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NinjaPear Blog

Welcome to the NinjaPear blog, where we will chronicle our journey in building the world's ultimate customer communication suite.

sharedhere

Getting to 66,000 views per day

Which works out to be 2 million views per month if you do the math. A figure I believe will bring SharedHere to profitability. It is day two since launch, and it has been two days of regret. I wished I thought through distribution a lot more. Nobody cares about

sharedhere

SharedHere goes public today!

Premium content, previously guarded by paywalls, is now readily available on SharedHere.com [sharedhere.com]. These include premium articles from Straits Times and TechInAsia. Any content that can be shared with a screenshot, will be shared on SharedHere because the future of the internet is not going to be an

I keep falling into this trap

I had lunch with my CEO friend, who runs Ubersnap. I'm helping him to take the business into Indonesia, and Ubersnap Indonesia is up against Holograil. Ubersnap researched and developed their Aura photo-booth in-house. While his competition has decided to buy a myriad of booths from China. Case

I gave up

I have been trying to grow high end ridiculously expensive hei bi (Cantonese for shrimps) for almost a year now. These shrimps that are no larger than 0.7cm cost $3 to $15 per piece. On random weekends that I manage to bullshit myself that the water conditions are perfect,

The Black Virus

The Chinese market opened today with a sharp -9.6% tear with no thanks to Wuhan's Coronavirus. The coronavirus is a disaster through and through. Just last week, I came across an article on disaster preparation [https://www.jefftk.com/p/disasters], and it hit me: How does

I dished out a personal attack today

The problem with the author-reader relationship is the implied authoritarian role. The writer as the expert, and the reader as the student. I will like to debunk this fallacy with this post that will journal a misdeed that happened today. I dished out a personal attack today, and I am

We have a Google Form for leave application. Wow, right?

When I was younger and naive, I believed that companies should have a flat hierarchy [https://nubela.co/blog/the-chinaman-i-hired-that-sneered-heckled-and-mocked-me/]. I also thought that rules were archaic and are a syndrome of corporate sluggishness. I still agree. I held a one-on-one two weeks ago, and one of the feedback I

The chinaman I hired that sneered, heckled, and mocked me

In 2011, I left Singapore for Sweden for an overseas exchange and internship programme. And in my short year there, I found Sweden to be a homogeneous and egalitarian society. I came back a proponent of socialism, and I loved the idea of safety nets. As a young intern at

Nobody changes

I was reading the comments on this Reddit thread [https://old.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/es5sab/sporean_tweets_about_people_glorifying_ot_life/] on the culture that pushes Singaporeans to work overtime (OT). The third highest ranked comment [https://old.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/es5sab/sporean_tweets_about_

Failed an audit, here's why

It is a funny sight when tech-illiterate CEOs attempt to build tech companies. They thump the beat by appending or prepending buzzwords in their elevator pitch. But any developer worth their salt will be able to catch their bluff. LandX underwent a certain audit for compliance today, but the result

The opposite of earning your trust

My company is a place of pleasant surprises for great employees. The bad hires relish with equal glee. Right after the first week, the poor hires must count their lucky stars as they get comfortable with our hands-free approach in the company. I enjoyed the same treatment during my first

bach-tales

Drama in the board game world

I have had my heads (and fingers) down writing all day, all night in the past few days. The reason why you have not seen my recent posts is that the words are not legible for the laymen. I have been writing code in wrapping up SharedHere. More on that

Deliberate practice and First-Order Priorities

Hey, I started a post with a non-clickbait title that sounds more sophisticated than it should. But guess what, I am betting that the usual trolls are not reading this and hating on my clickbait prowess. You prove my point that click baits work. But that is not the point

What success means to me

A senior engineer in the Bay Area makes US$400+k annually. And yes, I think my experience and products would seat me in that tier of engineers. I am effectively giving up a million bucks every two years by running my own show. This is 1M dollars, risk-free. (Takes

Part 1: How to get away with murder in Singapore

First things first, this is not a guide for murder. This post is a guide on how you can stay covert in Singapore. Specifically, a guide to good OPSEC (Operations Security) in Singapore. Having good OPSEC means knowing how to get under the radar of the Singapore authorities, and to

How I hired 3 world-class designers for $199

Startup porn dictates that you should just build the product [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21934358], and that blogging is the best form of networking [https://andrewchen.co/professional-blogging/]. Here is the holy truth -- build it, and no one will come; blog it, and no one will read

What if everyone has medical testing equipment at home?

I was reading Hacker News today and came across a thread to predict future trends. One prediction was the advent of biohacking — bio-hacking beginner kits for everyone. But to "hack," or improve requires measurement. But if a diverse range of test-kits was made into a universal home kit?

A programmer started today; he quit too

This story does not have a good ending. So it's day 0 at work, and I was supposed to have three new staff to onboard. The first one got the starting date wrong so that he will start two weeks later. That is fine. People make mistakes. The

To 2020 and beyond!

I spent the entire year writing about 2019. On the second last day of the year, I have my eyes set on 2020. So, how will 2020 be different from 2020? A culmination of habits If you are expecting a radical change, there is none. Instead, I am hoping for

There is no startup scene in Singapore

Right after I graduated, I contemplated a move to Silicon Valley, and I would if public transport was like Europe's; if the homeless situation was like Singapore, and houses the price of Berlins. The bay area is great for entrepreneurs but not so much for living. But given

The power of the gavel

I have a serious crush on Nancy Pelosi. No, it is not because she impeached Trump. Because honestly I am impressed at how far Trump has come. But this post is not about Trump. This post is about Nancy Pelosi, and how she has shown me what it is like

Much ado about nothing

Specifically, doing nothing. I finished my tasks for the year last week, so I tried to do nothing over the pre-Christmas weekend. I failed catastrophically. Honest to goodness, I did not know that not doing anything is this hard. It is no wonder Bach says that we Singaporeans are addicted

Five years old

As a hypochondriac with self-diagnosed ADHD syndrome, I manage my restlessness with videos playing in the background. Having something (useless) in the background that is interesting enough for my brain to make multiple contextual every few seconds helps me to focus on my main task. Then I paused and shifted

Given N, pick two

Where N is usually three. Given 3, pick 2. This is a classic dilemma of compromise. That neither you nor I can have our cake and eat it at the same time. And I say that as a father that has been leaving work at six every day so I