Gosh I’ve been traveling back and forth so much lately that I’m beginning to feel the strain. I mean I was just back in KL for a few days when this morning I found myself in KLIA with my bags packed again wearing my trusty “Mr.Happy” t-shirt.

My “Mr.Happy” t-shirt seems to be my default traveling shirt. Like whenever I board a plane I’m wearing that shirt.

This morning I was at the McDs in KLIA when I walked to the cashier to place my order.
The minute the cashier saw me she said
“Mr. Happy!!!”.

I smiled at her and said
“Yes… good morning.. Mr. Happy would like a Sausage McMuffin set with egg please”.

Anyway after my Sunday morning breakfast I boarded the plane and a few hours later…

Helloooooooo Manila!
I’m down in Manila for much of this week to meet up with the Filipino Nuffies at our office here and get some things sorted out. Nuffnang Philippines seems to be taking off really quick. Just a few weeks after our launch and we now have close to 1,000 Nuffnangers signed up here and we’re in the midst of launching our first ad campaigns.

Whew… the excitement.

I really kinda like Manila. It’s just… nice and the people here are so warm.

I was walking on the street and a policeman walked past me and greeted me
“Good evening Sir”.

I was a little taken aback…. I mean I’ve never been greeted by a policeman before merely for walking any street in any part of the world.

Ahh anyway, I gotta get ready to go to bed soon guys. Have an early start tomorrow with the Pinoy Nuffies.

Nite nite! Will blog more about my trip here in time to come!

Some of the Nuffies from the Singapore office are down in KL these few days so we’ve all been having quite a lot of fun.

Our days are spent in our KL office with Bob Marley playing in the background and with occasional shouting, screaming and laughing.

And of course there is the occasional chilling session at Nuffie’s corner.

We’re all such typical bloggers. Everyone camwhores whether in the office, or at dinner or heck even in the lift while going down for lunch.

Then came dinner time.

Something that everyone who works at Nuffnang agrees is that everyone working here feels like family. And when families get together for a reunion (eventhough it’s only half of us that manage to make it to KL), we go for a good dinner.

This time it was STEAMBOAT DINNER!!!

For these dinners, Ming specifically instructs that we “whack everything” or in other words, don’t save on the food!

So we ended up ordering enough food to feed an army.
Then the time came for us to order our drinks.

I asked for a “watermelon juice” and the waitress asked
“Big or small?”

Ming shouted right away
“BIG!!!”

The waitress wanted to make sure… she said
“Big is really big you know?”

Ming looked at her for a few seconds and then said
“BIG!”

So our watermelon juice came!
This is how I think all juices should be served. Not in any lesser cup.

Over dinner we all had a good talk about everything. It first started with a lot of teasing one another and a lot of jokes but it then everyone took turns to tell us all how they felt about working for Nuffnang.

As Nicholas described it
“It doesn’t feel like work”.

Then Ming went on to share the future of Nuffnang with everyone.

With the US and the world economy in the worst financial crisis we’ve had since 1929, things aren’t looking too good. For example, as of March 07, AIG was worth $179billion but as of this month September 08 it’s worth only $5.7 billion.Right now in Malaysia, we’ve already started to see some cracks.

I read an article the other day in The Star about how a number of merchants are facing a slowdown in business even so close to Hari Raya whereas in previous years, business during Raya had always been great.

“A Storm is up ahead“… Ming said… “and we all have to make sure we’re ready for it“.

And he’s right, as much as Nuffnang has achieved so far none of us can afford to rest for the true test of the stability of any business is its ability to survive during recessions. Nuffnang is about to be put through the test of its time. During a recession of this magnitude, I would imagine costs may go up and ad spend may go down.

After our wonderful dinner we proceeded to do a little more camwhoring starting with my very first picture with our newest Nuffie: Raine.

Then a group picture with everyone else who was able to make it that night.

To the rest of the Nuffies that didn’t make it.. don’t worry. We’ll have a big end of the year dinner for everyone ok?

While heading back home at the end of the night, Ming said to me
“I think we have one of the best most passionate teams we can ever ask for.”

I nodded my head and let out a smile.
“Yes we do…. yes we do”.

When I was studying in London I used to watch the House of Commons debates that they often aired on TV.
It’s basically a debate between the two main political parties there, the Labour and Conservative where they would question and defend one anothers’ policies.

The leader of the opposition now is this guy named David Cameron and in this debate I’m about to show you guys, he’s debating with the Prime Minister of Britain at that time: Tony Blair.

Both Tony Blair and David Cameron studied at Oxford University in their younger days.

