DEV Community: Max Ong Zong Bao

My 2024 Year End Review

Max Ong Zong Bao — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 01:00:00 +0000

Cover image generated with OG Maker maded by Eddy Vinck

3 Things I Had Learnt?

Take it Easy and Not at the Cost of Your Sanity - I was kind of burned out in my job search & my first module for my master, i believe it’s partly because of my dwindling saving since i started the job search journey in March. It doesn’t really help since I had tons of anxiety, doing my first master course that i failed incorporating it as part of my schedule, the experience is still worth it but my next attempt shall be smarter when i attempt it again in Summer next year. A friend of mine, she heard of what i had been through this year, she just gave me the suggestion to just take it easy due to the amount of balls i had been juggling from my end this year. Along with making decisions that i didn’t really prepare myself to make at my age again. Momento Mori
Continue to Bet on Myself Despite Temporary Obstacles - My job search was hard like last year. This doesn’t make it easier since i still suck at doing leetcode type questions and i had been grinding hard on leetcode, preparing for my masters, upgrading my skills, knowleadge & experience in AI, I still fail in a lot of initial technical tests for my job interviews. This doesn’t help much in not being given a chance to prove myself without even going through the first round of a interview.
Follow Your Curiosity - I had always had a interest in the AI especially swarm intelligence because of this ted talk, till this day the video blows my mind. But i choose to chuck this aside while doing my best to tap on the pulse of AI development. But the high barrier of entry to break into the field and my distaste in both math and academia kept me from pursuing. This only changed last year with my strong dream in my mind to immigrate to another country to do homestead. Therefore, I took multi steps this year towards that direction as well as taking on leadership positions for more impact. Initially it started off small like applying for masters, learning MLOps & Math course from DeepLearning.AI, followed by Project Management from Google. It ended me being burnout from my first module which is “Robotics: AI Techniques” for my master’s programme. This eventually lead me to taking on a my current job as a software team leader at Asus Singapore Design Center due to my curiosity.

Career

Completed “Machine Learning Engineering for Production (MLOps)” by DeepLearning AI
Completed “Google Project Management” by Google
Being a one of the many judges at Hack & Roll 2024
Became a mentor at Hack Singapore 2024, which 2 of the mentored teams won in a few categories
Coffee sessions to talk about my career through my friends in the industry and my direct supervisor.
Completed my 6 months contract at Airbus. - I learned about French corporate working culture, working in digital team that is cross domain, worked with LLM & AI related work through their data lake called “Skywise”
Started my new job as a Software Team Leader at Singapore Asus Design Center this month.
Continue to use and play around with anthropic’s claude because of the AI capabilities in software development and their mission which resonates with me.

Education

Became Graduate Student in the Fall 2024 at Georgia Institute of Technology and attended my first networking session for the Singapore chapter
Was promoted to 2nd Stripe White Belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ), reading books namely “Meditations on Violence” and “The Gift of Violence" to prepare for Shit Hits the Fan (SHTF) situations with bare mimum to talk my way out or descalate potential violent or stressful situations.
Learnt about bushcrafting, cooking in the fields (trained to don’t start a fire during my military service, old habits just die hard. 🙂) and updating my skills on survival & land navigation that I had picked up from my military service. I applied these skills with my new gear for my solo camping trip for 3 days 2 nights in Mamam campsite at Pulau Ubin. I even crafted a wooden spear from scratch using my new morakniv knife. I practiced swinging the wooden stick/spear around. It was fun despite the camping experience was quite tiring with tons of rain while figuring my new gear in Pulau Ubin.
Had a interest in learning Latin due to it’s benefit in learning other languages as well as allowing me to look at the original text in tough fields like Law, Medicine and Science. i just brought "Familia Romana (Lingua Latina Book 1)”. I had a headache in trying to read it since the whole book was pure latin.** I know, I’m just spartan in that aspect, but alot of people says it’s a good book to start as it’s progressive in nature.
Brought and completed reading “The Hacking for Defense Manual” due to me following Steve Blank for his work for the startup ecosystem in american and Hack for Defense (H4D) over the years. His article his deep dive on “The Semiconductor Ecosystem” was pretty good.
I recently learned o farm a Fish/Crab in a HDB since i wanted to learn to farm as my goal to live self sustaining life with high quality food in a homestead. I took the course from OnHand Agrarian and also paid for the scam plan that rears 4 crabs for 2 years.
Gotten my Basic Open Water Diver license with my friend at Bali. Been a bucket list since my NS days, it’s only this year I decided to pull the triggered and found a friend to go and learn it together,

