b.Capital - Time Units

The last part is here:   Capital - Energy Units 

My partner-in-crime asked me a difficult question today:   We must exploit the factor of time units.  

For time immemorial, my partner-in-crime and I have been grappling with the problem of cash. We resisted borrowing from anyone for a long, long time. But, we always ended borrowing in times of distress. For each borrowing, we always pay back in double the time and using double the effort. This caused a great loss of progress and a great deal more chance for competition to catch us. Fortunately, we lasted.

So a day in once upon a time, my partner-in-crime suggested that we exploit the time units, i.e., we start employing people to do our work. The progress was tremendous and we made lots of money in a very short time. But, we missed out on the quality control. The people that we employed were very slipshot in their work and delivery. After a while, our customers started to complain about the shody work output and started to shun us.  Initially, customers bought from us was because we were symbol of quality. But, once they consumed and realized that our quality sucked. We went downhill all the way. It took us 5 good years to repair that damage and regain the confidence of customers again.Exploiting the time units is not an easy task.

Just watch the movie on Steve Jobs, you would realize you need more than just employees to do a good job. You need passion. The whites tried to do it by giving employee shares, founder's share, share options, profit-sharing, and etc. But, even at this time and age, Steve Jobs still had to fire everyone and restart from ground up.

What my partner-in-crime gave me was indeed a very, very hard question. How to exploit the time units effectively? This is slippery. Done right, we fly. Done wrong, we are dead, like Nokia, Microsoft and yahoo. But, if we don't try to exploit these time units, we will never be very big. Once we have the cash units, the only next step is exploiting the time units.

The answer is not yet fully established by me.

But, I do know a good start, We must look at strong companies that are at least 200 years old. Let's look at the story of Kikkoman:

During the hundred years from the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-eighteenth century, soy sauce production led by the Mogi and Takanashi families prospered in the city of Noda, located in Chiba Prefecture. This is where Kikkoman was born.

Noda is located on the Kanto plain, once one of the largest production centers for soybeans and wheat. It was easy to secure the necessary workforce in this region, owing to its growing population following on the establishment of nearby Edo (today’s Tokyo) as the capital of Japan. Besides its geographic advantages, boat transport had developed in Noda, which was blessed with two major waterways: the Tone and Edo rivers. The transportation of ingredients was thus facilitated, while manufactured products could be delivered to Edo for mass consumption. Based on historical documents, nineteen soy sauce brewers organized an association in Noda to ship soy sauce mainly to Edo. By the mid-nineteenth century, Noda had become the largest soy sauce producer in the Kanto region. 

In 1917, the Mogi family, the Takanashi family and the Horikiri family merged their businesses to form Noda Shoyu Co., Ltd. In 1964, Noda Shoyu Co., Ltd. changed its corporate name to Kikkoman Shoyu Co., Ltd. In 1980, this trade name was altered to the company’s current name: Kikkoman Corporation.

"Make Haste Slowly" was a show about Kikkoman, after the company's motto, and alludes not only to its 300-year history, but its six-month brewing process that, according to Kikkoman's site, dates back to feudal Japan. The process involves fermenting soy beans, wheat, salt, water and a koji mold. The mixture, called moromi, is aged for several months before being pressed, refined, bottled and shipped. Kikkoman's site also states that the company was founded by a woman, "in a time when women didn't start companies." 

When I was younger, I was invited to join in a discussion with the boss of a Kikkoman factory and a chinaman consultant who specialised in fermentation. The consultant claimed that he could cut fermentation period to only 10 days. Immediately the boss' face turned black and the meeting ended in less than 10 minutes.

The consultant simply didn't know why the short meeting. He didn't realize that good things only come slowly. I was humbled by the meeting. Although I have zero respect for neither Japanese nor the chinaman, the company was indeed still a force to contemplate with.

The time units can therefore be established only after we have finalized the quality aspect of the products.

I still have much to learn. Growing is always good if not great, but growing at the expense of quality is death.

b.Capital - Generations Game

 

You asked:   How did you get capital?

You know you have asked a rather difficult question or rather a sensitive question. If you ever find a straight answer from the internet, it is not going to be useful to you. Ordinarily, I would have just brushed the question off by saying it was all hot air from a lunatic old guy. I was just talking cock. Nothing was real. But, you have helped others and you do have a tender heart to help those who are weak around you, you have therefore accumulated good karma points. Hence, it would be extremely bad of me to brush you straight off. But, at the same time, I can't tell you things that are not meant for the leaky internet.

