Young Successful Entrepreneur

There are many blogs out there that teach you about entrepreneurship.  My blog is unique because it’s NOT about the final destination of selling your company for millions of dollars; instead, I focus on the journey that takes you there.  You see, I don’t have wealthy parents, I don’t have an extraordinary talent, I didn’t graduate from an IV League, and I haven’t had a successful startup yet.

I AM YOU

And if I’m able to make it, then you’ll be able to make it big as well.

This blog documents my successes and failures throughout my journey as an entrepreneur so that you can benefit from me.  This blog is about my attempt to balance my love for my startup with my love for my girlfriend, Kim Ear.  If nothing else, I hope that you will become a successful entrepreneur because you have read my writing.

“Entrepreneurship is not a career; it’s a lifestyle”

The Jun Loayza Story

I was born August 1, 1985 in Anaheim, California to two Peruvian immigrants: my Mom is full-blooded Japanese but born and raised in Peru, and my Dad is full-blooded Peruvian with a love for Japanese women.

Family

I have a younger brother, Jay Loayza, who is the complete opposite of me.  While I am Type A, relentlessly business oriented and focused to succeed in the business world, and have always been dating a girl since the age of 16, my brother is a Type B, free spirited artist that loves extreme sports, playing the guitar, and sticking it to the man.

My Dad had a previous marriage where he had a son, my half brother, named Jouji.  Jouji is about 9 years older than I am, and is very similar in personality to Jay.  He is a musician in Japan and plays the bass for his band.  One of my biggest regrets in life is not getting to know him better when he visited us here in SoCal.  I was shy, didn’t really want an “older brother,” so I didn’t reach out to try and build a connection with him.  Plus, he only speaks Japanese and I speak Spanish and English.  Communication was just too difficult for me at my young age.

Divorce: My Mom and Dad got divorced when I was 10 years old and my brother was 7.  Though we’ll never admit it, I feel that the divorce caused some dramatic changes in our personalities and has greatly shaped the course of our lives.  None of my closest friends have parents who are divorced, so I always feel extremely awkward when their whole family gets together because they seem so happy. I have no idea what that feels like.

High School

If you met me in High School, you probably would have laughed in my face.  I was smart, played on my high school basketball team, so you think I would at least be somewhat “cool,” but I was way far from it.  Picture this in my 2nd year: I wore a Hawaiian t-shirt, shorts, and socks with sandals to school.  Gah!  What was I thinking…

My dad playfully teased me about getting girls when I was growing up.  He did it as a playful joke, but I think I took all of them to heart.  He would ask, “So Jun, you have a girlfriend yet?” or “Have you debuted (gotten laid) yet?”  I believe that this teasing is what caused me to go “girl crazy” after high school.

I got with my first girlfriend when I was 16 years old.  I don’t regret any of my experiences because I feel that I can learn from each and every one of them; with that said, there are many reasons why my first girlfriend was just NOT good for me:

• I stopped going to class and my GPA dropped from a 4.6 to a 4.4
• I didn’t spend time on my SATs and got a mediocre 1320
• I didn’t focus on writing my personal statement essay so it turned out pretty crappy
• She was NOT going to go to a 4-year university, so I decided to go to community college with her

Yes I know, I am lame.  But on the bright side, I learned a TREMENDOUS amount about relationships because of her and I feel that I am now able to give my best to my girlfriend right now.

UCLA - 1st year

My first year at UCLA was a complete blur.  I had just gotten out of a 4 year relationship, so I was unleashed to the world as a newly single dude in the wonderful jungle that is your undergrad years.  Yes I’ll admit it, I went girl crazy.

But I also knew that I was behind.  I was a transfer student after all, and I only had 2 years to make something out of myself.  I was set on joining every club, getting straight A’s, and getting a super prestigious career once I graduated.  I decided to join Delta Sigma Pi - International Business Fraternity and my world was flipped upside down.

The pledging process was one of the most intense and grueling challenges I have ever gone through my entire life.  But in the end, crossing into DSP pretty much changed my whole life.  I learned about management consulting, investment banking, case interviewing, that we had to recruit in the fall, how to interview, how to dress professionally, and everything else an undergraduate needs to succeed in the business world.

The other thing that DSP taught me to do is how to drink, drink A LOT of alcohol that is.  I’m not gonna lie to you, my friend Rees and I went to class about 2 times Winter Quarter of 2006 - the first day of class and the day before the final.  I have no idea how I survived my first year.

Rejected

Though I partied hard my 1st year, I had decent grades and decent experience under my belt.  Coming onto Fall 06, I was ready to recruit for full-time offers and get a position at a consulting firm.  I studied decently hard for the case interview, but I’ll admit I overestimated my interviewing abilities.  I interviewed with about 15 different companies that Fall 06.

Weeks passed and I did not recieve a call from a company giving me an offer.  “Strange” I thought.  I went home for my Mom’s birthday and saw the “death” letters waiting for me at my desk.  I counted 13 letters in all, each one stating the same deadly phrase,

Dear Jun,

Thank you for interviewing with “X” company.  We regret to inform you that…

It was a huge blog to my ego and moral. Not getting into UCLA after high school was a hit, but I blamed my ex-girlfriend so I didn’t really feel too bad about it.  But this, this was my future.  This was my income and career.  The reason you go to college is to get a spectacular career once you graduate, and now I’m facing a bunch of letter that tell me I’m not good enough!

Since I was part of Delta Sigma Pi, all of my peers were getting offers at Big Four accounting firms, I-banks, and consulting firms.  In my time of need, I turned to the one guy who was always there for everybody.  He was my pledge bro, but up until this point, I had never opened myself up to him.  This person changed my life forever, and introduced me to the startup life.

Yu-kai Chou

When I first met Yu-kai, I thought he was some asian fob who had trouble speaking English and who thought he was the founder of his own company.  He would always talk about his “FD Network,” and most of us just laughed because we thought no undergraduate could seriously start his own company.

… still being written …