Demo Night in San Diego

The best part about working at Ansir Innovation Center is that I get to hear about startup events in SD and then attend them for FREE!

EvoNexus is a beautiful space right in downtown

Organized by SD's biggest startup celebrity Brant Cooper

In all honesty, I was not expecting much out of the demo night as I had heard the San Diego startup scene is small and rumors about evoNexus's difficulty in signing up quality startups to their incubator.  Instead, the demo night far surpassed my expectations.  

TakeLessons

This was by far the most impressive startup to demo. Though with 90 employees and $6 million in funding it probably should not have demoed next to the other startups that night since many of them were still in the seed stage.

TakeLessons is a site that helps people find music teachers in their area, kind of like a skillshare.com for music. In addition, it is also a customer relationship management platform for music teachers. Music teachers have to apply to get on TakeLessons.com and get processed through algorithms, that calculate things like how many students the teacher can handle, lifetime amount they will earn as well as the level of competition in the locale. Only musicians who run through the algorithms with a certain score get to be listed on the site.

I strongly believe in TakeLesson's model and love the idea of simple CRM for music teachers, because as TakeLessons said in the demo, most music teachers just want to teach music.  They do not want to deal with payments, scheduling and marketing, and would gladly pay for a service that would do that for them.  

With partnerships with Best Buy and now Amazon where buyers of music instruments will get offered a deal or giftcard for Takelessons, I expect to see TakeLessons become a mainstream service in the very near future.  

saambaa

This was a neat little app that was kind of like a location based Google calendar or Facebook event.  Users go on the app and browse what their friends are doing at that moment them.  In addition, users can make events and invite their friends to them.  Usually, I have qualms about products that require a large user base to work but with saambaa, users can invite people to the event straight off their phone book by SMS meaning that non-app users can participate in the fun as well.

I am not exactly bullish on saambaa's prospects because there are quite a few location based event planning/discovery apps out there but I do like what I see and will definitely be keeping an eye on them as they attempt to raise.  My only complaint and its a huge one is that the app is extremely unstable, it has crashed on me so much that it is nearly unusable, in addition, it crashed when I tried to sign on using facebook meaning that I had to trudge through the manual registration process.    

Tap Hunter

Note the "550 days ago" and "Refreshing data from website"

Tap Hunter was probably the least impressive out the demo night line up.  Their app allowed users to track the craft brews that their local bar has on tap.  Hearing that I already thought it was a fairly trivial app as not knowing what is on tap is not exactly a huge pain point for most people.  Nonetheless, I was intrigued due to the fact I am currently just getting into craft brews.

Upon downloading the app, I was hit with a 5+ minute loading time when I launched it, as TapHunter attempted to download information from the server.  I say attempted because my phone locked out because TapHunter took so long to download from the server, the lock out interrupted the download and caused the app not to work.  I had to reinstall the app and make sure it did not lock out again before it finished downloading the second time.  However, the disappointment only deepened when I started using the app and realized my local bar had not updated their selection in 530+ days.  A quick look at the comments in the app showed that information that was outdated for over a year was the norm. 

Avoid this app.

 uMe

When I heard that uMe was another one of those business card apps, I dismissed them.  However, when I saw their demo, I started seeing some possiblities.  The founder showed how he could distribute his card to the whole audience by having us just email his uMe address, which I thought was pretty neat and could see being useful in a conference setting.  Distributing uMe cards through was also a great idea because that meant that non-uMe users could receive uMe cards, once again overcoming the critical mass problem that so many apps have.   

Hard time choosing the lesser evil

However, once I downloaded the app and actually started using it, I was once again disappointed.  Their UI was plain and maybe even a little ugly. My biggest gripe was the limited number of business card templates all of which were hideous.  The last deal breaker, is the fact that my biggest problem with business cards is not that I never have any on me, but rather of how to organize all the ones I receive.  The uMe app does not solve that problem as I can only receive other uMe cards with the app, which essentially makes it useless because nobody uses the app. 

