Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.

"Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories."
Sun Tzu

For the past year, there have been multiple calls from landlords' representatives calling us in the morning (when we are still in bed), asking if we are expanding. The not-so-good opening is "Can I speak to your boss?"

Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of hiring someone to be our gatekeeper yet. You are already speaking to the boss directly. Whenever we mention we will call you back, they will try to give a number which SYL will never remember or when we try to give our email address, they can ask how to spell - our brand name?

The follow up email usually disappoints. How does a crowd of 10k students (tying up with a school, coming in batches) , IT sector and furniture actually benefits an activewear store?

Well, there is a certain lady who really put in a lot of effort to make it right though. From the first email and presentation, SYL & I thought that it's gonna be costing a lot. We were pretty surprise about the asking rental to be an okay factor but we were opening Bugis soon back then. We have to wait first.

Months later, a better location, a better opening and a better rate came knocking from the same lady. She even put in effort to tell us the potential and confirmed tenants which make the mall a very interesting concept for us to get into. But unfortunately, everything has to wait first as we are opening Wisma soon.

Another thought came to my mind, there is a good reason why the asking rental can be so low, the main cost will go to GTO, manpower and fixtures. Will it be better to pay more rental so manpower becomes a small component of the overall cost or risk losing manpower cost when rental is very low? It just make me thinks of Jcube. haha

There were some pretty interesting offerings in the middle but unfortunately, we should be happy enough with 2 of the top 3 malls (in our list) currently. If the third mall comes asking, then SYL will be having another temptation and headache again. Will a VIVI be possible in 2017?

What determines the value of something

Valuation is something that we do on a daily basis.

For example, you set an expected salary by thinking how much your work is worth and how much your employer will pay you by thinking how much your work is worth.

In another simple example, I have added a contemporary menu at www.vivreactivewear.com by exploring all the functions and tutorials by myself. 

The new mega menu with attractive headlines.

A quick way to information of your outlets without clicking in.

Organizing the online shop with a main menu, thus, freeing up the usual side bar and make your product more beautiful.

By sprucing up the website with the latest trend, making information more readily available and guiding your customers through certain information that they ought to know, I hope this will improve traffic and sales to the online and retail stores.

cost of plugin: free (provided by theme)

teaching sylvia how to add image to her new blog post: $50/hour

coming up with the new mega menu: priceless (or maybe $800 to an IT designer)

It's the same thing when you are valuing a business. I'm not sure how analysts do it, but they have to come up with something. They may look at past performances by looking at P&L, looking at current tangible and intangible assets and forecasting a future trend. As a small start up, it is hard to make a decision to pay people to valuate your business. How would you do it?

And even if analysts think it's only worth $x, they may have a big assumption (I'm assuming) that the costs to grow to current level is easy. And will they be incorporating the value of the people too? 

Thinking back on the money thrown into the rivers. There's the designer and IT fees to IT designers where the function may not work according to what I want. There's the inferior end product of apparels that I will not even buy with $2. There's the endless exploration of how to make things good in all way. The aesthetics and functionality of a website, classy marketing, branding, coming up with good products selling at a good price. The cost of starting a new brand, the people to hire, the step to incubate your first outlet at Far East Plaza, exploring a second outlet (though at Jcube), having the first big break to a proper mall at Bugis Junction and the opportunity to enter Wisma Atria Basement 1. Imagine a new brand, even if you have a million dollar funding, is it possible to enter Wisma Atria at 1 shot?

Now, let's us think of the value of our life and possessions. Is it better to invest in personal well being, family, friends, business or career? How would you value each "department"? What will you do?

Give this a read for more insight.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-guillebeau/the-4-burners-theory-choo_b_652881.html

Giving when you have nothing to give.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1302371083126068&id=123701504326371&_rdr

Saw this video and find it meaningful.

How do we give when we have "nothing" to give?

face: smile, enjoy, cheerful and be happy.

mouth: speak with kind words, encourage people, cheerful and give support.

heart: open your heart to the others by sincere, truthful and kindness.

eyes: look at others with kindness and compassion.

body: labour work to help others

In short, be thankful that we are healthy and full. Give with what we have and we shall gain much more.

whoisback

Hola,

I'm back to leisure blogging!

It's amazing to read my posts dated years back to see how I'm doing back then. Read a few and feel like I'm talking to a teenager going through his stage of having a relax life, stressed over exams and not enough money to spend kind of life. It's like myself in my 50s, taking to my son at poly.

Looking at the design, layout and stuff of the blog, I'm probably gonna keep it this way coz it's so retro. My typing style has to be like me 7 years ago.

Also, I don't dare to haolian too much liao la coz there will be a siao lang who will spoof my number to create troubles here and there. Giving me sooooo much headaches. But then ah, what is hao lian? Sometimes sharing in a proud way means hao lian?

Now that I'm older, wiser, know more things, blogging and cannot hao lian to the siao lang's tolerant level, what can I blog? Still many I think. As long as I don't talk about money? As long as it's all points/theories? As long as this blog is shared only among my friends in the friend's list in facebook? I certainly hope so.

Many many points. Will take it slowly or fast.

To summarize some points in my head.

1. Why people like to value base on history instead of looking forward?
2. Why people read 1 side of story online and already formed side without finding out the whole truth?
3. Why are there so many experts in all fields whenever a trending topic appears?

And oh Shalene, if there are pictures that you don't want it to appear to the public. Can you just privately give me the link so i can try to remove them? I'm too lazy to set up another blog and this blog is now accessible by the public ya.