I’m not gonna lie – life is good.
6 months ago I decided to step away from the online community to focus purely on the sales side of my startup. After all, laser-like focus wins the race, right?
It amazes me just how much can change in 6 months: we have paying customers, our product stats show tangible increases in average order value and traffic, and best of all, my girlfriend Kim moved in with me.
The team is riding a wave of high team morale and a market full of acquisitions or funding, foreshadowing our Series A round.
So I figured it was time for a come back, and I have some special things in store for my readers.
Startup videos shall make a come back
A couple of years ago, I focused on interviewing entrepreneurs such as Neil Patel, Jessica Mah, and Loic LeMeur. I’m going to bring it back and offer a new generation of interviews with entrepreneurs.
The videos will be fun, educational, and focused on helping you grow your startup company.
A focus on small to medium-sized businesses
I’ve watched as Shama has grown her local marketing businesses immensely in the past 2 years. Local businesses respect her because she is constantly putting out great content that is meant to help them first, and generate business for her second.
That’s what I believe has been missing on the RewardMe blog. Moving forward, I will focus our blog to teach local businesses about driving traffic, creating loyal customers, and utilizing social media effectively. My goal is to build thought leadership in the local marketing space.
Entrepreneurs: keep a close eye on the RewardMe Blog to learn first hand about how to take a blog and use it to build thought leadership in an overly crowded industry.
Small business owners: check out the RewardMe Blog on a daily basis to learn concrete, proven techniques to improve your brick-and-mortar business.
Personal life – SF living and photography
Kim and I are moving to San Francisco on June 1st. After 2 years in the suburbs, I’m more than ready to live in a metropolitan city.
I’m excited about the move, but even more excited about helping Kim build a fashion blog. I’ve noticed the explosion in fashion blogs in the last couple of years, and have spoken to many bloggers about their level of traffic and income. The best fashion bloggers easily make enough money through their blog to never have to work a full-time job again.
That’s what I want for Kim. Although she does like her job, I want her to make income doing something that she loves. If I can get her to $5K in recurring revenue through her blog, then I will be a happy camper – and so will she.
VC funding and the Chou
Not sure if you heard, but my co-founder Yu-Kai Chou is engaged! I am so very happy for him and wish him and his fiancee nothing but the best.
On the RewardMe front, Yu-kai is hard at work at closing our Series A round. Should we close the round, the office will move to SF, our salaries will increase, and we can hire more developers.
But I’m not worried at all. I have a reawakening of the lean startup lifestyle.
I remember the days when we all lived in a 1-bedroom apartment, lived off of ramen noodles and Subway, and worked till 1am every night. We drove traffic to websites and closed client deals without needing an advertising or marketing budget. This is the root-philosophy that I have returned to in the past week.
There’s no need to spend money wildly on marketing and advertising as a lean startup. Traffic and leads can be generated through thought-leadership, which is something that I have proven to successfully do in the past.
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Get ready because Joe Yi and I are going to take the internet by storm, like a couple of pirates 
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Jun, good to see you back!
Tell me more about RewardMe. Are you going after an SMB market or are you going after franchises?
Congrats on moving in with your gf. That’s a big step and I hope everything works out ok.
Sure! RewardMe currently focuses on providing small and medium-sized businesses with an easy-to-start rewards program. Businesses can buy their own iPad, download our software, and use it for free. The site will be up and running in about 5 weeks.
RewardMe Enterprise targets franchise-level clients that want a deeper integration for their rewards program. This means that we can communicate with their point of sale system.
Yup, Kim and I are very excited!
Oh that’s so great to hear! When is your girlfriend launching her fashion blog? Let her know that when she launches, she’ll at least have one reader
We’ll launch the site a week after we move to the city, so most likely the 2nd week of June.
Oh yes, I’ll be sure to make an announcement on my blog and link to her site.
Jun, I’m trying to raise capital for my startup. I’ve tried submitting my business plan to a bunch of VC firms but haven’t heard anything back.
I’m from Southern California, and it seems so hard to get the attention of firms in the Bay area. Got any advice?
Business plans are a waste of time. All you should really be working with is an executive summary. But even that depends on the stage of your company.
If you’re in the idea stage, then focus on building the team and the product. No need to raise money.
If you have a product, then you should focus on Angel funding. Check out http://angel.co/ to find angel investors that are interested in your industry.
Hi Jun, I’ve been reading your site for a while and I’m glad to see that you will be writing more posts more often.
I have a question about my situation. I have the opportunity to take a consulting job upon graduating, or I can join my friends startup. What do you think?
If you have to think about it, I say go for the consulting job.
The reason is because I believe entrepreneurship is a calling. Startups are so different from the corporate world that working in a corporate environment really doesn’t prepare you at all for startups.
If you’re just about to graduate, then chances are that you have student loans. I recommend that you take the corporate job, pay off your student loans, and try to start your side business on nights and weekends.
If the side business takes off, then you can quit your full-time. Good luck!
Jun, where did you find your team? I read your post about building a solid team, but I found it so hard to put a team together. How did you do it?
Glad to see you’re back btw
It was luck really.
I met Yu-kai at UCLA because he was my pledge bro in our business fraternity.
I met Stephen at UCLA as well. We sent out a massive job posting through the computer science department and he was one of the students that responded.
It’s really about getting out there and meeting people, and making them believe that what you’re doing is amazing. If people believe in you and your product, then they’ll join your team.
Keep working hard Jun! I’ll do the same on my side.
Do you find it hard to devote time to your relationship and your startup? My boyfriend and I have gotten into a few tuffles about my career/life choice.
Kim’s been great actually. She understands the lifestyle and makes it easy for me to focus on work.
Recently however, I have been spending a lot of evenings watching Netflix with her and sleeping early. I’m going to talk to her about switching that routine out.
We’ll see what she says.
Hi Jun, can’t wait for the come back!
How do you choose people to interview? I have a friend who I feel would be perfect
Hey Steven, you can email me details at me [@] junloayza.com
I’ll soon create a contact form on my site if you’d like to apply for an interview
Welcome back Jun!
Great to hear about your progress. Congratulations! Oh, and welcome to the YEC family too! So nice to see you there as well.
Regarding RewardMe, do you plan to expand to other countries at some point? Would be awesome to read about you tackling a whole another geographical market and the lessons learned from that.
Take care man and good luck to your girlfriend too! I wish she makes it big!
Hey Juha, great to hear from you!
No plans yet to go international, but I feel it’s still important for entrepreneurs to get a taste of what it’s like to go abroad and run a business.
You up for a video interview?
Whats up Jun it’s Jabril from Safari, welcome back!
You have a lot engaged reader base here, me included.
Say hi to Marc for me, I changed phones and lost your contacts.
Take care! & congrats!
Hey Jabril! Great to see you here.
And great to see you on our webinar as well! I will say hi to Marc. Shoot me an email at me [@] junloayza.com and we can exchange info.
Hope to hang out again soon