Health/Fitness

Went hiking in a few mountains in malaysia ever since i MR from my military service without all the military equipment on my back. There’s even 1 that my hiking friends imagined, i won’t had made it before 6 pm to get their security deposit back. I was able to complete it before 6 pm 🙂. In that hike, i found out that i should brought some food as i was running empty the whole time. Without the help from the guide’s charity of 2 x small snikers plus some muscle relaxers, i won’t had made it before 6 pm.
Went for my first “surgery” in my life because my doctor’s recommendations to go for it in a early health screening because i had previously blood in my pee. The surgery was a pretty shitty experience and thankfully i only had to do coloscopy again in a decade from now.
I found out from the colonsocpy that i had gotten Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection. Therefore i’m gonna avoid water when i am travleing overseas. unless i know it’s been treated if not, I just go for bottled water or use aquatabs to process it myself before drinking it. Might consider pulling the trigger in buying Grayal or H2gO since it’s easier to use and without much hassle.
I was diagnosed with Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). I had to drastically change my eating habits towards mediterranean diet. Along with pure focus on loosing weight to reach 70 kg, sleep schedule and exercise.
- I*’m avoiding*
  - Sugar
  - Alcohol
  - Processed food as much as possible
- Eating
  - vegetables mostly dark leafy greens and high fiber
  - health supplements and healthy food to control my medical condition plus my sweet tooth.
    - Berberine
    - Milk Thistle
    - Ceylon cinnamon
    - Allulose
    - Extra Virgin Olive Oil
    - Matcha Powder
    - Pea protein powder
    - Millet
    - Lentils
- Cooking more home cooked meals but it’s still a challenge due to adjusting my lifestyle for my new job.

Wealth

Increased my insurance coverage with other insurance provider due to talking to friends and consulting my financial consultant.
I achieved 6 months emergency fund due to my 6 months job in Airbus.
I had finally gotten a credit card to collect miles due to observing my spending habits through my debit card was quite consistent across the years.
Started using crowd sourcing startup investment platform Wefunder to look at investing in Startups without being a accredited investor, In the end, i just opted out in investing in the startup because of the usual startup issues, i had gotten notice from the influencer working for them tp suddenly left following after the CEO.
Will be looking at recovering my emergency funds but will strech it longer and investing it in other investment vehicles along the way.
Started to donate in multiple causes and charity. i am really happy to help because their mission and difficulty in getting funds due to the platform they are using or access to people who’s interested to help.

Volunteering & Causes

Continued in organizing meetups, workshop and mentoring programme at JuniorDevSG
I spent my time to become a mentor for the mentoring programme/hackathon, judge for a hackathon and even being a panel speaker for 1 of SIT alumni network event that i’m honoured to be part of.

Family

Went to China for 8 days with my Dad to destress and i had the opporuntiy due of not having found a job at that time.
Brought my 3 nieces to
- Universal Studio Singapore
- World of Studio Ghibli in Art Science Museum
- Multiple movies session with their friends as well
- Instagram worthy resturants

What I Will Do the Next Year?

Next year i believe i won’t be looking doing alot of adventures instead focus on other things that help health, career and my continuing my master’s.

Career
- Honing my craft in
  - Technical Leadership
  - Strategy
  - Storytelling
  - AI
  - MLOps
- Look at becoming a Solution Architect with specialization in AI
Education
- Taking up Advance Open Water Diver
- Return to do my master in Summer
- Reading om survival and bush crafting
- learning to read and speak in Latin
Health/Fitness
- Improving my sleep schedule & quality of sleep
- Mediterranean diet
  - Making home cooked meals
  - Bringing home cooked meals to work
  - Eating Mediterranean diet or Vegetarian India/Thai/Vietnam cuisines
- Exercise schedule
  - Aiming to do daily exercise in:
    - Kettlebell - Improve my overall strength also injury prevention
    - Calisthenic - Overall mobility as well as injury prevention
    - Yoga - Reduce on my injuries due to doing Muay Thai or BJJ
    - 10 k steps - Lose weight without binge eating after the session.
  - Going twice a week and continue my martial arts gyms subscription but focus on
    - Muay Thai for 6 months
    - Getting my 3rd/4th BJJ white belt stripe
Wealth
- Rebuilding my emergency funds to stretch it to 1 year that allows me with more opportunity
- Look at Investing in a few startups through WeFunder
- Continue to donate to causes/charities i believe in
- Invest in other investment vehhicles that i know with funds from my job.
Volunteering/Causes
- Taking a back burner in volunteering in very limited capacity
  - just organizing meetups/workshops
  - becoming a judge/mentor in a hackathon
  - Speaking in either meetups/conferences
Family
- Continue to spend time with my nieces, family and friends

My Year-End Review for 2023

Max Ong Zong Bao — Sun, 19 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Career

