Living the Startup Life

Can you believe this:

Some people are just straight up retarded.

Where is your car parked today? Do you know that it’s there? Do you truly know, without a doubt, that it is parked there today? Your answer will of course be “No.” Someone could have broken in, you could be mistaken, a cop could have towed it away, or a comet could have came down from the sky and hit your car sending it a mile away. All of these things are possible; therefore, you do not “know” where your car is.

An important thing to note is what my definition of knowledge here is. For this blog post, “knowledge” will be defined as “knowing absolutely without a doubt.” So in order for you to know something, there can be absolutely know doubt about it.

So my example about the car is pretty simple. Lets get a little more complex. There is a bright, red and yellow, glowing thing in front of me that is emitting heat. You say that it is “fire.” Ok, so I go up to it, touch it, and “Ouch!”, I get burnt. We do this 10 times and every time I get burnt. The next day you and I come across a bright, red and yellow, glowing thing in front of me that is emitting heat. I’m about to go up to it and touch and when you say, “Don’t touch it Jun or else you’re going to get burnt.”

Me: “How do you know that I will get burnt?”
You: “Don’t you remember yesterday? Every time you touched the fire you got burnt.”
Me: “Well who said that this bright, red and yellow, glowing thing that is emitting heat is fire?”
You: “It looks exactly the same as the ones from yesterday.  It has to be fire.”
Me: “It doesn’t have to be fire.  How do you know that this thing just looks like fire but isn’t.  Maybe its something completely different that we’ve never seen before.”

This is scenario 1.  You can’t be sure that this bright thing is fire.  There is the possibility that this thing could be something completely different that you’ve never seen before.  Remember, if there is the possibility that you’re wrong, then you can’t know it.  You can only believe it.

Lets make things more interesting.  Forget the fact that it could possibly be something else.  Lets talk about the what we’re basing our knowledge on: EXPERIENCE.  The majority of our so called knowledge comes from empirical experiences; it comes from us interacting with the world through our senses.  Now, I can ask you: “How do you know that you can trust your senses?” This would mean we’re taking a Descartes approach, but lets get even more fundamental.

You base your knowledge on past experiences.  Everything you pretty much think you know comes from your past experiences.  How do you know that gravity works?  “Well, gravity has always worked in the past.” How do you know what your best friend’s name is? “Well, my best friend’s name has always been Bob in the past.”  You get my drift right?  Everything you know comes from your experiences with the past.  So how do you know that gravity will continue to work tomorrow or that fire will continue to burn tomorrow?  Your answer is “Because it has worked in the past.”  And that’s where the circularity happens!  You cannot prove the future with the past.  In order to prove something with experience, it must have already happened; however, the future can never have already happened.  In order for you to prove something that will happen in the future, it must have already happened.  But that is impossible.  The past cannot be used to prove the future. Hopefully this makes sense to you.  Please let me know if this is still confusing and I’ll try to explain it further.

Ok, so we have proved that empirical knowledge is not really knowledge.  We can only believe in what we have learned through experience.  Now lets get even more interesting.  What about things that we do not learn through experience: arithmetic, geometry, and logic.

Can we know that 1+1=2?

Certain philosophers believe that arithmetic and logic are known a priori, or “known without experience.”  They believe that we know 1+1=2 without having to experience it through our senses.  I can argue this by asking, “Assume there is a person born into a pitch black room.  He does not have the ability to use any of his senses.  All he can do is think.  Will this person be able to come up with 1+1=2?”  Of course not.  This person must first experience the world, understand the way the universe works, and from his understanding, he will be able to deduce arithmetic.  So once we understand that 1+1=2, we are able to deduce all of math from it.

Again the same problem occurs.  The problem with deductive knowledge is that it is assuming a constant universe.  In our universe, 1+1 must = 2.  There is no possible way that 1+1 can = 3.  However, what if the universe was fundamentally different.  What if the big bang (if you’re a scientist) or God (if you’re religious) decided to create a different universe in which 1+1 = 3.  What if this happened?  What if tomorrow the universe changes.