Maybe I tell you something fundamental, so that you can get an idea on how does it all begin?

Generations Game

Immigration always starts from the fact that the immigrant is unhappy with his/her home country for whatever the reason. He then tries for fairer shores. There are two possible ways. One is he is a young and strong 20yo, but penniless lad. Or two, he is an old guy in his 30-60s with a family.

First case:   The young lad being young and penniless (I am not discussing the young and strong, with a good family background; immigration for them tends to be a matter of choice.) Like my father, he came to his fairer shores in his 20s alone. Being penniless and uneducated, he worked at all things, but after about 30 years of trying and learning, he will found things that he likes to do. He will grow his little wealth. I classified him as a true 1st generation. His 2nd generation, born local, will have adequate education and contacts from young to merge with the locals and be counted as one of them. Very seldomly, this 2nd generation will want to be a musician or doctor. He tends to be more practical, as he has experienced great hardship when he was younger. He can't ask for toys that other locals play. He is a young lad of little means. He will grow up humbly and knowing the value of money from a very tender age. He will work hard and take his time to perfect his hunting skill. Indeed he has all the time in the world. He will grow beyond what his 1st generation can achieve. He will then raise his 3rd generation with ease. The 3rd generation and all his subsequent generations will enjoy the comfort of abundant contacts, blood support and wealth. By the 4th-5th generations, he will sire his first doctor or musician. The reason is simple:   The next generation felt so secure that he will want to achieve the finer things in life, like a doctoring degree or learning music at the age of 3 to soothe his soul.

Second case:    The older guy with the burden of the family, even with money, tends to do very badly initially. He will bring along bad habits he acquired back from his ex-home country. If he is rich, bad, bad, bad news. The first thing he dabbles would be starting a business in the new home country. He will burn bad. I classify him as a zeroth (or 0.5th) generation. After the initial failures, he will grow humble and a little ex-home country missing. He will start to do odd jobs to pay bills. He has a whole family to feed. I have seen too many examples. His off-springs are classified as 1.5th generation. Why? He is not without support, his entire family is here with him. Being younger, he will merge quite well into the environment. His hard-work and education also win him some admirers. He will frequently top his class. He will try his best to win respect and recognition because he knows he needs that break. Luck is not allowed here. He too, by the 4th-5th generations, will sire his first doctor or musician.

A common example:   Once upon a time, there was this fucken old guy, he was either the 3rd or 4th or 5th generation, people called him a Baba. He can't even speak a word of Chinese. He was well-educated due to his father's connections and worked hard to marry into the hongchos of the day. Of course, with money, he enjoyed meteorically rise in power. We can't compare with him, he is many generations ahead in the Generations Game. We are immigrants from another previous place, we are the rolling stones that gathered no moss.

Of course, there will be exceptions to every case I quoted. But, these exceptions are rather few and far apart. The majority do fall in place. 

Speeding Up
Naturally your question is meant to ask if you could speed up this process. The problem is most people don't think hard enough. They wait for people around them to teach and guide them. There is not a chance in the world that you would be spoon-fed. Any spoon-feeding is bad for you. It is like trying to learn riding a bicycle with helper wheels. You can't really ride properly. Learn to let go the clutches. You will grow fastest.

If you think hard enough and search your inner soul, you can even harness the air around you to do your bidding. You just have to think really hard. In fact, there are enough things here already to tell you the proper way to think. These essays are meant for my next generations to read when I finally passed on. There is no falsehood if you are my heir; pure falsehood if you are not my heir. But, like in all public key systems, you are only holder of the public key, you still need the private key to open the lock. This private key I will leave it to my heir(s).

Way Ahead
Maybe you can start by thinking about what are the things you can do when 8 out of 10 chaps out there can't do? Use this starting point as your cash flow. Then invest your earnings into things that your heir(s) can inherit to smoothen their entry into this world. Be that unmoving rock, you will start to gather moss. Don't be too quick to spend that money you make in luxuries. 

The choice of immigration location is important. It is frequently perceived to be young, fresh and afford great opportunities for those who are weak. 

Don't punch above your weight. I want you to understand relatively where you are now and work from there. There is no shame in being behind. You have to just wait for your turn. It is after all the great Generations Game. When you finally make it, pay it forward, don't be that fucken old guy. It is not worth burning any good karma points you have accumulated thus far.

I wish you well ... in metta ...