Monday, January 02, 2006

Start-up thoughts so far...

I haven't been able to write as frequently as I could have as I've been busy with kicking-off the start-up idea i have...after some talent-scouting, i've got myself a decent team of 7 ppl...we're all located at diff placess...2 from HK, 1 from Stanford, 2 from Berkeley, 2 from Michigan...it's still too early to say if we'd be a great working as a team yet, although I'm still pretty satisfied with these 6 other ppl i manage to persuade to join in the ride...

i'm really excited for this venture because for one, i've always had many business ideas and finally i'm acting on one of them so i wont be just one of those idea-man-without-action...secondly i think i'm gonna learn much more from this experience about the basics of running a business; marketing, legal, market research, company strategy etc...i just hope that the 'tuition fee' wont hurt me too much.. in other words, my current motto for this venture is "to gain a great learning experience without losing too much money"...

we finally had our first team meeting a few days ago and i must say things got on to a pretty good start...it was quite productive considering it's a 6-person meeting on MSN messenger...i manage to function as a facilitator and go thro several impt issues...although there's some issues that definitely needs more attention in future meetings...currently i'm the only connection in the team since almost everyone (except Connie who's Francis pal from CSP) is a personal friend...so i really hope that they can start communicating among themselves and establish some kind of relationship without me as the middleman...this actually reminds me alot about the early days of starting World Service Team back in Michigan...i was also the only 'connection' in the beginning...fortunately the WST core team turned out to be really cohesive and efficient in the end...i wish things would turn out tat way this time round too...

anyway, we've set our beta launch date on 15 Feb...so i've been working almost non-stop on the look-like prototype and wrwiting some specs to get the design process started..thing abt the internet is that things move so fast that every single day counts! we really need to stay lean and fast if we wanna survive...a frequent question posted to me as I tried to tell friends about my idea or try to recruit some hardcore programmers (i failed to recruit the service of 2 supposedly very gd programmers becos i couldn't convince on this point) is that i dun have any technological advantage over others..."why cant google do the same?" , "what stops others from copying ur idea?"...frankly, i can never give them a satisfactory answer that they're seeking for...fact is, we're the underdog..none of us on the team are truly hardcore geeks by the extreme sense of the word...5 of us are still students...none of us has ever tried started a biz b4...and frankly, even though the idea is still novel rite now (to the best of my knowledge)...it is indeed an idea that can be easily copied by others...

while those 2 guys definitely have a point, and that i was actually quite disappointed that i couldn't convince them (not that i'm disappointed tht i cant get their service, but more with my inability to convince the "experts" on the potentials of the idea, which says something about, or rather the lack of, my "pitching" power), i actually dun think that technological superiority is all that impt in the start-up we're starting...timing, marketing strategy, user experience emphasis would be mmuch more impt actually...and NETWORK EFFECTS! the most impt thiing about my idea and most web 2.0 ideas out there these days...it's sth even Google cant do anything abt once u got it...think Facebook...it has passed the tipping point in the network effect curve...even though it's a very simple thing to implement (technologically speaking), google has probably lost the battle to create their own google campus social network...what i need most is the a self-perpetuating network...getting there is everything! and it's fair game for everyone, whether u'r a $1bil a month company or a cashless start-up...i dun think there's any exact science in tellin why the wind blow whichever dirrection in a network effect dictated economy...i'm hopin abit of gd timing, marketing genius and tons of gd luck could work some magic for my team...well, if it fails, i can always look back and say 'that was great...now wat else can i start?'

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