Edward's Starting Up

A turn for the better

2011-04-28T22:42:00.000-05:00

Life is always full of ups and downs. Fortunate or unfortunate for me, it's mostly downs. So it all boils down to how good you can handle these setbacks. I have to admit I am not very good at it. I could easily feel dismal and despaired. Despite these, I could still manage to hold on to myself by simply constantly asking the same question again and again to myself, "Are you sure you want to give up? How do you know there isn't any good chance coming up?" or "you never know until you try it!".

Fortunately, I am still here and haven't given my hope on being a sound researcher yet, simply because I always hold on to the belief that some will resonant with me one day. Better yet, I have gotten good news that I might stand some chances in moving to the lab that I believe is the best of its kind in MRI research. I truly hope things will go smooth and as planned so that I can finally have my first dream come true.

Wish me luck!

A new way to relieve your stress (sort of)

2011-04-22T08:45:00.001-05:00

I am thinking of another Python project where I plan to build a web app that allows people to relieve their stress by hooking them up with someone who have similar experience. The way it works is this, user will first type few descriptions (with word limits) on the source of stresses and how does stress affect them. And for those who have already resolved the issues, they can also describe how they got rid of the stresses and etc.

So the app will then sort of automatically find an appropriate guy/gal for the user to discuss or simply suggests their pages' for the user to read in the first place. I am thinking of using simple algorithm (link) to do the categorization first as I have absolutely no experience in machine learning/data mining stuff. But I think this should be a good project for coding!

Any suggestions?

Spread your wings

2011-04-19T22:13:00.000-05:00

It has been discussed how similar an academic can be similar to an entrepreneur (here). Another post discussed nicely how mediocrity would possibly destroy (I exaggerated a little!) one's career (here). These two great articles lead me to discuss the importance of spreading your (as well as mine) wings no matter whether you are an academic or entrepreneur.

Obviously I would discuss this from the perspective of a researcher. Let me start by asking you a question as such. Would you rather join a lab which is new but they offer you a position with higher rank, or a lab which is rather established or even in the elites but just an entry position? This is analogous to asking whether you want to join a startup with cofounders you have never heard of, or one that are backed by the smartest and the brightest. My answer to the question is to join the top-notch lab! I learnt this the hard way though.

You might say you would have more "freedom" as to choosing what you want to work on or etc. But the key is the pedigree in the place you work. It is obvious that you are there to contribute, but at the same time you are also there to learn and pick people's brains. I consider the latter the most monumental and influential to one's career. This is why I want to up my game and work in a much better lab (that's of course only if I can be offered any job). Sometimes it's not just the talent in you that brings you success but also the inspirations from the great and smart people around you, especially for people like me who is not all that smart:)

In any cases, don't worry about the money or how you look on paper. Spreading your wings and working with great people matter most!

Building relationships with friends on twitter

2011-04-12T21:28:00.004-05:00

I finally have a little bit of idea what my first python project should be, and that's to do with your twitter friends. Have you ever had the moment where you are not sure whether you should follow the guy who just followed you? E.g. thinking whether that person is truly wanting to be a "friend" with you or simply want to do some advertising here and there.

Also would you want to build a timeline of when you followed a particular person or when a particular person followed you? Sometimes it would be cool to see how long you have been following someone or followed.

So these are the two things that I am going to hack in the coming weeks! Hope to get it done as quick as possible!

Update [2011-04-13]: Duh! Turns out Twitter API doesn't store the date you follow someone or the other way round!

Road to building something using Python

2011-04-11T00:07:00.002-05:00

Having spent the past month or so reading different materials (here, here, and here) on Python, I can't wait to start building something with Python. But I definitely need to thank Mark Pilgrim (the author of Dive into python) for writing such a great book on Python 2.x. I have learnt a lot from his book. It's absolutely a book for beginner like me so I would recommend beginner to start diving into this book first!

Having spent all this time learning Python, it is time to start building mini-project. You will never learn coding until you actually code! So apart from thinking up startup ideas, I am also looking for mini-projects idea along the way. The thing I most wanted to implement at this moment is automatic tagging/categorization using Python. (Anyone has any good sources?) It would also be cool to build a dumbed-down version of Dropbox too!

