• My consultancy sideline was picking up. It reached a point where it was earning much more than my salary with Friendster and I was only devoting 20% of my time to it. What more if I threw in 110%?
• It’s just impossible to do both sidelines and a day job without sacrificing either your health or the quality of work. I made a decision to focus on one.
• A monthly salary wouldn’t be enough for me to raise funds for my wedding. I had 10 months to raise an enormous amount of money to fund my wedding so the only way I can do that is by leaving corporate where I get paid by my time and try business where I get paid by effort.
• I just love the feeling of waking up at 11:30AM on a Monday. I don’t get to do this all the time but when I have a relatively open schedule, I take advantage of it to get more sleep. You can’t do this when you have a 9-5 job unless you go on leave.
• I prayed over this and consulted with a lot of my mentors, friends, and loved ones. I felt that God was leading me to entrepreneurship.

I hope that answers your question bro!

PS: Oh, I stand corrected. When I was still in the gaming industry I sent my resume to Blizzard, lol.

The most obvious thing to remember is to make sure that you have a solid and feasible business idea that can actually work and generate revenue. As much as possible make sure you have everything laid out in a document which talks about the product, your marketing strategy, and your financial projections. Share your plan with trusted friends and mentors to see what they think about it. If you feel confident already, then go through the following 5 things to see if you’re really ready to leave corporate life.

1. Capital
SHOW ME THE MONEY! Where will you get the funds to finance your business? There are several potential capital sources that you can try. The best one of course is just borrowing at no interest which you can only get from your family or really close friends. Note that by doing this you are already straining the relationship a bit and you better make damn sure that you pay every single centavo on time because if you don’t it will ruin the friendship completely.

Other sources include venture capitalists (meet with them and propose your plan), banks, and financial institutions (crazy interest rates though). Another idea is to raise part of the capital on your own and then look for partners that can fill in the remaining gap. Be wary about this. Only get partners that you can really trust AND work with. I’ve seen so many friendships go down the drain because they went into business together.

2. Security
Next is financial security. This was advice that I got from financial gurus Chinkee Tan and Randell Tiongson. They told me to compute my usual monthly expenses/budget and compare it to my current savings account. The question I should ask myself is how many months can I survive without receiving a paycheck? A good number would be 6 months – 1 year. This gives you enough time to either get that business running or if it fails you still have time to look for a new job.

3. Skills & Expertise
Next take an inventory of skills that you’ve accumulated over the past few years. Write them down. Be deliberate in exploiting your strengths and addressing your weaknesses. This is crucial because you can’t slack off anymore and still get a paycheck. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid in business. If your job is crappy, you won’t get more clients. Be aware of your limitations and work around them. Make full use of your strengths.

4. Network
Another important thing to take note of is the network of people that you’ve built over the past few years of being the corporate circuit. You get to meet a lot of managers from other companies especially if you’re part of the marketing or sales departments. These are connections that can lead to potential sales and referrals later on. Encode all of the calling cards that you’ve collected and go through them and see who you can tap for your new business venture as a customer, supplier, or maybe even partner.

5. Seek God’s Will
Pray about the decision. Read the bible. Talk to your pastor. Seek advice from your elders, mentors, and teachers. Make sure you talk about this and clear this decision with your wife or husband. This is a life changing decision so you shouldn’t be too rash about it.

Being an entrepreneur has a lot of advantages but it also has several big challenges that you have to surmount. It’s not as easy as it looks, hehe.

Also, please don’t think for a second that it’s wrong to be in corporate or working for someone. There are lessons, networks, and skills that you will only learn in corporate that you won’t get to know in entrepreneurship. Some people also thrive more in a corporate environment and if that’s your passion then by all means keep at it. As long as it satisfies your mind, heart, wallet, and soul then you should go on with whatever it is you’re doing.

And to those who do nothing but spread negativity and insecurity online through their blogs and social networks, allow me to quote from an entry of Jayvee that I just adore and love:

Go and make a name for yourself. Don’t waste time in events. Don’t wait for news to come to you. Go and be awesome. Detract from the trail of the script they give you in press conferences. Let your personality shine. If you want them to respect blogs, then give them a reason to.

