the rebirth of slicksta

adieu, hasta la vista, sayonara

2005-03-24T18:47:00.000-08:00

My life, like this blog, has been focused on starting this company for the last few months. With the site officially launched it is time for me to spend more time with loved ones, get healthy and explore my new home.

I'm starting a new blog (and a new website) at www.Slicksta.com.

See you there!

3. . . 2. . . 1. . . launch

2005-03-21T21:22:00.000-08:00

WE FINALLY LAUNCHED !!

Today was our offical launch date and things are pretty serene and quiet around the office. The last few weeks have been hell and this weekend in particular was extremely stressful.

We started the day by issuing our launch release at 12:01AM. Oh, by the way, I'm now managing PR (and Customer Service) and have a new appreciation for what folks in this discipline do for a living. The launch release went through at least 20 revisions (I lost track after 16 or 17); we had last minute changes up to 15 minutes prior to posting in on the wires. Crazy. Good news is we got picked up by the AP, NYT, FT and WSJ among others. Not bad for my first PR launch.

The site is looking great. Creatively, the design is going a bit away from the direction I had in mind, but smarter, more creative-types are calling the shots now. We're up to 14 FTEs and are running out of cubes.

Today is bittersweet. On the one hand, I'm ecstatic about our launch. On the other hand, a part of me is sad about this chapter of the startup-cycle drawing to a close. Overall, I'm relieved, over-joyed and excited about building a business from scratch.

project management bitch

2005-02-23T23:57:00.000-08:00

"I ain't no PM bitch"

This is what I said to my co-worker the other day. It came out during a moment of frustration and deep down inside, I knew that it was a false statement.

For the last two weeks I have been acting as project manager for the merchant area of our website. The folks who run this part of the business seem to have no ability nor the inclination to successfully figure out how to get their site produced. So I've been trying to take an 85 page powerpoint presentation on "must-have functionality" and writing technical requirements. Not my cup of tea.

The hardest part of this task is getting these guys to make up their minds. Every other day they change their minds about how something should work. Whenever a new idea pops into their heads, they turn to me to scope it out and figure out how to build it. I honestly do not understand why anyone would want this job full time.

The bright side is that when this is all over I can look to both the consumer site and the merchant site and say "I built that."

fast track it!

2005-02-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

The last day or so has been a crazy series of "we need to get this done as soon as possible" projects. Pace at a startup is supposed to be frenetic for sure but this is ridiculous.

First, our business development team decides that they want to hand out flyers at a conference they are attending. I'm all for it if it will help them close important deals. Problem was, I had only two days to write a creative brief, take the agency through it, get and revise concepts from them, present to the biz dev guys, get approval and product and print them!

Today, we decided to redesign an important page on the site. I walked my CEO through the propsed change on the phone (he's in NY), mocked it up in Powerpoint and sent it to our developer. After talking through uses cases and design issues for an hour, he started to code. Crazy! But I'm not complaining because having zero product development processes ultimately is what will allow us to get this new design live by next week.

One day this stuff will be impossible because we'll have to sift through stacks of "requirement forms" and argue our way through "prioritization processes".

Ctrl + Alt + Del

2005-02-01T01:22:00.000-08:00

I had a funny conversation with our new Director of Application Development today. We were talking about how to handle weekly code pushes and escalation procedures for when there were problems with the site. She mentioned to me that she was taking my name off the emergency alert notification list.

What was I gonna do when our managed hosting provider called me anyways?

HOST: Your site is down. What do you want us to do?
TOM: Have you tried pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del?

But this is in fact the first thing they do! Okay, they don't press the keys in that sequence but apparently 90% of application and webserver problems are resolved by just rebooting! Ha! Who would have known?

gonna fly now

2005-01-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

I was driving into work today, enjoying my free trial of XM Radio, when I decided to check out channel 7 - Hits from the 70s. Bill Conti's "Gonna Fly Now" came on. You might remember this song from the movie Rocky. It got me so pumped up I could not wait to get into the office.

This week has been the toughest on record. As of last night I worked 43 hours and Thursday and Friday are still to come. The sheer amount of work is down-right daunting. So many things to QA; pages to re-write, processes to re-do, banners to approve, bugs to log, bugs to fix . . . the list goes on and on!