Looks I am going to stick with Cardmunch as my business card app of choice.

GoTribal

I don't have much to say about GoTribal because I do not understand their space much.  GoTribal is a social network aimed at women in endurance sports (marathons, triatholons etc.).  Yes, they are that niche of a company.  Though, the founder stated the market was in the millions of women in the US alone and growing at a rapid pace.  Normally, I would be highly skeptical of another social network, but it seems like GoTribal has its affairs in order with a celebrity endorsement, corporate sponsors and an active community. 

Kareer.me

Unfortunately Kareer.me is mainly filled with jobs no college student wants

This startup is looking to remake the resume.  Kareer.me allows you to make a richer resume with video intros, etc and it also allows you to simply make multiple versions of a resume, which is a big plus for people looking to tailor their resumes to each job.  Kareer.me is also a jobs site meaning that users can immediately apply to jobs that companies have posted with their freshly made resumes.  However, when I checked the job listings on Kareer.me it was filled with positions like cashier, dishwasher and clerk which are not exactly the positions that their target segment of college students are aspiring to apply for.

As one of many startups trying to remake the resume and with nothing to make Kareer.me really standout from the pack, I am bearish on its prospects. 

Antengo

I wish Antengo had more users!

In a world with the likes of Zaarly and Taskrabbit, the local market place app space is pretty crowded.  Antengo is basically a no nonsense mobile version of Craigslist and for that it works well.  The UI is intuitive (not like Zaarly's redesign) and it looks way better than Craiglist. 

However, the reason I am not using Antengo over Craigslist right now is because there are very few users!  At the demo, the founder spouted some impressive statistic regarding active users and transactions, but the fact is that I simply cannot find anything I want on Antengo.  Looks like I am going to stick with hideous Craigslist and I bet many others will too. 

Upper Class Echo Chamber: Lesson in Bias Awareness

While talking on the phone with my mom about the cost of living in San Francisco, she mentioned that her cousin's son was making 70K a year and finding it hard to put aside some money.  This blew my mind, because I was calculating a comfortable living while earning 40K a year in San Francisco.  I could not understand how my mom though that a single and childless twenty something year old was just breaking even at the end of the month.  Then I remembered how growing up I was always told that we were poor when my dad was making well over 100 grand a year (putting him in the top 5% of income earners in the US) and suddenly it all made sense.  My parents were stuck in the upper class echo chamber.

By only associating with people who are in the same socioeconomic class, my parents have made themselves blind to the possibility of life outside of their own income bracket.  I have personally witnessed this blindness at dinners with family and family friends.  Just imagine, a group of senior engineers or managers reassuring themselves over $200+ bottles of wine that living off less than 100K a year in Silicon Valley is next to impossible.  Actually, San Jose's mayor Chuck Reed said relatively the same thing in 2009 claiming that “a family earning $250,000 a year can’t buy a home in Silicon Valley.” At the time, people slammed him for being out of touch, but little did the critics know that he was very much in touch with my parents and their friends, also known as the constituency that got him elected. 

The upper class echo chamber inevitably filters down to the children.  I remember back in high school my friends and I were looking at college majors and the corresponding starting salaries, panicking at how we could possibly live off 50 grand a year once we got out of college.  I would have been indefinitely stuck in the echo chamber had I not joined Cindy Chavez's campaign for mayor my sophomore year and started interacting with different socioeconomic classes.  Especially, while working with union members, I quickly realized my position of privilege which put my feet on the ground and a few years later while in college, my anthropology studies would firmly secure them to there.   

Later that day, after my mom's call I shared what my mom said at the bar, my perplexed friend and I did a quick thought exercise on how much we would have left each month after taking out essentials if we were making 70K a year.

