Finding My Dragons and Claiming My Throne

After several years of having my Facebook wall plastered with friends' posts about the latest Game of Thrones episode and having no idea what they were talking about, I finally got around to watching all 3 seasons of this popular HBO show.

All in all, I think it's a very cool world with a lot of really interesting characters, and the show has gotten me thinking a lot about my own life and what I have to do to get what I want these next few years.

For those who haven't yet watched Game of Thrones (henceforth "GoT"), the plot centers around a highly unstable kingdom called Westeros that is in the midst of civil war, as several different leaders throughout the kingdom have declared themselves king after the current King's claim to the throne was called into question, and are raising armies to take by force what they believe should be theirs.

Meanwhile, far away in a distant land, there is a young exiled women named Daenerys Targaryen who also has a claim to the throne, given that her father was king at one point but was overthrown by the most recent king and she is his only living heir. The only problem is she has no army, no allies, no leadership experience, and is a woman living in a man's world playing a man's game. Not only that, while the civil war rages on in Westeros, she is stuck halfway around the world with no clear way to get back home.

The gradual way in which Daenerys, with a little luck and lot of saavy, is able to gain an army, gain allies, and become a formidable contender for the throne is one of the central storylines of GoT. In fact, her character has been a major inspiration for myself as well, as I attempt to pull off something similar here in Silicon Valley.

I won't lie, I also want to become King one day. It's definitely one of the items on my bucket list. But that's not what this blog post is about.

What I want right now is simple - I want to make something of myself, I want to use my God-given talents to put a meaningful dent in the universe, and I feel that the best way to do so, for me and at this point in history, is through startups, in the startup capital of the world, Silicon Valley.

I know what I want, but the only question is HOW to get it. Right now, not unlike Daenerys at the beginning of GoT, I'm in a situation where I have very little going for me...

• For starters, I am totally new to California and the San Francisco Bay Area, and I can probably count on a hand and a half the number of people I already knew reasonably well upon arriving here. I may be back in the US, but my real home is in NJ/NY, so in a way I've traded one foreign land (Korea) for another (San Francisco).
• I want to work in technology, but I am not an engineer and I don't really know how to code, and whatever relevant experience I might have had in Korea is not valued that much here. My resume simply does not stand out compared to the other people here, so I won't be able to get a top startup job by just cold-applying to companies. I've already tried and it didn't lead to anything. Rather than blindly applying to hundreds of startups, I'm going to have to identify a few that I really identify with, show up at their doorstep, and then do whatever it takes to show them that I'm an awesome guy who can do great things for them.
• I want to build my network here and get to know a lot of smart, talented, and accomplished people, but right now I have nothing in my resume or my history that would necessarily make *them* want to get to know *me*.

Given all this, how could I possibly hope to stand out and make something of myself? Believe it or not, watching Daenerys Targaryen do her thing in GoT actually gave me a lot of inspiration.

The show starts off with Daenerys being married off to a powerful and greatly feared warlord named Khal Drogo in the hopes that his army of 40,000+ warriors can help her take back the throne at Westeros. Early on, this plan seems to be working out pretty well, enough so that even the current King at Westeros acknowledges them as a threat despite them still being thousands of miles away.

However, things don't work out as planned, as Khal Drogo is killed in a freak accident and almost all of his warriors and followers abandon Daenerys, as she was merely seen as the queen of the warlord Khal Drogo and not a leader in her own right.

I also had hopes of a similar "alliance" with my previous employer Croquis Inc., a Korean startup with global ambitions, great engineering and design talent, and makers of "Biscuit", the Bronze Medalist at Evernote's 2013 Devcup. I ended up joining them through a chance introduction from my wife, and at first, it seemed like a match made in heaven. They wanted an international person who is passionate about technology who could still fit in and communicate comfortably with Korean coworkers, and it seemed like the perfect way for me to gain experience and make inroads into Silicon Valley.

I thought working with Croquis could be a launching pad for my new startup career, but for reasons I won't go into here, it didn't quite work out the way we'd both hoped, and so now here I am in San Francisco, starting over from scratch.

