What a life

Learning Ruby on Rails - made my first simple program that allows me to talk to computer. hehehe.

Wordpress: currently fixing up a bug. mainpage shows up as 404. So decided to delete out everything and start all over. It's annoying because filezilla FTP takes forever to delete and upload things perhaps it is my server that is slow.

Dogs: Fozzy and I have been bonding lately. He sits in the box full of clothes that I got from Abby. Still have not unpacked it. Mila and I are bonding. Past two days I have been spending more time at home than past 3 weeks.

Startupweekend: pissed about not being able to bring a developer. Few leads and contacts but none of them fell through. I will still have fun though

Appme: I was supposed to start on Begining of April. But there is a new bug that VJ has to fix. Initial product is ready but i'm not quite sure it is attractive yet. Currently making a list of target market. I wonder if there is better efficient way about finding them

Friends: Seeing more friends that I have not seen for a while. reconnecting. Not as frequent as I would like to because it cost $$. I need to be frugal about it because I have to pay hella tax this year. first time paying tax. GREAT!!

Workout: Going great! It makes me happy and satisfied.  Energized. getting big especially chest and shoulder.

Girls: There are four girls that I'm talking to. It's not that fun except for one. Maintaining very little contact with all of them. focusing on myself is more fun.

Dates: Last date was a lot of fun. Sushi restaurant chat was so great. we both did not want to leave. I think I like Anne and Liz the most. Both are cool girls.

Sellhapplee: Talk with Nick Huzar put me on a huge wall. It's like David and Goliath. Much complicated problem that i'm trying to solve. He has been the 4th person to discourage me about the project. Good news is that experience and learning that I got out of it. Fact that he already has the prototype built. Now all I have to do is draw a great business model that can sustain the revenue and consistency of inflow of customers and license DitchThis and then Success. but first, I've got to start making money!!

Abby: It will be a lie if I don't think about her. Reality is that I think about the relationship itself more than her.

Things I'm NOT doing: Being sad or depressed. contact with Abby. Stalking Abby. letting my imagination go wild.

Things I am doing:  Being independent.  Focusing on my life and dream. calm and happy. being patient and caring.

Emotional maturity comes with experience. Breakup sucks but it is necessary step.

The breakup with Abby was simply necessary. I opened my perspective and horizon of the world of romantic relationship. I've always been curious and now I know what it is. It is about collaboration and boudaries. Collaboration is trusting each other with vulnerability which drives passion. Boundary is simply not to depend on my girlfriend emotionally.

Next relationship is going to be great.

Controlling jealousy. Listening. Talk straightforward with calm presence, show her that I care by controlling my emotion which will lead to fighting fair. Be trustworthy.

Saying breakup is a BIG deal. Don't take it lightly. Girls hate that. It messes with security and her head. psychologically damaging. it's a emotional abuse. Be respectful.

I am always going to be focused to move forward, independent, seek success. I want a girl who can balance me out. Someone who supports me by listening and caring. I support her with my passion, love and building myself strong to take care of her.

I don't NEED a girlfriend.

Ipad

Got an ipad yesterday. no way to charge it though. bummer.
AppMe App is not quite ready. bummer. making target market list.

Exciting things are happening everyday.

Feeling better

It's all true.
Time heals
my wound is finally scabbing over.
All the articles that I have read about relationship is finally kicking in.
Instead of stalking, I read about relationship sometimes for hours.

now i'm getting on with my life. reading and learning more about start up. building customer base. sales funnel. learning to code, currently learning rail on ruby right now. next is python. still very confusing. perhaps it's because i don't have the basics yet. today's first day. so we will see how it goes.

debating whether i'm gonna go to Louisa coffee tomorrow or not.

Bob Crimmins

What an honor!!?? Seattle TechStars Mentor, Imedexchange.com, Tye-Young Entrepreneur Coach, sat front of me today one-on-one!!! Crazy!!  Seattle Tech Stars is as hard to get into as Harvard Univeristy! Over 500 people apply and only 10 gets accepted.  Huge confidence boost for me when he said that I would be a good fit after hearing my story and passion. He also told me that he would make exception to invite me to Poker2.0 where established entrepreneurs and investors meet. Bob gave me very interesting viewpoint for my Sellhapplee.com project. It already exist and a guy name Nick Hazzur did it. All the other times, I was not discouraged but this time I was. He told me that he would introduce me to him. I was excited about this because 1. If he would let me, I can learn from him. 2. I don't have to follow his model and differentiate myself 3.Perhaps I will work with him.

