be late to market, be boring, copy, compete on price in targeted markets with enough potential users.
• Lesson 4: Google is EVIL.
  I didn’t say that. Scott did.

Panel – Innovation in Asia and Where is it heading? (Benjamin Joffe, Lu Gang, Lai Kok Fung, Wong Hoong An and Scott Rafer)

• Lesson 1: In panel discussions with five seasoned entrepreneurs, don’t bother paying any attention to the panel title.
  The moderator and speakers had a very entertaining and lively discussion around everyone’s own experience in their own startups, but the session had absolutely nothing to do with “Innovation in Asia and Where is it heading”. Not that I minded though.
• Lesson 2: An entrepreneur has to be like a cockroach.
• Lesson 3: Businesses pay, consumers don’t.
• Lesson 4: Good ideas always emerge over beer.
  Last three lessons courtesy of Hoong An from HungryGoWhere.com.
• Lesson 5: Freebies (either legal or illegal) will bring in traffic.
  Words from Dr. Lai, spoken in front of no doubt many government representatives within the audience. He’s just warming up for what was coming up in the next session.
• Lesson 6: Cloud Computing is the biggest competitor to venture capitalists.
  As a cloud computing evangelist, I definitely agree with Scott Rafer on this point. Imagine being able to slash your upfront infrastructure expenditure by over 95%. Who still needs VC money?
• Lesson 7. Google is EVIL.
  Again, not my sentiment, but implied by the panelists.

Talk by MDA (Priscilla Joy from MDA)

• Lesson 1: When you have an audience consisting of 85% males, expect “male-like” behavior when a hot girl is presenting on stage.
  No need to rehash what happened here; Young Upstarts covered it well in his blog post (along with visuals, courtesy of Hisham). At least she seemed like a good sport about it.
• Lesson 2: Old successful entrepreneurs that are past a certain threshold of age or success won’t show you any mercy, no matter how hot you are.

Breakout Session 3: Trends on Online Social Networks in Asia: Where and when it is heading (Bernard Leong)

• Lesson 1: Twitterfall is an awesome tool for live tweeting events.
  This weekend was the first time I’ve ever used it, and I became an instant fan.
• Lesson 2: Yung-Hui Lim from GreyReview is an absolute Twitter monster.
  He can simultaneously pay attention to Bernard’s talk, speak with the guys from Malaysia Entrepreneurs, show me how Wolfram|Alpha works, and still be able to pump out about 10 tweets a minute! That’s just godly…
• Lesson 3: You can’t make money out of Friendster.
  Claims Tyler Projects, creators of the uber-popular Facebook game, Battle Stations.
• Lesson 4: There are a whole bucketload more social networks in the world today than just the US-centric Facebook and MySpace.
  From Chinese Facebook-ripoff Xiaonei to dating-free Japanese network mixi to private luxury social network SENATUS, there are literally dozens of other successful social network services around the world, particularly outside of the US. And there are no economic moats in social networks.

Conclusion

Just like last year, this year’s unConference was a blast – but perhaps doubly so. The quality of content, interactions, and attendees are simply a step up from last year. And the whole place constantly had an air of vibrancy and excitement surrounding it.

Here’s hoping that next year’s unConference will be a two-day event. Just make sure you fix the Wi-Fi, clear the toilets, and triple-check the auditorium projector next time.

Regardless, I will definitely attend unConference again next year. Great job, e27!

Startups

You didn’t think I would finish this post without mentioning the 32 startups, did you? Ha!

Well… I am actually tempted to skip this part, since I’m pushing 1000 words already, and there were simply too many startups this time around for me to give a detailed rundown of all of them like I did for Unconference 2008.

Instead, I’m going to pass the buck and point you to Aaron Koh’s 30 second interviews with some of the startups at unConference this year. Alex (a.k.a. Mr. Steel) also has written some capsule reviews of the nine startups who did their pitch in front of the audience.

However, I’ll leave you with this. Here are the three startups that I saw on Saturday that I feel have the most potential. And not just commercial potential, but game-changing potential.

Thus, apologies to Klout, iTwin and OrSiSo – all promising startups with cool products that I love – since I would not consider them as game-changing… yet.

Here are the three startups with game-changing potential, in my opinion:

1. eJAMMING AUDiiO – Social network + bands + live broadcasts + music collaboration. Despite it’s unwieldly name, there are seriously so many possibilities this startup can pursue. Online concerts, musical training, artiste management, entertainment, you name it. If executed properly, eJamming has potential to evolve into the next MySpace. Seriously.
2. Human Network Labs (HNL) – These folks have an unique RF-based locationing technology that have serious potential. Have you seen the Microsoft Productivity Vision video yet? That kind of scenario (particulary the scene at the airport) is precisely enabled by technologies like this. If they can figure out how to distribute their chipset out to every single mobile device (before the handset makers come up with their own technology), the sky is really the limit for HNL.
3. MakeAffinity – This two-man outfit is seriously flying under the radar. They weren’t even one of the nine startups to pitch in the main session. Yet, I find their concept so alluring – a YouTube-like service, but instead of users contributing videos, users can contribute interfaces to their own real-world robots and hardware devices, which can then be used by other users. And all this is done over the Internet! Talk about bringing “user-generated content” to a new level. How much will you pay to be able to safely play with and fire a machine gun at a shooting range situated in another continent? Or remotely control a deep sea submarine for some underwater sightseeing? And we haven’t even started looking at what applications the porn industry can come up with.

Finally, the last word: If I were a VC and I absolutely must invest in one of the 32 startups and nothing else, I will have to say I will choose… eJAMMING AUDiiO.

Update: Singapore Entrepreneurs also wrote a pretty comprehensive report for the event. Fresh Baked Web also had a short writeup on the event.