Tag Archive for 'entrepreneurship'

Josh Kim: Co-Founder of StatusFix

I’ve heard about this state of realization I’m in during my Entrepreneurship class, back in my senior year of Illinois.

StatusFix is no longer mine. It’s ours. I’m glad that it is, even though initially, it hurt a bit.

Dose of Reality

It was an idea I’ve had for a while. The Entrepreneurial Beast inside couldn’t wait any longer on the ideas I’ve carried in my brain and my notes. I‘ve had some inkling as to what should be done, and so, going by the book, I’ve shared my ideas with close friends and colleagues.

At that point, I still thought it was my idea. While I was sharing about the multiple ideas I’ve been scheming and listening to comments and suggestions, I thought that I was laying foundations for something… greater than me.

Hilarious: Creating something greater than me, and thinking that it’s still mine. Silly me.

Tangent: Facts I Cling To

  • Less about the Idea, More about the People.

  • Most likely, someone else had thought up your idea, too.

  • A great leader enable others.

Back to Your Scheduled Post

Even though I’ve had these facts seared into my brain, I couldn’t apply them with StatusFix.

It’s a paradox, really. I never thought of my friends as free slave labor to my riches. I wanted everyone to be fairly compensated. But at the same time, I wanted my vision to permeate within StatusFix. I wanted my DNA to be implanted into this thing. I wanted to lead.

Initially, I was really excited to have people onboard. This being the first time working with a group outside of school or work made things refreshing. Also, I was surprised that others actually believed in this idea. Enough to use some of their time, skills, and effort to bring it to fruition? Awesome.

Then, reality kicked in. Sometimes I was wrong. But rather than admit defeat, I would stand by them for the sake of standing by them. (I do this alot.) Silly me. Sometimes I was right, and I would have to defend my position. All in all, these discussions were the process that brought our team of five to this place in time.

There seems to be no end in sight for learning and growing, just like other areas in my life: I can be wrong, I just cannot forget to learn.

The truth is, though, I brought these guys together, underneath the banner of StatusFix. I’m managing my own resources as well as StatusFix’s. I feel like a manager at times, but I must “know my role”. I am not the “leader”. I am the facilitator.

Always bear in mind, Josh Kim: Without the people, StatusFix is nothing but another page in your idea notebook.

Now What?

I’m one of the 5 co-founders of StatusFix. I am also the founder of HanMeta.

StatusFix is only a sub-project off of HanMeta at this point, until it gains some momentum (momentum meaning… profits). If it does, then we’ll actually create a company, and divide up the profits/losses.

Creation/Upkeep cost of HanMeta is 100% my own. Eventually, hosting and domain registration costs will be divided along the percentages agreed to at an earlier meeting. (JUST for statusfix.com and slicehost).

Now I can sleep better at night, knowing that when that day comes when we make our first $1, I know how to divide it up.

Footnote: “Secretary”

A nickname I had in high school was the “Secretary”. I will not going into details why, but I think it’s apt to write that here.

If any of my high school friends want to comment on this, go for it.

Google v. Yahoo

Question of the Week: Buy Google or Yahoo?

I haven’t really thought about Yahoo as much as I’ve had in the past couple of days.

Google and Yahoo… to normal people, they might just seem like #1 and #2 in the world of online search (there’s a #3? who’s that? ahem). But really, I see that comparing the two companies as a whole is almost like comparing apples to oranges. The commonality that people misunderstand is “search”. But man, there’s so much more!

Both companies are trying to grow. Aggressively. Mind you, Google will be going after Microsoft Office’s market (PowerPoint, anyone?), no matter what Mr. Schmidt is saying at the Web 2.0 Expo (seriously, I only typed “2.0″ cuz it’s name of the conference).

“I don’t think we compete with them. We’re not as fully functional as MS Office — we’re more in line with how people use the web than how they use the desktop.”

I’m not sure how I’ll be using this presentation feature, seeing how I don’t normally create PowerPoints on a day to day basis… but I use Google all the time. The default search engine I use in Firefox is still Google (see how I didn’t say “I google all the time”? Dodged a bullet on that one). I use Gmail for all my email needs. I use Google Reader for my feeds. I also use Google docs, for budgeting and reporting hours for work. I even use Google chat from time to time.

