Fireblog

Buying a Business

I want to make a confession.
I hope this does not make me sound evil haha.

About 1 month ago, a former employee informed me that his friend is putting up his internet cafe / business centre for sale due to personal reasons I will not mention here. The location is very strategic. It is in Waru Street, a neighborhood of Internet Cafes and Game Centres. It has been inactive this last month.

I've looked at the place, brought a relative that runs and understands the Internet business. The location of the cafe is very strategic compared to other competitors. The cabling is also satisfactory. The financial sheets are good enough. Not spectacular, but then again they do not have a fullproof SOP. The only flaw is the computers. They are as old as dinosaurs. He is selling the whole content, which consists of:
1. Server
2. PCs (PIV 1,7 + PIII 800)
3. 2 Aircon totalling 3pk
4. Refrigerator
5. Printer
6. Scanner
7. Tables & Chair
8. Cable
9. Phone
10.etc

I value the items quite low. For example, I need half of the PC but I stated that I would replace them all so I would only value them 1 million for canniballing purposes only LOL. By stating that I actually do not need his items (not true btw), I project to him that his items are valueless.Let's use example purpose only numbers:
The owner asked for 15, does not want to go down. I valued the assets under 9. For cannibal, I am willing to raise the offer to 10.


Here's how I sorta played a little bit, just a teeny weeny bit dirty. I contacted his right hand man. Asked him how much he was getting paid. I told him I would give him a raise and a small profit sharing scheme if I got the place. I then ran by him the valuation numbers one by one. Of course, when the owner then asks for his opinion, he would then answer that my offer is attractive.

Another thing I found out by contacting the building owner is that the business centre's contract actually ran out in June. So time was definetely against the owner. The longer he waited, the less value his business is. He is getting kicked out in August! Now this would not be good for both of us; he winds up with valueless junk, and it would be too troublesome and costly for me to install new equipment from scratch. I am however, unwilling to pay the asking price. Determined to get a low price, I waited and waited until Friday, the owner started calling me. Every 15 minutes or so. Of course I did not pick up the phone. I did not reply his text messages either. Even his right hand man was nervous and buzzed me on YM and texted me whether I still wanted to buy the business. I left them sweating until Monday (28 July) morning. I sent a text offering to set up a meeting. "Unfortunately" he is unavailable that day, or the next. Why the double quote? Because I knew he would not be available. Which was why I asked for that exact time he would be unavailable. This provides a psychological effect that I am willing to negotiate but he is always unavailable.

I asked his right hand man whether the owner reconsidered my offer and he said he agrees to a price of 10! haha. Yesterday the owner called and asked my home address so that he can come over at any time I wish to discuss the price. Of course I would not be interested in having business be brought home, especially if things do not go as planned. Plus, I feel sorry if he had to go from Rawamangun (edge of East Jkt) to Joglo (edge of West Jkt), so I told him to meet me at a mall. Puri Indah Mall LOL! I was taught in negotiation class that to have an edge there are some tips:
1. negotiate at a venue you are familiar with and where the counterparty is unfamiliar with.
2. be in top stamina while the counterparty is exhausted.
3. plan ahead. know what points you are able to lose to make the counterparty feel that it is a win-win situation.

The first two reasons are why I chose Puri Indah Mall. It is far as hell from their place, while it takes me only 20 minutes to get there. I could've picked Senayan (also 20 minutes from my place) but it is too close to his location and I am sure he's been to Senayan haha..

Dont judge me by this article.. I mean... business is business... buy lower sell higher.

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Being a poor guy that needs to get money, I must be willing to put in the extra hours.

11am
(phone call): can we have a meeting today? at two pm.
me: today? wow.. so sudden.. [need the money... so ok]

meeting: 2pm-4pm

mr. xyz: we need blablablabla, hohoho, ahhahaha, hihihi... this is quite sudden, but we need the documents by monday.

me: this monday?? whoa... [i kno i need the money]... ok..

5pm. received a sms
sms: because of "bleep bleep bleeep" I need the document by Saturday 4pm.

Do I need money? yes... T_T

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Sometimes, software isn't so magical. Even for Bill Gates.

PictureFor the opening piece in our series on Gates leaving daily life at Microsoft, one goal was to give a clear picture of the Microsoft co-founder's role inside the company, as a gauge of the impact his departure will have. As part of that, I went back through the internal e-mails turned over in the antitrust suits against the company, looking for new insights into his personality.

Read on past the jump for one of the gems that turned up, showing Gates in the role of chief rabble-rouser. (Original document: PDF, 5 pages.) It shows that even the Microsoft co-founder -- who champions the "magic of software" -- isn't immune to the frustrations of everyday computer users. Keep in mind that this was more than five years ago, so it doesn't necessarily reflect the specific state of things now. At the bottom, see what Gates said when I asked him about the message last week.

---- Original Message ----

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

When we were concluding our interview last week, I showed Gates a printout of the e-mail and asked if he ever got Movie Maker to work. Gates noted that Microsoft plans to include Movie Maker as part of Windows Live, so people will get the program when they download that online package. The company isn't confirming that officially yet, but's not a complete surprise. See this Wikipedia entry and this related post on LiveSide.net. (Site temporarily down as of Tuesday morning.)

As for the message, Gates smiled and said, "There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail ... like that piece of e-mail. That's my job."

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