Malaysia Business Lunch Seminar

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Me and a couple of other students from the course went to the event Trade & Investment Seminar Business Opportunities in Malaysia located at Sheraton that Serdar invited us to. This visit was a bit different from what I have experienced before. It was quite interesting to see how people from Malaysia and Sweden coming together working to find ways to collaborate. The importance of networking was once again put on display. One guy I sat next to where looking for investments for the company he worked for in the space industry.

Comparing this event with other more startup related events I have experienced, the atmosphere here was a bit more serious. A lot of people wore suits and was there representing their company or country. Nevertheless, all persons I talked to were very friendly.

Malaysia was pictured as a good country to start with to get a foot into the Asian market. The living expenses are much cheaper compared to neighbouring countries such as Singapore. There also exist educated workers that speaks English for a lower price. The country is politically stable, and the GDP is growing. Overall, it was depicted as a good compromise. Compared to the Swedish cold weather right now an escape to Malaysia could also be tempting.

Even if startups where mentioned during the event and is important much focus was put on the bigger companies such as Volvo and SKF. Both Volvo and SKF had representatives in the panel that talked about their businesses and relationship to Malaysia. The representative of Volvo talked for example about how regulations were one of their main problems.

During the lunch I asked a Malaysian representative about startups in Malaysia. He said that they for example help statups by providing mentors for free that can provide experience to the founders; they also help with well-equipped workspaces for subsidized prices at the beginning of a startups life. This he said have produced good results.

Many also recommended that we should come visit Malaysia, even if it only is for tourism, and I guess I will take that into consideration when I plan any future trips to Asia.

Thanks for reading!

Johan Wikström

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How to let Recruiters know on Linkedin that You are open to new job opportunities

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I am writing about this topic since i am currently looking for an internship for the next spring and i was thinking it can be useful for you and your friends to know how to let rectruiters know on Linkedin that you are open to new job opportunities.

One basic way to let recruiters know that you are open to new opportunities is through the “Headline” section of your LinkedIn profile. This section is usually reserved for your professional headline, but you can also use this section to notify employers that you are looking for work. You can specify the field you want to work in, the position you are looking , the length if it is an internship for example and also the region you are searching in.

But what i think is the most effective way to find a job opportunity is the new setting that LinkedIn recently introduced within their Jobs section that allows you to convey your interest in new job opportunities to recruiters on LinkedIn. You can navigate to this setting by clicking on Jobs > Update Preferences > Scroll down to: Let Recruiters Know You Are Open.

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You can specify the types of companies and roles you are most interested in. By setting this option on, you are potentially opening your profile to more views by Recruiters. This is also a good feature because it can be used by people who are already working in a compaNy but want to find new opportunities without worrying about their employer finding out.

But i strongly believe that you can not only rely on this to find a new job on Linkedin, and that’s why i’m sharing with you the following advices :

  • Build a complete and professional Linkedin profile
  • Add a profile picture that aligns with your role as a professional (professional clothing). It has to be good quality and includes you only.
  •  Share your current position, current school and also list all your relevant previous experiences. Write a small summary about each experience to let recruiters know what you did,and what skills you got from it. Also, try to optimize your headline, summary, and experiences with relevant keywords.
  • Highlight your skills and main achievements
  • Ask former employers or coworkers to post a comment about you on your profile.
  •  Write An engaging summary containing your email address. Use this summary to talk about your next challenges,your dreams and show your motivation to work in a particular field. You can also use this section to clarify your work history, if your careerpath has not been linear.
  •  Develop a strong network on Linkedin : over 300/400 you start to be open to networking, and start to be visible.

With all these tips, i hope you will find the job of your dreams.
Good luck everyone.

Thanks for reading and sharing.

Anouar Mabrouki

Volunter at Fem Tech #5 – SUP46

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Last Monday, Nadia and I voluntered at the Fem Tech #5 event at SUP46.We got there one hour before the event was intended to begin, and we met with Lana. She  introduced us to the people working there and  to two other girls who also were voluntering that day. We got to help out with the catering and registration of the guests. And it was actually much more fun than what I had expected it to be. And I do recommend people to visit this awsome place and to start networking. Or if anyone is interested in being a member in their volunter-group, than just contact them and give them your information.

The event was intended to only be for women and to encourage women into the entrepreneurial world. Three successful women presented and spoke about what they had done so far and what they had accomplished. All three start-ups were successful, whereas one of them was an app, that I can’t remember the name of, and had over 1,6 million users.

One of the best things with this event was to hear about their journey and how they actually had become successful, not only as entrepreneurs but also as women.