Job

Adjunct Lecturer for ITE in a semester to teach Go and Web Apps. Realised that it might not be the type of work I wanted to do.
Trainer under Tribe to teach in mid-career conversion programme in Ngee Ann Poly. The students were to become QA Testers in various financial institutions in Singapore. I was honestly both scared & worried that i didn't do a good job. I was kind of sleep-deprived since I was sleeping 4 hours to prepare for my first day and had a persistent cough for the whole duration.
Applied for multiple goverment jobs as part of my Rolodex of places I have wanted to be part of since the start of the pandemic. Plus my dad had also heard that being in tech in goverment jobs is quite cushy following both my brother's paths. I was pretty grateful that I got afew referrals and a job offer if i choose to proceed. But overall, a few of the interview pipeline was awful. I actively discouraged people from joining them, since it felt immature or downright a waste of my time. Due to a lack of context or explaining the expectations during the interview pipeline. Despite i roughly know what I am getting into for that type of organisation overall, it's a FUBAR experience.
I have to force myself to grind leetcode after multiple technical test failures. Alot of tech positions require the initial phase to be online technical assessments without any search capabilities or in a closed booked setting with leet code type of questions. So to practice with interviewcake, I also pulled the trigger to get a 1-year plan from Leetcode to practice on.
Earlier this year in my job search journey. I was at the crossroads on where I should take my career as either I could stay as an IC (Individual Contributor) or Manager path in Singapore. I assume that in Singapore not alot of organisations or companies allows you to jump from one path to another or operate as a hybrid (jack of all trade is hard to justify your KPIs). So I started to seek guidance from some of my friends who were senior/principal level engineers and read a book called Staff Engineer to see if my being on the IC path was worth it for me to jump in. I found that the IC path might not be the type of place i want to be in for my career. I found that I should move towards the path as a technical/engineering manager path but build up my technical management & scaling up or large-scale experience as a senior-level engineer in a large or corporate organisation for the past few years. Therefore my current search has been towards this type of companies or organisations. Yes I know I'm picky but hey I know what I want to do in my life. I tend to rush towards it with 110% effort while working smart and accepting the instability as part of my journey in my life to make it work. ## Mentoring
Volunteered as a co-organiser in JuniorDevSG Mentoring Programme for Batch 3 and 4.
Volunteered as a Mentor for SIT's Batch 5 to mentor 2 x Year 2 Info Sec Uni students
Became a Guest Speaker for a Panel Discussion in SIT Alumni Mentoring Forum to talk about career
Ran a Job Support Group called PyJobRaft to help the community members from the Python User Group Singapore - PUGS. Despite my best efforts to promote with support from Red Hat along with local tech communities, the turnout wasn't great. But it was a good experiment to know there wasn't a need for it so PUGS could better focus on our efforts in other areas like doing a handbook for PyCon.
Became a Mentor in a large hackathon for the first time at HackSingapore ## Keynote Speaker for PyCon Malaysia
I was both afraid i would screw up in my keynote speech. This was also my first-time solo traveling to Kuala Lumpur (KL). I was pretty worried that there were delays or incidents when I was travelling from Singapore to KL.

Personal Finances

Debt

I am debt-free as I had to pay off my university loans in September this year. Since i graduated about 7 - 8 years ago due to a teaching job that I took that paid me well enough that I can pay it off. ## Emergency Funds
Relying on my emergency funds while I search for my job. I'm pretty grateful I had enough from my teaching job to last me this long. Moving on, I'm seeking to rebuild this and get 100k in the bank for my journey.

Health/Personal Fitness

Medical Test with C-Reactive Protein

For the first time in my life, I paid for a medical test that includes C-reactive protein to check for my inflammation. This can also be an indicator of cardiovascular or chronic illness that runs in my family. The results show I had to lose weight and adopt other healthy habits. ## Meal Prep
Getting more kitchen equipment or playing around with meal preping recipes or systems to make it easier. So far, the longest I could go with homecooked meal prep is for 2 days straight. ## Controlling My Sugar Addiction
Slowly weaning myself off sugary drinks to lose weight and control my sugary addiction. I started to drink more water with my Klean Kanteen thermal water bottle. This was so good that I just brought another after bottle realising that I had to be drinking more water during and after my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu sessions. ## Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ)
I had a friend who I hired last year to help me as my health coach. I decided to pull the trigger to go for BJJ since I wanted to train for three reasons:
- In a community of people who are enduring hardship. This was heavily encouraged by the health coach to pick either the gym or CrossFit.
- Button press for when shit hits the fan. I can rely on myself based upon what i had learned in BJJ to navigate myself out of situations regardless of obstacle that comes my way.
- Part of my childhood dream was to learn martial arts/self-defence but I didn't have the time or chance to do it till now.
So far, it's been great. There are times I am still afraid of going to class by myself due to the intensity and my habit of wanting to take the easy way out.
Round Island Walk
I wanted to complete this walk by this year. But I found myself injured with Brusitis at my heel. So I stopped doing it and started incorporating exercises like pistol and Hindu squats from Bioneer to strengthen myself and improve my recovery from the injury.
I also brought Vibram V-Trek barefoot shoes and toe socks for my exercise and hiking session. I found that my current Vibram barefoot shoe is inadequate due to my extensive use for hiking in Singapore and walking.
Life

Education

Technical Skills/Knowledge Upskilling Journey.
I started learning DevOps and Domain Driven Design to learn to build software systems in a resilient way. This is also to help me in preparing myself as a technical manager.
Re-learning the latest version of Django by watching Django Con US and Europe. Along with reading Django's official documentation and joining their discord channel.
Storytelling
I also started to learn about Storytelling to prepare for my keynote speech, my career conversion students as well to get shit done using stories or my speech.
Taking a Master
I decided to take on an online Master's degree at either Georgia Tech or the University of Texas. I talked to afew of my friends who were taking their Master in Singapore. I heard the price for a master's education in Singapore is quite expensive. Therefore i am taking an Online Master's route to hopefully allow me to either immigrate or work overseas ideally in the US, Canada or the UK. I am starting to prepare my application next year as i missed the application date for Georgia Tech.
Roleplaying
I started to learn about roleplaying through my Dungeon and Dragons (DnD) sessions with my friends. Initially, I wanted to learn about it because I wanted to build a story-based mentoring platform for Upskillcycle. I even started watching Running the Game Series By Matt Colville to draw inspiration for me to build that mentoring platform to apply for certain jobs in tech.
In the end, I recently started to play a DnD campaign to train roleplaying muscle and maybe one day be a dungeon master. But so far, I'm just playing around with roleplaying for now.
Thinking About What I Wana Do for My Life in the Next 10 - 20 Years?