Hypothetical essential costs:

• Taxes - Roughly $21,000 a year
• Rent - $1200 month for a studio (information provided by my mom on how much the guy was paying)
• Car lease - $250 a month for a Camry LE (quoted from Lease Trader)
• Car Insurance - $150 a month (my friend's current young driver rate)
• Gas - $260 a month (roughly $65 a tank, 1 tank per week)
• Utilities + Internet + TV - $300 a month (Boston quote because the guy lives in the east coast from White Fence)
• Wireless bill - 80 (Top of the line unlimited data plan from Sprint)

Subtract all these monthly costs from his after tax income of $4083 per month and he is left with $1,843 for food and anything else that he wants.  $1,843 a month is more than my current TOTAL monthly expenditure per month. He must be eating steak dinners everyday and buying shots of Patron at the bar if he was just breaking even every month.  There is of course a lot of possible cutting back on this budget as well.

WHAT’s the point of this whole story?

This little anecdote highlights the danger of being unaware of your own bias.  It shows how easily it is to become disconnected from the reality on the ground just by surrounding yourself with similar people.  To me it is a reminder to keep stepping out of my usual environments and meeting people who are different as well as once in a while to take a step back and take a real critical look at myself.

Hire an Anthropologist: 3 Reasons Why

Confused looks abound, whenever I tell people I am an anthropology major. After the looks and explanation that I do not study bones, the inevitable "what are you going to do with that?" comes up.  I imagine recruiters who look at my resume go through the same process.

Bronislaw Malinowksi
Father of Social Anthropology

And I do not blame them!  It is hard to understand how anthropology is practical given the lack of hard skills in the major.   Unlike a computer science major, I cannot say I learned Java in class and I directly use that knowledge in my developer job.  The drawing of direct connections from the social sciences to practical endeavors is not as clear cut as doing so with hard sciences or engineering.   In order to appreciate anthropology’s practical use, there must be a recognition of the uniqueness of anthropology’s conceptual framework, which changes how every student views the world.

Below, are three examples of how an anthropological framework helped me do my job:  

1) Holistic view

To be an anthropologist is to understand that people are the sum of their parts.  Analyzing people means taking into account multiple elements such as socio-economic status, culture and psychology. 

This holistic mindset leads me to analyze data and problems from multiple angles.  I am highly skeptical of one size fits all solutions preferring instead to tailor solutions according to differences.  With globalization and mantras such as "think global, act local" on the rise, a holistic mind set will only grow in importance. 

In my marketing campaign for the Undergraduate Investment Society's 7th Annual Financial Horizons Conference, I looked at the UCSD student body holistically.  This led me to see that economic students and Rady business school students due to factors such as age, work experience and socioeconomic status would have different motivations for attending a finance conference.  As a result, I tailored the ad copy towards the different students in an effort to appeal to their varied motivations for going to the conference.

2) Check biases

Logic is thrown around a lot as the catchall explanation for why people do or will do certain things.  What people view as "logical" and "rational" are often the result of ingrained biases, but few realize that.

Anthropologists are in a constant and ongoing battle to check their biases.  This is not to say that those who study anthropology have no biases, rather they are aware of them and take it into account in their analysis.  By being aware of their own bias, anthropologists allow themselves to be open minded while interpreting data.        

While studying abroad in China, I found that checking my biases helped me discover the culture.  I had a lot of baggage coming into China, from what my family had told or rather warned me about and portrayals of China in the American media.  Being aware of those preconceived notions, allowed me keep an open mind while experiencing the country and led me to better understand not only Chinese culture, but also American and Chinese diaspora culture as well. 

3) Insistence on social proof

Anthropologist hired by US Army in Afghanistan

Social proof has been a buzz word in the startup world ever since Lean Startup became the de facto philosophy for the industry.  The notion of going into the "field" and testing a hypothesis with customers/users/people has been a core tenant of Anthropology since its inception.

The study and practice of ethnographic fieldwork, has given me the sense of mind to take all my assumptions to the field. In addition, it has taught me how to find the relevant field site and effective methods to extract accurate information from it. 