Let's see how far I can go in the following months then!

Share your failure - 35th startup idea

2011-04-10T00:08:00.000-05:00

One should not only learn from success but more importantly failure (this was well described in this HBR post Visualize failure). However, we might somehow forget the mistakes that we made along the course of life. So I think it would be cool to make an app that allows you to document all your failures. At the same time, you get to learn from others' failure as well from the app.

On the flip side, I guess it's sensible to think of an important feature of the app being suggestions on ways to prevent the same failure from happening again. What do you say?

Early failures

2011-04-03T22:35:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I was reading this post titled Column: Entrepreneurs and the Cult of Failure which describes how should one deal with failure. I felt like it was talking to me, especially this excerpt " ... Failures come early; successes take time. Early failures are important because they generate systemic learning about where opportunities are (and are not) and how to address them ... ".

I am clearly no stranger to failures (yes multiple failures!) up till this point in time. Let me pick the most recent failure as an example. Having been working in US for 2 years as a postdoctoral fellow in 2 different laboratories, I consider those experiences valuable in terms of the people that I met. However I consider the impact of these 2 years from a career development point of view minimal. That's why I think of this as a failure. As a guy in his mid to late 20s, I should not have chosen those laboratories that are not well established. I should have picked a laboratory that is located in CA or NY where you can easily find high quality research labs as well as culturally rich cities (considering how desperate I want to indulge myself in the startup community as an aside!).

It is because of these failures that generate systemic learning about where opportunities are and how to address them (phrase borrowed from the article!). So in hindsight this might be a failure, but it did teach me a good lesson. There is one caveat though. Time is something that I can't flirt with (and many of you as well). Such unstable career prospect certainly isn't one that a married man would look forward to, not least his wife. So I am almost at the verge of giving up my "America dream" and finding opportunities back in my home country. Not unless there is any jump in my career here in US, I will return by the end of the year.

In any cases, don't be baffled by your early failures as long as you see more lights in your future endeavor as a result of them.

The power of "open source"

2011-03-31T00:05:00.000-05:00

What first comes in your mind when you hear the word "open source"? In my case, it's mostly something that are positive. I truly respect and admire those who distribute their source codes and document what they have done so that others could benefit from. Open source is truly the way to go on a lot of ends. However, open source isn't all that common in the academics (at least from what I perceive).

The reason I want to bring this up is that I encountered this problem first hand today. I wanted to cluster my data using a particular algorithm. It turns out that there is a faculty in the same group as I am who is a rather experienced guy in this regard. I briefly discussed with him on the data that I have, and asked to see if he is willing to share his code with me. On first couple mentions, he purposely avoided answering me by furthering his comments on the idea of analyzing the data with that algorithm. At almost the end of the discussion, I was a little impatient and asked very specifically that whether it's ok to borrow his codes. His reply goes "Well I have to think very hard to see whether there is a merit of using the algorithm on this data". At that moment, the first thing came up of my mind was this "Sharing your codes won't kill you man!"

As a person who always advocates open-mindedness, and willingness to share, I am definitely baffled by those who have hard time doing so, not to mention someone within the same group! You might ask why I care so much about this "openness". My belief is that one person may not easily move mountains, but several do. Groundbreaking ideas require multi-minds. By closing oneself in his/her own "fantasy" would only get him/her so far.

Anyhow, I can't and won't change mindset of others. All I hope is that along the course of my life I could eventually meet and work with someone who resonate with me. And I am seriously looking forward to working with one!

Am I qualified to start any startups?

2011-03-28T23:08:00.000-05:00

I often ask myself whether I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur or startup founder. Unfortunately there isn't anyone around me who can give me some pointers. Thank god for PG for creating Hacker News, I have asked the exact question there and gratefully there were quite some responses (link). Having received the responses made me feel more motivated and determined to pursue my ultimate goal: starting a startup!

By gathering all the positive responses (I am truly thankful for all these responses, I received not a single negative comment!), my own take is this. Screw what people think about you, as long as you can persevere, you can move mountains one day! I am now working hard to pick up Python as quick as possible (yes, turns out Python seems a better fit for me). Hopefully I can implement few of my startup ideas that I mentioned in my blog.