Short Term
Getting a job
Rebuilding my emergency fund
Get 100k in the bank in the next 3 years through work or my side hustles.
Getting my master
Donating to my university and causes that I strongly support like rewilding projects, center for farthering or kids/families who are living in poverty.

Long Term

Being Part of a Close Group of Friends or Family

Despite whatever crazy ass or shit I do in my life decisions. I would want to make the effort and spend time to be part of family and friends. Being there or part of their family to form memories when they need me.

Functional Fitness

I am healthy and rely on my body in the event shit hits the fan.
I do not have a chronic illness or has been well taken care of due to my meal prep and exercises to keep it under control.
Staying in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Work

Living Overseas or Immigration to Another Country

I am increasingly thinking of being overseas either through remote work, taking a work visa to work in the country or getting a travel-focused type of tech job.
Help people to grow their careers or start their own business in tech.

Building the Foundation for Self-reliant/Self-Sufficiency

I am also looking to learn and to do some form of self-reliance/homestead for the future. Like buying/renting a piece of land if i don't plan to continue to stay in Singapore. I might want to start a homestead to raise animals and grow my food for self-sufficiency and self-reliance for my family.
It's kind of beyond, oh i want to invest by building up a lucrative nest egg so my family is well taken care of as part of estate planning by working with my financial advisors.

My Journey To Prepare As A Keynote Speaker - Read Time: 5 Mins

Max Ong Zong Bao — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Introduction

All road leads to Rome. After crossing the famous bridge where thousands of people commute daily between Malaysia and Singapore. Into the vast land of palm trees that i see with my eye. Among the crowd, I was sitting alone on a bus full of people travelling to KL (Kula Lumpur).

Thoughts come to my mind, "What the fuck have i gotten myself into?" While I travel alone to a city that i know nothing of or have never gone to myself with two bags in the moving coach for the 2nd time in my life.

Beyond my wildest dream, I would never imagine myself being a keynote speaker at an overseas tech conference when i was at ITE (Institute of Technical Education trade or vocational school where I was teaching senior community leaders to train other seniors to use tech as part of my community service.

Dread in Public Speaking

Before I began my journey to becoming a speaker or teacher. My aim in the beginning was to learn to become an effective communicator. I started with How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie when i was just a 17 or 18-year-old conscript serving my nation.

In the book, there was a survey result on the most common fear among many people is public speaking. Therefore Dale seeks to rid this fear he forced all participants to take their turn in the human relationship and communication workshop to speak in front of a group audience in each session.

At first, this was just a short 1 - 2 minute talk about a topic of their interest or applying the communication technique they had learnt in the previous session at the start.

As the number of sessions passed slowly, the duration grew to 10 or 15 minutes for each student. Great transformation occurs for participants with a demeanour that is either shy, nervous, embarrassed or stuttering in the early session to the later session spoke with an air of confidence.

I started as a person who hates to speak in public, even to this day despite multiple practices, workshops and places i have spoken in. I always have the same dread whenever I am in an unfamiliar environment speaking for the first time i tend to lose sleep whenever I am scheduled to speak.

Preparations To Becoming a Better Speaker

When I first received the keynote invite, I was worried about how to prepare for my first keynote conference. Along with the dread and my fear that I would not be able to provide a fruitful and captivating keynote for the start of PyCon Malaysia.

But luckily in the present day, learning to speak in public is much easier out of all the content I did my research on. The most outside of them all is the MIT video by the late Professor Patrick Winston and mastering the use of your voice to tell a story.

It is OK to Ask for Help If You Feeling Overwhelmed

Travelling alone for the first time after the pandemic with little to no idea of how to travel to Kula Lumpur. I was overwhelmed by how to get my butt to the venue of PyCon Malaysia beyond my Google map.

I went to Facebook to ask for help from my network of friends to travel to KL by bus. I received support from my network from a coach booking website to articles on how to do it.

Pretty amazing that without me spending alot of my time and effort to cultivate this network. I would not have known how to book a coach and travel to KL for the first time. Instead, I would be spending tons of my own time figuring out how to do it.

Therefore my suggestion for you in life is when times you feel overwhelmed ask for help. Be it your friends or family or any kind souls in your network will be there to help you when you need help.

If you don't have these kind souls, maybe you should spend some time soul-searching on why you do not have these people around you to support you. Maybe change yourself or step out of your comfort zone to make friends or cultivate this network to solve their problems within your limits.

Conclusion

As i get to the end of the article, I would like to give a word of advice for anyone who reads this till the end and myself.

Life is full of opportunities and abundance regardless of where you are in your current situation. Never be consumed by fear while executing or thinking to take on the opportunities that come knocking at your door by stepping outside your comfort zone.

Just remember that this could be a journey that can leave fruitful memories in life regardless of the outcome. The last thing you want to embark on is to live a life of quiet desperation. Lastly, this is my slide for the PyCon Malaysia for anyone interested in it. Mento mori (Remember you must die)

Reference

Is Singapore a Surveillance State?

Max Ong Zong Bao — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 20:04:25 +0000

Recently, I stumbled across a article recommended by Google News. The article was written by Rest of World called Singapore’s tech-utopia dream is turning into a surveillance state nightmare given it's a super click baity title.

So I took the plunge and read the article, to my horror the article was really a messy piece of writing. That is littered with a jigsaw puzzle of tech projects in Singapore to frame a narrative that Singapore is a surveillance state. While bashing local tech community efforts like better.sg in the good work they had done.