This is why I’m a skeptic.  We can’t truly know anything.  Why do the people with power feel that gay marriage is wrong?  Its just their belief.  I bet you in 10 years, gay marriages will be completely legal.  This world is completely made up of beliefs.  What I’m trying to get the world to see is that no country is any better than another country, no society is better than any other society, no religion is any better than another religion, and no person is any better than another person.  We in the USA feel that Democracy is the “right” way to live.  The people in power try to impose our Democracy to other clients in order to “civilize” them.  Don’t they see the irony in this?  Countries have been invading other countries since the dawn of time trying to “civilize them.”  THERE IS NO RIGHT WAY TO LIVE!!! Until we realize this, we will never be in harmony with nature.  Until we realize this, we will always be destroying life on this planet.

My good friend Ian Selvarajah asked me what it means to be a “true skeptic.”  It is a great question and I am very happy to explain what it means and what I believe in.  An important note:

• I am not defending skepticism nor am I arguing that it is the “right point of view.”  I am merely explaining my beliefs and what it means to be a skeptic
• I believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and I respect all religions and all points of view

I am a skeptic, which means that I believe:

• There is no absolute right or wrong
• There is no absolute knowledge

I will break up my argument into two posts.  This first post will address the question: Is there an absolute right or wrong?

Lets start off by assuming that you believe there is an absolute right or wrong.  An absolute truth if you will.  I will ask you, “If there is an absolute right or wrong, then this implies that there must be someone to judge what is right and what is wrong.”  By mere definition, an absolute right or wrong means that someone or something has created rules to this universe and our existence that we must follow.  If we follow the rules, then we are doing right; if we break the rules, then we are doing wrong.  Therefore, the fact that you believe there is an absolute right or wrong means that you believe someone created the rules and is judging everyone.

[Note: My mom is Buddhist and she believes that there is no God; rather, she believes that there is energy in the universe.  Doing right means that you are doing something agreeable to the energy and that you are making your life better.  Doing wrong means that you are doing something against the energy and that you will be punished (punished is a bad word to use here because it requires someone to judge and act, but work with me here) by karma later on.  For this post, I will not argue against the energy theory that Buddhism provides.]

Ok, so now we have concluded that if you believe in an absolute truth, then you believe in a creator of the rules and a judge.  Notice that I have not said God yet.  Now I will ask you, “What characteristics must this ‘creator’ have if he is able to create all the rules that ALL must follow.”  You will answer that he must be all powerful [The creator is ALL POWERFUL].  I will ask you, “What characteristic must this ‘creator’ have if he is able to know what everyone is doing and is able to judge everyone on all of their actions.”  You will answer that he must be all knowing [The creator is ALL KNOWING].  Now I will ask, “what must he have in order to be able to rule over the rules forever?”  The answer is that he must be eternal [The creator is ETERNAL].  Last question guys: what must he have so that he doesn’t change the rules suddenly so that we have no idea what to do or who to follow?  He must be all good [The creator is ALL GOOD].

Ok, so we have concluded that the creator is all powerful, all knowing, eternal, and all good.  We have just concluded that if you believe in an absolute truth, then you believe that there is a god. So I just proved that if you believe in truth, then you believe in God.  You can’t believe that there is right and wrong without believing in God.

Well that was fun.  So in order for me to disprove that there is an absolute truth, I would have to disprove God.  Before and try to do that, I must again remind you that as a skeptic, I allow for people to believe in whatever they want.  It is not my place to prove of disprove anything.  However, where is the fun in that?  I love debate and discussion.  The question of whether God exists or not is truly fascinating and one that I will try and tackle right now:

…[a good 5 minutes has gone by]  Ok, so I decided that I have not found a good argument to disprove God because that would mean that I would have to disprove faith.  Ian writes a great article on why be believes in God.  The best thing for me to do is to argue his points on why he believes in God.  I will do this in a later post.  For right now, the best I can do is ask some questions about why you believe in God:

• Do you believe you have free will?  If the answer is Yes, then you can’t believe in God.  If you believe in God, then a consequence is that you have no free will.  We will get into a deeper discussion of this on my reply post to Ian.
• Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?  If the answer is No, then you either believe that 1) There is no afterlife.  God judges you in your mortal life and you will receive rewards or punishment in your mortal life.  2) There are no rewards or punishment for right and wrong.  You simply interact with the people in your mortal life and you make life more pleasant by doing right and make life worse by doing wrong.

