The focus on finding a job for soon-to-be graduates is the wrong focus for a college junior or senior. Instead, it should be on how to build a sustainable income. Building up a money-making machine should be a priority for students before they graduate. Cushioned from real-world worries and financial obligations with a flexible schedule, students have ample opportunity to not just explore but to actually develop businesses that can at least bring in some income regardless of their career status.
This way, they will have sufficient time to hunt for a job or continue developing their business without moving back to live with their parents. They will not have an immediate financial pressure upon graduation to find a job.
Showing posts with label entrepreneurship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entrepreneurship. Show all posts
Monday, April 21, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Entrepreneurship: Not Just Dreaming
From reading the book Linchpin by Seth Godin and talking to Nishanth earlier, I understand that I should start working on my dreams and actually finish them. Otherwise, I should just suck up and get a mediocre job. It has been clear to Nishanth for a while that I say the words "I am going to do <something>..." too much and actually do too little.
Frankly, what I have achieved so far with projects and ideas have mostly been of other people's origins. I have many original ideas not conceived by others but I have yet to reach a satisfied level of completion in my view. The reason in the past was due to a naive assumption that I can just work on something for a month or so and the results will be there. Over the last two years since graduation, I realized that anything worthy of doing takes at least half a year or more of persistent effort. For this reason, in recent times, I have done less with my own ideas and concentrated working on group projects.
In other words, the reason today for failing to accomplish my own ideas is because since I know how hard it is and how much persistent effort I have to put in, I have been reluctant to start with the fear that I won't have enough time or energy and will merely get disappointed and give up like in the past. Yet, from talking with Nishanth today and reading the book by Seth Godin, it's clear to me that I should pursue my own ideas and not give up. If I decide to choose the more difficult path of pursuing a dream, I should have enough willpower and persistence to both start and complete it.
As Nishanth said earlier today, "Too much dreaming is when there's no work. Even if you just have two dreams but don't do any work, that's still too much dreaming. Realizing a dream is hard. Realizing a normal life (a defined job) is relatively easy."
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
企业家的必有：智商（IQ）和情商（EQ）
在科技世界里同时拥有智商情商的人并不多，往往技术人员缺少情商而商人却缺少科技智商*。当我在学校时上有关商业课时，我发现学商业的学生打扮外貌和表达能力远远超过工程学生的。出了校园在各种活动上我发现并没有太多的区别，在跟某个陌生人在某个会场沟通时，我一般可以猜测这位是否是工程师或科学家。我建议缺少情商的人该把自己放到不太舒服的社交环境里，逼自己实验怎么跟外人交流！同时我也建议缺少智商的人该花时间学些技术性的知识或技术，多读读科技的报纸很文章，试试编写一些简单的程序，或做些简单的实验，这样说不定在脑子里会突然冒出个千万美元的主意！
^http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/business/media/nick-daloisio-17-sells-summly-app-to-yahoo.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1364394786-sLelxUMGe6Xfywh43ep8uQ
*在这里，我指的智商是对科技有关的知识和技术。
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Entrepreneurship: Some Ideas
I have listed out the creative ideas which I plan to work on in the next decade:
1. Predict Plan Website (Time Management Tool)
I started this out a while ago but stopped on it since I realized it's far more difficult than anticipated. I want to create a web application that can take your schedule and your mood which matches your schedule and analyze it through some algorithms to offer you the best schedule for tomorrow or even several days in advance. I realized after two months of working on it that I need to get another web developer to help me as well as talking to psychologists and management experts to actually develop the algorithm.
Income will be from advanced user subscriptions which will charge monthly.
2. Funny Survival Book (Print Information)
This will be a survival book which is also funny. Most survival books are terribly boring. When I'm dying or close to dying, I will like to be able to laugh at a last funny joke. I want to write a similar book with humor like Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide.
Income will be from book sales and collecting royalties. Originally, it can be sold via Amazon Kindle.
3. Subliminal Website (Social Media Website)
This website will allow users to upload a stream of images and one line of text. The image algorithm will then take the images and text and combine them in a way that the original message is lost to the conscious mind. However, the subconscious mind will still be able to decipher the message. Users can then take these messages and spread them like a virus on the web impacting millions with the hidden messages. I will need to talk to some cognitive scientists and visual perception researchers to develop the algorithm.
Income will be from advanced user subscriptions which will allow more images to be uploaded and no restriction on length of text.
4. Bottle Rockets for Kids (Social Entrepreneurship)
This social organization will help kids in poor neighborhoods build bottle rockets. I saw an inspiring video a little while ago on poor kids in slums who were so inspired by playing music made from junk. While I was sitting at the airport in France a month or so ago drinking from a water bottle, I thought to myself: Why can't the same inspiration for space can't be translated to these kids? This organization will send rocket scientists to poor slums around the world and teach them how to build bottle rockets from empty bottles and junk.