Don’t go to the PR guy. Go direct to client.

Respect the PR guy. He can help you in the future when things get sticky.

But first, write something awesome. Not in praise of the machinations of the PR industry, but in praise of free speech. Write it well.

Do it again.

Push yourself to say more than the obvious.

Don’t take photos. Cull emotions. Don’t drown it with text.

Be relevant.

Be indignant about the status quo. Change it.

Change your template also.

Be more informed than them.

Be friendly. Be more than friendly. Be controversial.

Don’t whine. Don’t complain.

Say no sometimes.

Use keywords. But also be brazened.

Ship.

End with a bang.

Sometimes in life we keep pointing fingers at others and blaming them for the ills of our life. One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned is to not judge other people because we really don’t know them or what they’ve done in life. Of course I still struggle with this but I am working on it, lol. Stop looking at others and pulling them down and just focus on building your career and blessing others with the fruits of your labor.

Cheers everyone and I hope you’re all having a great week.

In no particular order:

1. Tribes by Seth Godin
2. Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
3. Linchpin by Seth Godin
4. The Dip by Seth Godin
5. The Big Red Fez by Seth Godin
6. Unleashing the Idea Virus by Seth Godin
7. Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk
8. Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni
9. Five Temptations of a CEO by Patrick Lencioni
10. Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
11. Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars by Patrick Lencioni
12. Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni
13. Trust Agents by Chris Brogan
14. Free by Chris Anderson
15. Wired by Chris Anderson
16. Twitter Power by Joel Comm
17. How to REALLY use LinkedIn by Jan Vermeiren
18. Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
19. Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel
20. Zen Habits by Leo Babauta
21. 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
22. Marketing Insights from A to Z by Philip Kotler
23. Principles of Marketing by Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong
24. Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout
25. Marketing Warfare by Al Ries and Jack Trout
26. Focus by Al Ries
27. The Leadership Dojoby Richard Strozzi Heckler
28. Street Fighter Marketing Solutions by Jeff Slutsky
29. Marketing Revolution by Paul R. Gamble, Alan Tapp, Anthony Marsella, and Merlin Stone
30. The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR by Al Ries and Laura Ries

Most, if not all, of these books can be bought in National Bookstore, Power Books, or Fully Booked. The expensive ones are the books by Patrick Lencioni (usually P1200+) but they’re worth every centavo. These books have shaped my professional career and I highly recommend all of them to anyone who wants to take up marketing – either traditional or digital.

1. E-mail (Outlook/BlackBerry)
The first and most important website or online application I use and visit is e-mail. The moment I wake up I usually have around 10-15 unread mail already and since i use my BlackBerry as my alarm clock, I end up checking e-mail the moment I get up from bed.

2. Facebook
Most of you who know me probably see me a lot on Facebook. No need to explain. I’m a social media evangelist! Need to be on the products that I’m pushing, right? Haha.

3. Twitter
Same as above.

4. PhilMUG
The only forum that I’m currently active in right now. I make it a habit to visit PhilMUG everyday. To those who don’t know what this is about, it’s a community of Apple product fans.

5. Google Reader (Social Media sites)
I monitor and visit a lot of social media, internet marketing, and technology websites/blogs like Seth Godin, Mashable, Engadget, Gizmodo, Yugatech, and a whole lot of other sites. They’re all on my Google Reader for easier and faster reading.

6. ABS-CBNNEWS
My personal favorite news website because of their Youtube videos. It’s almost as if I was able to watch TV Patrol and Bandila!

7. GMANEWS.TV
After Kapamilya, Kapuso naman.

8. Inquirer.net
This used to be my favorite news website but was replaced by ABS-CBNNEWS.COM and GMANEWS.TV.

9. New Media Philippines
I obviously visit this site because I answer the comments and I try to blog at least 3-4 times a week.

10. Apple Manila
My new blog! Hope you guys can visit it too.

How about you guys? What are the first 3-4 websites you visit every morning?