Michael Cho - Street-singing in Singapore: September 2008

Monday, September 29, 2008

How to pitch to a VC...

I am a (lucky) mind-wonderer...

Yesterday, I had 2 dates...a lunch+coffee with Marcus & Mark Liew (who came back from the States for a short trip)....followed by a dinner+F1-watching with Francis (Big Foot) and his bro Dominic (who recently came back from an exchange in Italy)...

It's always interesting to meet with old friends and talk about the old times...guess it's good to be nostalgic once in a while...it doesn't feel that long ago when I'd drop by Francis place to jam some blues, write some songs and belt out Bon Jovi to the top of our voices...it certainly seems like just a while back when I was digging trenches with Marcus & co while Mark was still sound asleep in his trench when the "enemies" start attacking our knoll...man those are good times!

but time is relentless...I'm already 28 this yr, pushing 30...and by some measures (as well as my own projection), i've already lived half of my life, and possibly the more energetic half...

talking to these guys make me think back on the dreams i (or we) used to have...i used to think i'd become a singer (ie. recoding artist)...i'd be like a bob dylan + sam hui combo (in my mind the perfect amalgamation of musical genre)...or I'd run my own asian EBay-like site (every country needs an EBay, so goes my reasoning)...in some ways, i'm still chasing the same dreams...i now sing on the streets (instead of running loop-tracks in a studio) and i'm still thinking of ways to leverage on the internet (hopefully in more ingenious ways than just starting another Singapore EBay copycat)...and over the years, i keep adding to a list of ideas, however wacky and often not as original & revolutionary as I'd have initially thought, and someday, i told myself, i'd act on them...i feel that i owe it to each idea to give it a shot...

now, at 28, the list has grown substantially...and i still relish bombarding my friends on the possibilities of these ideas (and i'm grateful i have some friends who are still willing to play along with my regular lets-go-on-a-what-if-mind-trips)...but as time passes, it dawns on me more and more that I'm just talking...and talk is cheap...

Marcus made a passing comment during our lunch..."dude, actually why are you so unsatisfied? you've got a gd job...you're learning useful things there..." and i agree with him...i'm one of the luckiest guy i know personally...i married my best friend, i've got a great family, i don't really need to worry about making ends meet and paying mortgage (not yet), and i've got my music...indeed there're really many things i should be thankful for...

And then a while later, when we're passing through Borders...i heard him saying "it's a wonder there're so many books out there that you can read...and probably you'd become so much smarter after you read all these books"...i guess he answered his own question to me earlier on...indeed we have sld be grateful for the many things we have now, be it knowledge, experience, love etc...but there are always something more you can gain to further enrich yourself...i think i've blogged this "creative tension" concept by Peter Senge a few times before...and this is how i've tried to rationalize this want vs have...

then again, there is the time factor...by my own estimate, i have 10 more yrs to work on my idea list...i'd consider my gd fortune if i have more yrs left after that to continue pursuing these ideas...even if i don't die before that, my other liabilities (such as providing financially for my family) would have proved such a big inertia that it'd be conceivably impossible to start taking that sort of risk at that age...the clocking clickin' and i feel a greater sense of urgency...

fortunately, i find plenty of inspirations around me...mark liew provides the embodiment of living-by-one's-own-rule-&-f**k-the-conventions...marcus reminds me of how to stay incredibly humble with the i-actually-dun't-know-what-i'm-doing mentality while it's apparent that everyday he's becoming more knowledgeable that he already is...francis chose the path of becoming a full-time artist, devoting his time/energy to expressing his ideas through his creations and placing his faith in his works rather than the dollar note...actually the list goes on and on...i must thank God for giving me the opportunities to make contact with so many marvelous people, from whom, I'm sure, I'd continue to learn a lot from...i guess this has to be one of the few aspects of my life where I'm not really itching for more (ie. no creative tension)...indeed, i'm truly blessed to have such fine company to call as my friends...