On Quia

I am fully burned out today. This interview was very similar to the one I got from Factset in that I woke up earlier than I naturally should, and I came back long after the free lunch had been digested.

I really liked Quia after meeting more of the team. Min-Hank was a fantastic first impression on me. Ex-Oracle, he was easy to talk to and encouraging in all his questions. Next I met Joe, who's also ex-Oracle. I felt pretty happy with my responses with Joe, mostly because they were questions I had never seen before, but answered with minimal fuss and maximal correctness. I related with with him since he was an undergrad at Cal and took many of the same classes that I did. I have to admit that Jen intimidated me a bit when I met her. She was definitely courteous, but I felt uncomfortable while she typed as I worked out the given problem. I tried to chit-chat, I got the impression she wanted to get to the point. I'll have to tackle the problem she gave me and submit it to Joe later on.

I loved talking to CEO Paul. He came in all smiley and that helped calm down some of the interview nerves. I thought I blathered a little too much about my summer internship, but I just really wanted to get to know the guy. I was also impressed that he started this whole outfit part-time while he was doing another job.

The up and down adrenaline rushes between interviews hit pretty hard. There was never quite enough time in between each section for me to tone it down, but at the same time, just enough time to remind me how tired I am. The problems aren't what's hard, it's taking enough breaths and slowing down your writing that's tough. When I underclocked my head back down to sane levels back in the car, I could barely keep myself awake.

On Getting People to Work on Projects

Though I haven't made more than a couple of attempts to work with people on exciting projects, I've already noticed a few negative recurring themes. I'm not blaming these on any specific people either cause I'm just as guilty as the next guy. I've heard some of these a few times now:

• Can't, school. (totally legitimate, but doesn't apply to me)
• Can't, _insert_hobby_interest_here. (all the more power to them)
• Can't, not interesting enough problem. (then come brainstorm a better problem with me)
• Love to, then work on everything else except with me. (hasn't really happened that much, but I feel like it sometimes)
• Love to... never hear back again

Basically, what I have is a bunch of really cool and awesome people I'd like to work with. I don't care if I make money (at least for now). Even my elementary school buddy from Ohio has shown more interest in brainstorming with me than some of the people I'd like to work with. I understand school is hard. I get that work takes time. I sympathize with everyone's reasoning about everything. But when it comes down to it, there must exist SOME project which is exciting enough that you'll bump it up in terms of priorities. I don't even care if that project isn't something you want to share! I just want to see more people care or do projects for the sake of having fun. At some point, someone has to overlap with me right?

I was bitchin' to Andrew, and he gave me a great response. Something I'd like to ask people next time I want to do a project:

[00:13] Get a timeline, get that list together of people you want, go through each one, ask them for their schedules and where they see themselves in like 5 years, find out who's actually available to work on your project, poll each of them for their true interest and to see what they'd like to do, if their plans and personal interests line up with your plans, then it's a green light go
[00:13] put them in our team, get steady lines of communication with each of those that care
[00:13] with the timeline, have certain deadlines
[00:13] like, by day 40 of the launch, i will have a tentative team list of 8 or 9 people
[00:14] by month 3, I will have had an office or a code base or a proper code repository set up
[00:14] or hell, by month 4, all of the foundation will set up and true coding can be setup
[00:14] you can also have parallel timelines
[00:14] like one for business setup
[00:14] one for coding
[00:14] one for idea throwing around
[00:15] and one for, i don't know, staff development, a happy team is a strong team
[00:15] without visible goals, no one has a drive to do anything
[00:15] even if they're soft deadlines, they're better than nothing at all otherwise procrastination sets in
[00:17] I don't know if Im' relaly consoling you...
[00:17] I feel like I'm hitting you with a stick :(

As a last resort, maybe it's cause I smell bad. I'll go take a shower now :)

On the Next Bubble

Courtesy of Alean:

I'm definitely far more optimistic about startups than the video's message, but I totally agree that some companies are overvalued and unhealthy for future startup growth. I also see some of these more well known startups as the result of a "Dot-com Cold War", where people and companies throw money at so they don't get shut out from the next big thing. For example, Microsoft's measly $240 million dollar investment is chump change for the Redmond giant. Sure, Microsoft may potentially use Facebook as an advertising outlet, or even as a platform for future development, but I can just as easily imagine the board of directors whispering, "we want to be in... just in case". I see many of the investments done by large companies as similar in tactics to the classic "intellectual property patents race".

The nasty consequence of these large injections of capital is how it changes the public mindset. All the naysayers from the last bubble have returned, ready to criticize. Those who were laid off may start being lured by stock options and inflated salaries again. Many people have either forgotten or intentionally *chose* to forget all that happened a few years ago.

What do I think of all this? I fear for when people start riding the next wave of venture capital. The potential fallout could crush many great ideas and startups who really do deserve to make it. On the other hand, it motivates me all the more to get my act together and establish some roots so I can weather through the worst.

In fact, I welcome the worst. A fallout would weed out all those racing in to make a quick buck. Just don't let it burst too quickly :)

On Motivation and Good Data

On Motivation

I'm frustrated. I hate how people get so easily discouraged by startup failure statistics. I hate how people obsess over everything but personal side projects. For once, I'd like to have a friend who is passionate about a project for the sake of it being a cool project; Not for the sake of a grade; Not even for the sake of money.

On the Right Data

It's easy to make the point that data is a new form of currency in this day and age, but not all data are created equal. You could also say that there exists "data in the rough" where the data may exist, but exists in a medium that's useless.

Bernt Wahl had a good example from his prior experience with homegain. His example is neighborhood data for real estate use. Of course, all the data was available in the heads of the realtors, and there were county boundries and census data. But really, that data is only useful in the context of a neighborhood. So they did the grunt work and refined the existing data into a useful form.