In GoT, the turning point for Daenerys comes when she realizes that despite having no army, no friends, and almost no followers, she discovers that she does have a very special ability that no one else possesses - The power to breed, control, and manipulate dragons, mythical creatures believed to have been extinct for many years.

Once word gets out that Daenerys is the owner and mother of 3 newborn baby dragons, her legend starts to grow and things start going her way as she gains allies and starts building an army. Although her dragons are still young and too small for battle, it's their storied reputation for destroying entire armies and their potential to turn the tide of the war that gets the other wannabe kings shaking in their boots.

That got me asking, what is my dragon? What is my one killer "power" that can help me get the ball rolling? I have several definite strengths, but it's hard to tell which (if any) of them are my "dragon". I know I'm very analytical, I know I'm good with people, I know I'm a good writer and public speaker, I know I have a good sense of humor, and I know I'm pretty creative. But it's hard to say which (or what combination) of these strengths will be the key to making a name for myself here in Silicon Valley. If technical skills are the "army" of Silicon Valley, I have none right now and I need to find a way to use the strengths listed above to acquire such skills bit by bit, whether it's my own or others'.

Once I've found that one thing, my "dragon", I have to believe that everything will naturally fall into place.

The 3rd and latest season of GoT ended with Daenerys winning a critical mass of loyal soldiers and followers and officially becoming a force to reckon with. Whether she'll triumph is anyone's guess, but the fact that she's even able to get into a position to do so is supposed to be extremely impressive.

But I am not at that point yet.

There's so much I have to do these next few months - I need to find a startup to work at (or start my own), I need to meet lots of new people and make new friends, I need to continue honing my existing skills and acquiring new ones, I need to work on my various personal projects, I need to keep blogging, etc. The list is uncomfortably long, but taken together these are all things which will help me get to where I want to be.

Despite Silicon Valley being a land of opportunity and open doors, a lot of those doors happen to be closed to me at the moment. But that's alright, I knew that would be the case going in. What I have to do now is find a way to get my foot in a door (any door) somehow, even if it means getting paid peanuts or doing grunt work. Because I know in my heart that once I am "in" and become a part of a great team, it's only a matter of time before I start making my mark.

As the great Muhammad Ali once said, "I'ma show you, how great I am."

Tell me what you REALLY think...

My startup is applying to Y Combinator, the Harvard of "startup accelerators" (basically an elite boot camp for startups).

I'm opening our application to the public, to see people's reactions to our idea and team, and I wanna play a "game" - Check out our draft application below, and send me a message with the FIRST thing that came to your mind while you were reading!

Our application (draft) for Y Combinator's summer 2013 class

Sounds like the worst game ever, right? That's because it is! :P

And to my more startup-savvy friends, if you have any feedback on how we can improve our application, I'm all ears :)

Questions? Comments? You can reach me via email or Facebook -

Email : pshin45@gmail.com

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/petershin45

"Is this Heaven? No, it's Silicon Valley" - My Trip to the Field of Geeks

"If you build it, he will come."

Have you seen the movie "Field of Dreams"?

In this classic 1989 film, the main character Ray (played by Kevin Costner) is an Iowa farmer who, while walking through his corn fields one day, hears a mysterious voice telling him "If you build it, he will come." After hearing the voice he is suddenly compelled to build a baseball diamond out of his corn fields, risking everything he has. Nothing happens at first for several months, and he soon faces financial ruin. However, he soon discovers that what he's built isn't just some ordinary field, but rather a "Field of Dreams" where old dead baseball players - his childhood heroes - emerge from the cornfields to play ball every night.

_______________________

I just got back this past Friday from a 1-week trip to the San Francisco Bay Area (or simply "the Bay Area" as locals call it) where I was able to experience life in Silicon Valley, aka the Mecca of technology and entrepreneurship. I was able to go there on business because the startup I work at (named "Croquis") had recently won 1st place at an app development contest in Korea hosted by the tech company Evernote. Here's the app that won us the contest.

(In case you've never heard of them, Evernote is a productivity tool that allows you to create Microsoft Word-like digital notes which are saved online to "the cloud" and which you can then access and edit anytime from any of your devices i.e. your desktop PC, laptop, smartphone, iPad, etc. It's like Google Docs except not as shitty, and if you're like me and you've always been someone who takes a lot of notes in school and at work, then Evernote is basically the greatest thing ever.)

