🚀 Recently, I had a thought-provoking conversation with a friend about early-stage startups and the potential pitfalls when things aren’t executed right. We delved into the critical aspects of the decision-making process and the quest for the ideal co-founder for our next venture. 🤝 In my view, fairness and transparency are the cornerstones of any effective decision-making process. Running any startup/company, they are almost always having difficult times such as global economic downturn or market related problems and occasional missteps by CEOs or stakeholders are par for the course. ...

As I have been working in startups for the past decade, and as everyone said, 90% of startups fail. 😓😅 and I personally can confirm this is absolutely true. But what’s even more weird and sadly funny is that, despite each startup’s claim to be unique, they often succumb to the same set of problems, eventually die because of that. 😔💥 Here is what I found in my experience, especially on the engineering side. 🛠️ ...

In the startup world, whenever I attend a meetup, most people’s opening line is: ‘What’s your idea? What are you looking for? My idea is this.’ If they don’t find common interests, they just move on and repeat the process. Early-stage startups and aspiring founders often struggle to find the right co-founder. So, they frequently post job listings, seek connections through friends, or attend local events. And once again, they approach me with the same introduction. ...

According to International Business Machines (IBM), ‘IBM Global Services: A Brief History,’ outsourcing was first recognized as a business strategy in 1989 and became an integral part of business economics throughout the 1990s. Originally, they only focused on what they could do well, and some companies were split from their parent companies to support other sister companies collectively. However, as new industries emerged and the market became saturated with outsourcing companies, they needed to explore new domains rather than solely relying on wellknown business models in which they excelled, later this led to the outsourcing companies needing to outsource their business to other smaller companies and freelancers. Eventually, the outcomes from these companies will worsen and worsen. 😔 ...

Last month, I hired an intern from Singapore. She was my former intern in one of my previous companies. When she started to work with me again, I realized that she usually works at night, like an owl. She told me that she feels smarter during the nighttime and mentioned that she usually sleeps in the morning. What a global-minded girl. 🌏🦉 When I hired her, I created a mini program called “What If You Became a CTO in Your Startup.” Every week, I assign her tasks, explain concepts, and engage in discussions about what a CTO should consider. I let her make decisions. ...

Last time I wrote about an outsourcing company’s hidden business model. If you want to see it, please check my post here. 👉 According to International Business Machines, “IBM Global Services: A Brief History. Outsourcing was first recognized as a business strategy in 1989 and became an integral part of business economics throughout the 1990s”. The early globally-scaled IT outsourcing came from India. One of the key benefits was the time zone difference. If we asked them to do something today, the team could fix the issue by tomorrow morning while you are asleep. Another example would be if you have several companies, you might realize that by creating one IT company to support all IT matters in your other companies, you could save costs. Here’s a hidden secret: one day, your coworker who works with you suddenly transfers to an IT company under the same ownership and supports the same tasks with different salaries. 💼💡 As the outsourcing business models are growing fast and look promising, lots of countries join these trends and provide similar services. Originally most of the clients were big enough to have internal members and manage the outsourcing staff, and even if the outsourcing company provides a new staff, someone from the clients can share the knowledge with them. Now, as new industries emerge and many new business models come out by new startups, and as there are too many outsourcing companies in the market, eventually, they need to find new domains rather than focusing on the well-known business models that they can do well which leads to the outsourcing companies needing to outsource their business to other smaller companies and freelancers, similar to the typical construction industry. Eventually, the outcomes from these companies will worsen and worsen. 😔 ...

I often talk to early stage founders, and sometimes I find quite similar misconceptions from them. Here is something I’ve observed: 🔍 Common Misconceptions About Tech in Startups 🔍 🌐 If we build an internal system in my company, instantly we can make that a whitelabel package. And that is not that difficult 👨‍💻, and if an engineer says it is not, that is just a typical engineer response. They are too negative all the time. ...