I can even ask some basic questions like:

• How do you know that there is an absolute right or wrong?
  • Answer: Because it is written in the Bible
• How do you know that the person who wrote the Bible was lying himself?
  • Because the words were written by God (I don’t know about this one but I’m sure religious people would argue in this way)
• How do you even know that there is a God?
  • Answer: Because I have faith.

And that is where the argument is at a stop-still right now.  I can argue every point of view except for “faith.”  I can even argue the beautiful design theory (or perfect design theory) that Ian brings up in his post.  The argument states the universe is so perfect that it is more likely that God created it than that it just was created by itself.  I will attempt to destroy this argument in a later post.

I can go on and on but now I want to tackle the consequences of believing that there is no right or wrong.  If you really think that there is no right or wrong, then there are certain consequences that arise from it:

• You cannot judge people
• You cannot impose your way of doing things onto others
• You cannot defend your points of view (which I am not doing in this post.  I am merely offering my opinions and explaining what it means to be a skeptic)
• You pretty much can’t assert things as a matter of fact.

Even the simplest things like, “This pen is blue” cannot be said by a skeptic as if it were the truth.  To a skeptic, everything is opinions.  It is my opinion that this pen is blue.  A person can walk up to me and say that this pen is red.  As a skeptic, I cannot argue with him and try to prove that this pen is actually red.  He is entitled to his opinion.

As a skeptic, I cannot impose by beliefs of “Democracy” onto another country.  As a skeptic, I cannot say that slavery is wrong.  So as you can see, being a skeptic is hard.  It’s pretty much impossible to function in society.  I can’t even say that in my culture, it is wrong to engage in slavery.  Cultural skepticism is fundamentally flawed.  Please let me know if you would like to argue why culture skepticism is flawed.

The most die hard critics will argue with me that the fact that I am writing this post proves that I am not a Skeptic.  I cannot write this post as a Skeptic.  To that I will answer, “Maybe I’m not really a skeptic.  A more accurate description of my beliefs would be that I love debate and that I love to challenge everything.  I do not like being told what to do nor do I like for someone to tell me what is right or wrong.  I am still trying to figure out everything for myself.”

I look forward to hearing your replies about whether there is an absolute right or wrong.

I recently read a post by Brad Fults where he writes about Religion and Compassion in the Modern World. This topic truly fascinates me and I decided to give my two cents. [Disclaimer: I respect everyones own opinions and I don't feel that my ideas or beliefs are any more correct than yours. I guess you can say that I am a true skeptic]

Brad writes responses to some quotes taken by Karen Armstrong’s speech. Since I am a true skeptic, I will try to show that Brad’s responses (as well as Karen’s ideas) are only opinions and not matters of fact. My opinions are of course only true to me (seeing how I am a skeptic), and I am not right or wrong on any of them:

Compassion is crucial and necessary

Brad writes that compassion is “crucial and necessary.” Why is compassion crucial and necessary for? If you mean that compassion is crucial and necessary for life, then that means that there cannot be life without compassion. This is flawed because there can be life without compassion. There can be a man who is truly not compassionate and that is able to live out his entire life happily. If you mean that compassion is crucial and necessary for happiness, then this again is flawed because there are people who are absolutely not compassionate and that are still happy. You can argue by asking, “name one person who is not compassionate and is truly happy.” I don’t know anyone myself, but then this would lead us to argue about the definition of “compassion” and “happiness.” We can argue this on a later post or if Brad decides to bring it up.

People want to be religious (said by Karen)

I feel that Brad argues this point well. I would like to add a couple of things. I feel that people are religious for two reasons: 1) They grew up with religion, it has been indoctrinated in them, and they know nothing but religion. These people can’t help to be religious because they know nothing else. 2) People are scared of uncertainty and want to know answers. People are afraid of death and the thought of leaving this world completely scares us. Therefore, people create the idea of God and the afterlife to explain how things work, why things happen, and to feel the security of still living on forever after we die.

If the prevailing available choice is to rest one’s morals upon mythical and fundamentally subjective beliefs, it is positively foolish to expect the outcome to be at all rational or cohesive.