Anyway, I had an awesome time in the Bay Area and I got to experience firsthand why Silicon Valley is such a special place whose "magic" can't be replicated elsewhere, and in this blog post I hope to effectively communicate some of those underlying reasons.

For example, there's a reason Korea is one of the worst places in the world to start a tech startup despite Seoul having arguably the best technological infrastructure in the world, universal broadband internet penetration, universal smartphone adoption, and being home to tech giants like Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.

There's something else at play here... something that's not totally logical and which money can't buy. If a flourishing startup ecosystem was something that any country and any city could just buy, then anyone could do it. Lord knows the Korean government has certainly tried, though sadly to no avail.

I believe that what other wannabe startup ecosystems are sorely lacking and what differentiates Silicon Valley more than anything else are its 1) People and 2) Culture. Allow me to explain...

PEOPLE - Silicon Valley is Geek Heaven

Walking around the Bay Area and talking with people from all walks of life, not just startups, I started to notice something. San Francisco and Silicon Valley are an absolute haven for geeks. Like as if a huge group of geeks decided to band together one day and create for themselves a new geek nation. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but in an "it's about damn time" way.

First off, let's define the word "geek," a word whose connotation has changed significantly since I was a little kid. The word "geek" used to mean that you were a loser and social outcast who sat in front of a computer all day, but the word has become a badge of honor for many, denoting a person who is technologically savvy and/or obsessively passionate about an atypical topic of interest. In Japan, there's a roughly-equivalent word "otaku" which is often associated with people who are obsessed with anime and manga, but in fact "otaku" can relate to a fan of any particular (usually niche) theme, topic, or hobby. For example, you can be an otaku who's crazy about Japanese history, rice balls, robot figurines, etc.

To put it simply, a "geek" is someone who's obsessively passionate about a non-mainstream topic. The "non-mainstream" part is key, because this means that you can't truly be a geek if whats you're obsessed with is sports, good food, working hard at a prestigious company, exotic vacations, etc. because those are all "normal" mainstream activities which are almost universally seen in a positive light.

To truly be a geek, you have to be obsessed with something that's sufficiently atypical and/or not cool enough so that you'll be seen as "weird" and "odd" by most people you meet.

What's so great about geeks and the "Rise of the Geek" that we've been seeing in society nowadays, is that there's a goodness and a pureness to them that you don't often find in people nowadays. Too many people in this world try to be someone they're not, in an attempt to be "cool" or "respectable." Think of all the fashions and hobbies you used to have as a kid which you stopped doing many years ago because you were afraid of what people would think of you. If you think about it, this is such a sad phenomena - You changed yourself in order to please others. Any psychology expert could tell you that that's a guaranteed recipe for disappointment, regret, and lack of fulfillment later in life.

But geeks are different - They *know* that what they love is seen by others as the domain of losers. And yet, they persist and soldier on. They know how uncool they are and yet they don't care. There's something really beautiful and childlike about that kind of moral fortitude. (Not child-ISH, but child-LIKE. The former is an insult but the latter I consider a compliment.) When everyone else was "selling out" to be cool, geeks are the only ones who stayed true to themselves and refused to let society change them into something they're not.

And in large part due to the huge and ever-growing influence of technology in today's world, we're starting to see a macro trend in society in which A) geeks have never been cooler and B) they are slowly taking over the world. It started with Bill Gates in the 1980s, continued with Mark Zuckerberg in the early 2000s, and has only continued to gain steam since. (I love Steve Jobs, but he was way too hipster to be considered a true geek.)

For example, last week I got to stay at Evernote headquarters where I met Phil Libin, the founder and CEO of Evernote and himself an unabashed geek. I found out that he is a huge Lord of the Rings fan and keeps a large set of LOTR figurines on top of his desk at all times. Evernote's head PR guy is a renowned tech journalist who wrote and published a book on Star Trek trivia as a young man. And the head of international operations for the Asia-Pacific region is an American guy who is fluent in Korean and started learning the language even before the Korean wave made learning Korean cool. You can't make this stuff up, it really doesn't get any geekier than that, and I absolutely love it.