Now I have to admit something… that I love watching these debates.

It’s just amazing and it’s not just because they all speak really well and with facts rather than just talk but look at the way they respond to one another.

Sure they bash each other but they both respond with class. Neither one of them were defensive or emotional when they were getting bashed.

I mean heck… with most other people… I would imagine if you were bashed in a debate especially with some personal attacks, sooner or later it’ll get messy with someone throwing an F word at another but this doesn’t seem to happen here at all.

Watch this one and you’ll see what I mean.

I am truly impressed.

And when you’re done with that, check out this dubbed spoof version.

I wanna be able to debate like that some day.

I like reading the stories and lives of the young successful entrepreneurs in Malaysia simply because I draw a lot of inspiration from them… to strive to maybe be as successful as some of them are some day.

But after a while if you’ve been actively reading things like that you begin to feel that you keep hearing the same stories over and over possibly because.. well maybe there aren’t that many of those around but I started wondering why… I mean there are 25 million people in Malaysia, there can’t be only like a handful of young successful entrepreneurs.

So I started paying a lot of attention to people around us and this week I’m back in Penang.

I was going for lunch today with some of our Penang Nuffies and we were going to this usual beef noodle stall we always have in Penang. To the locals here it’s known as the “Bomba” beef noodle since it’s right opposite a fire station.

The person behind the beef noodles is this really young and cute looking girl who looks like she’s still in her twenties.
I ordered my food then waited there and started counting the number of bowls she was serving out.

Then I started to do some math to estimate and I really mean estimate how much she makes (I didn’t actually ask her… it’s rude to ask people how much they make.. haha)

Okay her coffee shop was full and she is the only stall there.

I think the coffee shop can sit about 30 people at one go. She has two sizes for the bowl of noodles she sells. The big one costs RM8 and the small one costs RM6.

I always go during lunch hour but I think she’s open in the morning too so lets say for each meal session she has about 3 total table turnovers.

So that’s 3 turnovers in the morning and 3 in the afternoon… 6 a day in total. 30 X 6 = 180 people she serves in a day.
She’s open 6 days a week so that’s about 1,080 people a week and 4,320 people a month. Assuming each person eats only one bowl of beef noodle she sells 4,320 bowls a month.

Now lets say we take the average price of a beef noodle to be RM7 per bowl. That’s RM30,240 a month in revenue and RM362,880 a year.

Assuming that of the RM362,880 she makes a year, 60% is used to pay her rent, her ingredients costs and all other costs. She would make about RM145,152 a year or RM12,096 a month just from selling her beef noodles.

Now I don’t know about everyone else but if you’re making that kind of money in your twenties… you’re doing pretty well.

I wonder if I might see her on a magazine cover one day.

Who knows.. perhaps by the time she’s 30 she might have a chain of beef noodle restaurants called

“The Bomba Beef Noodle Shop”

And you’ll be hearing their ads over the radio.

Sometimes I wonder why so many young people want to go into online businesses… heck… it’s brick & mortar or food businesses like these that make the real money!

Like Ming once told me
“It may not be sexy but it makes money”.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Check this link out.

Hahaha it’s too funny not to share!!!

It’s a screenshot of this guy in a forum trying to get some photoshop help but got a lot more than he asked for.

I was reading Adoi Magazine, the leading magazine for the online advertising industry and they wrote an article about the Malaysian Media Conference that I happened to give a speech at.

They put up a picture of me while I was giving my speech there and I thought it was a really funny picture.
It looks as if I was saying “SHIIIITTTT!!!!”.

What does it look like I was saying to you guys?

One of the perks of being a blogger these days is not just that you get to make a little bit of money or get invites to all sorts of events but once in a while, you get invited for some free food, especially if you’re friends with people like Suanie and KY.

Just a few weeks ago, Suanie gave me a call and asked me for dinner at Coca in Subang Parade along with FA and Ringo.

Since I haven’t seen some of them for the longest time I decided why not!
You know you’re eating with bloggers when the food comes and everybody is not allowed to touch it for the first 10 minutes to give time for everyone to take pictures with their cameras.

Suanie and KY snapped away… FA, Ringo and I were the poor example of bloggers.

All we did was sit there watching them snap away and saying
“OI!!!! CAN EAT ALREADY OR NOT?!?!”

Heck at one point one of us stirred one of the curry dishes (all we did it stir it.. not even eat it)… and Suanie shouted something along the lines of
“HANDS OFF THE CHICKEN!!!”

Now to add to that. Here’s another stressful part about eating with bloggers sometimes. They sometimes take candid pictures of you eating and lets face it…. NOBODY looks their best while they are eating.Nobody!!!