Brad is saying that the beliefs or religious people are subjective (please correct me if I’m wrong in my interpretation Brad). I feel that he is wrong (then again, if I’m a true skeptic, I can’t believe that anyone is “wrong”) because religious people do not believe that their beliefs and ideals are subjective. They take their beliefs as absolute truths. According to a religious person, God exists as a matter of fact. I think the difficulty is trying to show that religious peoples beliefs are actually not absolute truths; they are actually beliefs (Brad, this may be what you were trying to say).

If you grew up in a religious house, then you were taught that God is real and that you must pay the utmost respect to him. Why do you believe that God absolutely exists? If you answer “the Bible says so,” then I will ask you, “how do you know that the people who wrote the Bible were telling the truth?” Since we’re on that topic, how do we know anything for certain?” I will tackle the problem of knowledge and absolute certainty on a later post. The point here is that religious people have a faith, and not absolute knowledge. Now we must argue the definition of “faith.” Is it knowledge or is it belief? Can we know that God exists a priori (without experience) or must we know him a posteriori (need experience). Think about this: if no one ever told you that God existed, would you still believe that he exists? What you’ll say is that civilizations across the world all developed an idea of a God independently on their own. My answer is that it is human nature to be curious and to want answers. Humans created God to answer their questions.

There need be no mystery in human affairs

What do you mean by this Brad? If you mean that everything in the world can be explained scientifically, then I belief you are wrong (again, I am not allowed to say “wrong” since I am a skeptic). Lets use the example of gravity. How do we know that gravity works? We know because we have all head a pen up in the air, and when we let it go, it falls to the floor. This has worked time and time again in the past so we believe that it will work again in the future. And this is where the flaw lies: just because it has worked in the past, it does not mean that it will work in the future. Think about it like this: There is a pitch-black, infinite place with a brick wall in the middle (kind of like the great wall of china). We are on one side of the wall with a flashlight. What we see using the flashlight is like the present that we are in. What we have traversed (all the parts of the brick wall that we have seen) is like the past. We have walked for many many miles and we have seen no openings to the brick wall. However, this does not mean that 10 steps ahead we will not find an opening. All we know is what we have traversed, and we cannot be sure of the future.

So then you can ask me, “Well, if you’re not sure that gravity will work tomorrow, why don’t you jump off a cliff tomorrow since it’s 50/50 chance that gravity will still be there.” I of course will not jump off a cliff because I know that I will fall. But I just proved that I cannot Know that I will fall. Maybe my “know” is similar to what religious people use as “faith.”

A movement away from arbitrary subjective wish-based morality and toward a true manifestation of the golden rule: humanism

What do you mean by humanism is the “golden rule.” Are you saying that “humanism” is the absolute right way to live your life? What are you basing this belief off of? I think that you have done a terrific job on refuting Karen’s opinions but that this sentence cannot be justified. There is a lot of different kinds of Humanism so I will let Brad argue why Humanism is the “right” way to live and I will respond.

The beauty of truly integrated humanism is that the solution to this question just comes naturally.

Again, you cannot say this. What do you mean that it comes “naturally”? Do you mean that people naturally are humanists and that it is unnatural to be religious? Why then have civilizations all over the world created their own forms of religion on their own? You cannot say that humanism is “natural” because it is not part of our instincts to be a humanist. Our instincts are too eat, sleep, survive, and reproduce. This is what comes naturally to us, not humanism.

These are only my humble opinions. I await your responses.

Why such good reviews for Iron Man? Why such good word-of-mouth?

I did not hear or see any attempts at viral marketing by Iron Man. Forgetting Sarah Marshall tried to harness the power of blogging and new media but didn’t fair so well at the box office. The ruins made an attempt at a viral video but did horribly at the box office. Does the new media actually cause people to go and spend $11 for a movie?

I checked out the Iron Man Website and it is a SUPER slow flash site that doesn’t have anything really that cool or interactive.

From my research, I believe that I have found the two X-factors:

1. Rotten Tomatoes
2. Hard-core user Approval

1. Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes gave Iron Man a 93% rating! The first thing that a person would say to me about Iron Man was that “It got a super high rating on Rotten Tomatoes.” For a lot of movies, Rotten Tomatoes can make or break you. In comparison, Speed Racer (34%) and What Happens in Vegas (28%) did not do well at the box office. Indian Jones scored pretty well this week at 80%. Lets see if they debut at number 1 next week.