What surprises me the most were the reporter in misquoting and being shady of the article they are publishing.

I had gotten this from Facebook which the reporter had gotten one of them as their source. Nothing in this email says anything about being surveillance state. You can imagine how a person might feel when the article was published.

To be honest, I am one of those people that is against mass surveillance. Especially when my country started rolling out their contact tracing app using bluetooth called TraceTogether. I was initially against on the prospects of installing a tracking app on my phone. But thankfully, after reading about GovTech our version of the Government Digital Services in the UK or US Digital Service in the US.

They were focusing on creating a small portable version of bluetooth token for TraceTogether. What went above and beyond is that they invited prominent hardware hackers or hardware enthusiasts like Andrew Bunnie Hung to do a tear down of the bluetooth token. Which they really don't need to do this, given they had all the power to do this forcefully without listening to the people on the ground.

After reading multiple articles on the tear down of these bluetooth token, this gave me confidence to get one for myself and for my family serving my parents who is less technology savvy like me.

Early this year, these same bluetooth tokens was was used for a criminal investigation, almost immediately the Singapore government spring forth and setup laws on the use of these tokens for criminal investigation.

I hope for anyone who has read that article by Rest of World could make your own decisions if Singapore is really a surveillance state due to our local tech projects and communities promoting mass surveillance to gather your personal data. I leave this to you my dear readers to discuss on the article or about mass surveillance.

Seeking for Ideas in Building a Course

Max Ong Zong Bao — Wed, 01 Sep 2021 04:49:51 +0000

Photos is from Amador Loureiro through Unsplash

Hi there this is Max.I am seeking for ideas in building a course for developers that does Web development & Python for startups.

So I was wondering what might be interesting to you? Here's my list of titles I have thought of for a course that I am building.

Test Driven Development with Django
Breaking Into Startups with Python
Full Stack Python Development for Startups
Startup Python Developer's HandBook
3 Levels of Building a MVP
Data Scrapping with Python

Do leave a message in the comments on what you might be interested in learning or creating.

What Does "Right To Repair" Mean to You?

Max Ong Zong Bao — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 20:56:42 +0000

For me, Right to Repair has always been the build quality of items that I use on a daily basis. Which given the right knowledge & access to the right parts. You can continue to use that product for a longer time. Thereby the product becomes cheaper to own in the long term basis despite they can be expensive to buy.

Heck, I can even have the option to don't do it myself. Which I can find skilled craftsman or company to do the repairs for me.

This spawned a cottage industry surrounding the product or a brand displaying their care for the customers. Bringing them tons of good will and brand loyalty like some of these great examples are Allen Edmonds Recrafting Services or Red Wings Repair.

This was precisely why I personally own 2 Allen Edmonds dress shoes for that specific reason. Because I could repair these shoes in my own country (Singapore) or ship them back to the US even when Allen Edmonds doesn't sell their shoes in my country.

So what does Right to Repair mean to you?

Startup Founder Mental Models

Max Ong Zong Bao — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 04:23:01 +0000

The original post was on Startup Founder Mental Models - Reading Time: 3 Mins and cover image by Photo by Alexis Fauvet on Unsplash

Introduction

There are tons of business books out there. You can create a mountain out of these books. These books are either hits or miss for business leaders and entrepreneurs to read.

If your not a reader who likes cracking open a book. You might be watching videos and podcast on the various aspects of a startup with contradictory messages. Therefore here are my thoughts on the different types of mental models one should adopt as an entrepreneur building a business or startup.

The Visionary

The first part of an entrepreneur's mental model is having a clear vision for their startup in the type of future they are building with you. To create stories that people would want to be part of that future. I joined afew startups because of the stories that I like about them.

Everyone wants to be a hero of their own story. They are joining you in your startup as part of their journey in this quest while growing with you.
Therefore look at creating a vision that you believe.

I recommend you to spend time to reflect and validate your ideas. Seek opinions from others who are entrepreneurs or has done something similar to help you make the best decisions.

Raising Resources as a Salesman

As an entrepreneur, your main job is to raise resources. You do that by observing your surroundings and solving your customer's problems using those resources to pay the bills while earning a nice profit from the sale of your product or service.

I call this the to make money out of nothing mental model. Forces you to take advantage of what you have & your surroundings by being scrappy. From your experience, skills, resources, network, imagination and observation of your customers. While not relying on a startup capital. The best example that I had gotten so far is what the professor in Standford Technology Venture program did by giving the students a $5 Challege

It is a hard concept to grasp. If your from an education system that rewards structure & taking orders from some up the totem pole.
I had talked to my venture builder mates on this topic which resulted in the usual sarcasm or disbelief that this is impossible. I told them that best teams ignore the seed fund given to them. They learn to take stock of what they have to formulate, multiple creative ways to build a business out of nothing.

Therefore the best way to understand sales aka raising capital is to apply in real life and read books. Books like The Secrets of Closing The Sales, To Sell Is Human and Crushing It provides you with the techniques and perceptions to sale or build an audience.

System Thinking

As an entrepreneur, you will be stretched thin from the various commitments or areas that you need to improve on to solve your customer's problem and earn a profit to pay the bills.

It is possible to be a solo founder and scale a startup into a million-dollar business. That is usually done by leveraging on the systems you had built. Deliver at scale by removing yourself from the work to built systems to deliver the results. You can look at Mcdonalds or Starbucks that leverages on a battled-tested experience to build a franchise in any location across the world.