So what's your story?

Where the crave goes - 34th startup idea

2011-03-28T16:03:00.006-05:00

Gaining tractions in any given market requires in-depth research, especially for early startups. "Markets" obviously depends on geography. To gain global reach for any given startup requires extensive marketing researches which might either be costly or far-reaching in some way (IMO). It is this fact that inspires my 34th startup idea.

What if there exists a site where users are allowed to post the hottest craze in a given geographic location, and let others vote whether they agree or not. This way you would have a "rough" idea of what's going on in a particular place in the world. E.g. I can post "I am dying for a music streaming service in Hong Kong?" Then users can vote up or down this idea. All posts are categorized according to cities so that startup co-founders or will-be-co-founders could glance through all the current trends in a particular location, as well as perform marketing "survey".

What's your take on this idea?

Thank you

2011-03-24T18:55:00.007-05:00

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow readers/subscribers for subscribing to my post as you all witness the moment of my blog breaking the 10-subscribers mark! I would also like to thank those who made comments to my posts! Yes, I know what you are thinking, "it's only 10 people man! What's so good to celebrate?" Well, as much as I love to share with others, I like to give credits to those who deserve one. And obviously you all do.

In the months to come, I will thrive to write quality posts (I know my English sucks, my apologizes!) and more importantly better the quality of my ideas as well. I look forward to gaining more readers along the way.

My sincere thanks to you all!

Update [3/25/2011 19:01]: Well, there are instead 8 subscribers now! But still, thank you all for reading!
Update [3/26/2011 18:51]: 7 now ...
Update [3/27/2011 12:59]: Yay... 9!

Misfortune versus Serendipity - Cont'd

2011-03-24T18:51:00.001-05:00

I have something to say as a follow up to my previous post, "Misfortune versus Serendipity". As someone who is eager to turn entrepreneur in one way or another, I am trying to figure out ways to talk my dad into letting me resurrect his doll-making business. In case you don't know, I have one ultimate goal in mind: to bridge the gap between rich and poor, possibly using technology.

You might wonder how am I going to use dolls to achieve my ultimate goal? Well, that's a million (or even billion) dollar question for me right now that I am about to tackle. Luckily, I have tiny bit of idea in mind which is along the line of bringing dolls and educations together. My target group in the beginning of course falls onto kids. I am going to spend the weeks to come to build a business plan.

Meanwhile, I will keep brewing other startup ideas in a hope that I can soon find one that is my absolute favorite that will suck most of my time in it. But before anything could happen, I will have to dive into learning to code and etc (which is a long way to go for me!!).

Along the way, I really hope my fellow readers/subscribers would give me some comments and share some insights. I am also eager to find someone who resonate with me to take things to another level as well!

Update [3/26/2011]: Shxt! Just knew that all machineries were sold, so essentially my dad's doll business was all gone. I.e. nothing I can do about the business even if I had a killer idea! Totally pissed!

Randomizing your knowledge base - 33rd startup idea

2011-03-23T22:27:00.005-05:00

As an advocate for becoming someone who tries his/her hardest to become a polymath in something, I am definitely curious or desperate to find the best ways to become one.

I am thinking whether it would help by creating a place where people can learn by being given some random topics. Along the course of "learning", all these random topics will be stored under the user's profile so that both the user him-/herself can refer back, but also others who follow him/her. This would also be a place for the user to put resources under this random topic. E.g. he/she can upload links that he/she finds relevant to the topic. He could also add comments to the random topic or the links he uploaded.

Would you want to learn things this way?

Let me counter you - 32nd startup idea

2011-03-21T18:35:00.005-05:00

I used to be a guy who simply takes what others have to say and start from there, and do not really think about why things have to be the way others describe they are (yes it sucks learning this way! Thanks spoon -feeding education!). But I started to learn that training your brain to come up with counter-arguments actually helps a lot in terms of both understanding the fundamentals of a problem or simply as a challenge to others.