Life is busy. I've gained my confidence back. Feels great and strong.. it's awesome!!

AppMe

First time in my life I actually sat front of a millionaire and had a one-on-one conversation for an hour. It was really exciting. I could tell that he was stand off- guarded in the beginning and keep the posture high but I felt like we connected in a deeper level when I showed him who I really was telling him everything that has happened in my life.
I was excited about his vision and I can see myself working with him.

Momentum, Gold rush = Mobile APP

Ilan says I am building a momentum but we will see.

A lot of things happened since Monday.

Sack of Seattle, meeting Rick, crazy Abby things, Redmond meetings, Northwest Entrepreneur Network. Let's tap into it one at a time.

Sunday- Abby called me at 930pm to tell me the truth about what happened between Abby and Randy. Mikayla lied to me about it and told Abby to tell the truth to me. I would have been better off not hearing the truth, but I guess it only makes me stronger or damage my psychologically. At least scheduled a breakfast with Abby for Monday Morning. I confessed my love for her passionately and I thought I had reached her or budged her to love me again. She had a lot of resentment it was almost like she was trying to be resentful just so that she doesn't miss me. I can see in her eyes that she loves me very much. I could see the tears when she was walking away from me after we said good bye. She wants me to change and get better.

Tuesday morning!! Sack of SEATTLE. So many inspired Entrepreneurs and business professionals. Many of them were ex-microsoft. One guy already had his product built and showing on his ipad. It was about predicting people's future and earn points. Vision was that eventually, some people will have a lot of points and people will follow. RIght now he is designing it for fun such as celebrity and sports players. Eventually, money people will use and that's where he will make bank. If Warren Buffet joined that site, it will get so much recognition people trying to follow him. :)

I was only able to talk to few people. Peter works at Microsoft I believe. But he has his own business on the side called zumobi and he is an iphone developer. He seemed like a realist and for some reason I did not have a courage to ask him to be my co founder. But I sent him an email today asking him for guidance so we will see.

Rick PLANK!! my Favorite. We had very interesting conversation and he liked me quite a lot. He is an engineer and a lawyer. He developed this product called E-Swing. It is for golf where you swing the ball and machined measures all the data so that golfer can become a better golfer and win. He was very fond of his vp of business development guy who is korean and had big vision for korean market through him. He liked me enough to invite me to go to Northwest Entrepreneur Network which was today. He even paid for my coffee and registration fee. I really hope that I can maintain good friendship with him. He has put in about $375,000 into his business so far and looking for another half million. Looks like he is very close to launch. I'm excited for him.

My right hand is still not healed from punching a wall. So I have been running every morning instead of lifting. I want to lift and get big.

Michael a creative designer who seemed bit weird for my taste of weird. He told me that he knew a guy who developed an app for autotrader. So I emailed him today to see if I can get introduced.

David met a inventor and Angie who is in wine industry.
Overall lesson we got Tuesday was that we need to find an attorney who would work for equity of the company. I need to make the company a Limited Liability so therefore I can start making contracts then I can really formalize founder relationships right once I find a developer.
Competitor, target market, terms of use, projected volume and profit and timeline

Wednesday, in Redmond Entrepreneur coffee, I met with two ex-microsoft, Jon who I met at Sack of Seattle. Jon told me about surfincubator.com for my developer search. One of the ex-microsoft lady was a project manager who went to school to get certificate to understand codes but not necessarily know how to write them. She knew a lot about how to find a job such as Matt-Young-Quest, a career coach, Readypulse.com, Prolango, Pay scale and she was very passionate about it.
Most interesting person did not show till the last minute. His name was Srinivas Penumaka, a CEO and co-founder of Social Yantra. It is a analytics for Facebook and twitter. I visited his site. It wasn't working for my Facebook page and did not see one for twitter. It is a beta version and apparently he is going to the showcase soon to attract himself from investors.

