Chris Muktar's Blog

5 tips for first timers in e-business

chrism2671 — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:20:17 +0000

I run WikiJob.co.uk, and I’ve mentored a number of people on accelerator such as Springboard. I see new entrepreneurs making similar mistakes to the ones we did, here are my top 5.

Businesses need to sell things. Frequently overlooked, many businesses are focussed on doing something cool or doing something for the greater good. While that’s an essential component, it should be obvious how to make money as well. Relying on an acquisition is a poor idea, unless you get very lucky or you have a buyer before you even begin.
You need marketing. If you build it, you need to market it. Once a product is made, how are you going to market it? For a content based website like WikiJob, this might be SEO. For an iPhone app, it might be word of mouth, or adverts. For a dating website such as Lovestruck, what works for them is a display advertising campaign on the London Underground and regular press coverage in the daily newspapers. Having good marketing is as important as having a good product.
If you are building a website or app, you are not a tech business. Tech businesses sell or license their technology to individuals and other companies. Oracle is a tech business. IBM is a tech business. Google’s business is selling advertising; it’s a media business. They have sales teams that do this. Make sure you understand what business you are in.
Have a plan that shows how you will cover your costs within 6 months. Some businesses take 3 years to even begin to cover costs. WikiJob took 2 years. Bad idea. The quicker you can make this, the quicker you can succeed. Making money on day 1 is even better.
Never, ever, give up. When you start a business, you are making at minimum a 5 year commitment. Think carefully before you do it. Success is almost guaranteed to those who don’t quit. Setbacks are only become permanent when you decide, otherwise they are temporary. It will be harder than you ever imagined.

5 tips on living in hotels

chrism2671 — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:40:12 +0000

Inspired by Colin Wright‘s Exile Lifestyle and Paul Carr’s Upgrade, I’ve decided to do the same. I sold most of my stuff, rented out my apartment in London, and booked a ticket to my favourite city in the world, Toronto.

Here’s my top five tips for living in hotels full time:

Don’t stay in hostels. Hostels are great for a night or two, but after a few days, they start to wear thin. I was paying $30 a night at the Planet Traveller Hostel in downtown Toronto. One night I came back from a meetup at 1am to no sheets on my bed. The next night, some drunks came into our room at 2.30am and had a fight- they were staying too. Another had earthshattering snores. And the whole room smelt of sperm. After 5 days, that was enough.
Do get expensive hotels cheaply. The best thing to do is to book a hotel through Expedia or Hotwire. When you book a room, they don’t tell you what hotel you will be staying at, but instead just give you the rough whereabouts. It’s much cheaper that way. Ask at the front desk for extended stays, and a sales person will come out to offer you an even better rate.
Do reclaim taxes. Most of the time, as a visitor, you can reclaim sales tax wherever you are. In Toronto, that’s at least 13% off your hotel bill. For Canada, the details are here.
Eat properly. You can’t cook in a hotel. Hotels are placed in touristy areas, so all you have is pizza, kebab and restaurants. Most places don’t advertise healthy food, but some will have salads in a tiny corner of the menu. Look for these.
Don’t stay put. The biggest advantage of staying in a hotel is that you don’t have to. Make the most of the freedom and travel.

Getting Rid of All My Stuff

chrism2671 — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:41:52 +0000

Here’s an ode to Graham Hill and Colin Wright, of whom I was not aware until this morning.

I live in a tiny flat in Central London. While it’s effeminately decorated, it’s truly my bachelor pad. At 396 sq ft, it’s even smaller than Graham Hill’s Life Edited project. Without the budget for a cleverly designed fit out with moving walls and secret compartments, space is so much a premium that anything unnecessary is too much.

Recently I have begun to think about what I will do after I finish with my existing company. I’ve decided I’d rather live a minimalist lifestyle, live as a semi-vegetarian, and travel even more than I do.

I’m binning, donating and selling almost everything in my flat that I don’t need.

I think after that I might just try and do what guys like Paul Carr and Colin Wright did- and hit the road.

My Z LASIK Laser Eye Surgery Experience

chrism2671 — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:12:34 +0000

Transcript:

Today is the 17th January, 2012. Tomorrow I’m going to have my Z LASIK or laser eyes surgery. The place to which I’m going to go and get this done is Focus Laser Eye Surgery in London. They are on Upper Wimpole Street.

And before I settled on them, I went to see Ultralase, Optical Express and I think one other as well. And I had consultations on all of them. Focus put me at ease straight away which was really, really good and they seemed extremely proficient so I really liked that.

The other thing was that all of the other ones pushed a hard sale. So, I found the longer I waited after my consultation, the more discounts rolled-in hard and fast. And I began to see more and more sales tactics and certainly it’s something I’m not used to in dealing with a medical procedure. And I never really thought that I would be arguing down price on something as valuable as my eyes.

Focus seemed to be different which is good. And more so, I was recommended to Focus by someone who had it done and had very, very positive experiences. So, I’m quite looking forward to it.

