D.A.R.E. BizStart 2011 was the first and largest entrepreneur show in Malaysia created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs which aimed to highlight the four key facilitative factors that would jumpstart any business – D for design; A for acceleration; R for realize and E for empowerment.
Organized by the famous ‘Mad Incubators’ under the leadership of CEO Mr. Andrew Wong, the entrepreneur show included 20 seminars and workshops and had attracted over 100 exhibitors to come forward for an unprecedented opportunity to network and create partnerships as well as gaining access to potential new customer base with the huge circle of 3000 participants.
Wong, whose entrepreneurial journey had also hit rock bottom many times before becoming successful, had always stressed on the idea of D, A, R and E in ensuring any entrepreneurial success.
At BizStart 2011, the participating entrepreneurs or speakers broke down this process in details on how DESIGN drove a brand and a business forward, how ACCELERATE helped in business development and turning urgency into currency, how entrepreneurial visionaries REALIZE and understand their strengths and create alliances compensating for any weaknesses as well as how business mentors played an EMPOWERING position in any entrepreneur’s life by providing long-term commitment and a deep-seated investment in one’s future.
All these extremely important entrepreneurial philosophy and ideas, were clearly defined and dished out in the 20 seminars and workshops as well as ‘one on one business clinics’ at D.A.R.E. BizStart 2011.
Event kick-started at Sunway Piramid Convention Center on September 28 at 9.00am sharp, with keynote presentations by esteemed speakers Mr Puan Chan Cheong, MD & CEO of Green Packet Berhad, Ms Chok Kwee Bee, MD of Teak Capital, DATUK BADLISHAM GHAZALI, CEO of Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) and MR. PREMESH CHANDRAN, CEO of Malaysiakini.
At 10.30am, seminars and workshops started to take place at different venues – Room 1, Room 2, Room 3 and the stage on various topics such as the “how to” series on payment gateway by ipay88, business model by Groupon, cloud computing by Exabytes, starting a franchise business by Malaysian Franchise Association, starting a mobile technology business by Mobile Industry group, starting a SOHO business by Soho Assist Asia Sdn Bhd and many more.
On stage, topics of presentations included cloud computing by Microsoft Malaysia and inspiring women entrepreneurs by Alexdrina.
Moreover, Exabytes also took the opportunity to give an early introduction of Cloud Computing, a service which is to be launched in the very near future by Exabytes.
Widely prevalent in north America, cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over the Internet.
To make it even more exciting, our Easy.my exhibition booth offered our visitors who dropped us their business cards a chance to walk away with an iPad2 in our lucky draw!
Furthermore, customers who signed up for Easy.my package at D.A.R.E. BizStart 2011 enjoyed a jaw dropping FREE Auto-Upgrade to Platinum Plan worth RM3,199 when signing up for silver plan at only RM799.
The free upgrade lasts a LIFETIME, i.e. customers still pay only RM799 in the subsequent years for their renewals, while enjoying the wonderful benefits of the platinum plan.
At 5.00pm, the expert of Easy.my, Mr. Joel Tan from Exabytes gave a 30-minute workshop which attracted more than 25 keen participants who joined us to find out how they could build their own web stores in just a few minutes and start selling on Facebook as well as their own web stores.
Mr. Joel Tan had all this while dedicated his time and effort on the development and enhancement of Easy.my.
Participants waiting for the workshop to start
On September 29, the second day of the event, starting-up funding forum by SME Corp, MDV, CGC, Cradle and MCMC started at 10.00am with various workshops and talks such as “maximize the power of iPad to do your business” by mobile industry group, “finding the right business model for your business” by MAD Incubator, “managing customer relationships through CRM” by Mixsol Sdn Bhd among many others took place at different venues.
Joel Tan, the expert of Easy.my from Exabytes preparing to give a hands-on experience to our booth visitors on how one can start his/her online store and sell on Facebook as easy as frying an egg
After the lunch break from 1.00 to 2.00pm, various workshops and talks resumed. Bank Negara Malaysia, AKPK, Action Coach, MAD Incubator and Tech Sailor were among the speakers who presented some highly interesting topics for example “Don’t use social media – unless you know how”, “6 steps to massive results” and “Managing your debts effectively”.
Finally, it was the most exciting session for entrepreneurs and also one of the unique sessions of D.A.R.E. BizStart 2011 – The Pitch!
This precious 30-minute session was for inventors and technologists who needed funding for their business startups to pitch their invention or innovation to the group of investors or established businesses in 5 minutes for each individual.
Many made use of the most productive 5 minutes to achieve their business startup goals or their dreams in life before the event finally came to an end at 5.00pm.