I posted my cover letter and resume to seattle tech stars. It drew few attention. Three Startups contacted me. I am meeting with one today. Deep thought Inc. I also found out that it is affiliated with MIT enterprise demo event winner Laser motive and one of the participant was Social Yantra. It is so crazy that I can see the entrepreneur ecosystem slowly now. I'm learning tons. Yet, I still don't feel whole without Abby.

So that was Wednesday. At this point, I was still ok because I had hopes for Abby and I especially because she told me yes to us going ski together. I was excited and waiting to call her Today. But all hell broke lose on Wednesday. I saw Ashina was friend with Randy. Found out he enjoys snow sport. Worried about Abby going to the mountain with him. Whatever that means. I was home alone. Super low emotionally. called her. begged. she was very upset. told me that rest of her day is ruined. I made the situation really bad. Friends told me so too. I should have kept my composure and stay cool then at least I could have called her today to see whatsup. Now I really have to give a silent time. Big space in between us and just hope that she will miss me one day.

Today I got up at 5am. Went for a run. Met with Rick at 7am. We went to Nwen.org together. I networked his guy name Cliff. He was a web developer but did not have card nor tell me details on what he is working on. He just asked me a lot of question without telling me anything about him. It made me nervous. I gave him my card. Hopefully, he will reach out to me and want to work together.

I am meeting with Matt Fields from Deep Thought Inc. Their page says

We incubate, collaborate, and co-fund technology ventures primarily in mobile and web

But the web site not well organized and mediocre. It looked like a messy blog. So we will see. He thinks i'm looking for a job but I want to talk to him about My mobile app. meeting him today at 330 in bellevue.

I got a call from Appme, talk to their CEO, Vijai Anma. He wants to meet with me on Monday. I emailed him the address that he told me but it did not go through. So i'm not quite sure if he is blowing me off or did not have courage to say he is not interested in me. Either way it would be cool to work with him because he had the same vision as I do about mobile app industry. 

GOLD RUSH = Mobile APP!!!

Oh I forgot to mention that I met with Giovanna at aerotek. She is recruits for Amazon so we will see what will happen down the road. 

En Masse had called me for QA position. They are looking for Korean Bi-lingual person. But I 'm not quite sure i'm up for it. Pay is too low for what i'm used to.

Thought about just going to sales and make lots of money, save up and try again on my entrepreneurship.

I want more things to happen. Ilan says i'm building a momentum. 

I accepted the loss for Abby. No more. It hurts. I'm juss dealing and coping with it now. I don't know what's going to happen now. I want to meet a new girl so that I can stop thinking about her. That's exactly what she is doing. Meeting boys. i'm not sure if i'm ready to be promiscous. Been in such a serious relationship, not looking at any girls for such a long time. Now I have to train myself to be single and looking agian? Afterall, I guess I am a commitment guy. Not sure why Katy was saying i don't want to commit or that I was hurt in high school so I don't trust. I think it is misconception that ABby and Katy have developed. I trusted Abby always. it was more about my own jealousy or wanting to protect myself getting hurt by Abby cheating on me or leaving me. My vulnerability and insecurity. Past three weeks, I had received all of that mounts and mounts of them. I didn't find to find about them at all. I could have ignored them. But Instead I brought them all to myself and tortured myself. Alex was saying that I'm psyching myself out. True. I felt so vulnerable and scared that it would damage me psychologically. All the anxiety and difficulty with self control. Maybe Abby saw that in me and wanted to get away. She wants steadiness. that's what she says.