To understand system thinking, reading books on The E-Myth Revisited talks in details on the various systems or functions you have to build to remove yourself out of the equation.

Conclusion

I hope that this provides you with a good foundation on the mental models you have to adopt as an entrepreneur. Have the mental model of "making money out of nothing" to use your sales skills to convince others of your vision to people who is willing to join you.

Learning to build systems allows you to leverage and put yourself out of a job. To focus on maintaining & upgrading the system to solve the problem of your customers at scale.

If you like this article do sign up for my Adventurer's Newsletter. Which contains interesting content I stumble across over the week in the area of Python, Web Development, Startup and articles that I wrote.

Subscribe to get the latest update of my article.

Lastly, are you looking to specialise as a developer? If yes, I am giving away my free ebook called "Picking Your Specialisation as a Developer". It is for anyone interested in commanding a higher salary or doing the work they like.

Reference

Effective Principles for Working as a Team in a Startup

Max Ong Zong Bao — Sun, 07 Feb 2021 10:05:58 +0000

The original post was on Effective Principles for Working as a Team in a Startup - Reading Time: 3 Mins and cover image by Photo by Jonathan Bell on Unsplash

Introduction

No man's on an island. One man can only do so much without a team to complement and achieve an objective. Being part of a team provides benefits unlike as an individual by covering each other's weakness. As an individual, there is a limitation of what you can do. Special forces often operate in teams despite individually they are as an army of one.

Here are my thoughts in working as team base upon my experience. Working in multiple startups and operating in a high-performance team environment through my military service.

Communication is Key

There is alot of reasons a project, startup or company may fail. I believe one of those reasons is communication between team members. I had been in projects where I was an outcast unable to communicate & perform effectively due to my communication skills.

Without trust & a line of communication in a team can result in a toxic environment. Full of finger-pointing and in fighting to say that this is not my fault whenever a problem arises.

I would suggest that you read the book The DevOps Handbook & The Phoenix Project. These books talk about ways to establish the line of communication & restoring trust across teams or departments for rapid feedback & response to formulate a plan to solve a problem.

What is Their Tour of Duty?

Tours of duty is often used in the military to have a rotation of personnel to various positions to understand the role that serves the organisation while progressing in their career. When these individuals are in these roles, they gain awareness and insights from multiple perspectives to formulate solutions that make the organisation better.

For me, I will stick to The Alliance definition for tour of duty. Which means a person will work for 2 - 3 years or less within the company or startup to the gain the necessary skills, experience & knowledge to prepare them for their next tour of duty.

Therefore I will do my best to talk to my teammates in water cooler chats about on their motivation & purpose in the company. So you can help your team member or as the leader to steer them towards their specific objective while achieving the team's business objective.

Taking Ownership Regardless If Your a Leader or a Follower

You take responsibility as an individual for every failure, problem or setback which happens in the team even despite your gut tells you that this may be another person's fault.

I understand this can be a hard pill to swallow. That is why some agile teams use blameless post-mortem to reduce the finger-pointing & victimhood between each other to discuss and think of a way forward.

When I first read about this, I am like you who thinks that this is absurd since whenever problems happen. There is always another person's fault for the screwup which that person is not me. The problem with that mentality is that you are pushing the blame onto another person.

This mentality does not serve you. Instead, this makes you focus on the "other" guy. Costing you in the opportunity to reflect about yourself to prepare or improve to deal with future problems or situations.

Conclusion

I had covered what I had learned over the years. From books and being in teams from high performing team to low performing in toxic environments. Seek to part of teams to gain first-hand knowledge or experience by involving yourself through volunteering.

Volunteering your time & resources for your interest groups, conferences or contributing to open-source projects. Providing you with a glimpse of either high performing or unproductive teams to be a better follower and eventually a leader.

In learning to be a good follower and eventually becoming a leader in a team. You read books like How to Win Friends & Influence People, On Writing Well & 48 Laws of Power. These teachs you communication, understanding power dynamics and building relationships.

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Reference

How to Mentor Junior Developers

Max Ong Zong Bao — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 04:41:14 +0000

The original post was on How to Mentor Junior Developers and cover image by Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Introduction

Every year tons of junior developers enter the industry. Yet tons of companies have problems in finding developers to build software. They are always hunting for senior developers to fill their team & mentor junior developers.

The talent war is real with companies offering top dollar for the best affordable talent. Sadly we as an industry have a bad habit of not adopting mentoring as part of our support system to groom or cultivate new developers into our industry.

Leaving this effort to schools, coding bootcamps, non-profit organisations and do it your way. I hope this article, sheds light on mentoring junior developers in your workplace or non-profit organisations.

Why There is a Need to Mentor Junior Developers

Mentoring takes time feeling like a fruitless endeavour when the junior developer might leave the industry or the company. With piles of work piling up and requiring your immediate attention. The last thing you would want to do is offering advice as a mentor beyond your job scope.

Hear me out as I believe that learning to mentor junior developers helps build your soft skills to prepare you for the leadership positions. Much like teaching and writing helps you on career growth. You use mentoring to move beyond the operational level into the realms of business or human relationship. To become a leader by getting things done through a team or on an organisation level.

