Today, I wrote an email to Li Zitong, a member of xWaylab.

I’ve publicised everything unabridged, here’s the content:

xWaylab Call Up

From: (Ryan) Zhou Tong
To: Li Zitong
Date: 05 July 2010 1:10:21 AM

Hi Zitong,

Good news, xWaylab is alive again. I’m not very sure whether you still remember xWaylab or not. In this email, I will simply give you some updates I have at xWaylab.

You are and will be a member of xWaylab. Today, I would like to assign you as the Chief Happiness Officer of xWaylab. I’m deeply aware that the company culture as well as core values are deciding factors of success, especially after reading the book Delivering Hapiness by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com, Inc. I’m quite impressed by your personality and I believe that you are exactly the perfect person to bring xWaylab up and running. (If you are interested in reading this book, feel free to borrow from me.)

You may or may not notice that TechXav is on sale. We planned to sell it for a reserve price of US$3,500. Honestly saying, I’m not so confident in this sale. But anyway, once the deal is closed, I will invest exact S$1,000 in xWaylab. This amount of money will be enough to keep xWaylab running for a least one year.

Currently there is no clear definition about what xWaylab is and what xWaylab is doing. I don’t want to come up with a definition either. Our work is simple – to use simplicity and inspiration to change the world. Internet is a fast growing industry, and everyone of us has the equal opportunity to succeed. I saw a clear growing trend in niche areas such as Software-as-a-Service and “web-based anything” (my own term). I’m ambitious that xWaylab will be the leader of Internet one day, and more importantly, we keep everything small and simple.

I will register xWaylab as a Private Limited company in Singapore in 2012, and probably a Limited Liability Corporation in China and United States after that. This is serious, though I don’t want to mention too much about these formal stuff.

The business really started. Whatever it will be, I will finish the first project on my own by the end of this year (after O Level, apparently). You don’t have many tasks now, as we only have two members here. The titled job for you is just to keep everyone happy. I’m not sure when will we hire or invite the third person. But anyway, by the time we have three people, it’s time for you to think more about your future career, as in whether you want to stay in xWaylab or fly solo, and what are the things you really want to do in the future.

Finally, I hope you can set an ultimate goal of your life, so that everything can be cleared when you are young. I don’t want to bring up the core values yet, as I think it’s unnecessary to say much about this when we don’t have a single product.

My task is to build products and make them profitable on day one. Your task is to make us and everyone related to xWaylab including our customers and partners happy. I’ll fully respect your position (my happiness is under your control) and decisions.

I’m anticipating a wonderful co-operation with you, my dear friend and perfect business partner!
Best Regards,
(Ryan) Zhou Tong
CEO of xWaylab

http://www.zhoutong.me/

I was not abandoning xWaylab – the Internet team focused on innovation, if you’ve heard from me. Well, the site is still “coming soon”, that’s for almost a year.

Inspired by 37signals’ simplicity strategy, I believe that I can work much more on that. I always think that all the companies on the planet can be improved even more, in terms of efficiency and simplicity. xWaylab is exactly going to put all the possible effort to change the way people think and react to changes.

I’m not going to make xWaylab just a software company, though it’s generally all about web-based stuff. I want to take all fresh ideas, and take actions based on them. An excellent software company should be idea-driven. But that’s not enough for xWaylab. I want all xWayers to drive the ideas.

An interesting term – “Driving the ideas”. That’s the new slogan of xWaylab, and hopefully it will last for a long time. If you are sensitive enough, you may think about drivingtheideas.com. Well, don’t worry, I’ve already reserved. It’s a perfect name for the future “company blog”.

After ‘O’ Level, all things will start accordingly. The first concept I want to improve is the “freemium” model, which is quite popular among modern web apps. I will talk about this in my later posts.

Please don’t ask me about the number of people inside xWaylab. I can’t tell you exactly, it may be 1, 2 or 3. It’s hard to draw a bottom line for that, as lots of people are helping me. I don’t want to decide this, which you may think it’s a basic thing for a team, or company. Yes, members or employees are important, but they are still not as important as products.

Products are my first priorities, I will fly solo for the first few projects. When xWaylab becomes profitable, everything will be clear then. I’m simply not going to worry about those “basic” stuff, they might be basic, but they are not essential, for us.

Please be patient, and wait for me to drive the ideas.

I’m not (yet) a successful or professional entrepreneur, businessman or whatever. This post is just my personal opinions about important factors of success, in Internet business.

Importance of Flexibility

Every one can understand that flexibility is really important to a company/project, however, it is especially crucial for Internet-related businesses. Why? Because the Internet represents the fast-changing modern world, if you are unable to follow up, you are going to lose easily. Old stuff doesn’t work on the Internet.

Following up to the trend requires lots of flexibility, creating new markets also requires flexibility. The word appears everywhere. Apple created a new product called iPod in 2001, and subsequently introduced iTunes, iTunes Store, and today’s hottest gadgets – iPhone and iPad. It renamed its company name from Apple Computers Incorporated to just Apple Incorporated, which means that Apple is not just a computer company, and it has refreshed its revenue stream, completely.

