A few weeks ago, I finally earned my Masters of Business Administration (or in short MBA) from University of Malaya. The 2.5 years flew pretty fast - it seems like just yesterday I rode the scary elevator in the UM City Campus for the first time.
One of the requirements to graduate was to write a thesis, and mine was entitled ‘The barriers of E-commerce adoption among Malaysia SMEs‘. It’s the single most lengthy document I have ever written. The Dean of UM MBA Dr Tengku Faziharudean is looking to get my research published. Hopefully it will be soon.
I am forever grateful to Dr Tengku for his dependable guide, all the other lecturers who are too many to mention here, my wife Ilyani for her tenacious companionship, our family members for being unconditionally supportive, and finally my fellow course mates (again, too many to mention) for making my MBA journey not just bearable, but surprisingly fun and enlightening. Thank you.

I graduated wohoo!
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I started my MBA in 2009, at a time when I was already running my own business. My friends Akmal, Alif, Luqman, Jalil, and a few others went back to school much earlier.
Is it a good idea to pursue education while starting a business???
I recall Peter Graham wrote something interesting about this a few years back:
Let me mention some things not to do. The number one thing not to do is other things.
If you find yourself saying a sentence that ends with “but we’re going to keep working on the startup,” you are in big trouble. “Bob’s going to grad school, but we’re going to keep working on the startup. We’re moving back to Minnesota, but we’re going to keep working on the startup. We’re taking on some consulting projects, but we’re going to keep working on the startup.”
You may as well just translate these to “we’re giving up on the startup, but we’re not willing to admit that to ourselves,” because that’s what it means most of the time. A startup is so hard that working on it can’t be preceded by “but.”
1. In particular, don’t go to graduate school, and don’t start other projects. Distraction is fatal to startups. Going to (or back to) school is a huge predictor of death because in addition to the distraction it gives you something to say you’re doing. If you’re only doing a startup, then if the startup fails, you fail. If you’re in grad school and your startup fails, you can say later “Oh yeah, we had this startup on the side when I was in grad school, but it didn’t go anywhere.”
You can’t use euphemisms like “didn’t go anywhere” for something that’s your only occupation. People won’t let you.
2. One of the most interesting things we’ve discovered is that founders are more motivated by the fear of looking bad than by the hope of getting millions of dollars. So if you want to get millions of dollars, put yourself in a position where failure will be public and humiliating.
When we first met the founders of Octopart, they seemed very smart, but not a great bet to succeed, because they didn’t seem especially committed. One of the two founders was still in grad school. It was the usual story: he would drop out if it looked like the startup was taking off.
Since then he has not only dropped out of grad school, but appeared full length in Newsweek with the word “Billionaire” printed across his chest. He just cannot fail now. Everyone he knows has seen that picture. Girls who dissed him in high school have seen it. His mom probably has it on the fridge. It would be unthinkably humiliating to fail now. At this point he is committed to fight to the death.
I wish every startup we funded could appear in a Newsweek article describing them as the next generation of billionaires, because then none of them would be able to give up. The success rate would be 90%. I’m not kidding.
Go on, read the full version at http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html.
Anyway, now, without the part-time night classes, I found myself having extra time to kill. So if anyone wants to hang out with me or lepak2, ring me up at [017]33224six4. The teh tarik is on me.