Young Successful Entrepreneur

This post is going to be two parts: The first will be about my feelings, apprehensions, thoughts, and opinions before the physical team meeting; The second part will be about how I feel after the team meeting.  Hopefully I come out feeling super alive, happy, and excited about 2009!

Before the Team Meeting

It is Monday morning and I have to tell you, I am very excited to have our first physical team meeting of the new year.  It will actually be the first time we’ll all be physically meeting with our superstar Joseph Yi.

A strong work ethic must be balanced by a fun, dynamic company culture.  I believe that our company culture is one of the funnest you will ever run into, and today’s meeting should prove no less.  We will have a Super Smash Bros Melee session along with some 2 on 2 basketball at the park near my house during breaks from meeting and work.

If you feel you are good at SSBM, then I dare you to challenge me or Yu-kai.  I have yet to find someone who can successfully live up to the challenge.

If you feel you are good at basketball, you should probably challenge me with your C+ game because my game has severely deteriorated over the years.

How I feel

I feel confident right now.  As I mentioned before on my previous post, talks today will be about how we will generate money.  The good thing is that our drop shipping company, Bubble Cave, started last week.  We just listed some items (video game accessories and baby products) and we’re in the process of optimizing our eBay listings to get sales.

Oh, and we got a few clients for Site Vitamin since my last post, so we’re definitely flying high right now!  These two clients are really liking the work that we’re doing, so I smell client referrals after we complete the project.

The Team

Yu-kai Chou

I hold Yu-kai Chou up at a higher standard than anyone else in the world.  He was the person who unleashed the inner beast that I am today, so in a sense, he was the Master, and I was the Grasshopper.  And just like in any cheap Chinese movie, the Grasshopper eventually grows up to become stronger than the master and either goes on a rampage and kills his master, or embraces him as his friend and source of inspiration.

Yu-kai currently lives up north for reasons that I still am against.  His team needs him here in SoCal so that we can hang out more often and feel that there is more company unity.  I have to admit, having an up-north base has its advantages because he can go to all of the web 2.0 and VC events up there.  So far we have survived, but only time will tell how much longer we can last with a CEO that is not in proximity to his company team.

Yes, I often get frustrated with Yu-kai Chou because I expect so much from him; however, that is just me holding him up to near impossible standards.  During this meeting, I expect a lot of korny jokes to come out of his mouth, clear company direction and goals, and to feel inspired and rejuvinated to take on 09!

Jason Jolley

Good’ol JJ.  He has got to be one of the happiest people I have ever met.  He’s been with us for almost a year now and has done a stupendous job.  We call him our “ace up our sleeve” because whenever we have a client project that just pops in out of no where, we pull the Ace out and he demolishes it with style.  Most of the revenue that we have made so far with the company has been generated from JJ working on client projects.

This has come at somewhat of a price.  Since JJ has constantly been taking on client projects, he has never fully built a site for FD from start to finish.  The good thing is that he adapts like crazy so the constant trasitioning from a new project to another is no problem for him.

During today’s meeting, I expect JJ to have a good timeframe outlined about when PBB can be fully up, running, and functional.

Joseph Yi

I met Joseph Yi last year during our Campus CMO program.  It was an internship I created for undergraduates where I would teach them about entrepreneurship, marketing, and branding, and they would work for FD for free.  We did not expect to give any intern a full-time offer after the internship, but Joe proved to be such a valuable team member, that he was the first and only Campus CMO to receive a full-time offer with FD.

I hold Joe to really high standards (almost as high as Yu-kai) because I see him as my protege.  I see a lot of myself in him: my hardcore work ethic, execution ability, thirst for knowledge, and ability to learn extremely fast.  Joe is leading our drop shipping, establishing contacts for PBB, and conducting research for HAAO.  He’s got a full plate on his hands, but I am confident that he will able to do everything I expect plus more.

During today’s meting, I expect Joe to have a complete list of all of the PBB potentials that we will contact once the site launches.  He should also have the optimization plan for eBay drop shipping and conducted a large portion of the HAAO research that we need.  Like I said, I expect a lot from him, but I am confident that he can do everything.

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Man… I have to tell you guys, this was a really fun meeting!  Everyone was prepared, our goals were concretely laid out, and Yu-kai Chou is looking as Panda’ish as ever.

Instead of just writing everything out, I thought I would do a video with dear’ol Yu-kai Chou: