Nov 30, 2014

Who Knows which Industry is worth 35 Trillion dollars?

It's a lazy Sunday morning and I am doing my usual stuff, eating breakfast and surfing facebook.

I came across this sponsored post that screams

TIRED FROM YOUR CURRENT JOB?

How to start a business with low start up cost in a 35 Trillion Industry


Well, I am pretty happy with my job, but I don't mind another business whereby people slave away doing the hard work for me. Wow, a 35 Trillion Industry! Does the ad means 35 trillion dollars or 35 trillion people or 35 trillion planets.

Nov 28, 2014

The Wongamani Design Story: The Genesis of Wongamania (Part 1)

After graduation, I didn't want to follow the same corporate path taken by most of my friends. I always wanted to start my own company. It was 2003 and Singapore is just starting its evolution towards a financial hub after experiencing a deep and long recession. I have some ideas to start a children financial education company with a good friend at that point of time. However, we were concerned that we have no money, no connections and no knowledge at that time and we decided to work in the corporate work briefly before coming back together to start the company. He went on to join a marketing and event company while I joined a wealth management firm.

My friend enjoyed his work in the corporate world so much that he decided to stay for good. We never got down to starting that company. On hindsight, we should have started the company there and than. Who knows, we may have already established a pretty good brand name by now.

Nov 25, 2014

Why Boardgames in Asia are Old and Tired

When I was developing the Wongamania card game, I did a short google search on "board game" "card game" "Asia". The first few hits that I have gotten were on the traditional Asian board games such as "WeiQi" and "XiangQi". Other top hits include Asian inspired board games designed by western board games designers. There seems to be a lack of table games designers and Asian designed board games. Everybody in Asia seems to be obsessed with video and mobile games these days, when the trend is reversing in US and Europe, where board games are on the rise.

Sales of board games are on a rise in United States at a rate of 15%-20% in the past few years. More money is raised from tabletop games via crowdfunding programs than digital games in 2013. Top digital mobile games like Angry Bird and Candycrush are creating their own board games. One of the top reason for this reversal of trend, is the new wave of young people, whom decided to unplug from their mobile devices and social media, and engage in more sociable activities, like board games. This is an interesting article from New York Times on the rise of board games.

I did a simple Google image search and these pictures will tell you all about the state of table games industry in the different parts of the world. 

Board Game Industry in Asia. Stuck in Ancient Times
Board Games in US. Bright and Fun looking. They still love Monopoly!
Board Games in Europe. Strategic thinking needed.

 What's the reason for such a low interest in tabletop games in Asia? 

Nov 24, 2014

5 Ways Investment Scams Gain Your Trust ... and Money..

Financial products and money making opportunities are exploding across the world as investors look for new avenues to grow their wealth in this low interest rates environment. One of the most prominent bloom is the rise of the unregulated High Yield Investment Products (HYIP). These products typically offer high "guaranteed" returns of 20% or more and are often associated with a Ponzi Scheme. 

The recent explosion of a $1 Billion Ponzi scheme, SecureInvestment in America has hit the headlines of Bloomberg again. Forex Investors May Face $1 Billion loss as Trade Site Vanishes.
Here is the corporate video for SecureInvestment.


What is interesting is that the people behind SecureInvestment (The name itself is a big red flag!) are so marketing savvy that their website is more popular than forex.com, one of the world's largest forex trading platform, at one point of time. This Bloomberg article exposed some  of the marketing gimmick behind this Forex Trading Scam which they used to gain investors' trust... and their money.

Here are some of the tactics they used:

Nov 14, 2014

How to make a Suspected Scammer Wash Dishes at a Restaurant

This post was first posted on Recollections of a Money Manager during March 2014. Recollections is an online diary of my journey in the wealth management industry since 2005 and I decided to turn that site private since I prefer to keep the musings to myself. However, there is quite a few interesting articles which I thought I should repost at Xeolyenomics. Here is one of my favorite article.

Today, I had an interesting meeting with a suspected scam artist.



How I Blew $2,000 on a Forex Workshop

Creating Millionaires... Through Forex Trading... Hopefully?

Recently, I was reading a Bloomberg article The Lure of Forex: Conflict, Debt and Loss in a $400 Billion Market .

It's an interesting article that explores the Forex education workshops in America and how these firms market their workshop to get students to pay a few thousand dollars to learn about Forex trading.

Nov 3, 2014

Wongamania around the World - The Story Behind...

Many of you are fascinated on the reasons on why I have been putting Wongamania on my head while traveling around Europe.

Now, everyone is demanding that I put Wongamania on my head when posing with the box game. OMG!

Here is a short history how it came about.

One fine evening, as I was making the movie for the Crowdtivate campaign, I got so bored and decided to take a few crazy poses with Wongamania.

Fooling around with Wongamania while filming for the Crowdtivate Video


Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...