I found out that:

1) Some people buy things by impulse (virtual goods make that even easier). With a quick, easy UI (like Zong), it just doesn’t give them the reason to blame on bad transaction services. We have been demonstrated on how a competitor carrier had many more layers of information that needs to be input, involved re-clicking and the price displayed is a misrepresentation of the actual amount billed. I guess the transaction time took a very long time too. So, our friend Ibnur might not have been billed $8 plus for the virtual chips. =)

2) Middleman / third parties can be a hindrance (like intermediate parties between payment system companies and telco carriers) or a crucial partner (like MFI - microfinance instituitions, being a strategic link between Kiva and the entrepreneurs in the developing countries). So, these MFIs basically do all the evaluation, scanning processes, video taking, interviews and most importantly: they more or less know the appropriate amount of money to loan the entrepreneurs.

3) Thanks to Fred Greguras, I know a little bit more about corporations and cleantech financing opportunities and trends. The ‘rules of the game’, regulations, stock options, vesting, offshore corporations, policies and regulations etc revealed some principles that are important. Like: To protect oneself from personal liability, to keep investors, founders and employees in a win-win situation, to evade tax whenever possible (of course when there are more benefits than drawbacks too), value past and future contribution and IP and of course, maintain the stickiness.

4) Shrug, as I write this, someone can just hack into my account and edit my blog into nonsensical information… I truly believe that web application security is lacking and I think Cenzic is doing a very good job indeed. They realized that education is the key obstacle that holds back people with that ‘it hasn’t happened to me’ attitude. Cenzic’s move to provide their product for educational purposes at universities, for free to charitable organizations and conduct Hackinars, is a very praise-worthy effort.

5) I believe in Destiny. Although I am still a science student, coincidence just cannot satisfy the question of things that occur against the probability of almost 0. There must a reason and meaning to some phenomenon… I’ll keep on looking for it.

Thank you for reading this blog and wishing everyone the best!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 2:01 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.