Apple had the flexibility to think in another way, all thanks to Steve Jobs’ wise leadership, Apple was a super big company before 2001, and now it changed to a super super big company (total market value is over Microsoft).

As a person, I am just a teenager. As the CEO of TechXav, we are just a start-up. We have top-of-the-line flexibility to follow whatever we think is trendy. Personally, in my previous Internet project called Askforia, I failed because I was over-ambitious until the project got so large and bloated. I regret what I did, really.

How to be Flexible

It seems that I don’t have the “eligibility” to talk about being flexible. Well, I may not have such experience, but I do have the contrasting side – experience of being not flexible. Now let me teach you how to be not flexible. (The hint is – avoid this!)

Things that can get a company/project bloated easily:

• Comparing with competitors (in my case, Aardvark and Yahoo! Answers) – determined that I’m always passive.
• Unnecessary meetings (especially those weekly meetings, a waste of time!)
• Long-term decisions
• Too many features (related to “focus”, will talk about this later)
• Get many people involved
• Extremely detailed plans
• Untidy and rubbish code (I developed the site when I was still new to Ruby on Rails)
• Over-early releases

Being flexible is quite easy actually, because you just need to know what you will lose when you give up everything, and simply give up what you will lose before everything. (Seems confusing, but damn, it’s true)

For TechXav, we do have lots of Twitter followers and subscribers, however, there are only a few loyal readers (hope you are). In terms of flexibility, we are at least able to change our main focus without losing a lot. That’s why I’m able to realise my problems and be honest to all of you here. The problems with TechXav are more related to the following subtopic – focus.

“Do we have focus?”

Whoever loves TechXav very much, please hands up. Well, I’m glad to see quite a few people with hands up. But the problem is, not all. Well, it’s not greedy (though I’m a perfectionist), it’s our joint target here.

It’s so hard to get TechXav united because we really love you, dear readers and authors. Of course we can simply wipe out all the data and start all over again, but definitely we will not do that. We spent almost half a year to figure out a way to let TechXav be focused on only one topic and niche area gracefully.

You may see the numbers of our Twitter followers or feed subscribers growing, but honestly saying, we are actually losing readers – especially those loyal ones. It’s not because of the infrequent updates recently, it’s actually because every post of us must get some readers bored and eventually they unsubscribed.

How to avoid this? Simple, just focus on one niche area, make sure everyone like that. If we really can do that, you won’t be subscribing TechXav because of just one post, you will find that every post is your best-love, and I’m sure that you are not going to leave us. And definitely, you will be recommending our blog to your friends and colleagues, and apparently they are going to love TechXav too.

This is just our example, if you can understand the example, you should be able to fully understand the important of focus.

How to be Focused

Of course, I’m still thinking how…

But at least I know some good ways to get a company/project focused, listed here:

• Always say “NO” to a new feature – inspired by the story of the agile team in 37signals, LLC.
• Be flexible first – if you are unable to change from the current situation, how are you going to be focused?
• Less is better – I believe that focus is a hidden treasure, it has its long-term value. Less (features/posts) at the beginning, and much more (readers/customers) will come later.
• Never listen to an “irrelevant” customer/reader (I’m not offending anyone here, it’s just a basic approach).

Not many ways really, because it seems to be quite easy to focus – but when you really get to do it, you’ll know it’s actually not.

Ending

I’m busy, but I’m still going to work on my babies (TechXav and xWaylab). Currently TechXav’s planned topics-of-choice are listed here, for your information only (you can leave a comment to “vote” for your favourite):

• Mobile Web
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Infographics
• Open Source
• Local IT Development (currently we have local blogs in Singapore, Philippines and China)
• Teenager & Tech
• Blogging Techniques & Tips
• Agile Management
• Ruby on Rails

I’m not going to exceed 1,000 words. So I’d better to stop here. By the way, this post is not a good example of focus, because there are two topics.

This my first ever blog post written with my iPod touch.

Really unfortunately, the school principal and my teacher mentor decided to confiscate all the computers owned by scholars. So I will not be able to use my MacBook all the way to the end of the O Level.

I don’t really need to argue with the fact and decision. I accepted, but with a counter offer – I will pass my MacBook to Xavier instead of the principal. So that I can get back my MacBook in case of emergency.

Anyway, using iDevices only in my tech life is also a good experience. At least I can have the basic self-control, especially in terms of time management. I know what I should do at a time.

I will be tweeting often and blogging often though. Since these two activities can help my improve my English, in particular, expository writing. However, as a result of using iDevice only, I will not be able to code anymore. Therefore, I will my current development projects aside first.

Don’t worry, I will still reply your emails and tweets, as I actually have the time and have the appropriate devices to do all these.

Lastly, RIP my MacBook.

Case Studies? No, not that big. I’m simply interested in these two companies, they both tell us the new and innovative ways of doing business. However, they are also completely different in company culture. Here’re my views.