They’ve given me a, like, the consent form and I have to sign different sections. Some parts of the form are terrifying. There is no doubt that LASIK can be dangerous or certainly it’s safe but there can be serious long-term side effects. I’m just going to highlight a particular sentence here. “There may be a persisting prickling sensation, chronic prickling or sharp pains.” These things are quite worrying.

Certainly, if you have a look on YouTube and read the press, you’ll see that there has been a lot of negative press surrounding laser eye surgery as well. Even on certain circumstances where people have committed suicide as a result of complications related to their laser eye surgery. I’m hoping that’s—I won’t be in that category.

Certainly, one thing about choosing a laser and choosing a surgeon, there’s a lot of choices out there and I really think that you need to make an informed choice when doing this. It’s why I sought a lot of clinics first and did a lot of research online. I think that’s really important.

There are two principle things that affect the outcome of laser eye surgery as best as I can tell. That is the equipment used. So, really you want to be using the most up-to-date equipment and the standard of the surgeon. Really, you’re looking for a surgeon who’s done something like 10,000 or more procedures because they’ve seen just about every complication that could possibly come up and treated every kind of eye.

And the other thing is, you really—I mean, certainly Focus—one of the nice things I like about Focus is it’s actually really know the proprietor of the business. It actually performs the surgery and I think it’s particularly important. They’ve got a great track record. And I think, a lot of that comes to them not being willing to operate on risky eyes. And I think, that is where a lot of the problems other people have had have come from is that they were never suitable for LASIK in the first place but they went ahead with the procedure because the surgeon or the optometrist haven’t identified that they were not suitable.

So, I’m hoping that all of these things will be not a problem for me. So, I guess probably the next time you’ll see me is afterwards. And yeah, wish me luck!

Just to add my prescription at the moment today, the day before surgery, is right eye -4 and left eye -4.75 with astigmatism; a cylider of -1 and an axis of 155.

Alright, I’ve just come back and it’s about an hour since I did the procedure. And I feel fine actually and I can see pretty much everything. I got a lot of—I draft some bits and pieces to put in and I think I’m going to bed now. I’m going to cover my eyes and so I’m going to do that and then come back in a few hours and finish up.

Okay, it’s about 7:30 in the evening which makes it about six and a half hours since I had the procedure. I had a little bit of a lie-down. I haven’t been able to sleep. But, in that time my vision has cleared and cleared and cleared. It’s still a little bit hazy. I’m still getting used to it but I can basically see absolutely everything. It’s not uncomfortable. I have a little bit of irritation in my eyes. My right eye begins to hurt a bit, you know, maybe every hour or so. And I’ve got anesthetic drops for that for the rest of the night. I’ve got a lot of drops put in, four different kinds of drops to put in at intervals of between an hour and four hours and that last week. And I’ve got some nasty, little eye guards to put on which are supposed to protect my eyes overnight to prevent myself from rubbing them while asleep. So, yeah, tomorrow at lunchtime, I’ve got my check-up with Focus Laser Vision. Hopefully, everything will be okay. So, I’m looking forward to that.

Just to talk little about the procedure, I was very, very nervous beforehand. I took a valium to calm my nerves which helped. David Allamby, the consultant surgeon who performed the procedure, really put me at ease. He walked me through all the risks and so on. I mentioned some risks and the terms and conditions yesterday which made me nervous. We discussed those and I felt that I was in safe hands.

When it comes to procedure, it is a little bit intimidating when you go in the room. There’s a lot of equipment. It’s very, very noisy. It’s a dark. But again, David put me at ease which is really good. And then, we got on with it. It is not painful at all. I would say it’s extremely uncomfortable. But then, I was expecting that. I’ve watched videos on YouTube and I suggest you do that, as well. You definitely do get the smell of burning flesh when it happens. Surprisingly, I found half a contact lens in my eye which had been lunged there for probably at least 9 months. David had said he only had seen that once before and he’s done some 12,000 surgeries so it was good to get that out.

The whole thing was over in 20 minutes and I sat up and quite unbelievably, I could see almost straight away. A bit hazy but I could read the clock. I could read the name tags on the staff. I could read the fire warning sign on the corridor walls. It really was unbelievable. And I mean with every passing hour, it seems to be getting clearer. So, I’ve been told that the exciting stuff is tomorrow morning when you wake up and your vision should be a 100 percent clear. So, I am very, very, very much looking forward to that.

As you can see, there’s no real redness or any real visual sign that I’ve had surgery today. To be honest, it’s just the irritation. And it just feels like grit in my eyes and that’s it.

So, yeah, that’s enough for me now and I will see you tomorrow, hopefully.

Alright, it’s the next morning. I’ve been about 45 minutes and it is unbelievable. I could see absolutely everything. I keep catching myself sometimes looking at the little drops of water on the windows or little twigs on the branches on trees a hundred meters away. It’s absolutely amazing. I’ve never thought I’ll be able to see like this much better than I’ll be able to see with glasses or contacts.