But really, this is only because I haven’t had a reason to try something new. The funny thing is… Yahoo has already been a part of my world… for quite a while, now. While I haven’t really ever used Yahoo search (except to settle a little spat between two friends, Alex and Raj… pertaining to who is really “L Dopa Da Dopsta”..), Yahoo has Del.icio.us and Flickr… two companies very dear to my entrepreneurial heart.

Sadly… Yahoo took a beating on the markets today. Thank goodness I haven’t bought any of their stock. Yet…

What was the point of that? I don’t know. I just needed to relieve some Google/Yahoo steam.

I think this post borders on brain dump… Meh.

New Goals: Pre-Month in Review

Before the month’s over… and I have to do yet another one of those crazy Month in Review’s… I think I need to take this time to refocus a bit.

Lent Commitments… Uh oh…

Originally, it was:

Initially, for Lent, I had given up things like YouTube, TV shows, and movies. Then I started to play Quake… ONE. Oh man, how much fun. I think I must have sunk a good chunk of time into it. Well… I’m going to say this here: All forms of electronic entertainment is forbidden until Easter.

This includes: ANYTHING Flash, ANY passive media… It’s quite hard, seeing how almost EVERYWHERE I go, there’s a TV on or a browser open to YouTube. Time to strategize how to avoid those situations…

Bible reading is going well. Kinda getting behind (I think… I’m not sure…), because I’m really trying to learn Philippians before Easter… but that’s only an excuse. By the end of this month, I want to be fully caught up. I need to do some math in terms of how many chapters I, then, have to read to catch up. We’ll see, at the end of the month.

Let’s just say I’ve broken… a few of them. I probably pulled a JK^extreme again and went overboard on making up incredibly difficult and unnecessary commitments. For example, I picked up playing StarCraft again. It’s fun. It’s not nearly as addicting as before (I’ve matured, hooray!), and so I’ve been playing to get my mind off of things… I didn’t really feel guilty about playing it, but after thinking about a little bit, I feel bad that I didn’t feel guilty enough to not start it up.

So what do I do… Do I go into insane failure layer mode, give up everything and just forget about Lent? Well, I have to question my motives in even setting up these incredibly insane goals for myself.

I don’t want to give up something that I don’t do normally anyway. So something like watching TV… I don’t do it that much to begin with. I might do it occasionally, but giving that up to…

You know what? From the time I joined Covenant Fellowship Church until now, I’ve never been a fan of Lent. I’m still very much unsure of why we even do this thing. While going through the Internet, I ran into this interesting page: The True Meaning of Lent. While it is from a different denomination than mine (PCA), it definitely brings up many great points.

So before this turns into a post that I should create a new category “Religion” for, I’m going to end this here with this:

I’m going to get rid of all the things I’ve abstained from. This doesn’t mean that I’m going to go start getting addicted to gaming or movies or whatever, but that I won’t be feeling guilty whenever I break the “promise”, or at least, the illusion of it that I’ve created for myself.

However, the things that I’ve decided to add to my list of “things to do”, I’m going to keep. Reading the Word as well as memorizing Philippians has been incredibly helpful for me (even though… I’ve fallen behind quite a bit). I’m not doing these things merely because they’re on the list, but because I genuinely believe that they are helping me in my walk with God.

As soon as I focus on doing the positives, these unnecessary things will fall by the wayside anyway. I just need to make sure I follow through with the things I know will help me grow.

And seriously, Josh Kim, it’s your pride for setting up these insane goals. You wanted to feel all high and mighty if you kept them, right? You idiot…

I love setting up myself for failure. Yummy.

Summary: Read Bible. Memorize Philippians. Keep fighting. Don’t waste time.

Books

Definitely want to finish up Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age… I think I might do my first ever book review on this blog on this book. Heck, it’s the first non-programming book I’ll be finishing up in years.

The book Textmate: Power Editing for the Mac (Pragmatic Programmers) doesn’t seem that useful… at least… $20 useful. This book definitely adds to the online documentation at macromates, but I feel as if the pdf version of this book should have been included with the crazy price of TextMate. Definitely want to take my time with this book, though… seeing how I use this app hourly.

Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers): What is wrong with the manufacturer of this book? The text is printed on a slant. It’s readable, but it bugs the crap out of me. And also, THIS?