First Sunday

Today was not a productive day. I did not focus well. This morning, I felt like it was a mistake to go to Aimee's party. I am very emotionally vulnerable today. Friend from Olympia told me that quickest way to heal is a rebound. I thought about it and went on match.com but I couldn't get myself to signup my name. Because this means I am intentionally planning on hurting someone for the sake of my happiness. Nobody should go through the feeling that i'm going through. I understand it is necessary step for people to go through to be mature and love is universal language. But there has to be a better way. Develop and build on the idea of counselling and love tips. One thing I can do is to share the feeling i'm going through with people and encourage everyone to never stop loving.
Mikayla is telling me that I should move on because she is sure that i'm going to find true love from some other girl. Better ones out there. She says that I'm only torturing myself for being hopeful.
Am I really wrong not to give up when I know love of my life, the one, my wife is right in front of me? Even if the chance of Abby loving me again is so slim, if there is a hope, I rather chase after that than just give up. I am aware there are likely chance that I will be hurt even more and continue to be tortured.
She told me something that I did not want to hear today but it was the truth. Surprisingly, I did not get upset. I do not have sense/feeling of possessiveness. Perhaps I'm defeated, used to the pain. She is not mine and she has no obligation to me. Plus, I really don't want her to be scared with/of me. It is fucekd up way to have a relationship. The issue is not whether she loves me or not. The issue is whether she trusts me. I believe trust is more possible than love. I'm just really hoping that she said 'yes' to breakfast because she does miss/love me, not to play with me. Perhaps she is just confused. I can only hope.
First time in 3 weeks, I did not work out. I drank a lot last night, felt tired and right hand is all swollen/bruised from punching the wall.  This was a bad approach. I should have at least went for a run because I did not feel energized at all. I couldn't stop thinking about Abby today for some reason. I feel so bad for David. He was willing and motivated. He even brought coffee grounds from his house. I'm the vision and passion guy. I'm the driver and inspiration guy. I must make sure to separate work and personal.
I'm excited about Tuesday Sack of Seattle Coffee and Wednesday in Redmond. This will be the first time meeting Andy Sack and his followers. I will be stepping into the door of Seattle Entrepreneur ecosystem. I'm nervous because I don't want to embarrass myself for lack of knowledge. What excites me is the thought of them accepting me.  Based on what I have read, they should be able to eyeball me within 10 mins whether I have the entrepreneurial spirit like they do. It takes one to know one. Once they get to know my sense of commitment and eagerness to learn to sprint, they will be helpful. I've been in their position. It feels so good to be teaching/coaching and getting feedback of gratitude. I just hope that they don't say impossible to my face.
My heart has been beating fast all day today. I can feel it every time it beats. I tried to watch House today. First time in a long time, they made a sad ending. Patient had died, dying husband died with knowing that his wife had left with anger and that he was not forgiven. Wife told husband she is pregnant and loved him, but he had lost hearing by then. Pretty fucekd up ending. I did not like it one bit. Last thing I needed was sad ending story. I closed it right away. My favorite TV show ruining beginning of my day was last thing I needed.
David and I did make significant progress on storyboard and drawings. we talked about our roles and specialty as well. I just talked to him about it because of what  I read from Paul Graham's blog. That was quite helpful because it empowered David to have more sense of ownership. I went to Seattle 2.0 today. Signed up.
I should continue to look for a job. I need source of income and socialize and make new friends.
when/if Abby and I get back together, it's gonna be quite the different style/dynamic of relationship. We are gonna have many variety, diversified, type/dynamics of friends and a lot of Groupon, LivingSocial, Tippr dates together. That hopeful thinking really stimulates me and give me the happiness. till it's morning again.

Convention center

I have been at this with David since Mar 1. 2011. When we seem like we are making progress and we hit a wall. When we hit a wall, fortunately, there are people who have answers.
2600 Meeting for Hackers was quite interesting and valuable. I shared all my detailed idea with Charles Koh and Hackers so far. David is very much so paranoid about our idea spreading and we lost the leap on the innovation. I agree with it however, if we don't expose our idea then we may not learn.
I am not tech wizard, no computer science degree, no PM experience, for god sake I don't even know what API stands for or what it is. All I have is passion and belief for this project. It sucks to live in a life where I have to be parsimonious all the time. It's annoying . I want to go back to my life where I had great cash flow. I don't regret my decision on giving my parents gifts and money. It was damn worth it and if I did not I would have regretted. My only regret is that I should have started something like this sooner, way sooner like while I was in college. Perhaps I was spoiled, naive and cowardly at that time.
David and I had some disagreement but we talked it out and resolved it. Some issues that we do not resolve are based on difference on our beliefs. It would be great if we had some facts to back it up. For now, we just table those important questions and plan on asking experts.
Everyone is asking same questions. "How are you going to monetize it?" "How will you generate revenue?" It's a important question because people want to make money. I just want to focus on making a great, best of its kind product. Is is so wrong? I have always been so ambitious about money but i'm thinking in long term and I feel that focusing too much on early success on generating revenue may lose our chance for expansion and awareness.