Listening & Asking Question is the Key

As a mentor, I believe the best thing you can do is provide a listening ear and ask questions as a sounding board to your mentee. Despite, your advice might not be taken seriously or acted upon by your mentee.

It serves to help fill the gap in areas they had not looked at before taking action. As a mentor, this process develops empathy that will prove useful for the future in developing products or services.

You will be surprised that the act of just listening & asking questions can help your mentee form a eureka moment that could help solve their difficult challenges for a career or life. I had that moment when my mentor gave me questions to think through my actions or gaps I had missed.

Scheduling Time For a Chat

Scheduling is a pain. Beyond a mentoring programme in JuniorDevSG for the past two years. I don't do this regularly with people I work with beyond just text messages or impromptu coffee sessions.

Recently, I started scheduling regular mentoring session between two of my interns. It is quite challenging to coordinate with another mentor and mentee. When I had multiple projects and my startup to handle. Never the less, I found that blocking out a time slot to mentor for the week, helps alot more than just asking my interns & co-mentor to schedule a time through a Calendly in their free time.

Conclusion

I had covered on the reasons on why you should look at mentoring junior developer. In short, you do this so the junior developer could one day take your current job and frees you up to seek towards a leadership/strategic role in the organisation or company.

I had shared the best thing you can do for your mentee is to be a sounding board by listening and asking questions. Challenging them or look at the gaps they had neglected. Lastly, I talked about blocking out your time consistently for the week to mentor is much easier than just letting your junior developer book your time for the week when you are free.

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Reference

Finding a CTO for Your Startup

Max Ong Zong Bao — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 07:32:52 +0000

The original post was on Finding a CTO for Your Startup - Reading Time: 4 Mins and cover image by Photo by Claudio Schwarz

Introduction

This article is for founders searching for their CTO. I will be touching on how you will attract or find a CTO for your company. I hope this serves to reduce your time and effort in searching for them. I believe there is a large misconception about finding CTO. I hope to reduce the time and effort wasted to search for them.

What Is In It For Me?

Before you even approach a developer on your latest, revolutionary, disruptive and a billion-dollar idea for your startup. Please understand that developers have a very low tolerance for BS and working for free unless it is open source or they are doing something for the developer community. Developers will do work for free, provided they know you well as a person. They need to know that you have their well-being in mind. You got to have clarity in what you are doing and what you can provide in the form of monetary compensation and something else.

Therefore before you approach them, validate your idea, create your prototype and have a budget in mind. You have to be clear on what you want to do when you get your CTO/co-founder on-board. I would suggest looking at their Linkedin, GitHub profile or their blog so you can establish rapport with them.

Have You Validated Your Idea/Prototype?

When meeting your prospective CTO for the first time, create a scope of work and your prototype to convey confidence to your potential recruit.

If you have not prepared a prototype with a validated idea and enough capital to pay for a project which differs from country to country. You can find ways to raise capital or do the prototype yourself like Webflow or Bubble to create your MVP.

I would always suggest having a budget ready to pay for a small prototype from USD 1,000 - $5,000 after vetting and chatting with multiple developers to know if you are comfortable working with them. Through this approach, you gain an insight into their working style. You can look at the synergy between you and the developer to invite them to become your CTO. Do not jump the cart before the horse. If you do that, you will find that they will ignore you and reject you directly as the amount is not worth their time. Note the going rates of a developer differs from country to country. It can start from USD $25/hour - USD $1,000+/hour. Therefore do not waste their time and your own, if you do not have a budget allocated for this small prototype use low code/no-code platforms to get started.

Tapping on Your Network

Once you have a basic MVP, validated your idea and a budget they might work with you. Start your search for your CTO using your network. You could tap on interest groups or use the incubator/accelerator mentors to get to know potential CTOs so you could pair up with to build a company together.

I suggest that you always work through referrals as your odds of a potential CTO is much higher. For me, I feel that Linkedin may not be an ideal place to send an unsolicited message to someone you don't know.

Regardless ask for a referral to the potential CTO through mutual friends in Linkedin. It is considered a warm lead with a higher chance from them to hear you out.

Research for your potential CTO, if they have any experience working in a startup or has operated as a freelancer for your first initial chat with them.

Conclusion

I hope that this article gives you enough information on searching for a CTO in your startup. Note that you could still be a solo founder and your focus has to be building systems or tools to leverage or scale yourself.

I might be beating a dead horse. Do not expect your potential CTO to work for free. It just poor taste to me that you don't value their time/effort. They don't own you a living and when you want them to work for free. For me, it is a red flag that you do not have any skin in the game. No one in their right mind will work with someone they do not trust much less to do it for free.

If they do, they are either gullible or do not value their time or effort that is a instant red flag. To me startup is a marathon and not a sprint.

The CTO will leave or ignore you. So please do not expect anyone to work for free. Another trick I had encountered from startup founders is that they will want you to work with them till they had gotten the capital/grants to pay for this. If you are am unable to raise capital or resources. Your not an entrepreneur but a snake oil salesman or a con-artist. So do the above-mentioned points before even approaching a potential CTO.

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Reference

What I Learnt Using Webflow

Max Ong Zong Bao — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 15:53:04 +0000

The original post was on What I Learnt Using Webflow - Reading Time: 3 Mins and cover image by Photo by Antonio Francisco on Unsplash

Introduction

Is low code or no code a new way for software development? The divide falls into two camps of developers.