Therefore I am thinking whether it would be great to create a place where people can post certain opinions on certain public issue, provide explanations to certain phenomena, and etc. Then the "audience" would simply participate by giving counter-arguments and then the conversation will grow from there. The rationale is simply to brew ideas and train our brains to think in great breadth but not just depth.

What do you think?

I will have your voice heard - 31st startup idea

2011-03-19T13:31:00.004-05:00

Opinions are often, if not always, ignored or not probably delivered. Wouldn't it be nice to build a platform/service which ensures all voices to be heard by the intended individual, industry, government and whatnot? I would definitely want my opinions on how bad academia is, how broken the society in Hong Kong is and what the government should do about it, how a particular app/service could be improved if this and that feature can be added, and etc to be heard and being attended to.

Of course, simply making sure the above to happen doesn't guarantee any appropriate actions. But at least it is a little reassuring to know your voice is being heard.

Share your ride - 30th startup idea

2011-03-15T13:53:00.006-05:00

As a person who is too broke to own a car, life can be rather miserable. I often have to take bus to buy groceries in a rush so that I can catch the earliest bus back home. If you want to go farther, either you have to take a long bus ride or change bus couple times. In any case, you end up wasting a lot of time waiting for buses, and riding the buses. Not to mention the fact that matters get worse when weather sucks.

So this sort of makes me think of this 30th startup idea of creating a mobile app that allows you to find a person who is going to a place where you want to head to, and then the user to ask that person to see if he/she is willing to share his/her ride with you either free or at a cost of whatever fuel it needs to get there.

What do you think? I would definitely use it all the time especially I don't see myself buying a car anytime soon.

News without bias - 29th startup idea

2011-03-08T10:14:00.007-06:00

Often times news reports are biased in one way or another in order to arguably favor whichever company that is presenting the story. As a person who often seeks for ground truth and possibly unbiased options on most matters, I definitely prefer reports that are neutral and central to the discussed issues.

I am thinking it would be cool to create a site which allows user to post certain news from a particular source, and then followed by posts there are coming from other users who discover either complementary or contradicting information from another source. At the same time, people will give their opinions and analyses regarding the news or issues.

To ensure integrity of the discussion, it would be great to ask users to provide news/opinions/suggestions backed by references (think of it as how academics report their work in scientific journals). I think this should be a cool way to voice your opinions and allow readers to have a unbiased views/info on whatever topics that interest them.

Finding the right event of your choices - 28th startup idea

2011-03-05T22:49:00.005-06:00

I am not sure whether this has been done before or not. I have always wondered where I could find (apart from Google) relevant events that I can attend. E.g. I wanna go to startup events around San Antonio. I think it would be nice if there is a web app that allows you to input event category as well as your zip code and then returns the events that match your preference in a timeline fashion (from e.g. few months ago till few months in the future).

Please let me know if you are aware of anything along this line.

Misfortune versus Serendipity

2011-03-05T00:05:00.002-06:00

Luck is a luxury that not everyone would possess, not least my dad (unfortunately) and I. He used to own a doll factory back in China. I believe his business was booming more than ten years back, as a result he often had to reside in China rather than home at Hong Kong. One day a fire had things upside down, all his machineries to make plushes and factories were gone. What followed was a dismay entrepreneur who could never regain his glamor. What's worse was, he closed down his entire business around half a year back after discussing with my uncle who shares the same facility. As a son of this poor old man, I would love to resurrect his business but he didn't seem interested in letting my brother or I intervene, simply because he wanted us to pursue what he perceived we ultimately liked (i.e. academia).

As a guy in my late 20s, I don't have much luck so far as well. All I can say is my career as a researcher is not as great as one would have wanted. I don't blame anyone, but myself for not having sound forethought on my potential work places. I have to admit I have doubted my choice as a researcher on a whim, regardless how much I love science itself. I don't want to bla on about the underling reason, but for those interested please read this post (link) which shares the exact same thoughts as I do. Interestingly, serendipity never happens to me but to at least one person in every work place I have been at.

