So what have I been up to?  Well, I’ve just been extremely busy at my full time day gig where the sub-prime mess you hear on the news everyday is keeping me so.  As some of you know, I work as an analyst in a financial firm that administers CDOs that have been hit hard by these sub-prime mortgages.  So lately, it has been busy, and very interesting as well.

Due to inevitable changes in circumstances, I will need to TEMPORARILY redirect this blog somewhere else for a little while.  I just wanted to write this note so that for those of you who loyally subscribe to my entries via RSS Feeds, you can be informed.  But I will be back soon with a better and improved blog to chronicle my journey.  So please be patience as I go on a short hibernation of a couple of months.  Thanks again for the continuous support.

While trading, I’ve come across many personalities and resources. One of my favorite personalities happens to be Timothy Sykes. I first learn of Tim when he appeared in Trader Magazine’s Best 30 under 30 edition crowning the 30 best young traders under 30 years old.  Next I saw him on CNBC as a guest.  Then Tim followed up with all of that with a 6 episode reality series called “Wall Street Warriors” in which he was one of the stars, and arguably the most interesting.

Tim turned 12K of his own money into 1.7MM while still in college, shorting highly volatile micro cap stocks.  Tim later on launched his own hedge fund and the TV series showed him participating in the cat and mouse game of fund raising.  As a former aspiring hedge fund manager myself, I totally understand what Tim went through and I admire his enthusiasm and go getter attitude.  Tim is a true entrepreneur in every sense of the word, and i see many similarities b/t us although we take opposite promotional approaches.

Needless to say, I am a big fan of Timothy and was happy that he wrote a book chronicling his experience in the cut throat world of hedge funds from the little guy’s perspective.  Although ultimately the difficulty of raising funds is the main down fall of Tim’s Cilantro Fund closing, the book showcase many insider look at the hedge fund business.  Tim is moving forward with his entrepreneurial endeavors with a self publishing company and published a very entertaining and informative book titled “An American Hedge Fund.”   I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading it from cover to cover and had this bookbeen available when I was trading, I might have avoided many mistakes I made.  If you have any interest in trading the market, or launching your own business in general, this book is a MUST READ in my opinion.  It is available now on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0979549701/timothysykes-20

Whatever the future holds, I am sure Timothy will tackle it with the same intensity and commitment he had shown in his hedge fund business, and perhaps one day there will be opportunity for us to collaborate on things.  I highly recommend the book and I hope you will too.

Disclaimer:  This is NOT a paid writeup or review.  I chose to write about it because I truly believe it is a book worthy of reading by any entrepreneur that aspire to succeed in his/her own discipline.  It helped me with certain aspect of my startup and I hope it’ll help yours as well.

Working on Phase one of the project made me realize that I am underfunded for something of this magnitude, and I’ve learned tremendously.  Personally, money has been spent so far that may result only on invaluable experience without quantifiable result.  However, all is not loss as I have a lot better sense of how to approach it the 2nd time around.

So my plan is to regroup and approach investors that I will be meeting from the other startup that I have been working on that I have not yet posted about.  I believe that it’ll be much easier to raise the necessary capital by pitching my other startup first, and then seek funding for this startup with a unique business model.

I am a little disappointed that the path to launching this Internet startup has not gone the way I’ve hoped so far, but I know that at any given time this can get ramped up again the second time around.   I will be switching the direction of this blog just slightly and will be starting to post about the other startup that I have been working on, and believe that it has a more tangible and quantifiable product.  It’ll still be my entrepreneurial journey … just that the startup is swapped for now.

Today’s open practice for the fans was incredible.  It was a comedy filled session and definitely worth the wait in the hot sun outside.  I am writing this post in a hurry in order to head over to my daily commitments, so I won’t include too much details for now.

The autograph session was great and I gave Shane Battier a T-Shirt with the domain name ShaneBattier.cn (.cn is the extension for China, given that Shane has a huge fan base and endorsement there).  I’ve been trying to find ways to contact Shane so I can transfer the domain to him, so today’s open practice was a good opportunity to do so.

So Shane, if you are reading this, please email me at jimmyhuen@yahoo.com so that I can transfer the domain to you.

For my entrepreneurial ventures, I need to look no further than to watch these people come on the show to share their stories.  It is incredibly inspiring to use them as a model to achieve success based on desire and hard work.

If you are an entrepreneur like myself, I highly recommend watching the Big Idea with Donnie Deutsch.