When the Lean Startup Circle lunch club roll out to cities across the country produced lackluster results, I took a bootstrapping business trip to figure out what happened.  Drawing on my previous fieldwork experience, I surveyed the Los Angeles and San Diego startup scenes, which included meeting up with organizers and entrepreneurs on order to learn what they thought would get their community come out to lunch together. 

In closing

Studying anthropology has completely changed the way I think in a way that makes me different from most others.  The anthropological mindset gives me a fresh and arguably better way of using existing tools.  When I read IDEO's profile of the anthropologist in 10 Faces of Innovation:

"The Anthropologist is rarely stationary. Rather, this is the person who ventures into the field to observe how people interact with products, services, and experiences in order to come up with new innovations. The Anthropologist is extremely good at reframing a problem in a new way, humanizing the scientific method to apply it to daily life. Anthropologists share such distinguishing characteristics as the wisdom to observe with a truly open mind; empathy; intuition; the ability to "see" things that have gone unnoticed; a tendency to keep running lists of innovative concepts worth emulating and problems that need solving; and a way of seeking inspiration in unusual places."

I just thought to myself “YES! They get it!”

One day everybody will too.

Fun Friday: Interview with Andi

Once in awhile on a Fridays, I am going to start posting up things that show more of my personality, because quite frankly, this blog can get a little dull at times.  This first fun Friday post will be a reposting of  an interview that I just completed for Andi, a good friend that I met in Shanghai.  Andi writes her own blog titled Gullible's Travels (Pretentious Version) where she documents her life as an expat in Shanghai.  When I saw that she was posting interviews of her expat friends, I not so subtly hinted that I wanted to be interviewed too!

Andi was more than happy to oblige and below is what we came up with:  

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One freezing, rainy winter evening last year I went to a film screening at Café Vienna and I got seated next to Jonathan. Since we’ve both studied anthropology, lived in Shanghai and were struggling with Mandarin, we had quite a lot to talk about from the very beginning. Since then he went back to California and he’s greatly missed. All photos inserted are courtesy of his.

Name: Jonathan Lau

Place of Origin: California

Time spent in China: 11 months

Once you invited me to a film screening, organized by a charity organization, at which you were one of the pillar members during your stay. Who are they and have you heard from them lately?

When I was in Shanghai I volunteered at a non-profit called Shanghai Young Bakers (SYB).  This amazing organization brings orphans aged 17-21 from rural China to Shanghai and trains them in French baking for a year, giving them practical skills for a better future.  I still get their monthly newsletter and the last thing I remember reading was Miss California swinging by the SYB baking center with the Pistachio Growers of American and a $50,000 check.  I think it is safe to say that they are doing very well since I left Shanghai.

You left Shanghai last July after spending almost one year here, studying Economics at Fudan University.

You left Shanghai last July after spending almost one year here, studying Economics at Fudan University. Why does a young undergraduate of anthropology choose to read Economics?

I used to be a double major in Economics not too long ago before I admitted to myself that it was making me miserable.  However, it is hard to separate economics from culture so I often found it in my anthropology.  Not to mention, it helped make sense of the cultural shifts that I was seeing happen in China.

What was your first impression of Shanghai when you first arrived and how has your perspective changed after one year?

Arriving at Pudong airport and driving to Fudan, I thought that Shanghai looked very much like Hong Kong.  A year later, I realized that only a few parts of Shanghai come close to looking as modern as Hong Kong.  Living in Shanghai, helped me see China as a developing country with a few cracks of modernity.  

What was it like to go back and leave everything behind in Shanghai after this long break from home?

Towards the end of my stay in Shanghai, I was very ready to leave.  Being from California, the lack of clean air and good weather was really getting to me.  In addition, my life in Shanghai had become routine and I felt that I was not really growing much anymore.  However, when I got around to packing I started getting choked up.  There is something about putting my life away into boxes or suitcases that just makes me realize the magnitude of what I am leaving behind.    