37signals: A company that will never “grow”

Guys at 37signals hate a lot of things, such as investments, meetings, plans, resumes and press releases – generally everything you’re going to love about business. But they remain efficient and profitable during the past 10 years. They show a different way of making money.

With 10+ employees “distributed” in 8 countries, those guys can collaborate very well, and they made amazing products like Basecamp and Backpack. Until I read the book REWORK, I can never imagine how 37signals can go so well against businessmen’s general thinking.

Focusing on quality, doing less than competitors, keeping small in size – These are the 21st century version of company culture for new start-ups (no, not start-ups, start-ups are excuses, generally, businesses).

Y Combinator: More than making money

Y Combinator is not a typical Venture Capitalist, they fund and help start-ups. If you can get a list of companies that were funded by Y Combinator, you will know how successful Y Combinator is: Dropbox, Wufoo, Reddit, Heroku, Disqus and so on.

Basically, Y Combinator is a place where experienced people can help unexperienced people to optimize ideas. In this way, money is not really what the start-ups are looking for, they are more interested in guidance. Y Combinator only makes small investments (rarely exceeds $20,000, as mentioned) and takes a small share.

Being invested by Y Combinator can ensure the flexibility and freedom of the business. And that’s exactly what every young entrepreneur is dreaming about. Similar as 37signals, they don’t like business proposal and slide presentations, they prefer meet in-person and decide the investment agreement immediately.

I believe that the value of a blog cannot be measured by the number of subscribers or visitors. Then I have no reason to track these numbers.

I don’t have to know how many people have “subscribed” my blog. Well, subscribing my blog doesn’t mean reading my posts, and reading my posts doesn’t mean understanding them.

If you want to show me that you have read and understood my posts, then I suggest you a better way – to comment. Leaving your comment can help me get your ideas, you can I’m right, or wrong, at least let me know what you think.

Welcome to subscribe my blog with the link http://www.zhoutong.me/feed if you don’t want to miss my posts.

What do you think about the iPad?

Many people think iPad is an oversized iPod touch, but I don’t think in this way. I’m not really interested in the Wi-Fi model, instead, I prefer the Wi-Fi + 3G model since 3G connection will make a big difference from iPad and iPod touch or iPhone.

iPad is the cheapest solution to browser the web with best experience anywhere, share multimedia content with friends with long-lasting batteries, simple functionality and an appropriate size.

There are NO replacements for iPad currently, because iPad is not a (useless) MID, not a (buggy) tablet, not a (slow) netbook, not an (overpriced) mobile phone and not anything (not good) we had.

Have you tried to get academic credit at school for your work on the blog? Does your school recognise what you’ve been doing with your spare time?

Well, not at all. I personally feel it’s not the correct way to go. Education is education, career is career. As a teenager, I have to handle both well (independently) to be outstanding, isn’t it?

I don’t have the (bad) habit of getting any benefit from my extra work. My extra work in my career will provide me with by-products such as experience, understanding and skills, which are more valuable than anything I can get from the school education alone.

Everyone dreams about CEOs and managers, all of us want to control other people instead of being controlled. The society will not go properly in that way. In order to be successful, I know I must do much more than my peers, to win the competition when I am young.

You guys recently started TechXav Philippines – why did you choose the Philippines to expand?

Firstly we have a cool guy called Deondre Ng living there, he is an experienced blogger and photographer, and we all believe that he can handle the job very well in Philippines.

Secondly we had a plan to enter the Asian market. The US tech blog giants such as TechCrunch and Mashable have “dominated” almost all of the America and Europe. The leftover for us is luckily the best place for rapid growth – Asia. We have so many developing countries to choose from, and we have no pressure in competitions with those adults. When we grow up, the opportunities will be ours.

I personally want to talk more about TechXav China and TechXav Singapore, since these two blogs are directly managed by me. These are exceptions as Internet market in these two countries are already quite matured, however, we still got chance to differentiate ourselves from the mass because of the huge task of localisation.

This problem is quite obvious in China, especially, most TNCs failed in China because they don’t understand the culture, they use their western mindsets to assume the culture there. We believe that we can do much better than them. Whereas in Singapore, the government pushes ICT development very strongly, we have no way to reject the growing trend – the money is there, the market will follow up soon.

I just found that I had too many things that I cannot do now.

Ideas always come faster than my ability to handle them. I don’t have enough time, passion or even eligibility to go through all of them. Therefore, a better alternative is to write them down, share with my friends and hopefully to see the work done by others.

This blog is all about thoughts, ideas, my work and my life. From the title and taglines of this blog, you probably know that I’m a Ruby (on Rails) developer. As you browse through the content, you will get some of my interesting ideas about the future Internet, the market insights as well as my personal thoughts about business and management.

I have decided to start my blog, then have you decided to read this? Please subscribe if you find this blog useful for you.

BTW, there is no “hello world”, because I believe that you just don’t want to read it.