Like many, I set personal and professional goals for 2019 then, a handful of the mixes that I failed to reach the goals:
- Setup a VC fund to focus on Digital Assets
- Read more
- Travel lesser for work
- Spend lesser on gadgets
VC
- At the height of the crypto craziness in 2017, it was a great run with an investment like DragonChain, that went 100x, BTC hit 20k USD….I told the core team to look at launching a small VC fund with our own money with around 40m USD to focus on blockchain.
The focus was on South East Asia startups to massively scale the deployment in developing countries where corruption rampant. Blockchain will work excellently.
It didn’t happen as it fizzles out, I don’t have the right people, the right mindset, the right timing, and the real sustainable business models.
So instead we looked for a stronger partner that can do a better job than us and we found one recently.
Read
- My last count was about 70 titles still sitting in the tablet for me to finish reading them. This year, I read more on physical books than ebooks instead. Somehow I still love holding a physical book and flipping them.
I was hoping to cover at least 100 titles by 2019 but only managed to read about 40+ self-improvement books. Probably too ambitious. Yeah, I am.
But I did force my peers and colleagues to read more and even my clients too. Reading forces you to rest your mind and focus on learning new things with little minimum disturbance.
Travel
After a few years of struggling to get the right business model in Thailand; we finally got it right. The 2nd Generation of new business owners succeeding in their parents' business. Not too many to handle but yet impactful and measurable.
And because of this, we managed to free up resources to focus on a country that we didn't quite expect. Perhaps thanks to Trump who started the US-China Trade wars, many SMEs and 2nd Gen are rushing to the South East Asia market. We caught the wave unintentionally actually.
I was invited to Taipei to give some talks to the Accelerator managers and govt agencies and some other business owners caught us in those activities and seek help for us to help them to enter into the SEA markets rapidly.
Within a short period of time, we set up our business there (took a while to register the company), established some contacts, got to know some very good reliable and effective people. And to grow any business, we have to be there physically. I did like 10 trips within a short 8 months and plus the other trips to Thailand, Malaysia … I believe I did about 40 trips this year.
Gadgets
Instead of investing in startups like what I had been doing it for years, just a few dollars on the hardware is okay. Ok. I need to admit that I have a weakness in gadgets… anything that makes life easier I should invest in.. or so I been lying to myself.
I was holding back for a few months not to buy any stuff from the crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo. It was going well but why in the world is there so much nice stuff by the end of the year? I failed and probably 10k USD poorer and maybe the neck will grow a few inches longer waiting for all this stuff to arrive.
Conclusion
We are so used to setting high expectations that we have forgotten some of these are actually good bad habits to have. To miss the expectations that we set for ourselves at that heat of the moment.
I am not going to keep working crazy hours and forgotten to pamper myself a bit or to lose myself into books that I enjoy reading too. So I am glad that I didn’t accomplish many things that I set for this 2019.
Now for that new gadget that just got listed in indiegogo……