Income will be from government and private foundation donations as a nonprofit.
5. Slow Time Choices (Entertainment/Film)
Time shouldn't always go this fast. There's plenty of movies which show action scenes in bullet time. Just look at the Matrix or any John Woo film. However, what about having an entire film which plays at slow motion and yet doesn't annoy the viewer since it's so slow? What I want to do is take slow motion in short sections and string them together. For instance, the first scene can be a glass vase falling from a table crashing onto a marble floor. The second scene is a guy running across the room towards the vase to catch it before it falls to the ground and breaks. The third scene is a closeup of the second hand on the guy's watch while he is running. These three scenes alternate between each other. The purpose of this project is to promote the idea of stopping and appreciating the nature of time.
Income will be from a crowdfunding site such as Kickstarter.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Entrepreneurship: Bottles for Rockets
I saw an inspiring video recently about kids who live in slums that made beautiful musical instruments out of junk. Music brought meaning to their lives that otherwise would be just dirty and miserable. It brought magic. Similarly, space can also bring magic.
Imagination can be fostered in even the worst places. These kids' interest in science and technology are very limited due to lack of exposure to books, videos, and educated peers or parents.Yet, if they can make bottle rockets out of scrap, they can see that the magic power is all around them. This can be an excellent plan for developing nations and even developed countries with slums.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Business: Kickstarter to Fund Projects
Often, you have an idea you wish to pursue to fruition but you are blocked by the reality of insufficient funding. So what can you do? Run around asking for investors or borrowing money from the bank? That's the traditional way. Recently, I discovered this cool site, http://www.kickstarter.com/, which funds projects purely through individual donations. The catch though is that the donor doesn't donate right away. You, the project owner, must set a money goal that you're trying to reach within a time frame. If you don't get enough money by that point, there will be no donation. This is to ensure that all projects actually get sufficient money to be successfully completed.
Anyone can sign up for an account and submit a project allowing anyone to donate if they're interested. The only limitations are that the projects must
1. Have clearly defined goals and expectations.
2. Be creative. It must fit within the fields of Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, and Theater.
3. Not be for charity or donation.
4. Offer rewards and not financial incentives. You cannot offer ownership, financial returns, repayment, etc. Instead, you must offer rewards like copies of the work, fun experiences, etc.
If your project fits these requirements, all you have to do is then fill out a short proposal form answering a few basic questions:
1. What is your project (750 characters max)
2. What rewards will you offer? (1000 characters)
3. Where can we find out more about you and your project?
4. Which category fits your project?
5. How much money would you like to raise?
6. How did you hear about us?
And if you're looking to fund some project, there's loads for your money to go into some worthy cause: http://www.kickstarter.com/discover
Some of the more interesting projects (in my view) that entrepreneurial-minded people have raised include. Check them out and/or post one of your own:
ISS-Notify
A LED light that shines whenever the ISS passes over your head.
And this was also interesting since originally he made one to detect near earth asteroids:
Paintings for Satellites
Rooftop paintings for the specific purpose of art observable from orbit.
Team Prometheus N-Prize Mission
Launch a small satellite into LEO from a high-altitude balloon of 100000 feet. Note that this funding failed.
Lumi Co. Textile Products
A new textile technology that makes some products made of the material.
Windfarms Project
Grassroots way of growing vegetables in the windows of homes in an aesthetically pleasing way.
Aperture Science Sentry Turret
Sentry gun based on the one from the amazing game Portal
Mapping Gulf Oil Spill
Group of citizens got together to build balloons and kites attached with cameras to map out the Gulf oil spill.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Notebook Entry 5: Ecology, Microbiology, Business, Spirituality, etc.
I went to a friend's house last night for some decent company and food. Like always, I learned quite a bit from talking to several people. Because I like to organize my thoughts, I have divided my night into several episodes of conversation.
Episode 1
Mark Andrews
Manager of Contracts Services
While eating some good food, an elder man named Mark happened to sit next to me. I introduced himself and he introduced himself. Apparently, he is in charge of approving the funding that goes through TEES (Texas Engineering Experimental Station). He used to work for AgriLife and has helped acquire funding for some crops that helped jumpstart Iran's economy after their disastrous war with Iraq.
He's quite an interesting fellow who is well-read in multiple disciplines of science and technology. We talked about renewable energy for a bit. He said that there's quite a lot of algae research in Plano, TX where A&M has some algae farms. The conditions there are perfect for algae growth since the combination of sunlight, carbon dioxide, and open ponds. The carbon dioxide is actually from the byproducts of the oil pipelines that go through there. That was quite an interesting correlation.
Episode 2
Chris Hoelfer (Microbiology Grad Student)
Sat on the couch after dinner and talked with Chris and Carolina for quite a while.