What was the most difficult to get used to in the first few months?

Daily interactions back home in San Jose took some getting used to.  Suddenly, it was no longer appropriate to push past people on the street, sleep walk through my day or speak Chinese.  Reacquiring manners was quite difficult, I kept getting caught off guard whenever strangers talked to me on the streets and struggled to remember to say thank you to shopkeepers.   A friend actually laughed at me because of how awkward I was being around waiters.

What do you miss the most from Shanghai?

It did not take much more than a couple of hours of home for the boredom to get to me.  Suddenly, there were no art galleries to visit, bars to frequent, events to attend or even metro to ride.  Leaving that Shanghai lifestyle behind was extremely difficult.

Once I heard there’s not enough hugs in this city. What’s the dating scene like here?

I would be the wrong person to ask as I never dated or tried in my year in Shanghai. Though I did talk to a few expats and locals about it and the scene seems to be lively but lacking quality.

Was your stay here successful? Did you achieve what you’d set out back in 2010, before you moved here?

I came to China really with three goals in mind, to learn Chinese, make Chinese friends and discover what Chinese culture is.  I failed fantastically on the first two goals, most likely because they fed into each other.  However, for the latter I got much more than I bargained for. 

3 things one has to pack when moving here

1. A camera - Shanghai is an incredibly photogenic city, especially at night.  To not have a good camera to capture the beautiful though sometimes tacky lights all around the city would be a sin.
2. Smartphone - Forget phrase books or maps! We are in the 21st century now! Bring your smartphone and preload it with a Chinese-English dictionary and relevant maps.  Watch out for the pick pockets though.
3. Leatherman/Swiss Army Knife/Multi-Tool - Because everything in China is broken or near broken especially in your apartment. My Leatherman saved my life many times and allowed me to capitalize on the many opportunities for mischief.

3 things one should never attempt to do if they are newbies here

1. Barter - No matter how much you have read about bartering you will get ripped off.  Best to go with a pro or local and learn first before attempting to do it yourself.
2. Leave the city - Resist the urge to hop on the plane to Beijing or Tibet your first month here.  Shanghai is a magical place in its own right and there is no way to fully explore it in just a month.  My philosophy has always been to know your own backyard before even attempting to leave it. 
3. Work or Intern - Don't jump at the first internship or job that you find as soon as you land in the city. Employers in China have a nasty habit of using somebody for all they are worth.  Take a little time and ask around to get know the employer situation before settling.

Something that really freaked you out in Shanghai

Once at a wet market, I saw these frogs being skinned alive.  The horrifying part was that after they were skinned, they were still alive! That box of skinless frogs jumping around was a pretty gruesome sight.

Is Shanghai expensive?

Shanghai can be expensive or as cheap as you want it to be, though I definitely lived on the more expensive side.  The expat lifestyle of your own bedroom and going out to bars will probably cost you many times the average income of a local.  However, for the same amount of money I spent in the US, I got much more bang for the buck in Shanghai. 

What would be the best location for a single newcomer, whirling in the urban mist, desperate for a coffee and a quiet corner to read their paper on a Sunday morning?

It depends.  If you have an arm or a leg to spare, you can go to Dan Cafe in Tianzifang.  Run by a retired professor from Japan, Dan most likely serves the best coffee in Shanghai, but you are going to have to pay 35RMB minimum per small cup and the sky’s being the limit for how much you want to pay. 

If you are not rolling in cash, I would probably go to GZ Cafe near the Nanjing Xi Lu metro station.  It's a small cafe run by a very friendly couple in the middle of this side street/neighborhood of shikumen houses.  The coffee is decent and reasonably priced.  The best part though is probably the kittens that they have running around that you can pick up and play with.  They are very helpful on a lonely day.

If you could use one word to describe your experience of living in a far-away country, what would be it?

