Lessons from Steve
Posted by Kevin Chan in Stories on November 22, 2011
For the longest time I have really respected Steve Jobs’ work with Apple.
He somehow really understood what made a great product, a great purpose and had the laser focus to really see that his team managed to push the boundaries on innovation to create products that literally changed the world. And he did that because despite all the flak he got for being an extremely difficult person to work with he managed to really inject emotion, feeling and the humanities into high technology – making the high tech finally accessible to the lay person.
Steve Jobs: My Mentor
My respect for his journey has only heightened after reading his biography by Walter Issacson. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not because the book kept lauding how godly his intuition was, but rather that it showed you a clear picture of the man behind the company, flaws, hurts, quirks, insecurities and more.
There’s just so much to learn from the man – not just his genius, but also from his failures and mistakes.
The book was wonderful – it brought me through the story of the personal computer from the eyes of it’s main protagonists – Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and entranced, I spent an entire meditative Sunday afternoon finishing the book.
"You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead." - Steve to Bill at the end of the interview.
After reading the book I found myself watching clip after clip of Steve on YouTube, and here I really want to share with you some of the greatest clips ever for all of you to enjoy. Trust me, you’ll learn something amazing from every single one of them.
The Video Clips
1. Steve talking about the Think Different campaign:
Marketing’s about values
Here Steve talks about how he believes that in this age of information overload and clutter how a brand really needs to have a laser focus on the core values that mean to them, and have the integrity to stick to them.
2. Steve and the Macintosh in 1983 & 1984:
Showmanship can really, really count
Steve was a one-of-a-kind leader that put together great advertising, great positioning and great oratorical skills to really appeal to his customers down at their rawest, most emotional layer.
Just watch how he does so by quoting Bob Dylan, producing an amazing, timely ad, and introducing a revolutionary device with the flair of a master showman.
When you can get that deep, you’ve got more than half the battle won.
3. Steve and NEXT:
Leaders have to the the holder of a team’s vision
One of Apple’s greatest strengths is their ability to focus. Too many big companies get caught up with thinking that they have the resources to do tons of things and they often end up overestimating themselves and spreading themselves too thin. Great companies keep real close to their vision and pursue it with a laser sharp focus. It’s a leader’s responsibility to be the holder of the team’s vison and make sure that the team keeps its eyes on the prize!
4. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (answering questions from the audience):
What advice do they have for young entrepreneurs?
Steve’s advice:
Do what you love because starting a company is so hard that any rational person will give up
Put great emphasis on attracting great talent and refining your intuition about people as even the smartest man in the world can’t build a great company on his own.
(I would highly recommend that you guys watch the interview in its entirety because it’s just so good! It’s just quite long though! Watch part 1 here!)
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I truly feel so blessed to have the great opportunity to learn all these great lessons from someone who has already made a big ding in our universe. Now it’s truly our turn to change the world.
The product-market fit
Posted by Kevin Chan in Uncategorized on October 31, 2011
The cool thing about working on making a startup work is that every day you come into contact with so many new things to learn. There’s always new things you have to read up on, new technologies to understand, new issues to solve and the large variety of challenges that pop up make the great business thinking books we have around on the internet and in bookstores all so much more interesting and relevant!
Business Model Generation
It’s really amazing to note that I’m probably going through business articles and books at a quicker rate than I was when I was still in business school!
As i’m working on a technology-related startup, articles on technology and business all look so relevant to me and I really have a good time everyday reading up on all the wonderful material I have around me! It also pays to be surrounded with awesome friends who share what they learn in the business world with me as well!
So I’ll just get down to sharing the two most important lessons I’ve learnt over the past few weeks, shall I?
The two lessons are:
1. A startup’s main focus in the early stages is product-market fit, not scaling.
2. In today’s cluttered world, focusing on radical (not your typical run-of-the-mill) differentiation is a necessity.
Today, let’s spend a little bit of time talking about product-market fit (we’ll talk about radical differentiation some other day)!
Product-Market Fit
As someone who has great dreams of creating a world-changing, profitable startup, I can understand the urge to want to grow your startup up big real fast through securing venture capital, hiring a large sales team and broadcasting it to every single person you possibly can as quick as humanly possible.