Even Jessica Alba doesn’t look good when she’s eating.

Allow me to illustrate.

This is Jessica Alba when she’s doing something other than eating.
And this is Jessica Alba when she’s eating.

See my point?

And here’s the thing… when you eat with bloggers not only are ‘eating pictures’ taken of you but they’re also posted up on their blogs which are often read by hundreds if not thousands of people each day!!!!
So everybody… learn from FA.

Just before you know a blogger is going to take a picture of you… you STOP eating and you POSE!!!

Pose now!!!

And more often than not you hardly get the chance to tell the blogger next to you about the picture being taken so you leave her as she is… SAVE YOURSELF!!!

Which is why in this picture FA looks perfectly posey and Ringo looks like she’s staring into space.

Anyway back to the dinner…. the nice people at Coca spoilt us!

They really did!

They had gave us everything prawns to lobsters to fried calamari.And when they found out that I don’t take much seafood, they even made a few chicken dishes just for me.

Then the dessert came!

Check out my Mango Dessert!
It was a great dinner… not just the great food and great service but the great company too.

It’s always nice to catch up with old friends every now and then.

Thanks for inviting us Coca!

And thanks for all the juices we shamelessly drank up.

Okay so Nuffnang Philippines has launched just about a week plus ago and the response has been great. So much that the team there is now down and busy talking to advertisers on launching our first ads there.

Now anyway to mark the arrival the team in Nuffnang PH has been doing all sorts of things… and one of them is a giant Outcomm LED Board ad that they put up on one of the busiest streets of Manila.

One of the Nuffies there even took a recording of the ad and posted it up on YouTube.

Check it out.

Boy I have never seen such a big Nuffnang logo before.

On another note, I was just browsing 88DB.com.my and checking out their ads. They have this contest going on now where the most creative classifieds ad that you put up will win PSPs or a 4 Day 3 Night Trip to Bali.

Then I happened to see a funny ad there.

This joker was selling his FISH on 88db.com.my

And he even put up sort of a poem on the ad.

four huge Japanese kois
around 20 inches each
kohakus, showa, also tancho
swimming in the pond

but with size restriction
they’ve outgrown the pond
looking for new home
to grow into jumbos

pictures worth lotsa words
taken a year ago
now bigger and rounder
come see for yourself

striking colors, beautiful shapes
these fish are gems
to let go at
eleven thousand triple eight

email me to ask
ky at kyspeaks dot com
and you can get
all the four fishes

And then I looked and it closer and it occurred to me that it was KY‘s ad.

LOL KY you damn fahney.

Jom I help you pimp your add.

Everyone go and vote for KY’s ad on 88db.com.my or if you want go and do your own ad and compete with KY.

*Update

One of our Nuffies just sent me this. Here’s a day time version of Outcomm’s LED Board Ad

I was watching Sex and the City: The Movie last night.

Yeah I know I’m a little slow but I didn’t until recently manage to get around to actually watching it. I’m one of the few guys I know who actually follow the series. Well okay not really one of the few, but I think only about half of the guys I know follow it.

It all started during my second year of university where I shared an apartment with two girls.

Every Wednesday night they would steal the remote from me and overrule me in choosing what channel to watch so I was forced to watch Sex and the City with them.

I eventually grew to like it… I love Samantha Jones… she’s hilarious!!!

Anyway there was a scene in the movie where Carrie was left by her groom on her wedding day and was so heartbroken she went for a trip somewhere and slept for days.

It got me thinking. In so many movies we see people leaving their other halfs on the alter during their wedding day for getting cold feet or for whatever reason but does this really actually happen in real life?

Then I remembered… and I thought about one of my friends whom I will here refer to as Joseph.

Joseph was a young and successful professional. I mean heck the guy graduated from a great university and found himself a job with a ridiculous salary package. I think he was earning a basic of RM4,000-RM7,000 a month as a fresh grad excluding annual performance bonuses that can range from 12-24 months depending on the year.

Since his university days, Joseph was dating another girl whom I will refer to here as Debbie. Debbie was another high achiever like Joseph with a bright future. I mean she too graduated from a top university and found herself a job that also paid her a fortune.

The future was bright for the both of them and they were in a 5-year relationship before they finally decided to get married. Wedding preparations were made, the venue was booked and the invitation cards were sent out. It looked like it was going to be one helluva wedding.

Then just 2 weeks before the wedding was supposed to take place, the wedding suddenly got called off. All the hundreds of guests who were sent the invitation cards including myself were informed that the wedding was off. Everyone was in the dark but sooner or later word got out.