In fact, what I love most of all about this "geek culture" is that "geek" and "asshole" are basically two mutually exclusive concepts. Think about it - Think of the geekiest guy or girl you know, and then ask yourself how much of an asshole they are. The answer is probably "not at all" or "anything but." You see, I used to work in Finance, and for whatever reason there is a major "asshole culture" in Finance. To be fair, there are plenty of good people in Finance, the best example being someone like Warren Buffett, but for some reason Finance attracts a hugely disproportionate amount of assholes, probably because in recent decades it attracted greedy people who like making money for the sake of making money and the social status it brings. In many Finance companies, you're totally excused for being a huge asshole and a terrible human being, as long as you make money for the company. Too many times I've seen people in Finance who openly disrespect their coworkers, are emotionally abusive, curse loudly in the office, cheat on their wives and have broken families, etc. And yet all is forgiven, because they make money for the company. What kind of message is that sending? Seriously!

Because my first job after graduating college was in Finance, I was brainwashed into thinking that this was "normal" and reasonable. But then I started working on various technology and innovation-related projects at work, and I slowly came to find out about this whole new world of technology and entrepreneurship, a world where geeks not unlike myself form new companies in the hopes of changing the world for the better and large groups of rich people will fund them to do so, a place where character is seen as a prerequisite and not an after-thought to hiring, and where assholes are simply not tolerated. In fact, the CEO of Evernote actually instituted a "No Asshole Rule" when he started the company decreeing that no asshole will ever be allowed to work at Evernote, and I saw for myself this past week that there really were none. Everyone I met there was so friendly, passionate, and chill. Where else in the world besides Silicon Valley would something like that be possible?

CULTURE - "There must be something in the water..."

Another unique thing that Silicon Valley has is an amazing, pervasive culture of openness, optimism, and positive energy that you just can't find anywhere else in the world, not even in places like Boston and New York which have their own sizable startup ecosystems but which are still dwarfed and put to shame by Silicon Valley in those regards.

I grew up in the New Jersey / New York area, and initially I too had my doubts about Silicon Valley's awesomeness. After all, I know several friends in the NJ/NY area who are entrepreneurs and I know that there are lots of places and resources in the city to help a person get started. Really, how different could it possibly be from Silicon Valley? I used to think that everything I heard about Silicon Valley was mostly hype, but over time I've slowly and begrudgingly come to acknowledge that the hype is indeed real. Here are just three (of many) things that make Silicon Valley's culture so unique:

Openness and "paying it forward"

In my previous working experience, anytime I asked people for help it would be met with a "Sorry I'm too busy," and anytime someone suggested something creative and out-of-the-box, it would be met with a chorus of "That would never work" from his or her team.

But during my one week stay in Silicon Valley, I met countless people - friends, acquaintances and even complete strangers in the tech community - and what they all had in common was that they were willing to take time out of their busy schedules to meet with me, hear my story, offer feedback, and try to think of ways they could help. Even though there was NOTHING in it for them besides just being a good person. They just wanted to help.

One of the highlights of my trip was when my team and I visited another early stage startup called Freshplum. Several months back a friend from my previous employer (Standard Chartered Bank) had introduced me to her friend Jonathan from business school who had moved to San Francisco to live the American Startup Dream, and had gotten a job at Freshplum. He and the founder of Freshplum graciously invited us to visit their company's office (which doubles as their home) while we were in town, and we gratefully accepted their offer and ended up staying for more than an hour and having a great conversation with their team about our respective stories and what we're making. The founder of Fresplum is a former Facebook employee and a successful entrepreneur several times over now trying to start his third new company, so he had no real incentive to want to meet a bunch of nobodies like us. And yet he did, and he even offered to put in a good word for us when we apply for Y Combinator, the most prestigious startup accelerator program in the world. Just amazing and beyond my expectations.

Optimism in spades

This article says it best:

"It's easy to dismiss wild, big vision ideas that just don't make sense to you. However, in the Valley, that's not an obstacle. Everyone is encouraged to start a company and no one is doubted because they lack a clear revenue model or doesn't pass someone's analytical test. As one Boston transplant put it, 'the Boston brain in me thought the idea of 'Pandora for Shoes' was dumb, but the more I thought about it, I realized it just might work.' Beyond how people view others' ideas, there's an overwhelming sense of hope there; it's difficult to explain, but you get hit by a wave of it when you're there that makes you think anything is possible and that you’re surrounded by greatness."

