Singaporean Entrepreneurs

Lots of freelance professionals have been asking me to help them set up a blog lately so I thought I’d put up this review on some professional websites that furnish some of the best blog templates, icons/widgets, and even brochures on the web today. If you’re just starting out, there are also a lot of free sites with wordpress.com being my favourite. Join this contest by Michael Aulia to win a professional template.

Website templates undoubtedly have become the most preferred tools to create websites in a jiffy. Today website templates are not only cheap but also are of very high quality thanks to the competition among the web development companies through out the world. The current trends among the web template vendors have become more advantageous to the customers. Since clients have become smart investors vendors no longer sell individual templates, instead they have started to offer membership programs which provides the customer free access to all of the templates in their gallery.

Earlier it would cost a lot if the client wishes to launch many websites. Today with a single membership fee one can download any number of web templates and even choose the web technology that they wish to run their websites in. For example CMS web templates such as Drupal templates were costlier than their HTML counterparts. Now without having to spend an additional dime, customers can pick the template of their choice from the template gallery. Buytemplates.net is one of the pioneers in the web template world that has transformed itself to serve its customers in an amicable way. The website also offers template customization and custom template designs upon request. Apart from delivering high quality products at cheap rates, the website also provides its customers with an opportunity to earn online money through its attractive affiliate programs. The best customer support provided by buytemplates.net makes it one of the most preferred membership websites in the internet.

Templatewind.com goes even further by offering six web-based products for low membership fee. Template wind is a part of group consisting of six websites that offer various web-related products, such as website templates, brochure templates, icons, logos, banners, and illustrations. Memberwind.com serves as a threshold for this constellation. This economically viable membership website surprisingly has premium quality website templates like the most revered oscommerce templates in its collection. If you would like to develop your online businesses with minimal expenses, membership with templatewind.com is the best option for you.

Although the age of internet has dominated the world, brochures still remain the most efficient marketing tools when it comes to conventional marketing. Earlier designing brochures were a cumbersome process that required a hefty sum. With the advent of brochure templates it is easy to print brochures within minutes of download thanks to the innovative efforts of online entrepreneurs. Brochuremonster.com has one of the finest collections of brochure templates, full color postcards, flyers, and even posters.

The high quality brochures are available for a low price and the website offers membership programs as well. The low-cost membership programs can be highly lucrative for brochure printers and those that wish to print multiple brochures for their organizations. The website also provides numerous freebies that make it easy to customize the brochure template to your requirements. The website also offers brochure customization service for those that require professional customization. You can also place orders for custom designs and the brochure design team can create excellent brochures according to your specifications within a couple of days.

It is again time for the Lee Kyan Yew Global Business Plan Competition. This year of the Tiger 2010, Singapore Management University’s (SMU) Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship is the new organiser in order to give its students a greater hand in planning, operating, and executing the competition. Last year it received over 1000 entries from at least 75 institutions with 35 countries represented.

ELIGIBILITY: Full-Time Tertiary Students (Polytechnic, University)
DEADLINE: Local 1 March 2010, International 31 March 2010
TEAM: 1-5 persons (maximum, not including mentor)
LANGUAGE: English

The business plan summary should address the following:
(1) Innovation and Intellectual Property Potential
(2) Market Size and Demand
(3) Team’s Ability and Commitment to Execute
(4) Ability to Erect Entry Barriers
(5) Quality of Funding Requirements and Financing Plans
(6) Financial Statements (income statement; cash-flow statements and balance sheet) – for existing companies only (must have less than US$100,000 in gross revenue and received less than US$80,000 in funding)

For complete rules and regulations, click here.

BONUS for Singaporeans
In addition to the prizes in store for the finalists, the best placed Singapore team will stand to receive an investment grant of up to S$100,000 from HSBC to further develop their business. (Terms and Conditions apply of course :)

“China was asleep during the Industrial Revolution. She was just waking during the Information Technology Revolution. She intends to participate fully in the Green Revolution.” – C. H. Tung, chief executive of Hong Kong after the handover in 1997

If necessity is truly the mother of invention then that statement has more truth than political sentiment in it. For there is no other nation as deeply in need of a green solution than the most populated one which is expending resources, not just for itself, but for every other country it is producing goods for as it plays catch up to world economies.

And sure enough, China has more green technology patents than any other country right now. It has invested more time, money, land, and people in developing solar, wind, and electrical-based products to help power itself and lessen its dependence on cheap coal.

Already, BYD (Build Your Dream) Company Ltd has produced the world’s first commercial all-electric car. Founded by CEO Wang Chuan Fu, BYD began in mobile phone batteries but quickly progressed to the design and manufacture of mobile-phone handsets and parts for MNC’s like Motorola, Nokia, Sony, and Samsung.

BYD got into cars when Wang saw a state-owned-enterprise (SOE) assembling cars go bankrupt. He bought it and after a short while had developed and started selling a plug-in electric car with a backup gasoline engine. BYD’s plug-in, called the F3DM (for “dual mode”), goes farther on a single charge and only sells for about US$22,000, much less than the plug-in Prius and much-hyped Chevy Volt which still has not reached the marketplace.

And if you don’t believe the press, then believe ultimate investor-guru Warren Buffett who has plunked money into BYD. As the green revolution catapults out of its nascent stage, expect the Chinese to be at the forefront of the charge. Personally, I wouldn’t underestimate the intelligence and inventive capabilities of a country known in the past for having created some of world’s greatest inventions (water, compass, gunpowder, clocks, silk, porcelain, ships, etc.) and innovations (government rule by law not by right) that continue to impact us today.