Magical - Everything from the people I met, places I went and things I experienced was inexplicably amazing.  There were just so many moments that just filled me with awe that magical is the only word which does justice for my year in Shanghai.   

What Chinese word did you use most frequently?

Dui, because I could enthusiastically say it in rapid succession whenever someone understood my terrible Chinese, which was always a great feeling.

Are you planning on coming back one day? Why.

Of course! There is something about Shanghai that I just miss.  Perhaps it's the grittiness of the city, oxymoron that is China, or speed of life, I cannot put my finger on it, but something compels me to go back. 

Financial Horizons Marketing Campaign: Target segments

The Financial Horizons Conference organized by the Undergraduate Investment Society (UIS), a student organization here at UCSD holds a special place in my heart because it was the first time I got to organize my own marketing campaign.  I got the chance to be the conference marketing director through UIS’s UCSD wide poster design competition for the conference. 

My winning entry

After coming back from Shanghai, I was offered the marketing director position at UIS and I took it with some hesitation.  However, as this year's Financial Horizons Conference is coming up, I am glad that I did because all signs point to this year's conference to be the biggest and best ever.  The $1500 marketing budget, which I get almost free reign over is the biggest I have ever worked with.

I have decided to chronicle the Financial Horizons marketing campaign on this blog, breaking it up into a series of posts that will examine everything from planning to execution and of course results.  This post is going to be about the segments that I will be targeting with the campaign.

Target segments:

UCSD Economic Students

Economic students are a large and impressionable group, making it the obvious main target segment.  From my limited time as an economics major, I have found economic students that fall into two groups.  There is the undecided group, which consists of students who have little idea what they want to do after getting their degree and the finance group, who are the students that all seem to want to be investment bankers.  Curiously, both groups of economic students have little to no idea of what finance is. 

I intend to appeal to economic students through money, or rather the promise of big money that only a career in finance can give them.  Pushing the conference as a way to learn about finance as a potential lucrative career for the undecided group and how to get into finance for the finance group is my current plan. 

  

Rady Business School Students

As MBA students, Rady students most likely have a firm grasp of what finance is, meaning that the money angle probably will not have that much pull.  However, the Rady business school is a fairly new addition to UCSD meaning that their alumni network is weak and it does not show up on many recruiters' lists.  The young age of Rady means that the networking angle will have great pull with the its students.  Pushing the big speakers' names and sponsors will appeal strongly with the graduating MBA student. 

Other UCSD Students

In terms of targeting the rest of the UCSD student body, engineering students and other majors that have a heavy quantitative background seem to be the obvious segments due to the recent popularity of financial engineering. 

San Diego Universities ex: SDSU, USD

There are a number of universities in the city that are a 30 minute or less drive away.  Pushing the star power of the conference's speakers out to influencers at these universities could convince them to make the drive. 

Nearby California schools (2-3hrs drive)

Same tactic as for the San Diego schools, but due to limited man power, I will be focusing on only UC's and privates with strong business schools.

Out of state universities: 3 schools

Out of state schools are a long shot, however, last year a school from Utah flew out to the conference and that gave us a nice ego boost.  For club pride, I am going to reach out to 3 out of state schools and using our all-star lineup of speakers as the draw, hopefully one of them will come.  

2012 New Year’s Resolutions

It is that time of year again, when I make promises to myself to be better, smarter and more competitive.  Below, I have my three resolutions, which I tried to keep as S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely) as possible.

Develop my own copy writing process

Ever since I started blogging regularly, I have thought of writing as one of my strengths.  I had previously believed that my writing skill meant that I could write good copy.  That is until I picked up a copy of Copy Hackers and realized that I knew nothing about writing copy.  Time and time again, I find myself in positions where I need to write “call to action” literature.  The need for my own solid copy writing process that allows me to quickly and efficiently crank out copy is becoming apparent.  Over the next year, I resolve to develop my own copy writing process.

