Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Brief updates: On distributionship, rebranding and my one-year-old blog

Hadn’t been updating this blog for weeks as I was rather busy with some other things. Firstly, I had been preparing the distributionship agreement for my product, both the exclusive and non-exclusive versions. Secondly, I was also busy with some rebranding work on my product. Due to the recent advancement in distributionship talks with B, I had made a change in my original roadmap for my product.

My original plan was:
1. Upgrade my product to version 3.
2. Freeze the baseline and rebrand the product
3. Repackage the product
4. Revamp the product page of my website to be more interactive
5. Actively look for overseas distributors and more local resellers
6. Continue to upgrade the product to version 4

However, I figured that the upgrades to version 3 might take quite some time, so I changed my plan accordingly:
1. Revise the features to be implemented in version 3. Implement one small portion of it, scrape one portion of it, and move the remaining portion to version 4.
2. Follow steps 2 to 6 of previous plan.

In this way, I would be able to push my product to overseas market much faster than I originally planned. In fact, I should have pushed my product overseas much earlier, as the local market is too limited. However, the engineer side of me had always put product enhancement on top priority, and kept delaying the business aspect. It was this engineer side of me that was always feeling insecure about my product, and wanting to build it to perfection before I introduced it to the world. But the fact is, you need not be the best in order to fight the international competition, as long as you know where your strength lies. The international market is big enough to sustain many players.

Company’s matters aside, this blog had quietly marched pass its one-year-old birthday. My initial objective of creating this blog was to record down the thoughts and experiences during my entrepreneurship journey. When this blog was first created, I had just bounced back from a very difficult period in my life. I did not know how far I can go, or how long I can survive in this lonely voyage. Thus, I created this blog, so that if I eventually failed, I would still be able to remember all that I had went through. Slowly, as this blog had gained more readership, I began to share some of my thoughts on the local entrepreneur or IT scene and other stuffs.

However, I still had this strange feeling that I wasn’t really a blogger. Perhaps it was due to my low frequency in updating this blog (I still couldn’t understand how some bloggers can churn out posts everyday, or even multiple posts per day). Or maybe it’s due to my lack of participation in any bloggers’ communities or activities. Or maybe because I do not know any bloggers in real life. But whatever the reasons, ironically speaking, the importance of this blog had slowly grown in my heart. Although I had been blogging behind a moniker, there was a certain portion of my identity embedded into this blog, which effectively made this blog an extension of my true self. So I guessed, whether I feel like a blogger or not, is no longer important. At least, this is my true voice.

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