Sounds like just the thing to do with that bright idea you just had right? Just scale it up as big as possible in the shortest possible time frame?
Well, that’s completely true if… the many, many assumptions you made about reality in your business plan were all accurate. And the odds are that you probably have a couple of glaring mistakes in the model somewhere.
And just how do startups work on getting those assumptions right? Not by just looking at research papers and reports, mind you, but mainly through real-world-experimentation. Yup, that’s what you gotta do – prototype and start experimenting with your idea as soon as possible as the market’s the only true judge of your business plan! Doing anything else – planning for an IPO, purchasing large amounts of machinery and all are all going to be for naught if the model isn’t validated by the only thing that should ever validate (or invalidate) a business plan – the market itself.
If you have an idea, just get out there and test it as cheaply and as quickly as possible. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Don’t get caught up with over-thinking, over-analysis and fear. Just go and do. That’s some pretty good advice that I really need to take myself.
Keepin’ those fingers crossed.
Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?
Posted by Kevin Chan in Journal on October 24, 2011
A good friend of me once told me that people who just want to be entrepreneurs rarely succeed – the journey is just far too tough and lonely for one to succeed if it is just something you want. For a person to succeed on this less beaten path, it has to be more that something you just want – you have to need it.
Reflecting and imagining.
But why do I need it? Luckily over the course of the past two weeks, I applied for the Founder Institute, a start-up accelerator, and I was presented with the following essay question to answer:
“Write 2-4 paragraphs on why you want to be an entrepreneur”
After quite a fair bit of deep thought and introspection, here is my response:
Answering this question took a good deal of soul searching, but thankfully everything came together when I went to the very core of things and looked at my core values – lifelong learning, freedom and making a social impact.
Getting real about entrepreneurship now that I have graduated from university has turned out to be a trying and difficult process – but one thing that always seems to put a smile on my face is the fact that I go to bed every night having the pleasure of learning something completely new. It also amazes me how I always seem to see how the business and management literature that I’ve always enjoyed reading seems to become so much more relevant now that I’m trying to set up my own business.
Secondly, my family is extremely important to me and I want to have the freedom to be there for them when they need me – just like how my business owner dad was around for me when I was growing up. When I was growing up, I was extremely blessed to have my business owner dad always being around – he took me out for breakfast, he sent me to tuition and was always there to support me, much unlike other dads who always seemed to be too busy. I want to do the same for my children and wife in the future. That’s why despite how difficult it gets, I know that I want to start the journey right now, before it gets too late.
Finally, I have also learnt that entrepreneurs are a crucial component of creating lasting social change. Everyone wants to make an impact and my personal vision is to bring my two passions together – connecting people, as well as technology – and to fundamentally change the quality of interpersonal connection people have with one another in this fast-paced, often impersonal world.
I want to live an awesome, inspiring life, and I take a long term view at success. Ultimately, the more you stretch yourself, the more you learn, and the sooner you get where you want to go. Right now the answer seems to be entrepreneurship for me – the trials, tribulations and learning that comes along with it would definitely help me become a better student of life.
The past month’s progress report
Posted by Kevin Chan in Journal, Wealth on October 3, 2011
Seems that time just flies! Been keeping busy traveling, meeting developers and finalizing how our startup’s first mobile app will work with my partners and it seems that I totally didn’t make time to blog. Guess that now that we finally have our own beautiful little cubicle in NTU’s innovation centre, I have no excuse but to make some time on Mondays to chronicle how my startup is growing.
Oh well haven’t blogged in a month, but at least I had a great month filled with solid learning experiences! So… where do I start?
Been having tea with tons of people as well!
Getting the product-market fit right
Guess I’ll start with the current state of my startup. Right now, we’re still working on the concept and trying to get product-market fit right, in that we’re still meeting and talking to the primary target audience of our product (salespeople), and gathering feedback from them to refine our concept.
But real life ain’t business school where assumptions and clear logic are enough. Assumptions have to be tested against the market and my partner and I are currently trying to get our startup’s first product – a mobile assistant that aims to improve on the way salespeople interact with their clients – prototyped.
