Ten habits of highly effective entrepreneurs

1. They note down their ideas (just like my Investment Notebook). If there is an ah-ha moment, they would quickly note it down and revisit the idea again.

2.They think through their ideas over and over again to see if they can be successful. Sometimes their ideas might have been implemented by others. But if they are able to develop a better and more cost effective way of doing it, then they stand a higher chance of winning.

3. They do their homework and spend tonnes of effort on researching. After all, no generals would like to fight a losing battle.

4. They can sell their ideas effectively. In business, if you cannot sell, you are finished. To make money, you must know sales tactics.

5. Passionate about their ideas. Conviction and belief are key to a successful business idea. A successful entrepreneur would always speak with a belly of fire whenever they touch on their projects.

6. They have no qualms in making revisions to their business strategies and adapting to changes if it means to making more money.

7. Great entrepreneurs are fiercely resilient and do not give up easily without a good fight. They are not affected by setbacks and would do anything to win.

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Five reasons you should not quit your job to start up your own business

Starting up a business is not easy and very often, it can really take over a person’s life due to the huge efforts and financial commitments required. Therefore normally I would not advise anyone to quit their job and start a business because that could be a recipe for disaster. Do it right and your life changes drastically for the better. Do it wrong and your life goes spirally downhill. So always plot your move carefully and make sure you do your homework before making the big escape from the rat race. Below are five reasons why you must never quit your job and start up your business.

Starting up a business needs time
Starting a successful business takes time. Do not be fooled by media reports of young entrepreneurs achieving overnight success and becoming incredibly rich. Founders of Microsoft, Google and Facebook actually went through a lot of hardship, trial and errors before attaining wild success at international platform. They had made a lot of mistakes and setbacks before achieving business successes. Henceforth, learn from others mistake and avoid the potential pitfalls. It could be a long time before your business makes any profit, so make sure you hold a job while going through the phase of starting up a business.

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Investment Notebook: Opportunity Fund Part II

In my previous posting, “Investment Notebook: Opportunity Fund”, one of my readers posed this question to me “how many percentage of my net worth coming from the return of my stock investment, would I consider it has made me rich”.

This is a very interesting question and it has set me pondering hard for several days. One thing for sure is that I did not have a clear cut answer to that question but nevertheless, I shall try my best to reply.

Rate of returns VS net worth yield
When I invest in anything, normally I look at the potential rate of return on my investment capital. For example, if I rent out a HDB flat I would set a yield target of 10 -15%. Likewise, when I invest in stock, my target is value appreciation of 10-20%.

For example, when I activated my “Opportunity Fund” in 2008, I made a return of about 17% from my stock investments of S$20,000. Setting return target based on personal net worth is another matter altogether. It requires one to consider their personal income, fixed assets (housing, CPF,etc), insurance policies, investments (gold, shares, property,etc) at that point of time.

Furthermore, one’s net worth changes all the time, subjected to economic situation.

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