Chris is doing research on microbial communication which is how bacteria grow and develop. He's currently looking at two strands. I asked him how this will affect the average layman like me. The answer is simple: a new antibiotics approach needs to be found. The pharmaceutical industry haven't done anything new in terms of antibiotics development in the last few decades. Their antibiotics only work for a few months before the bacteria gains immunity.
Hopefully, through his research, enough base knowledge on these bacteria can be found so that eventually a new antibiotics approach can be found. Bacteria colonizes as multiple species and live in a dynamic balance. Some bacteria are symbiotic. Some are mutualistic. Some are antagonistic.
Episode 3
Chris Hoelfer
We talked about life for a bit. Chris said something that was really insightful:
"Life escapes most people."
I asked him what he wanted to do after graduation to not let that happen. He said he was still searching. Definitely good to have open options, I told him. He agreed. A lot of people has a passion that has nothing to do with their work. I believe that it's good to have a passion for work that is intwined with life. For instance, if you're into skiing, the ideal life is not where you just work a menial job to save nup enough money to go skiing. Most people give up too easily since they think they don't possess the skills to be a skiing instructor. That may very well be true. However, they can incorporate their passions in other ways. For instance, my friend Katelyn likes skiing but she wants to open a skiing equipment company.
These possibilities certainly exist. We just need to find them!
Episode 3
Chris Hoelfer
Carolina Rivas (Graduated MBA student from elsewhere, originally from El Salvador)
I told Chris and Carolina an idea of mine to help facilitate the university connections. Say a professor wants to find some students to do a certain research. Typically, the prof will spend quite a lot of time going through different applications to find the right one. The same goes for a student trying to find the right prof. Why not have a service where the prof or the student can hire us. We'll compile a list of possible contacts for the prof.
Chris and Carolina suggested that instead of just a simple list which anyone can do. Why not establish the connection? In other words, introduce the two people together. This certainly has a more defined value than just giving information. This minimizes the amount of time to filter noise. For instance, instead of sorting 1000 applicants for 10 slots, you sort 50 applicants for 10 slots.
Episode 4
Chris Hoefler
Carolina Rivas
Talked about spirituality and the Bahai faith for a little while. There's three levels of spiritual understanding.
1. Literal
2. Application
3. Implication
This is why reading and re-reading passages is not a waste of time. Implication is the ultimate understanding and once understanding that, you can apply the learned passage to situations not directly applicable.
We started reading some passages from Reflections on the Life of the Spirit. Some passages that struck me:
"O brethren! Let deeds, not words, be your adorning."
"O Son of Being! Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning."
"Holy words and pure and goodly deeds ascend unto the heaven of celestial glory."
On a more ritualistic note, I learned that the Bahai faith uses a calendar of 19 months of 19 days. Bahais meet once a month and also on holy days for gatherings.
Episode 5
Mark Andrews
Talked to Mark Andrew some more and he mentioned some crazy guys painting an asteroid. I said I was one of those crazy guys. I went on and told him some about our project. He seemed quite impressed. He suggested painting Coca Cola on the moon so that we can see it from planet Earth. Is that feasible? Honestly, I don't think so but I'll do a calculation later. Is projecting Coca Cola on the moon with lasers also feasible?
Episode 6
Mark Andrews' daughter
Afsaneh
I talked with them a bit about nothing in particular. Mark's daughter is this very bubbly enthusiastic girl who's currently getting a Masters at the Bush school with research focused on foster kids. She also has a strong faith in Christianity.
Episode 7
Jon Hart (Formerly from New England, now an optician at the mall)
Sima Hart (Turkish girl who currently manages an apartment)
Right when they were about to leave, I struck up a conversation with Jon. Turns out that he's an optician at the mall. I asked him for his email since he may be able to help me out with making some custom lenses. He said that he'll only do it if I have a prescription. Looks like I have to get creative to get such a prescription. I need the lens to make something like this:
http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/sky/sky.htm
We also talked for a while about photography. Apparently, both of them like doing photography. Jon likes doing sports photography and Sima likes doing portraits. She also used to go on nature expeditions with friends. Pretty awesome I thought. She has a Nikon D80 while her husband Jon has a Nikon D200.
Jon is actually thinking of getting paid for his sports photography sometime soon. I told him that he'll need a website to promote his works and get his name out there for sure. I told him that thankfully I happened to design websites. I'll have to keep in touch with him to see how I can help him.
Episode 1
Mark Andrews
Manager of Contracts Services
While eating some good food, an elder man named Mark happened to sit next to me. I introduced himself and he introduced himself. Apparently, he is in charge of approving the funding that goes through TEES (Texas Engineering Experimental Station). He used to work for AgriLife and has helped acquire funding for some crops that helped jumpstart Iran's economy after their disastrous war with Iraq.