As my partner and I are not (yet) hardcore iOS developers, we’ve been spending the last week or so talking to iOS developers, working on our project briefs as well as thinking of ways to raise development capital for our little project over here. I think that out of the many meetings we went for, we did come across some gems and we really hope to have chosen a quality partner by the end of the week.
Looking for capital
Secondly, my partner and I are also looking into the many government funds for funding for our project. We strongly believe in our company vision to help transform the world into a much friendlier, kinder and considerate place with our products and have been talking to people all over on how our startup can secure some seed money.
We’ve probably got enough to start production of a prototype or two by ourselves, but some government support will really help! Do let us know if any of you readers out there have connections to managers of government funds! We would love to talk to meet them!
Growing the team
Geniuses required!
Finally, after some discussion, my partner and I have also decided to start looking for talent based in KL. We’re currently looking to fill in the following two positions:
General requirements:
- Based in the Klang Valley
- Able to speak English fluently
- Self-motivated and able to work independently
- A good team player and with a proactive attitude
- Minimum diploma and above
1. iOS Developer
- needs to be proficient in Objective-C and able to work independently
- must have a strong interest in design thinking and UI design
2. Web Developer
- must be comfortable with design back-end systems and working with databases
- Required skill(s): HTML, JavaScript, PHP, Web Design, CSS
Interested applicants please email us at quirkapp@gmail.com with your resume, expected salary and recent photograph. We will get back to you as soon as possible. Would also really appreciate it if you spread the word to friends of yours who have just graduated and want real hands on experience on how working with a startup is like!
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Guess that pretty neatly sums up what I’ve been working on lately! Will write about some of the many things that I’ve learnt real soon!
Being Happy
Posted by Kevin Chan in Uncategorized on September 6, 2011
It’s been a really busy two weeks and as work’s been moving slowly, I’ve been struggling to figure out what I should write about for the week’s blog entry, but I realized that I’ve gained some new insights into happiness lately! So that’s what I’m going to be writing about today!
Happiness: So true.
Quite a bit of what I learnt stems from this Lifehacker article which features an amazing TED talk by Shawn Achor which argues that happiness could very well be a competitive advantage that top performers have mastered that helps them achieve great success in life, and that striving for material success to “achieve” happiness is but a futile pursuit.
I really thought about it, and looking beyond the statistics and experiments Shawn brings up in his talk, it really does make sense to me. Happiness does help you become a more resilient person in life. No matter who you are or where you’re from, you’re bound to encounter obstacles in life. Having a happy, positive state of mind would definitely help provide the mental resilience to overcome life’s obstacles in my humble opinion.
The great thing about Shawn’s talk is that he also talked about how we can easily train our minds to be happier, more positive and able to see the best in situations. According to Shawn, a happy disposition is pretty similar to a muscle – the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets; the more you practice mental habits related to happiness and gratitude, the happier you become.
Here’s Shawn’s practices for a happier, more fulfilled life:
- 3 Gratitudes: Every day, list down three things that you are grateful and thankful for. Reminding yourself of the many, many beautiful things in our lives helps us remember not to take them for granted and to cherish them greater.
- Journal: Everyday, journal and write down one positive experience you had during the day. You may have had a bad day, but every day definitely has a bright side to it. If you can see the sliver lining in a horrible, horrible day, you will also be able to do so when you face life’s toughest challenges.
- Exercise: Exercise releases endorphins which generally make you more relaxed and happy. Getting some light exercise in the mornings really helps me jump start my day!
- Meditate: There’s just so much going on in our modern world – so many emails, so much information – that it’s just good to shut it all out and really focus.
- Random acts of kindness: What goes around comes around. It’s a great feeling to brighten up someone’s day, so just go out there and put a smile on someone’s face! It’ll put a smile on yours as well!
I could really relate to this sage advice as my own mom is also wont of reminding me that happiness is all a state of mind. You can have the world and still be bitter, unhappy and unfulfilled.
Even though my girlfriend already describes me as being an “annoyingly happy” person, I still want to help my friends and family around me become happier! I’ve already made discussing the 3 gratitudes and journaling an activity I do with my girlfriend before we retire for the day and it has already helped make our days happier. Hope that the advice here helps you become happier! Please let me know if you find that it helps!
Have a great, happy week everyone!
My name is Kevin Chan, and welcome to my blog on personal development.