Binding Issue

It’s not just this book, but it’s also the case with the TextMate book (it’s not as noticeable because that book is thinner and the pages are thicker). I hope it’s just this batch of books of the Pragmatic Programmers series. I asked for a return on this one… so I won’t be able to dip into the Ruby on Rails just yet. Besides, I want to learn more Ruby before I go deeper. Should I just go and buy Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers’ Guide, Second Edition?

Waiting for Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days to come in the mail. I know for a fact I will love this book.

Summary: Read Hackers & Painters by end of the month. Textmate, take your time. Founder’s by the end of next month.

Consulting/Freelancing/Blogging/Entrepreneurship…ing

I felt like all these things go hand in hand. This is basically my life, or at least, it should be.

I like my “job”. I like having a steady income from a part-time job with College of Education at University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign. I like having clients to work for. I like setting my own hours (as you can see with the insane timestamp of this post). I like working wherever I want… from my apartment to the library…

I like my blog. I love being able to write about whatever’s on my mind on whatever subject I please. I love being able to strategize about how to best present the content, the information… how to monetize… ahem

I love thinking about the company I’ll be starting soon. I love doing market research. I love being my own marketing department, almost tearing my hair out trying to come up with a cool company/service names. I love imagining all the services I could provide through the company. I love thinking about the tax benefits of incorporating from one state compared to another.

The only problem I see right now… is the lack of health insurance. I don’t bring in enough to have a personal plan for myself, nor do I have health issues to begin with… it’s just something that bothers me from time to time.

But in terms of things to get done before the end of the month:

  • College of Education
    • Get Active Directory working in ColdFusion
    • Templates for moodle working
    • Fix moodle bugs, submit to moodle CVS repository
  • Freelancing
    • Finish up drupal customization
    • Finish up portfolio
    • Actively seek out clients
  • Blog
    • New template, new categories, new… old posts… blah blah blah

Summary: Get work done. Finish redesign on paper by end of the month. Finalize what is to be done with hanmeta.

I Can’t Sleep

I’m currently sick. And yet, I don’t really feel like going to sleep.

I really hope I don’t start writing another post tonight…

Confusing Features for a Company

The Web 2.0 Myth

So well put, I should print it out and paste it on my wall. This one line just made me want to shout it from the rooftops:

These entrepreneurs confuse a feature for a company.

Freaking yes. I hate “Web 2.0″. Not just how the phrase came to be the quintessential phrase of my type of people, but I’m talking about the endless trash that Michael Arrington gets to cover on a day to day basis.

Seriously, if the idea is to make your own Digg + Flickr + Del.icio.us + Advertising, you need to go back to the drawing board. Not only is that silly, it’s doable RIGHT NOW with the help of… ugh… I have to say it… the “Web 2.0″ mantra of having open APIs. If it isn’t doable now, trust me, it will be.

So, as for me, it’s continuing to hiding in the bushes and taking notes, while silently honing my skills and looking out for the killer team of coding ninjas.

Another FOUR posts edited to oblivion

I need to get better at this content creation thing. I set my standard for an actual post so high that I can never really write one from start to finish. Sorry, but you’re going to get another retarded personal entry.

Yes. So this is indeed my vacation #1 of 2007. Coming to Cincinnati was definitely the right thing to do… seeing friends… rethinking the future… almost a career “retreat”. Anyway, here comes the meat. Truth be told, I don’t normally choose to be a jerk. But I think what happened with this project that Alex and Chris had, wigdets… I wanted the project to be something more… more than what it was. I actually wasn’t too sure of the project to begin with, and one of the main reasons for coming on board was just to be a part of a project that friends would partake in. I had a wonderful time the one meeting I got to sit down with the founders of the project, as I heard about their motivations in structuring this project. I was, at one time, excited at what it had to offer.

But… I’m not really sure what happened, but I lost interest. Fast. The things that I was going to do for the project… I never really followed through. I guess I could partially blame laziness for this one, but I have a feeling that there was a larger issue at play: wigdets wasn’t my project. I never felt like I could be at equal with these other guys. Also, wigdets wasn’t something I conceived. Heck, I didn’t fully understand the technologies required to build such a system, nor did I feel comfortable enough to preach on the features of the system. I apologize publicly that I didn’t come to this realization fast enough. But I have a feeling, Chris and Alex are and will be okay without me.

As for me, the game is afoot. I’m glad I’m learning a bit more about myself…

Tomorrow is another day. Rock rock rock.