The first camp of developers believes that low code or no code is a toy and avoid it at all cost. The other camp views low code/no code as an extension that we can integrate as part of the software or service we build for our customers/users. That forms a package like a bladesmith incorporating tools to forge a better blade.

If your reading this, I believe that you fall under the camp that views low code/no code as part of your software development toolkit to deliver value for your customers/users. I hope this article sheds some light about Webflow a low code platform that I used to teach people with disabilities (PWD) to get jobs or gigs for Project DUST.

The Pricing in Webflow is Confusing

To understand the pricing of webflow. It took me literally around 30 mins and watching afew videos to understanding their subscription plans. Webflow might surprise you when their purpose was to make it easy for creators to create. Webflow has a very confusing price plan that will turn anyone off. If you do not know the rationale on why do they structure their pricing this way. Webflow comes with two plans that are account and site plan:

Account - This plan contains a list of features that caters to you to create websites using webflow as either an individual or a team.

If you are a freelancer and you would like to specialise in using webflow. Just go for the Pro plan as it unlocks alot of features that you need to create websites for your clients.

Site - The plan is only for a single website. Webflow gives you an option to subscribe to this plan. If you want to use your domain name instead of the one provided by webflow or specific you are looking for features like CRM to store more data or e-commerce.

The Layout of Your Website is Important

Webflow makes creating a website easy in less than 15 mins. But the drawback is that you need to understand web design principles and the use of various elements in Webflow.

I would watch the video called How To Structure Websites Efficiently With Webflow to make your website mobile responsive without being stuck in fixing the layout differences for desktop or the mobile view.

I had spent tons of time to fix the layout for a project to be mobile responsive, so I hope you won't make the same mistakes as me.

Cleanup & Handoff to Client

One of the beauties of Webflow is the ease of handoff of your website to your clients. Webflow provides you with three different ways for you to hand off your website to your client. These require you to have an individual or team webflow subscription to do the following:

Exporting of the website as HTML, JavaScript & CSS. Your customer can search for hosting providers to host the website. This option might be cheaper than webflow provided they do not use any CRM or E-commerce features.
Customer Billing - Allows you to create a separate client billing, so that your customer could pay you on top of the support & maintenance fee with the webflow subscription.
Website Transfer - This option is my prefered choice. That allows you to transfer the website you had build in your webflow account to another webflow account for customers who want to manage the website themselves.

Conclusion

It is my belief as a developer you must focus on delivering value to your user/customer. Therefore I do not have a strong opinion about technology. I believe tools like webflow can allow you to leverage yourself to focus on a higher value work that matters.

I hope with this article, the confidence to use a low-code or no-code tool like Webflow while avoiding the costly mistakes that hamper you to deliver value at a breakneck speed.

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Reference

Singapore Tech Community Stance on Harassment (Cross-Post)

Max Ong Zong Bao — Sat, 31 Oct 2020 13:55:54 +0000

I'm giving my support to

Michael ChengFollow

Full stack software engineer in Singapore 🇸🇬!

by cross-posting this article. I believe it is an important topic for anyone from Singapore or plans to be part of the tech community in Singapore.

Please do click on the link below on our stance on such cases for harassment or to seek help if you had encountered this if you are in Singapore.

Singapore Tech Community Stance on Harassment

Michael Cheng ・ Oct 31 '20

#community #harassment #safety #singapore

DEV Community: Max Ong Zong Bao

My 2024 Year End Review

3 Things I Had Learnt?

Career

Education

Health/Fitness

Wealth

Volunteering & Causes

Family

What I Will Do the Next Year?

My Year-End Review for 2023

Career

Job

Personal Finances

Debt

Health/Personal Fitness

Medical Test with C-Reactive Protein

Round Island Walk

Life

Education

Technical Skills/Knowledge Upskilling Journey.

Storytelling

Taking a Master

Roleplaying

Thinking About What I Wana Do for My Life in the Next 10 - 20 Years?

Short Term

Long Term

Being Part of a Close Group of Friends or Family

Functional Fitness

Work

My Journey To Prepare As A Keynote Speaker - Read Time: 5 Mins

Introduction

Dread in Public Speaking

Preparations To Becoming a Better Speaker

It is OK to Ask for Help If You Feeling Overwhelmed

Conclusion

Reference

Is Singapore a Surveillance State?

Seeking for Ideas in Building a Course

What Does "Right To Repair" Mean to You?

Startup Founder Mental Models

Introduction

The Visionary

Raising Resources as a Salesman

System Thinking

Conclusion

Reference

Effective Principles for Working as a Team in a Startup

Introduction

Communication is Key

What is Their Tour of Duty?

Taking Ownership Regardless If Your a Leader or a Follower

Conclusion

Reference

How to Mentor Junior Developers

Introduction

Why There is a Need to Mentor Junior Developers

Listening & Asking Question is the Key

Scheduling Time For a Chat

Conclusion

Reference

Finding a CTO for Your Startup

Introduction

What Is In It For Me?

Have You Validated Your Idea/Prototype?

Tapping on Your Network

Conclusion

Reference

What I Learnt Using Webflow

Introduction

The Pricing in Webflow is Confusing

The Layout of Your Website is Important

Cleanup & Handoff to Client

Conclusion

Reference

Singapore Tech Community Stance on Harassment (Cross-Post)

Michael ChengFollow

Singapore Tech Community Stance on Harassment

Michael Cheng ・ Oct 31 '20