Join a professional group

In Shanghai, I had made great connections while attending Toastmasters.  Coming back to the states, I missed that bonding that occurs in an organization.  In addition, while at school, I am finding it hard to regularly meet and talk with professionals.  This is why over the year, I resolve to join a professional group and stay active in it for the remainder of my stay in San Diego.  Currently, I have my eye on either Toastmasters or the National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP).    

Finish up Codecademy

While working at Wednesdays.com, I became aware of how limiting it was that I knew nothing about code.  As the site is still a work in progress, a lot of the functionalities do not have a front end meaning that whenever I needed something done that required going into the database, I had to hassle the founders.  Most of the time it is something small like changing the price or calling up a list of emails, things that I would think are easy to do.

It was under these circumstances that I started the Codecademy lessons.   I reckon if I learn enough code to be able to read it, but not necessarily write it, I could be a lot less intrusive around the office.  I have been playing with Codecademy on and off for the last couple of months, without making too serious of an effort.  However, that is all going to change for the new year as I resolve to get through at least one course a month.  

Lunch with Hackers & Founders

One of the perks of working at Wednesdays.com is that I get to go to the lunches I organize for free.  Last week, I decided to attend a lunch run by Hackers & Founders (H&F), a startup club with a huge membership in the Valley.  H&F lunches usually draw a predominantly developer crowd, meaning that I get lost in most of the conversations. 

However, that week in Berkeley it seemed everybody had a very different backgrounds.  At the table was an owner of a co-working space, a financial advisor from Merrill-Lynch, a German who had just come to SF three days ago after working in Shanghai for five years, a founder of an early stage startup, a recent TechStars admit and me the Galactic Emperor/Ops guy from Wednesdays.com.  This diverse crowd had some of the most insightful conversations about startups that I have ever been part of.  Too many topics were covered for this blog post, so I will limit it to the two things that stood out.

How to hire a developer

It is no secret that the Valley has a huge shortage of developers/coders.  I have heard much about the high salaries and extravagant perks that companies have been offering to bring in talent.  As of last Wednesday, I did not think there was a way out of the status quo, besides perhaps dramatically increasing the amount of developers via education or immigration.  Enter Kyle the tech stars admit.  As a talented developer himself, Kyle had a fresh and most important of all, a credible solution to the problem. 

Kyle’s solution was to hire developers to work part time.  He explained that developers love side projects, and are willing to work on them if given the chance.  The problem is that no company is giving them that chance because they only want the developer full time via a 40+ hour work week.  Kyle believes that employers should settle to hire developers for 10-15 hours a week rather than try to monopolize all their time.  He admits that this does have limitations, but to him it is the difference between having some talent to build product versus none at all. 

I can think of a couple of pitfalls to his idea, but none that could not be resolved given time.  The idea of more using part time developers is very interesting to me and I hope it will be further explored.  God knows, there are a lot of great ideas out there that are simply not able to be built due to a lack of technical expertise.

Silicon Valley Lingo

The Valley’s lingo was on full display at the H&F lunch.  After six months on the job at Wednesdays.com and spending countless hours on startup blogs, I finally have gotten a hang on the startup lingo. 

At lunch, I felt like I was in the “in” crowd, throwing around technical terms like NFC (Near Field Communication), GUI (pronounced: Gooey) as well as name dropping luminaries and accelerators such as Eric Ries, Brad Feld, and YC.  Glad to know that after leaving the Valley for three months, that I had not missed a beat.    

At times, the German from Shanghai had trouble understanding us.  Whenever he asked us to clarify a term or name, it just reminded me of how much of a bubble Silicon Valley can be.   And I have to say it is a great bubble.  

Closing Thoughts

The quality of these lunches just keep increasing and I was thankful I got a chance to attend one, while I was on vacation.  Here's to the new year and may there be many more enlightening lunches for this group of Hackers & Founders.