2. Hardcore User Approval

One of my best friends, Timon Safaie, is a hardcore Marvel reader. He knows absolutely everything about the Marvel Universe and is a Maven in that area. The first thing that he told me about Iron Man was that “It stayed very true to its comic roots.” The second factor in gaining great word-of-mouth is gaining the approval of your hardcore users. People who don’t read comic books watch a great Marvel movie and think, “Wow, this was a good movie.” Harcore readers of Iron Man (people who have grown up reading the Iron Man comics) watch an Iron Man that stays true to the comic book and thinks, “WOW, I must tell everyone I know about this amazing movie!”

Even though your hardcore viewer base is very small, they will be the ones writing the reviews, telling their friends, writing blogs about it, and spreading it word-of-mouth. I think that’s where most companies drop the ball. They don’t focus on satisfying their hardcore users who ultimately make their product an amazing product.

So the ultimate movie recipe is:

High Rotten Tomato Rating + Satisfy Your Hardcore Viewers = Lots and lots of Money!!!

Hey VCs, I want you to…

The quintessential entrepreneur mistake:

I love fun and quirky ideas.  These two shirts were designed by StartupWear and VCWear.  There are a bunch of sites out there that give you a serious top ten list of mistakes that entrepreneurs make.  I am a huge proponent of advisors and mentors; however, there are just some things that you have to experience yourself.

When Yu-kai and I embarked on our startup journey, we projected that we would get funding within 3 months.  We actually thought investors meant it when they said that they were “early-stage investors.”  We looked around and saw a bunch of companies that clearly had no chance from the beginning and yet still go funding.  We thought, “Hey, I know it’s hard to get funding but our idea rocks and we can network our way into some funding.”

Boy were we wrong.  “Early-stage” investors doesn’t really mean idea phase.  They want to see a working Beta, traction, or at least a user base.

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I have ADD so I want to switch topics mid blog post.  There are A LOT of blog out there writing about personal or career development.  I have read through a lot of them and most of them talk about the same things, give pretty much the same advice, and some blog posts are just bad advice.  How does someone distinguish between good advice and bad advice?  Another question I have is: “Who is really reading these blog posts?  People who really need the career development help, or bloggers who are writing about similar topics that are trying to get more traffic on their site?

I have been part of the blogging community for a while now (maybe 6 months), and to be honest, I have yet to find a blog that I constantly keep coming back to because the author provides me with great, quality  “how-to” information.  I just don’t want to read “how-to” anything from a blog.  I would much rather read it from an article or an ebook.  The blogs that DO attract me are the ones that are very controversial, offer absolute opinions (hahaha, does that even make sense), or talk about relationships, sex, and attraction.

So now I’m thinking: “Should I create a blog that is super controversial, a blog offering my mild opinions, or a How-to blog on website consulting/career development?”

Stay tuned and find out 

I want these wings…

I am a huge proponent of building your brand and staying true to it.  If you’re brand is “solid and professional,” then everyone on your team must wear a suit and tie at all times and be a pillar of professionalism.  If your brand is “productive and fun,” then your culture must be upbeat and all of your client interactions must end with a bright smile :).

Now lets say your brand has worked for you but now you are growing rapidly.  You started with a niche group of people and are now gaining momentum.  Do you change your brand to accommodate to your new (and much bigger) market?  That’s what American Apparel has done.  Jeff writes a great blog about how sex sells and influences companies to “take the money.”

I want to take a step back and talk about American Apparel’s brand based on these ads:

I believe that AA actually has a pretty great strategy tied to its marketing efforts.

AA started as “green” and ethics minded.  Lets say they branded themselves very well with the sustainable minded people.  However, Jeff points out that only 10%-12% of sustainable minded people actually go out of their way to buy “green safe” products.  So what are the other characteristics of the sustainable minded?  They are raw, free, rebellious, against “the man”, amateur, and young.  I believe that AA’s ads are meant to further target the “sustainable minded” population.

Take a look at the ad above.  It represents raw, sex, youth, and freedom.  There are a lot of other ones that you can check out be just googling AA ads.  The girls in the ads are looking at you, exposing themselves freely, confident with themselves, and don’t care what you think about them.  They are strong minded and independent.  These are the exact characteristics of the people that AA is targeting.

