After reading and watching videos on the history of several companies, there appeared to be a pattern among the big brands - some smart guy or people created the product but lacked the capital and/or the sales expertise to make it popular, so he/she/they sold it to a someone with experience in sales who may even be working for an already large company, and that person made it big.
So it was with Jell-O, patented in 1845 by Peter Cooper, made delicious in 1897 by Pearle Bixby Wait and his wife, and then bought in 1899 for US$12k by their neighbour Orator Francis Woodward whose company was already successful through selling Grain-O.
Wasn't this similar to the story of MCD? Except with a little more guile from Ray Kroc and quite a bit of naivety from the McDonald brothers who decided to get into a business transaction without putting everything in black and white.
And Apple, whose story a lot more people should be familiar with since it's got a film to illustrate it, worked because it was led by Steve Jobs whom I feel was one of the greatest salesman ever.
Finally, there's Microsoft, because Bill Gates managed to sell the world his vision of "a PC on every desktop" within 2-3 decades.
Does this mean that every successful business needs a salesman at its head? Or does it mean that salesmanship is a prerequisite of good leadership?
Can't focus on games so can't play all the good stuff like Tides of Numenera, FF17 and ME:A. They will have to wait till she goes away for externship.
The plan for Russia is still ongoing but I feel the three of us are kinda sure it will happen. I sense doubt from Lisa and also some at a much lesser degree in Van but it's not too hard to make it happen.
Just wondering how cold it will be in Yakutsk and Irkutsk in October. We have never experienced anything below negative 20 degrees C so the possibility of going beyond negative 40 brings excited anticipation and a slight level of worry.
At least it won't last beyond a month, the maximum period of stay we can apply for in a tourist visa. There are so many questions I will have to ask when I attend some Russian classes in the next few months.
One worry that I cannot do anything about, however, is whether October is when absolutely nothing is happening since it is in the transition period from autumn to winter.
In the meantime, it looks like it's chaos over in South America.
05 Apr 2017
My room is a mess.
The Dell laptop is great and I hope using it less makes it last longer. The 15" Dell Inspiron 7567 can play Mass Effect: Andromeda on some of the lowest settings so that's good enough for me, and the cloud save feature on Origin (and Steam for other games) is really appreciated now that I can play the same games on two computers.
Saved about S$200 buying it from the IT Show earlier last month after friends told me the prices on the brochures are negotiable, unlike buying from shops. Since Van has also worked as a expo salesperson before but not for computers, she gave me a rough idea of how flexible prices and freebies can be.
At first when I went straight to the Dell booth to get it, the salesman only gave me about $100-150 off and without any freebie but the warranty, but when he found out only the display set was available, Van showed her bitchy side (really practical in this society) and he pointed us to the Courts booth. TBH I was going to negotiate for another $50 off and take that set since that's already far cheaper than expected.
Turns out Courts had available stock and when I neglected to mention that we came from the Dell booth, the negotiation started anew, resulting in the aforementioned deal of almost $200 off, plus the Dell laptop backpack and a wireless mouse. I also added 3 years of extended warranty, though the accidental damage cover was forgotten in the excitement.
Once the mouse and backpack are sold, the overall discount compared to the price offered on the Dell website will be about S$230-250. The mouse itself can already be sold at S$10-15, and the backpack S$30-50.
However, since we took a bus home and a cheap car ride there, I guess $10 can be deducted from the discount.
No wonder IT Shows and their equivalents that run ever quarter still draw crowds despite the popularity of online shopping. All the big ticket items can be really good deals there.
Oh then I bought two flash drives and a SD card from Changi Airport because I refuse to buy from any sellers that don't appear legit enough. It's really cheap even with the GST when I compared the Sandisk Cruzer between the airport shop and Popular ($12+ vs $17+). Needed one of those to be the laptop's recovery drive, and another for video storage for when I travel.