Apparently the rumour has it that Debbie had been sleeping with Joseph’s best friend and Joseph had just found out about it 2 weeks before the wedding. I think Joseph was prepared to forgive her and go ahead with the wedding but Debbie didn’t want to get married to him anymore. Maybe she was confused, or maybe she really did see something more in his best friend than him.

Joseph was heartbroken, so heartbroken he couldn’t even go to work for a week. When I later saw him, his face had changed. He had deep eye bags below his once cheerful deep eyes and you could see that he had just gone through many many sleepless nights.

His confidence and self-esteem too had been hurt so much that he had a bit of a knee jerk reaction. Before the wedding he was saving up money to put down the downpayment for a home.

But now that there wasn’t a wedding anymore and sure he could’ve still bought himself a home but he needed something to boost his confidence. so he took all the money and with a car loan bought himself a BMW.

Now in a normal sense of the world, that’s the last thing anyone with any form of money should do. If you made some good money, first you invest it in a home or in other assets to grow it, not buy yourself an expensive car. You buy yourself the car only when you’ve made many many millions!

But none of us could blame him. He needed to feel better about himself and while sitting in his brand new BMW the other day he told all of us

“You know I feel that people look at my differently when I drive this car. When I drive on the road, more girls turn to look at me. In my previous car nobody seemed to give a damn”.

That’s probably only half true… but at least he felt it helped.

With the story of Joseph in my mind I started thinking of my heartbreak. I’ve been through heartbreak once before in my life and it was the worst feeling to ever have. I remember how I didn’t have the appetite to eat, how I wanted to sleep away my days and how whenever I went out, I feared that I might bump into her.

But after all the heartbreak and struggles, I changed… possibly for the better or possibly for the worse. An emotional self-defence barrier emerged in myself where I was able to control the level of feelings I had for any of my subsequent girlfriends. Perhaps it was myself fearing heartbreak again to fall in love again but I never suffered or cried in all the break-ups of all my following relationships.

A friend of mine recently told me that one day some girl will sweep me off my feet again and break my heart no matter how prepared I am.

Well I guess we can all never be too sure.

PS: Joseph today has moved on with his life pretty well. New beautiful girlfriend… and still doing well in his career. Debbie too has moved on and last I heard she’s doing well too. They’re both still friends today.

If you were young and work with a bunch of other young people, what kind of work culture would you have?

I’m not sure how we ended up with the way we work now but here’s a bit of how Nuffnang seems to run .

In the Nuffnang office, there’s often music playing in the background… whether it’s Bob Marley or Justin Timberlake it don’t matter.

We all sit together in an open environment and we sometimes end up watching funny YouTube videos that we share with everyone in the office.

Facebooking during office hours is allowed and is something everyone seems to do.If you’re tired then you can go and sleep in Nuffie’s Corner with all the bean bags and big pillows, we even provide you blankets in case you’re cold.

Heck and some of us manage to work some flexible hours too. The only condition to all this is that everyone keeps up with their work.

Just over a week ago, a very nice journalist by the name of Eve gave me a call to ask me about the flexible hours that some of the people in the Nuffnang team take advantage of.

The call led to a visit to our office, then an interview of some of our Nuffies and a day later, an article in the New Straits Times.
Basically at Nuffnang we believe that if you have a role that does not require you to work strictly during office hours, say if you don’t have to service a client during typical working hours then you can have some flexibility in your working hours.

Unfortunately for many of us including myself, a lot of our roles require us to work the same working hours as our clients though for the rest of us, they get to work a little more flexible hours.
One of our guys Firdauz for example comes in at 2.30PM or 3.00PM on some days and works till night though I hear he’s trying to normalize his working hours now so he can spend more time working with the rest of the team and why not right? We’re all fun to be around with right Firdy?

In the past month, we’ve added a few more Nuffies to the team. There’s the new Nuffie in Singapore.And right before her came two more Nuffies we hired for Nuffnang Philippines office in the past month.

Meet Camille!
and Roanna!
Somehow, the rest of the Nuffnang offices apart from the one in KL that I’m based in seem to be pretty female skewed.

Don’t worry my dear sausage Nuffies!!!
I lup you all still!!!

We’re still looking to add on to the team and after sooo damn long of trying to come up with an excuse of why we don’t have a career page at Nuffnang, we finally managed to get our Nuffnang Career Page up.

I know I know it took us long enough!

In the past we’ve had some potential investors and business partners come in to see how we work and they all wonder how we all actually manage to get work done working like that.

That’s something even I can’t explain but we do get loads of things done.