Great leaders are great followers.

They say we need to be leaders not followers, but we have to be great followers before we become great leaders.We have to follow before we're being followed. We have to obey before we're being obeyed. Tha't what we call set a good example. Do it first before we ask someone else to do it. Action speaks louder than words. A leader is a follower; he/she follows to lead.

Characteristics of good writing

Good writing is usually short, precise, and to the point. Don't forget, don't be afraid to polarize people. Don't try to win everyone. They either love you or hate; but they'll respect you. Make sure you consider your audience. Pick a corner, and fight until you die.

sweet dream

Sitting home peacefully listening to my music (sweet dream), checking my email...

Hire evangelists for your business

If a startup is thinking about firing its developpers, it should do it fast. If you're going to make mistakes, make it as fast as possible. However, a startup should always prevent mistakes. Don't hire developers, software engineers, scientists, CEOs, CTOs unless you're sure the person is an evangelist of your business. An early startup should never hire to fire.

Google world's #1 software company

Microsoft used to be the biggest software company in the world; not anymore. Google innovates; microsoft doesn't innovate anymore. Search is to the web what window is to the desktop. The desktop is dead, everything is on the web now. Goog controls 60% of the search market share; MSN barely controls 10%. Microsoft is doing everything possible to catch google in search; goog doesn't care about PC operating system. IBM has a market cap of $160 biilion, and $100 billion revenue, but who cares. When was the last time IBM did something to make your life easier? Cisco designs, manufactures and sells Internet protocol (IP). That's not software; that's IT.

Create your own world

Every startup dreams of being the next google, the next microsoft, or kill google, kill microsoft. Well, I have two words for you: be yourself. That's why you start a statup; to solve a personal problem, not google's problems, nor microsoft's. Stop following what google or microsoft are doing. In fact, if you want to be the next goog, or msft, you will get your wish. You will be goog#2, or msft#2. In this competitive world, #2 is an ugly place to be. It's either you're first or last; there's no #2; #2 means last. You're either be google(first), or yahoo(last); facebook(first), or myspace(last). Don't get me wrong, yahoo and myspace are valuable; according to alexa.com, they are #1 and #2 most visited sites in the world. But who cares; yahoo is a confuse conpany; today they decide to be a media company; next month they want to be a search engine company; a few days later, they're angry, and want to fire 10% of their workforce. For myspace, what can I say? Last time I went there, I thought it was a daycare center; a whole bunch of 4 year old.

My dream co-founder

My dream co-founder doesn't have to be someone famous. It certainly doesn't have to be my friend. (Friends sometimes don't take friends serious. Trust me, I had some experience). My dream co-founder is someone I know; someone I can trust; someone I can share the vision with; my dream co-founder is my soul mate. Ironically, my co-founder is not too far away from that; he's a great guy.

We think we know, but we have no idea.

They say what we don't know won't hurt us. I say what we don't know will hurt us, but at least we know that we don't know. We can always learn. What we should fear is what we don't know that we don't know. The worst of all is we don't know that we don't know something, and on top of that, we don't know what it is. They say think outside the box. I say think inside the box; just assure we expand it. The box represents discipline and foundation. Just about everything in this world succed because of discipline and foundation. The universe is a box, and we live inside it. They say knowledge is power. I say knowledge is danger. When we don't know, we go obliviously; we learn as we go; we don't know what to expect; we don't make up our mind; we have fun along the way. When we know, we procrastinate; we brag; we cut corners; we get overconfident; we don't execute.

Early startups should bootstrap even with outside funding

Regardless if you're bootstrapping, or get outside funding, an early startup should always bootstrap. Bootstrap to me is to spend every dollar bill like it was your last. Now, when you start a startup, you won't have time to cook (good way to save money, but not good way to save time), instead you can spend that time coding. Going to a restaurant is out of the window (way too expensive). The best way to save money, and save time is to buy pre-cooked food. I think noodle is the best in that case. I love noodles; just throw it in the microwave for 2 minutes, and it's ready. You can even eat it while you're coding. Trust me I've experienced it before. Noddle will save you time and money.

The time is now.

After months of working on this prototype, we finally have something to show for. It's been an on and off project; I'm at Harvard; my soul mate works full-time as one of the lead engineers at Depaul University. After this semester, I'm taking a leave of absence from school, and he'll quit his job to work full time on this startup. It might not be the best prototype, but it's a starting point, we promise we will build from it. http://www.woozai.com:8080/woozai/collab.swf

We think we know, but we have no idea.

They say what we don't know won't hurt us. I say what we don't know will hurt us, but at least we know that we don't know. We can always learn. What we should fear is what we don't know that we don't know. The worst of all is we don't know that we don't know something, and on top of that, we don't know what it is. They say think outside the box. I say think inside the box; just assure we expand it. The box represents discipline and foundation. Just about everything in this world succed because of discipline and foundation. The universe is a box, and we live inside it. They say knowledge is power. I say knowledge is danger. When we don't know, we go obliviously; we learn as we go; we don't know what to expect; we don't make up our mind; we have fun along the way. When we know, we procrastinate; we brag; we cut corners; we get overconfident; we don't execute.

There's room for one more startup.

When starting a startup, we shouldn't worry about if there's room in a particular market or not. If we're solving a problem, there's always room. Who would have thought google would become the biggest software company in the world. Software moves to the web, and google is the leader in that world. Almost everyone uses goog applications in one way or another. When our startup is in the idea stage, many companies can emerge into our market, and we wouldn't have time to track all of them down. If we have a competitive advantage, there's always room. We don't start a startup to be 20% better than the competitors; we start a startup to be 20 times better than the competitors. When goog started, there were excite, lycos, aliweb, altavista, webcrawler..., but goog came in and kick ass. If we have to know something about our market, make sure we know if the market is new, or declining. Trust me, if we're solving a problem, and we have competitive advantage, there's plenty of room.

Startups high pre-money valuation is a killer

Startups like to raise fund at a high pre-money valuation. It's understandable; founders want to give up little % of their company for a lot of money. But that could be very dangerous, even fatal for startups/founders. When the company is new and unproven, it's better to raise capital at a low pre-money valuation. Founders know when the company is a few thousand line of code, or barely bringing revenue, it shouldn't be valued as high, but they raise the valuation bar anyway. Let's say the founder's wish come true, and the company gets acquired, which is the new business model for most startups now these days. Investors will get the money they invested and more, before founders get anything. Sometimes founders get nothing. It's never about founders get 45%, investors get 65% of the company's stocks. Investors always want to get their investment back, and possibly more... If taking 65% is higher than taking 10X their investment, they'll take 65%; if taking 10X their investment is higher than taking 65%, they'll take 10X their investment. Investors get paid before founders. In an acquisition, the higher the pre-money valuation is, the more likely investors will take all, if founders don't sell as high as their company pre-money valuation. Now days, before a startup gets out of beta phase, it's already valued at millions. Facebook barely bringing $200 million in revenue is valued at $15 billion. Even Mark Zuckerberg doesn't think his company worth that much. Digg.com barely has a business model, is valued at $200-$300 million. What happen to the good old fashion of buying low to sell high? Startups need to buy investor's money at a low pre-money valuation to exit the company high to make a profit.