Living the Startup Life

I was lucky enough to engage in a phone conference with Penelope Trunk where she spoke about her 5 Rules of Blogging.  The rules were sound pieces of advice, and they perfectly match my 5 Rules of First Dates.  Here are the exact comparisons:

Rule #1: Keep it short

Blog posts should be kept to a maximum of 600-700 words.

First dates should start and end with one event.  A lot of men make the mistake of trying to drag on the first date forever. I don’t care if you’re having the time of your life, end the date on a high note so that you leave her wanting more.

Another common mistake is that you make your move too soon.  Unless all you want to do is sleep with her, making a move on the first date just shows that you’re looking for some ass rather than a real relationship.  If this girl means something to you, then you should wait.

Rule #2: Do something fresh

Don’t write the same old boring stuff.  What do you do if you can’t think of a fresh topic?  Check out what’s being talked about on the blogosphere and see if you disagree with anyone’s opinion.  The topic doesn’t necessarily have to be fresh; your different take on a saturated topic can be new to your readers.

Girls love it when you do something fun, exciting, and out of the ordinary.  Just because you’re taking her to dinner doesn’t mean that you can’t do something out of the ordinary.  You see, “out of the ordinary” is all relative.  Something ordinary for you can be extraordinary for her.  Take her to a restaurant she’s never been to, or better yet, take her on an adventure.  That’s what I did with my girlfriend.  I took her to a Brazilian restaurant and took her out skating across the UCLA campus.  It was perfect!  She had never before gone skating, and I took her on a little adventure.  Skating might be ordinary to many of you, but skating was extraordinary for Kim.

Rule #3: Personalize it!

Don’t just repeat a news story; write about YOUR opinions and how it affects you.  Better yet, what is the main theme of your blog?  You can tie everything you write about to the main theme of your blog.

A very common mistake guys make is that they let the girl do all of the talking.  A guy gets into this mode of asking 20 questions because for some reason we think that “girls love to talk.”  Yes, they do love to talk, but more than anything else, they love to be enlightened, entertained, or shown something new.  Talk about what’s important to you, tell personal stories, be charismatic, and most importantly, take control of the date.  Remember, this is your date (this is your blog), you control the tempo of the date and you control the conversations.  Show her that you are man enough to control her.

Rule #4: Establish a Community

Think about who you’re tailoring your blog post for.  If you’re targeting undergraduates, then speak directly to them.  If you’re targeting professionals who are tired of their work and are looking for some advice to make their lives better, then speak directly to them.  Know your target and write for them.

This part comes after the first date.  In order to build a strong relationship with her, you have to build a community around her friends.  You don’t necessarily have to like them, but you have to make them like you and be able to hold a conversation with them.  How do you get them to like you?  It’s actually much easier than people make it out to be.  Be genuine, friendly, and make an attempt to start the conversation.  Just like on your first date, you have to take control of the conversation and start telling your stories.  Everybody can listen, but YOU can engage your audience (her friends) with your stories.

Rule #5: Get an Editor/Wingman

An editor is crucial for having a high quality blog.  We may think that we’ve written a golden post, but our editor tells us the truth about what’s wrong with our posts and how we can make it better.

A Wingman is more than just someone who goes with you to a club to “pick up a girl.”  A Wingman is someone that you are confident in introducing your girlfriend to.  Remember, she is constantly looking if you have high value.  My Dad has always said, “Show me who you hang out with, and I’ll tell you who you are.” This has been one of the most powerful pieces of advice in my life.  Show her that you have “cool” friends, and she’ll think even more highly of you.  [When I write "cool," I mean someone who is fun to hang out with.  Maybe your wingman has a girlfriend who you guys can double date with, that is an ideal situation.]

This is the trailer for our upcoming video series for Future Delivery - Living the Startup Life.  Let me know how you like it and if you want to watch the full episodes.

(or Men: A Heroine’s Grave)

My friend Yu-kai Chou and I have this theory.  The theory is that “Women are a hero’s grave.”

A Hero is someone who goes out into the world on an epic quest, and on this epic quest he saves people, villages, slays demons, dragons, and lives a life to accomplish great things.  His great deeds are not for himself; rather, his work saves the lives of people around him and he makes the world a better place to live in.  Because the Hero is out there slaying dragons and rescuing damsels in distress, he is creating a better world.

But what happens when the Hero falls in love?  Once the Hero falls in love, he becomes completely consumed by the woman.  He breathes, sleeps, and lives for her and her every dying wish.  The Hero will hang up his sword and shield just to spend all day with his love lying in the sun and living a care free life.

If the Hero suddenly realizes that he should go save a town by slaying a dragon, his love will just pull him back into her arms and all of the Hero’s epic desires will quickly fade away once again.   You see, the Hero is no longer living a life trying to make the world a better place to live.  He is now content with the way the world is and nothing exists outside of his love.

Running a company is like being a Hero.  You’re creating something new, going out on an adventure, and have many obstacles in your way that you must overcome.  If you succeed, you will have created a (hopefully positive) difference in this world and you will be remembered for your great accomplishments.

Like the Hero above, I have a Love.  She is very understanding of what I am doing and trying to accomplish.  She is supportive in every way, and does not let me hang up my sword and shield.  However, continuing on your quest takes much more than the support of your Love.  It takes tremendous self-discipline and unrelenting self-motivation.  There are countless times when I force myself not to go out with my girlfriend or when I force myself to get out of bed when we’re cuddling.