 

I helped a start-up while looking for a job

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Last week I was looking for a graduation internship, so I spent most of my time on some companies’ websites to find good opportunities, especially in consultancies. And I eventually got to speak about it with a friend, also trying to find an internship. It turns out that he’s been reached by a start-up for a 6 months job in Paris, plus 6 months in San Francisco about this web-customer data analysis. I think he’s been so lucky to receive such an amazing offer, even if I’ve not so much interest for that specific topic, and I start thinking “why not doing an internship in a start-up myself ?” It’s something I’d never really thought about before, but as I’m interested by the start-up world and because I think I would enjoy this peculiar and exiting kind of job, I start looking around for some opportunities. So I check out some career/job websites without finding any topic that I’d be really interested in, and I ask to myself what I would really be exited about in a job like that. In fact, I’m exited about creation, about giving birth to something, and thus I would be more interested by an early-stage start-up. Finally I remember I have a friend in a business school who’s told me once that many of her friends were planning to found a start-up at the end of their studies. I get back in touch with her and it turns out that she’s looking for a co-founder with technological knowledge to help her build her start-up. I personally have a profound technical background, and she’s planning to join a business incubator next January, when I’ll be back in France. She pitches me her idea and it seems quite cool (something about urban bicycles, roughly speaking), so it sounds like a perfect opportunity for me to experience the birth of a start-up. I eventually start doing the procedures with my school and the person in charge of internships reaches me to tell me that I won’t be authorized to do this because the company doesn’t exist yet so they can’t make any contract. Moreover it seems to risky for them because if the start-up fails I will have to do another 6 month internship in order to graduate, which I can understand. So I get back to my friend, a bit disappointed, and I remember that there is an entrepreneurship section back in my school, with people probably looking for this kind of projects for next year. So I propose to make an announcement about her project and her research for a co-founder on my school’s Facebook page, which she accepts. So far she’s been contacted by at least three people interested in her idea so I hope it will work !

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Eventually we’ve got to talk about pitches and I told her that I’ve been to some start-up events that were very interesting on the topic. Especially, what I’ve learned from STHLM Tech event is that you really need20161010_184106 to practice your pitch. And going to this kind of meet-ups can definitely help start-up founders because you can get some tips about what to say, how to be on the stage, etc. For instance, I found that the first pitcher reacted quite badly towards provocative invectives of the host. Of course the goal of this event was to criticize pitches so everybody can learn, and the host may seem a bit harsh but you shouldn’t take it personal in my opinion. The objective of this is to get a feedback on your pitch, even if it can make you feel dreadful, it is done on purpose to make you want to change what didn’t work in your speech. Well, in the end I hope she’ll manage to find a co-founder and I also strongly advised her to practice her pitch a lot, and get inspiration from this kind of events.

This little experience really taught me that sometimes network can be crucial. So if you want to build your own start-up, you should definitely talk about it around you because you don’t always know where help can come from. And obviously, going to specific start-up events for networking is an excellent way to start. For that matter I recommand to read Kevin’s article, if you’re still not convinced about that. And finally, the more you talk about your idea to people with different backgrounds, the more you’ll feel easy about it and I think it will help you to improve your pitch in the end.

Progress through Networking

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This is a short story illustrating how networking is so far the most powerful tool to progress I have encountered.

Recently we had a guest speaker in our entrepreneurship class (ME2603) and she mentioned the SUP46 Startup Café as a good place to connect with people. Since I was looking for startup events to attend and also for feedback for my venture idea I decided to follow my own advice and just “be present” there. (Check out the article here)

Putting yourself out there

When I entered the café it was rather empty and i took a quick look around before chatting up someone standing at a table. It turned out, that this person was Lana Kaupuza, the receptionist of SUP46. I explained to her the reason for my presence: to collect feedback and find people who might help me with the development of a prototype for my venture idea, the Sound Hub. (See the website here)

After explaining the idea to her she started coming up with very useful feedback and ideas for improving the business model. She also gave me several tips on how to proceed, which events and institutions to go to and even gave me a tour of the SUP46 office.

While talking to other people and collecting feedback on my venture idea I ended up helping some people from a start-up called “Nosto” in the presentation room to set up their Background screen for an event they would host that evening.

When I articulated to Lana how happy i was to get to meet all these interesting people and getting all this positive feedback she said something that stuck with me:

“There is really just two things that we have control over: Attendance and Attitude”

Networking Success

Shortly after leaving the building I started getting invitations to several Facebook chats…

Turns out Lana had asked on her Facebook if anyone was interested in helping with a project including electronics and Bluetooth and then connected anyone interested with me.

Me with my new partner

Me with my new partner

From one of these chats emerged a meeting with a guy named Shehryar Khan, a software developer at Ericsson. We met today in the Startup Café and had a quick chat about where I was going with the project and how it could be realized before he agreed to help me with the development of a prototype using an Arduino Development Kit.

This result was beyond by wildest expectations and I’m very excited to see the further development.

What can you take from this post?

  1. It’s proof that simply showing up at the right place and talking to many people can yield great results.
  2. It shows the power of networking and creating the kind of connections with people that make them happy to help you.
  3. If you feel like getting ahead with your project, but there is no start-up event happening at the moment; just got to the Startup Café at SUP46, you wont regret it!
Broccoli soup at Startup Cefé

Broccoli soup at Startup Café

PS: The Startup Café also offers very tasty food.