It is finally the last day of my internship and in less than 3 days I will be back in Toronto. It was a stellar experience working abroad and a learned a lot about:
- starting a business in Hong Kong
- running a small business / startup company
- wi-fi and gadgets
- hotel management and the hospitality industry
- dealing with clients
- building and designing a website
- and much more…
Unfortunately my boss had to leave to Shenzhen, China yesterday so he was not here for my last day. However, yesterday he sat down with me for what seemed like an hour where we talked about his business.
My boss is a veteran of the IT industry working in it since the first computer came out. He has worked in places like IBM, AT&T and Juniper and he said because of those places he had learned a lot about the IT and Networking industry. He has several business’ but DNET solution is a company that he is looking to make it with. He only recently started the business, however he is moving in the right direction and he has a solid business plan.
He spoke a lot about his time at IBM where they trained him and gave him a lot of essential skills that he uses in developing DNET that he would have never gained in school. This interests me since I have been curious about starting a business sometime in the near future. He advised me in making sure to work in the industry first if possible to gain a better understanding about how it works and most importantly I can build a network of friends in that industry. He said his network that he built during his time working was extremely valuable when he was starting his own business.
A great piece of advice he offered me was a few tips for starting a business. Before you want to start your business you first need to figure out where this business will be in 2-5 years and what you want to do with it. For example: do you want to create a product and try to get a bigger company to acquire your entire company and sell your IP and move onto the next idea or build your company for several years and aim for an IPO. He also gave me a lot of advice on how to initially finance and build a proper budget for your business using some tips he learned at IBM.
Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here and I have made several contacts here in Hong Kong that I intend to keep in touch with.
/rants 