You see, AA is still a “green” and ethics based company.  The new ads penetrate their target market further and I believe they have done a great job with it.

You can say that they “sold out” because now they’re using sex.  I believe that they haven’t sold out at all.  The ads are not trashy, but a strong statement about confident sexuality and doing what you believe in.

One must full-heartedly devote himself or herself to the company brand. Before making any decision, you must ask yourself if this fulfills and pushes the company brand.

The Future Delivery brand is “Make productivity fun.” Everything that we do is about career or personal development for the student or young professional. However, there are many sites and services out there that offer students and young professionals a way to further their careers. Our edge is that we make it FUN. No matter if it’s researching a company, contributing to the community, writing a blog, asking or answering a question, our goal is to make the entire interviewing and personal development process as fun as possible.

Enter the picture above. Our designer Cat is very good at what she does. I came up with an idea about introducing a personal avatar for each user that physically represents the amount of FD points the user has. If you have a healthy set of FD points, then your avatar will be big and healthy (like a plump sumo wrestler). If you have low FD points or if you are in the negative, your avatar will be scrawny and weak.

Our FD Cache is built around the see-saw function that Yu-kai developed.  It’ll be a physical representation of peoples opinions and thoughts about the company.  Here is an example of what it might look like:

Can you imagine how cool it would be if there were sumo wrestlers or even cowboys riding the ends of those see-saws!  Yes, extremely amazing.  But in all seriousness, we will live and die by our brand.  If we cannot make a productive site that is also extremely fun and rewarding so that people keep coming back, then we will have failed our mission.

Our site will be out in two weeks! Get ready for productive fun!

There was a VC to my left, a VC to my right, and an audience full of Anderson MBA students. Every person in the room was older than I was, had more experience, and had more schooling. I could feel my heart thumping against my chest right before the speaker panel started. I started feeling that same feeling that I’ve dreaded for so many years. You know the feeling. It’s that nerve-wrecking, stomach twisting, palm-sweating feeling that makes your voice tremble when you speak and makes you look like a total loser in front of the people you are speaking to.

I was asked to be a speaker at the Entrepreneur Association Conference at UCLA Anderson by my good friend Paul who is a 1st year at the school.

[I want to bring up website design really quick (since this is a marketing & PR blog). If you click on the link above, you'll notice a very unique website. It scrolls to the right, is done in pure flash I believe, and is in full black and white with some color jpegs. The advantage is that it plays to the theme of innovation; however, I feel that there are more drawbacks and disadvantages to the site than there are advantages.
First of all, since the site is done in Flash, one cannot copy/paste anything from the site nor can one Ctrl+F and search for certain words throughout the site. The black and white makes it look sad and depressing. If you have every seen the Anderson culture, you'll notice that it is fun, vibrant, and alive. The website does not play to the brand of the school.]

So was I nervous? Yes. Every speaker gets nervous no matter how good they are.

“There are two types of speakers. Those that get nervous, and those that lie.”

Did I do well? Yes. I feel that I was able to hold my ground and offer some great insight on the entrepreneurial side of things. Which leads me to the point of my post: if you have not fully prepared for your speech, if everyone in the room has more experience than you, if the other panelists are people who are absolute experts in the industry that you are in, and if the audience members can easily think that they are better than you, how can you make yourself seem impressive so that everyone in the room respects you and sees you as an expert in your field (or at least on par with everyone else)?

The key to everything in life is confidence.

You will be able to accomplish 99% of the challenges in your life successfully if you have the confidence to do it.  Fear comes from uncertainty; confidence comes from preparation and the belief in yourself that you can do anything.  When it comes to public speaking, there are two ways to gain absolute confidence:

1. Practice, practice, and practice like a madman so you absolutely know the material
2. Keep putting yourself in public speaking situations so that it becomes as natural as breathing

I used to be a nervous wreck when it came to public speaking so I did #2 from above.  I constantly put myself in public speaking situation by starting Bruin Consulting, establishing the UCLA Case Competition, starting a consulting firm, and leading the business development and marketing side for Future Delivery.  Whatever your fear may be, if you put yourself in a situation where you have to constantly face your fears, then you will eventually overcome them.

By the way, I just say Fist of Fury on TV.  Bruce Lee is so damn amazing!!!