I feel that I have found the perfect relationship because Kim (my girlfriend) respects and understands the quest that I have chosen to take.  And at the same time, I have the discipline and self-control to keep moving forward even though the temptations are so great.

So before you go out and embark on your epic quest as an etrepreneur, really take the time to understand what you will be giving up and what kind of discipline that you will need in order to succeed.

I had heard about the video, but never before watched it.  Here it is if you haven’t seen it yet:

The video has reached more than 8 million views on YouTube!  Hopefully I can help the message reach a few more people…

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This video will hopefully inspire the youth to vote through music.  I just finished the post above when I realized something extraodinary!!!  The video above made me want to vote.  I will vote this year for Barack Obama to be president.

During the last election (might be the one before the last one) I was actually inspired NOT TO VOTE!!!  Do you know what was the cause:

Diddy made me want to Die instead of voting

Will.I.Am created a piece of art that has inspired millions

The original title of this post was “Check out my Wordle!”; however, that quickly changed when I tried to add my wordle html into my wordpress.  Wordle is a site that takes your entire blog or paragraph and turns it into a tag cloud.  You can change the color, font, and text style.  I guess it was kind of fun, but when I couldn’t link it on my blog, I just got upset and frustrated.  The image you see on top is what I ‘print-screened’ with photoshop.

Go ahead and give it a go; it’s actually kind of fun to randomize everything (the fun factor lasts for about 5 minutes).  According to Wordle, business and FD are the most common words on my blog.

Time for me to go, Yu-kai just challenged me to the game of life - Smash Bros Melee!!!

This week we unveiled our Private Beta Launch!!!   Woohooo!!!  We have had great success in getting feedback from our close network, and now I want to branch it out a little to people outside of our direct network.

Here is YOUR invitation to our Private Beta:

http://FDcareer.com
code: junloayza

So what is FD Career?

We are the community for professional and personal development.  Our current launch has our product FD Cache, which is where you can search for company information and profiles.  All of the information in the FD Cache is conrtibuted by the members of our community who have closely worked with or interacted with the company.  This allows you to exlpore the most honest feedback possible without having to worry about the bias involved with “official or sponsored company reviews.”

What Features are coming in the near future?

Our made project with FD Career is the FD RPG.  If you are unfamiliar with RPGs, they are games where you take control of a character and take part in an epic quest.  At the beginning of the game, you have low experience, so you do not have access to many areas of the game and you have few abilities.  As you progress through the game, gain expereince and level-up, you gain abilities and access to amazing locations in the game.  We want to make your real life into a productive game.

In FD RPG, you are your online persona.  Everytime you get an internship, get good grades, or become a leader in an organization, you will gain experience points and thus level-up in the game.  As you level-up in the game and become a more powerful player, you will gain new abilities on the website and gain access to new features of the website.  You will also be recognized as a very influential and powerful person in real life.

I am working feverishly to meet with companies and create a partnership with them.  We want companies to create Quests that FD RPG users can partake in.  For example, if Bain was our sponsor, they could create a Business Case Quest.  In the Quest, you would partner with 4 other people in the community and solve a business plan that Bain has created.  If you are selected as the winner, you gain experience, level-up, gain recognition, and most importantly, Bain will take notice of you.

The features are all in the works, so the most important thing right now is for us to get YOUR feedback. Let me know about what you think about our current FD Career Private Beta.  Shoot me any questions or comments that you may have.  Thanks!

Just wanted to share something with you that puts the biggest smile on my face. Maybe once the “Living the Startup Life” videos come out in mid July, I’ll message HappySlip with a video response 

Yes, this is me sitting in my pjs, listening to music, and working my life away at 1:12 AM.  This is what an entrepreneur’s game face looks like.

So today we launched our private beta!!!  Woohoo!!!  It is actually a “Super” private beat, so you won’t get an invitation until next Monday.  Before today, I was in a real big slump.  We had no product, we just finished our website consulting client and there were no clients in site, the Machine Gun that I was working on was insanely mundane and boring, and I’ve been so far away from my team that at times I felt very alone.  When you’re in a rut, you become extremely depressing.  I swear I called Yu-kai a bunch of times just to get into random arguments.  I figured that if I could make Yu-kai miserable as well, then I would be happy.  Unfortunately, Yu-kai argues very well, so we usually end up in a stand-still.

Anyways… this is what you will have to deal with as an entrepreneur: no money, constant debates with your teammates, constant delays, and did I mention no money?  So why am I living this life?  Why did I give up my secure cubicle job to take on what seems like more than I can handle?

I take it on for moments like today

The feeling today was just so incredible! To actually have a product that you made online makes you feel incredibly accomplished.  All the months of planning, preparation, debates, and sleepness nights have finally turned into a tangible product - not a very well polished product, but we’ll get there soon enough.  Today I actually felt the possibility of succeeding.

So to all of you would-be entrepreneurs or currently struggling entrepreneurs, “The juice is definitely worth the squeeze.”  The struggling is, hard work, and sacrifice is worth seeing a product that you have made.

Now that the beta is up and we met our crunch-time deadline, I’ll be starting to post again on a consistent basis.  Look out for some more good stuff!!!