It's like believing in Santa Claus all over again.

Meanwhile, in Korea and places like Europe, a failed business means that you are incompetent and a failure as a person. You receive a scarlet letter that you have to carry around for the rest of your career. But in Silicon Valley, starting a company which ends up failing isn't seen as a failure, it's seen as "gaining experience" and a badge of honor, because people there believe that if you are driven enough to keep trying, you'll probably succeed sooner or later. Failed vs. Experienced. Two totally different ways of looking at the same situation. That's Silicon Valley for ya.

Entrepreneurship is all around you

Quoting from the same article above:

"There's a serious cool factor to walking or driving by a building and seeing the logo of a company you recognize. It's also fun seeing startups on billboards. While on the 101 (the main highway running through the Valley) I saw signs for Box.net, Salesforce, Huddle, and Zynga. As a startup geek, I find this as cool as others do when they see a celebrity on the street. This omnipresence of startups goes a long way to thinking about a place being the home of great startups."

Literally as soon as I got off my plane in San Francisco International airport, I overheard a group of guys next to me talking about front-end development for some app they were building. When I was buying some coffee at a Starbucks inside a Target, I heard a bunch of guys next to me talking about their own startup. Literally everywhere I went, be it cafes or stores or restaurants, I could overhear a conversation about startups. And all the largest office buildings in San Francisco and Silicon Valley are occupied by technology companies. It's insane and I've never experienced anything like it.

_______________________

Earlier in this post I referred to Silicon Valley as a Mecca for technology and entrepreneurship, a "Field of Dreams" if you will, and I feel very strongly about that.

In my previous job at a bank, even though I got to work for a great boss and some really nice people, I was just not happy, for a variety of reasons. Most of my coworkers were jaded and uninspired, many senior managers were assholes and borderline sociopaths, and most importantly, as a superhero I just couldn't see how a bank makes the world a better place. Sure it serves the very important function of safeguarding people's money, but because that by itself is never profitable enough, when push comes to shove banks always end up getting greedy and trying to sell people loans that they don't need, especially when revenues are down. That is how the subprime mortgage crisis started, after all. Just a terrible and morally suspect business model.

But in the Silicon Valley it's the complete opposite - Filled with geeks and investors hoping to change the world, everyone trying to help each other out, very few assholes, and where you're encouraged to create something amazing and if you fail, then try and try again.

Not only did my whole team get to experience Silicon Valley, we also gained a lot of confidence as a startup.  When it comes to startup ecosystems, Korea is basically the lowest level of the minor leagues. I think the team of 5 that my CEO has put together is as solid as they come, but in the small pond that is Korea, it's hard to tell how we really measure up and whether we'd ever be able to hang in the major leagues aka Silicon Valley. During our trip though, we got to meet with many talented founders, developers, designers, executives, etc. and the overwhelming feedback that we got was that yes, we have what it takes to hang with the big boys. And though after our trip we had to head back to our minor league system in Korea, make no mistake - We'll be back.

In conclusion, in this touching scene near the end of "Field of Dreams", one of the dead baseball players asks Ray if this baseball field is heaven, to which Ray responds:

(0:22) John : Can I ask you something? Is this heaven?

(0:34) Ray : It's Iowa.

(0:38) John : Iowa? I could have sworn it was heaven...

(0-54) Ray : Is there a heaven?

(1:00) John : Oh, yeah. It's the place where dreams come true.

(1:26) Ray : Maybe this is heaven.

Maybe Silicon Valley is the place I always dreamed of living and working in. Maybe Silicon Valley was built precisely for people like me, people in dead-end jobs looking for a second chance to (finally) do what they love - "If you build it, he will come." In which case, I better get my ass over there as soon as I can, to the Field of Geeks. The place where dreams come true.

If you want to read up more on this topic, check out this essay by Paul Graham, the renowned entrepreneur, investor, and startup mentor.