With every misfortune comes a better "me". I learn to realize that life doesn't always turn out to be exactly what we hope. Perseverance and dedication are the only ways to lead us all towards an ideal. Don't be limited by what you don't have, but instead try to equip yourself with traits that define who you are or who you want to be. Simply forget about the current misfortunate that you are experiencing, go find something that shows the real you and makes you happy. I sincerely believe that every one of us (including all wonderful living forms on our planet earth) lives to contribute in one way or another. As I have touted on my blog, I intend to become a decent scientist and entrepreneur (obviously being an entrepreneur is my ultimate career goal), and possibly make a change in the gap between rich and poor.

No one has yet to find you as the talent? I believe some day you and I will be picked!

Finding the right app - 27th startup idea

2011-03-01T22:52:00.005-06:00

This is real stupid idea. Having read Hacker News like crazy for the past ~3 months (yes, I mean it. I am so addicted that I at least try to skim 60% of all the articles), I realize the ample number of great apps that can definitely help you in one way or another. But my biggest problem is, not if people post on Hacker News or being upvoted so significantly that it's posted on Hacker News, how would I ever know the app's existence? It's even worse for those who don't follow startup ideas like I do.

That's why I came up with this 27th idea of building a web app that picks the best app for you! By asking the user's "wants", then this app of my own would spit out the suitable choices for the user. E.g. user enters "productivity" then my app would suggest "Evernote, dropbox". You get the idea! Better yet, once the user enters the "queries", the app will remember these search histories, once any new app comes after user's inquiry, they will receive email notifications of brand new app release.

Yup, I know what you are thinking, it sounds pretty darn lame! I totally agree but I would certainly be the first to use it as I am a big fan of trying something new, cool and useful, so it certainly wouldn't hurt to constantly keep myself updated with new app that suits me one way or another.

A city with lame visions - Hong Kong

2011-02-27T15:04:00.001-06:00

Probably some of you might have heard of Hong Kong one way or another. What's your first impression to this city? As a native Hong Kong people, I am never very proud of being one. This might sound creepy but it is true, and let me explain why from the perspectives of a researcher/want-to-be-entrepreneur.

Despite the small size of the city, there are about 7 millions people packed in a 426 square mile (yes, it's way too crowded). You might think with this many brains in a small city, there should have been some groundbreaking stuffs coming out. Shamefully, there isn't! There is no technological developments/innovations (and therefore no entrepreneurial culture), no sound college system, no R&D, no nothing. All they (government plus locals) care is tourism, finance (aka short-selling!), real-estate (again short-selling). That's it!

So you could imagine, as a researcher/want-to-be-entrepreneur, it's simply a big pain living in such a city. Despite my limited aptitude/talents, I would love to go out of my comfort zone and do something different. My all time belief is it's better to be a multi-faceted person than a one-trick-pony (if possible! And of course I have yet to become one). So with the model/vision that Hong Kong has, it can't go too far. It's this sheer reason that drives me crazy, and why I love America so badly. I love the research quality and resources, love the startup culture, love the diversity of talents, you name it. This is truly the wonderland for me.

America's education is another area that I admire. You might argue what Asian learns before colleges is more in-depth and slightly more advanced than American's, but it's the context of "application" that distinguishes America's education from the rest of the world. Kids are taught to be more creative, think out-of-the-box. That's why we see so many smart innovations and cool startups here in America. As a by-product of the Asian education myself, I know this the hard way. Such lack of creativity hits me hard as soon as I start my research career life. Without creativity (and possibly talents), it's tough to come up with groundbreaking research ideas and hence it's tough to survive in the field. This also applies to thinking up startup ideas (and that's why I think academia and entrepreneur have a lot in common, and this has been nicely described in this post by @nychng).

Anyways, enough ranting. Without a proper culture (or peer), it all boils down to one's vision in going after their dream. In my case, I consider myself already missing the boat. Let's see if I can play some catchup in the years to come!

Let's pick and work our brains - 26th startup idea

2011-02-24T21:15:00.008-06:00

Another big thing I am interested in is education. This is pretty much inspired by own experience in life. Throughout much of my educational life I seemed to have too much of a latency in picking the right things to learn, and therefore costing me dearly in terms of time and possibly career.