So back to hackers at the convention center. I talked to few very important people that I still remember their name. They did not give out their real name or their specific background. There was "ME" only female in the group, likes to make non-sense joke, kind of like me. but I was losing patience with her because I was all serious. "Broker" was the most helpful. When he grabbed my notebook and pen to explain full details on server science software, it was like magic. I completely understood and knew both pros and cons.  "t-prophet" did not talk much but I could tell that he was most genuine and nice person and it seemed that he knew the most important answer. "HAVE TO SOLVE THE REAL PROBLEM" he repeated that quite of bit and he resonated with what John Sechrest said too.  I believe detailed facts and plan on monetization and solving real problems will get me  one step closer to investor's coaching and direction. At this point, i'm more interested in their knowledge and brain and just their money. One hacker that I talked with the most was from China and he was just visiting for a week. He was pessimistic and not necessarily nice, direct and most dominant figure in the room. David did not like the room environment. He thought that they were annoyed with us and wanted to get out there. But I loved it! Invitation clearly said,

 you delight in discovering how things operate "behind the scenes," and you question not just "how" but also "why",  you won't be considered weird or dangerous for being who you are. Instead, you'll discover that you're not alone, you'll learn new things, and--most importantly--you'll have a lot of fun! 


That had me totally hooked and eager to go. Anyways, the guy from China, made it sound like we are going for a very complicated project and that it is like david and Goliath because we don't have any technical, engineering background. But he never once ignored my question with short, half assed answer that is when I knew that I can connect with these people. I have always known that I was bit weird and got along with nerds since I was young. Perhaps this is my calling. Forget about all the bullshit of party scene, looking pretty, insecurity, fancy car, and all materialistic stuff. Maybe this is where I belong. Shit, should have gone this route long time ago. :)

My biggest problem that I am facing right now is to find a developer that I can trust and rely on. Looks like at this point, I have to offer more than 50% to secure a great developer. It was really annoying that what hackers said matched with what I read online that real good app developers that I can trust is extremely difficult to find and I have to get lucky.

Hackers were just talking about everyday mundane things when I showed up and seeing the size the meeting, I was disappointed because it was completely not what I have expected. However, once they started opening their mouth regarding my idea and product, they understood instantly and asked right questions and barriers.

We mainly focused our topic on Craigslist.

I blocked Abby off of Facebook today. I'm not quite sure if that is a good idea. Part of me is already moved on. Part of have not. Part of me want to go to this party, make out with some random girl and make her jealous. Part of me do not want to go to this party and forget all about Abby. Sometimes it hurts so much. I question myself if this feeling was what Abby was going through with me. Was I really that bad and fucked up? Sun is shining hella bright that I can barely see the monitor. I gotta start taking more pictures to put on the blog.

Friends

friends are important. I have always had friends and had the natural talent to keep them close to me always. However, for a long period of time. My eyes neglected them while I was in relationship with Abby. Looking back, I was just satisfied with companionship from Abby.  It was as if my security came from her rather than group of close friends. Ilan, Katy and I bonded very closely past two weeks. Drama was ubiquitous at home which I believe to be quite the rare scene. They had my back. They understood what I was going through and stayed close to me. I don't believe I have treated them well for about six months to a year.  Why they had my back? I don't know. Perhaps it is like 

Friendship is like peeing in your pants-Everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth.

Katy and Ilan are rare people who ask how I am doing and then actually wait to hear the answer back. It takes years build trust, but only seconds to destroy it. trust is like a glass. easily broken, difficult to repair. I guess I learned lesson several times in my life.  I have lived about quarter of my life. I want to make sure I don't make same mistakes anymore. Connection and network is valuable now more than ever. One day, we will look back on FEB of 2011. How crazy it was for everyone. How the whole house mood and drama came up and down. It's a new beginning. Fresh start. Now I really understand why Katy said

"Don't move on, Move forward" and Ilan said "You are torturing yourself, ignore it" I am very thankful for loyal friends. It is a tragedy that we only have 4 months left to share it. Better make the most of it!