They are similar in naming convention as www.myColts.net, which is the fans social networking site for the Superbowl Champ the Indianapolis Colts. Half of the marketing is already done for you due to this naming similarities. All you need now is to do what else that is necessary to grow the site. I can even help you set up the site based on other platforms if you wish.

Currently, they are news and blog aggregation sites. A die hard fan would probably turn that into a tribute for the team or a fan site.

If you are interested, please let me know. The reason I am selling is because I grabbed them intending to sell them at a later date after some build up, which I never got the chance to.

Today I am officially test launching 2 niche Social News sites that I have been working on the past couple of weeks. This is not the same ones related to the previous post, which I mentioned about learning from successful and failed startups. That particular one will be up soon once I hear from someone I want to hear from.

Today I am launching Asian Sports Buzz and MMA Daddy. I would like to ask you to go to my sites and do a quick sign-ups, browse around, submit and vote on articles and videos and give me your opinion of them. Also please let me know if you find any bugs. This is much appreciated. In return I will thank each and every one of you with a link back from my blog.

I am a heavy facebook junkie and I welcome you to add me as a facebook friend if you would like. If you are already on facebook, I have also developed a simple facebook app for each of new sites mentioned above: Asian Sports Buzz fb app, and MMA Daddy fb app. Please add these apps and let me know what you think.

Asian Sports Buzz is a niche sports social news site highlighting sports from the perspective of Asians all around the world. Users will be able to submit and vote on sporting articles of interest to them with focus being placed on Asian athletes around the world that excel in their respective sport. You do not have to be Asian to sign up as we always welcome a good debate.

MMA Daddy is the other niche site that I think has potential. I am, and have been a die hard Mixed Martial Arts fan, and I see this site as my very own pet project. As this sport continues to grow, I hope that my site will grow along. Along with basketball, MMA is my favorite sport.

I have asked Andy Dang to work on logos for both sites and will then replace the current temporary ones I have on there.

My mission for my main startup has NOT stopped. It takes a lot more effort, time and funds and therefore it is taking me longer than anticipated. There is not a whole lot to report from the time of my last post regarding it. I’ll post them if I have new progress.

I hope you enjoy my new sites and I look forward to your feedback.

Learning from a successful startup obviously is something we all do. However, more times than not, it may not be the most prudent. Why? Because most of the times, the various factors that enabled the success of the startup might not apply to us. At the same time, many successful startups were due to the founders personal drive, ambitions, connections, and capital. These are variables that are not as easily related to.

Learning from a failed startup offers unique perspectives and examples to avoid that can keep a founder out of Techcrunch’s Dead Pool.  For every successful startup, there are hundreds that lurk in obscurity or outright failed.  With that many case studies to analyze, learning from a failed startup can actually be more rewarding.

So what am I saying?  Stay tuned for my post on Monday.

I have a long list of items to accomplish During this week off. One of them is to catch up on posting here, as I’ve not had the chance to post much due to the increase of workload. I’ve also been working on a couple of projects that are not related to my main startup, and I will be posting them in more details here by the end of this week.

As for my main startup, I am currently negotiating with the developer on what steps to take next.  As per my previous 2 posts before this one, I’ve hit the unavoidable road bump in many startups’ life.  I’ve expected it and welcome it this early on in the process.  I’ve learned from it, and I would spend some time later this week posting about what I’ve learned.

First, I am preparing to complete a proposal to recruit co-founders, equity partners, or angel investors. It has become apparent that my startup dream cannot move forward without some more funding. Since this is still in the initial stages, the required amount should be relatively small comparing to the news flash that pop up everyday on Techcrunch and Mashable. The plan is to acquire some initial funding and take it to the launch pad, where the business model will take it forward in generating revenue that will be used to grow the startup.

Second, I have been joined by a very good friend, who has been “in the know” from day one. He had provided a very amount of funding towards the project. He had always love the idea, and now he is putting his money to help with this startup dream of mine. I have every confidence that he will be rewarded one day.

Third, this weekend I will finalize my decision of what to do with the work done so far on phase 1 of the project. The decision will be either:

1. to continue with the current team and onto phase 2 once funding is acquired, or
2. to hire another team (via the possible equity partnership I mentioned in my last post) to start from scratch, or
3. to do No.2 and also to have the current team of developers revamp the phase 1 work done so far into another project.

It is frustrating that so much time so much time has gone by since I first started on the project but the result has not met my expectation. Certainly this has been a set back but I take comfort in knowing that set backs are almost inevitable in any business. I will navigate this bumpy road, it’ll just make success that much sweeter.