This app is about creating an environment for users to see what others are learning or have learnt. Each user can enter what they have learnt in a timeline. By entering what user have learnt I meant users have to give a specific topic. E.g. user A has just learnt why nothing can ever be faster than light from source A, then user A will put "property of light" in a point in the timeline. He/she could also put the references to which he/she has learnt the topic from. Another feature is to allow users to also elaborate on the topic itself by giving either their interpretations or create some problem sets for their followers to tease their brains.

As much as I love the algorithm of Hacker News or Reddit to rank posts/comments, problem sets would also be ranked according to their popularity and also the difficulty level. Whoever follower gets the problem right, he/she will accrue "talent" points to their profile.

I definitely think this app would be a cool way to learn something fun. This would be especially helpful for those not knowing what they are interested in learning (like me!), or better yet what they might ultimately fall in love with and dwell into!

What do you think? Hope it doesn't sound too lame!

My Perseverance

2011-02-20T11:50:00.003-06:00

Life is always full of setbacks and mistakes. Be it 1) work (my story is rather similar to this great post but the sheer difference is I have yet to work at a top-notch lab), 2) ambition (i.e. my startup ambition/dream but it's often too easy to realize that all the "great" ideas that you think up are already implemented one way or another), 3) family-related (how my job at US is making it difficult for me to spend time with my wife and family that I touched upon in a previous post). They can be inevitably depressing and nagging. To me, it's the way you deal with those that makes the difference. I might have low EQ (and possibly IQ!) but I certainly am a person who is persistent enough that I tend not to yield.

With setback comes new lesson learnt. I constantly find and refine ways to better myself in an attempt to avoid setbacks again. My all-time believe is "you never know until you try", and has been keeping me going despite endless setbacks and sheer poor-luck in life. Don't be limited by your shortcomings (like in my case, my inferior IQ, knowledge, experience, and etc), and one should keep adding values to stay on a competitive level. The way I add values has been learning from the big shots as well as articles in the field of entrepreneurship, science and technology. Better yet, try learning something completely different.

Working hard for life and for your loved ones is what makes me superior! They are the only things that matter after all.

Dumber Watson - 25th startup idea

2011-02-17T21:50:00.006-06:00

Having struggled with startup ideas for a week, I sort of came up with one seemingly silly startup idea. I am more of a person who often inclines to ask or think about the physical principles behind the phenomena that occur around me. E.g. I often ask myself why the wheels of a car seem to rotate counterclockwise but clockwise when it slows down or accelerates (please tell me why!). Or what makes one smarter than another (you can tell how desperate I am in trying to be not as dumb!)?

So it would be so cool if I can ever build an app that can satisfy my endless curiosity in science. The recent buzz about IBM's Watson (e.g. link) sort of inspired this startup idea. What if I could make a dumber Watson? The app doesn't have to be super smart like Watson but at least manages to answer most of the simple phenomena that we encounter on daily basis. This app would be really useful for parents to educate their kids or for those like me who are keen to learn something new all by themselves.

Who's in to build this dumber Watson?

A better app to share your stuffs? - Startup Brainstorming Session No.1 (Feb 2011)

2011-02-16T13:16:00.003-06:00

With the huge success of Facebook, Twitter and other social apps, there is still something that needs fine tuning in my opinion. And that is the best way to share information with friends and colleagues. You can rightfully argue that these apps already allow people to share their stuffs to others, but I just feel they are not organized enough that allows me to easily access them whenever I need them.

As I am a huge fan of finding the best way to collaborate among friends and colleagues, I have yet to find the optimal ways to share info neatly and in a highly organized fashion. Think about this, there are great tools to share notes (e.g. Evernote), bookmarks (Delicious, Instapaper), articles (Google Reader), and files (Dropbox). Wouldn't it be great if we can have an app that does it all? I have mentioned this in one of my startup ideas but I felt I didn't really have a concrete model back then (and now as well), and that's why I want to put this in my newly formed startup brainstorming session in my blog. I hope you as the readers could offer some ideas that we can bounce back and forth.

I truly believe that workflow can be greatly improved by organizing all your favorite stuff into one app.