2nd day

So get this. Hella people aka all the exec from spn got my yesterday's blog through email. it turns out there was automated email list and sent it out to all of them. I found out this morning when Katy emailed telling me to keep it up and motivating me. I was so shocked! I really did not mean it for people to see it yet alone sent out on mass email. I was so so embarrassed. I was telling Ilan about it this morning and he says "Chi what do you expect? blog is for public!"
So I deleted some stuff that I did not want to go out even though it already did. My hope was that since it is long people would just ignore it.
I made connection with Bob Cimmins and John Sechrest via Facebook and Linkedin. I woke up at 645am and started my work out by 710am. It's so late because I have to get out of there by 8am otherwise I get charged for parking. So this time I hella pushed on my work and no break. It was not bad because I still felt the sore feeling in my arms.
I really wanted to snowboarding with ex painters and Miguel tomorrow but it's not gonna happen because I got shit to prepare for before the Sack of Seattle Coffee on Tuesday.
David and I have some pretty serious conversation. I saw the direction of conversation going why we cannot rather then why we can. So I talked back and David says "You are just trying to ignore important issue!" and I agreed with him so I talked back to him with questions of 'so what can we do about this?"
Main issue was what was written on terms of agreement on these sites that we are trying to work with. However, it did not strictly say no, just have to ask permission so we tabled it where we will build our product up as much as we can. Talk to smart people on Tuesday and Wednesday and figure it out from there.
We have been thinking about our final vision so much that we were quite burdened, stressed and bit pessimistic. After giving some thoughts, we went outside to take a break. We talked about the scale and that we are thinking it out to be too big. let's take a one step at a time approach. Which site is the most approachable and doable. well craigslist...
Then I looked more in details into how these companies handle different approach for sellers and made the business plan according to that.
i am going to bring out all details plan when I meet with John and Bob face to face.  However that is not until 14th. Which means, I must work my way into talking to Andy Sack face to face on Tuesday because I do not want to share this with other people.
I just talked to Katy about her team and how she can focus her team on scheduling estimates rather than generating leads. I hope our talk was helpful and that she leads her people to generate tangible results.
I must say my 3rd year as an exec spring time was fun. I had some serious selling results in the beginning and was pumped. I want to have that feeling again, it just seems quite far from now.
I want to be happy every day all day. For the most part is good. Some sections of the day is really tough and miserable. I really wish that few months from now, I can look back at this blog and smile about it.

Big Day - the First day

Professor ED Love introduced me to John Sechrest, executive director at NW innovation, Board member for startupweekend.org. He helps innovators create job. He emailed me about getting together so I just called him. He heard what stage I'm at which he called a gate. Then he told me to check out seattle tech stars, startstartup.com, founder coop, andy sach - founder of Judy's book, startupdigest, and so many more.

Finally I found some people who can point me to right direction and can answer my questions for free and have all the connections amongst startup ecosystem. What's more exciting is that some of them are investors as well who are looking to invest upwards of $100k. This is soo crazy and i'm so scared but i'm having so much fun.

I do not know where this road will take me. But when this things takes off right, gonna have to move to sillicone valley. I love Seattle and love to stay here so we will see.

I must have main structure of the apps and web page all lined up and have some buz plan, goal, business card prepared. I do not want to be embarrassed and I have no idea what their expectation is going to be.

I called David to come help with this. He was more than happy too. So now we are partners. I bought domain name and host space for $89 for a year.

I pulled out my project idea from guru.com and iphoneappfreelancer. I talked to Alex Mcdonald about web design and possibly working together.

President of Westcoast firm had contacted me, so I called because he complimented on my resume hella. We ended up scheduling a meeting for this friday. AT this point i'm not interested in working for a company anymore. but I figure it would be fun to talk to people who are serious and rather not talk about mundane things. I wish I could do this everyday.

Only person that I want to talk mundane things is gone and lost out of my mind

I'm so glad to be focusing on myself and moving forward. Future is so uncertain and I just want to sprint and get this ship ready to sail as soon as possible.

I woke up early 6am and started working out by 650am. It made so happy and energized rest of the day. I want to do it again. except it's 1am and i'm still not sleepy. I want to have that feeling everyday. Wake up early and work out!!! getting out of the bed is the hardest part usually.

Maybe I can start living the life where I wake up with determination and go to bed with satisfaction. I really want that. so I shall have that. Why didn't I start this 6 months ago!!!

I must seize this opportunity, this might be my only shot at it.