He's quite an interesting fellow who is well-read in multiple disciplines of science and technology. We talked about renewable energy for a bit. He said that there's quite a lot of algae research in Plano, TX where A&M has some algae farms. The conditions there are perfect for algae growth since the combination of sunlight, carbon dioxide, and open ponds. The carbon dioxide is actually from the byproducts of the oil pipelines that go through there. That was quite an interesting correlation.
Episode 2
Chris Hoelfer (Microbiology Grad Student)
Sat on the couch after dinner and talked with Chris and Carolina for quite a while.
Chris is doing research on microbial communication which is how bacteria grow and develop. He's currently looking at two strands. I asked him how this will affect the average layman like me. The answer is simple: a new antibiotics approach needs to be found. The pharmaceutical industry haven't done anything new in terms of antibiotics development in the last few decades. Their antibiotics only work for a few months before the bacteria gains immunity.
Hopefully, through his research, enough base knowledge on these bacteria can be found so that eventually a new antibiotics approach can be found. Bacteria colonizes as multiple species and live in a dynamic balance. Some bacteria are symbiotic. Some are mutualistic. Some are antagonistic.
Episode 3
Chris Hoelfer
We talked about life for a bit. Chris said something that was really insightful:
"Life escapes most people."
I asked him what he wanted to do after graduation to not let that happen. He said he was still searching. Definitely good to have open options, I told him. He agreed. A lot of people has a passion that has nothing to do with their work. I believe that it's good to have a passion for work that is intwined with life. For instance, if you're into skiing, the ideal life is not where you just work a menial job to save nup enough money to go skiing. Most people give up too easily since they think they don't possess the skills to be a skiing instructor. That may very well be true. However, they can incorporate their passions in other ways. For instance, my friend Katelyn likes skiing but she wants to open a skiing equipment company.
These possibilities certainly exist. We just need to find them!
Episode 3
Chris Hoelfer
Carolina Rivas (Graduated MBA student from elsewhere, originally from El Salvador)
I told Chris and Carolina an idea of mine to help facilitate the university connections. Say a professor wants to find some students to do a certain research. Typically, the prof will spend quite a lot of time going through different applications to find the right one. The same goes for a student trying to find the right prof. Why not have a service where the prof or the student can hire us. We'll compile a list of possible contacts for the prof.
Chris and Carolina suggested that instead of just a simple list which anyone can do. Why not establish the connection? In other words, introduce the two people together. This certainly has a more defined value than just giving information. This minimizes the amount of time to filter noise. For instance, instead of sorting 1000 applicants for 10 slots, you sort 50 applicants for 10 slots.
Episode 4
Chris Hoefler
Carolina Rivas
Talked about spirituality and the Bahai faith for a little while. There's three levels of spiritual understanding.
1. Literal
2. Application
3. Implication
This is why reading and re-reading passages is not a waste of time. Implication is the ultimate understanding and once understanding that, you can apply the learned passage to situations not directly applicable.
We started reading some passages from Reflections on the Life of the Spirit. Some passages that struck me:
"O brethren! Let deeds, not words, be your adorning."
"O Son of Being! Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning."
"Holy words and pure and goodly deeds ascend unto the heaven of celestial glory."
On a more ritualistic note, I learned that the Bahai faith uses a calendar of 19 months of 19 days. Bahais meet once a month and also on holy days for gatherings.
Episode 5
Mark Andrews
Talked to Mark Andrew some more and he mentioned some crazy guys painting an asteroid. I said I was one of those crazy guys. I went on and told him some about our project. He seemed quite impressed. He suggested painting Coca Cola on the moon so that we can see it from planet Earth. Is that feasible? Honestly, I don't think so but I'll do a calculation later. Is projecting Coca Cola on the moon with lasers also feasible?
Episode 6
Mark Andrews' daughter
Afsaneh
I talked with them a bit about nothing in particular. Mark's daughter is this very bubbly enthusiastic girl who's currently getting a Masters at the Bush school with research focused on foster kids. She also has a strong faith in Christianity.
Episode 7
Jon Hart (Formerly from New England, now an optician at the mall)
Sima Hart (Turkish girl who currently manages an apartment)
Right when they were about to leave, I struck up a conversation with Jon. Turns out that he's an optician at the mall. I asked him for his email since he may be able to help me out with making some custom lenses. He said that he'll only do it if I have a prescription. Looks like I have to get creative to get such a prescription. I need the lens to make something like this:
http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/sky/sky.htm
We also talked for a while about photography. Apparently, both of them like doing photography. Jon likes doing sports photography and Sima likes doing portraits. She also used to go on nature expeditions with friends. Pretty awesome I thought. She has a Nikon D80 while her husband Jon has a Nikon D200.
Jon is actually thinking of getting paid for his sports photography sometime soon. I told him that he'll need a website to promote his works and get his name out there for sure. I told him that thankfully I happened to design websites. I'll have to keep in touch with him to see how I can help him.
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