All of the discomfort yesterday, the pain has gone away now. And it seemed with every passing hour, my vision is getting clearer and clearer. I’ve got a one day check-up at midday today. So, hopefully everything would be fine. And I’m just taking my drops and yeah, so…so far so good. As you can see, I don’t think there’s any problem really at all with my eyes. They just look normal so happy.

Alright, so it’s the day after my check-up. It’s two days since I had the procedure and I have to say to be honest, it feels perfectly normal now. There’s no discomfort or sensation at all. A lot of people talk about having dryness after LASIK. Personally, I have no dryness at all. I’ve been taking drops every couple of hours as prescribed which is probably helping. To be honest, my eyes seem really well lubricated, anyway. So, everything is fine. I’ve got another check-up next week and I’ll let you know how that goes. The check-up yesterday was fine. My half flaps are healing properly and there’s no sign of infection or anything like that.

So, results so far I would say best idea ever really. I cannot believe how clear it is and how easy it was. And how—yeah, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. So, I should have done it years ago.

Okay. I think it’s day 12 now. I had my one week check-up on Wednesday, five days ago and it seems that the flap is healing impeccably. Apparently, you can barely see it’s there. And they tested my vision and it came in at 20/12 which was, which I guess puts me in below of the average vision. I think it puts me on top 40 of population for vision now which is great news.

All of the side effects I had are tested as being alongside the first couple of days afterwards because it’s swelling. That’s gone. Pretty much all of the discomfort is gone. I have got some symptoms of dryness. They say that everybody gets dryness at the first month. So, I suppose that’s to be expected. And I’m just putting in my drops. I recommend probably putting them in four or five times a day. I use the computer all day long so it’s no surprise that I do need the drops. But I have to say, I’m pretty happy really, all things considered. Yeah. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant, couldn’t ever, ever go back.

Yeah, I think to be honest, if I haven’t got any problems or any other issues, this will probably be my last installment. So, if you’re thinking about getting laser eye surgery, definitely go and do a consultation. Go and check it out. There can be serious side effects. You might notice it might vary. So, definitely check, check if it’s right for you before you do anything.

If you go to Focus Laser Eye Vision, where I had mine done in London, and you say I recommended you and my name is Chris Muktar, that’s M-U-K-T-A-R. Then, they’ll give you £200 off and they’ll give me £200 as well. So, everyone’s a winner.

So yeah, all in all, great experience. If I had to do it again, I should have done it years ago, I’ll do it in a heartbeat. So, best of luck and hope it works out for you, too. Bye.

Fixing water will change the world

chrism2671 — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:26:56 +0000

Water is essential. But water also spreads disease. Water is the cause of death of millions worldwide.

In the third world, the lack of clean drinking water and proper sanitation (read: toilets) is the root cause of many wider issues, notably:

Children have to walk for hours a day to visit wells- time better spent in school.
Teenage girls drop out of school because they don’t want to use a pit to go to the toilet in front of everyone.
Lack of clean sources of water means people are forced to drink dirty water – even they know it is bad for them.
People get ill – death amongst children is a normal fact of life amongst mothers.

Fixing the water supply will mean people can focus on other things, such as working, learning, and caring for others.

Provision of proper sanitation and water supply is cheap by western standards. A well and toilet for a village costs a few thousand dollars; estimated around $20 per person on average.

Why we should all give money to charity

chrism2671 — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:19:21 +0000

Because we can.

LASIK Laser Eye Surgery: Choosing a clinic

chrism2671 — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 20:04:23 +0000

Four days ago I signed up for LASIK eye surgery (‘laser eye surgery’). I am moderately shortsighted in both eyes (about -4.5 diopters), with moderate astigmatism.

For a long time, I was under the impression that it was not possible to correct my vision using LASIK. Furthermore, I had always been interested in natural vision remedies, and so put off investigating. Recently, I met an uncle I hadn’t seen in some years, who had had the procedure and raved about it. I did some research online, and shortly thereafter decided to sign up.

There are two principle factors that determine the outcome of your procedure. They are, the laser used, and the surgeon.

The Lasers

There are 3 principle excimer lasers on the market that are available in London. They are:

The VISX Star S4 (as used by Optical Express)
Bausch & Lomb Zypotix 100 (as used by Ultralase)
Alcon Alegretto Wave 400 (Accuvision, Focus Vision Clinics).

All of them are wavefront assisted (don’t ever go for a procedure that isn’t). The conclusion I came to is this. For the purposes of text-book case like myself, there is little difference between them. Performance is equivalent. If you have a very strong prescription, or have thin corneas, the laser is likely to make more of a difference, and you should research what is appropriate for you.

Choosing a Surgeon

The surgeon you choose will be instrumental in assessing what treatment you should have or whether you are suitable, and determining the likely risks that will apply to you specifically. For example, those with thinner corneas are more likely to have dry eye problems afterwards. A good surgeon can minimise the risk of complications, and assist you best should you have any. The best surgeons have performed in excess of 10,000 procedures. This is enough for them to have seen almost every eye prescription and every complication that can occur.

Of course, make sure you always ask lots of questions and do you research. Never sign up without at least visiting a few.