As for other accessories, got a sleeve that doubles as a hand-held bag for the laptop (S$9), a large mousepad (S$4) and a 5500dpi wired mouse (S$5) from Aliexpress. The mousepad is the only one that's not for the laptop but to replace the old smaller mousepad of my desktop so that I can bring it along with my laptop for my travels.
07 Apr 2017
I may be getting most of my new gadgets and accessories from Aliexpress, but it's definitely not the place with all the best deals. Funny thing is, sometimes it's still cheaper to get certain things from other places than from there, like Qoo10 and physical stores, like office chairs with wheels.
08 May 2017
It is not worth it to go for airline and hotel elite statuses for those of us who do not have our travel expenses fully covered by our companies. This is the conclusion I've come to after the last few years flying round trips almost monthly.
Seriously, I have tried, mainly by always looking out for promotions and searching flights and hotels first on specific airlines and hotel groups, but they rarely make sense in terms of pricing and location vs what I need.
The biggest example is SPG in Seoul for my business trips that I no longer go for. While I need to visit the various clothing wholesalers in that city, none of their hotels are as convenient for me as other hotel chains in Myeongdong, Dongdaemun and Namdaemun and those closest ones are never cheaper than, say, the Skypark chain.
As for flights, Cathay Pacific turned out to be a really bad choice in my situation as their fares tend to be as high or even higher than those offered by Singapore Airlines for routes from Singapore to everywhere I want to go. I'm not kidding when I say it makes absolutely no sense these days for anyone from Singapore to be loyal to CX. Pretty sure the prices used to be more competitive in the past but I cannot be sure. Moreover, their Marco Polo programme is making things harder for those of us who usually fly short distances with the new mileage earning system that seems to favour long-haul flights.
With all the promotions in Singapore for SQ nowadays, it makes far more sense for me to invest in SQ instead, though I am actually flying budget most of the time these days. Hence despite all these analyses, the fact is that in my situation, the most sensible option is to stay loyal to price. Not the absolute lowest all the time, but the lowest price with the lowest acceptable level of comfort, service and punctuality. This tend to be Scoot and Jetstar for the last two years, with full service airlines coming into play when I fly long haul, like China Eastern for my upcoming SFO trip.
The only reason I would pick other airlines more often is if someone else is paying for my travels because honestly, 80% of the time I'm fine with sacrificing various comforts to save hundreds of dollars, like food and beverage and movies on a 7 hour flight for $300 saved.
Just late last month Vanessa and I spent a grand total of S$500 on a weekend 3D2N trip to Da Nang, Vietnam by taking a Jetstar Starter fare that is practically a random seat with 7kg carry-on luggage, and a beachfront hotel found through Expedia that charged S$35 total for a room for 2 nights. We even brought too much clothes since we ended up not using our swimwear, and returned with only 5-6kg of luggage each. How would it have made any sort of sense to use this trip to earn miles on an airline and points on my SPG membership when the trip was perfectly smooth and comfortable as it was? We even had beautiful cloud-covered hills in the north and a gorgeous sea view through the eastern windows that we woke up to each day! For SEVENTEEN DOLLARS A NIGHT!
This is getting stupid, this chase for miles and points. I'm stopping this bs here and just going to use up as many Asia Miles as I can before letting this membership expire.
All I really need is cheap fares and unlimited airport lounge usage. Maybe one of these days, the airlines can offer more lounge usage instead of whatever other nonsense they are trying to bait us with.
It is getting hard organizing a trip with Vanessa and Lisa. The former doesn't discuss travel plans with the latter so when I raise the conditions the latter stated that do not fit into her plans, I sound like I'm siding with Lisa against her.
This is extremely annoying when every time their requirements don't match and I have to remind her of that, it turns into some sort of "Lisa vs Vanessa" thing.
It's a group trip and everyone has certain conditions. Good thing Vanessa's finally agreed to discuss directly with Lisa instead of going through me so it should get easier from now on.