The good news is that the site is really coming together. Everyone we show the site to get really excited by the concept. The redesign was well-worth it.

data entry

2005-01-13T20:59:00.000-08:00

Its about 9:00PM and I have already worked a 13 hour day. The office is calm and dark, most employees having gone home hours ago. The cleaning crew has come and gone. An editor and I are grooving to some progressive trance and entering content into the database. This type of data entry is mind-numbing. Fortunately, we're both in a hypnotic state: exhausted but determind to make progress tonight.

We are about 10% of the way to our goal and we have 10 days left before launch! Next week we'll have a team of temps coming in to help out and we just might make our deadline.

burger-thon 2005

2005-01-10T20:10:00.000-08:00

Newest Gut Bomb in Burger Wars Is Audacity on a Bun

Some guys from the office were talking about food today and they mentioned the new 2/3 pound burger on sale at Hardees. I told them I could eat one and no one believed me. Since they don't have Hardees in Socal we decided to go to Carl's Jr. instead.

One day in the not too distant future I will have my second encounter with the double $6 burger.

ad-verbs

2005-01-06T08:34:00.000-08:00

Most people know that I like making up words. One of my favorite category of new words is "ad-verb".

ad-verb - The use of a company's name, product or service as a verb. Use indicates the ubiquity of the product or service and is a form of advertising.

Examples:

Xerox this presentation and make twelve copies.
Sarah Fedexed the contract to me yesterday.
I worked late so I decided to TiVo it.
When I look for something online I usually just Google it.

A while ago TiVo got flamed for sending letters to newspapers asking them not to use TiVo as an ad-verb. What a bunch of dummies! Most companies would kill to be ad-verbed.

end of year predictions

2004-12-30T16:55:00.000-08:00

What will the next twelve months bring? That's looking too far ahead for me. I'm at a startup! I'll focus on the next twelve weeks instead:

Some things are certain:
- Life will suck as we prepare for our launch
- Our launch will be delayed (LOL)
- We will change the look and feel of the site . . . again
- New folks will join the team

Some things are uncertain:
- How will the site perform?
- Are our financial projections accurate?
- Will we ever move to West Hollywood?

Happy New Year!

our very own mail slots

2004-12-23T15:26:00.000-08:00

There are now three full-time employees in the LA office. This milestone was recognized with an official section in the mail-room and slots with our names on them. Yes friends, we have arrived.

The last few weeks have been truly crazy. The new GM has come on board and is mixing things up a bit. We're making really good progress on the site re-design and we made a few major adjustments to the way the site works. Our logo and tagline were finalized, too. Our launch is scheduled for January 24th.

I've been doing a lot of product management: preparing wire-frames, specifications, use cases and mock-ups. In my spare time, (LOL) I'm struggling through some pretty nasty network configuration issues. I have been forced to learn how to connect to a database remotely via SSH / Putty and had to install and configure my own ODBC driver.

At times I do get frustrated but I try to take it in stride. All of these unexpected challenges are exactly what I expected to encounter.

the new boss

2004-12-06T23:29:00.000-08:00

My new boss came into the office for the first time today. Overall, he strikes me as as sharp, easy-going and excited about the new company. In some respects I'm a little sad; I feel like a phase of this startup experience is drawing to a close. Already he's asking for documentation. He grimaced when I explained that the best we have by way of requirements is a collection of saved emails.

Target : Entertainment : Marijuana

2004-11-24T10:54:00.000-08:00

Target : Entertainment : Marijuana

This is probably some fool doing content management system tests but its funny in any case.

re-designed

2004-11-22T17:41:00.000-08:00

Our launch is going to be delayed for about 2-3 weeks so we can re-design our website. It's amazing to me that we can turn a re-design around in so little time. Most established companies would spend months executing a major change like this. This buys me some additional time on the marketing front and saves us a lot of money since media prices are exorbitantly high in December.

Am I'm not disappointed by this delay? A little, but I've been living with the fact that the site will constantly evolve. Many of the things we think are good ideas now will be discarded. Many things we under-estimate now will turn out to be really important. Its a humbling experience.

employee #2

2004-11-16T16:14:00.000-08:00

Its official: I am no longer the only employee! We made an offer to someone for a Staff Editor position and she starts on 11/29, right after Thanksgiving. She's from Hawaii and she does a weekly cartoon strip. This is going to be great:
- We'll finally get some much needed content up on our site
- No more struggling through copy-writing tasks
- I'll have someone to go out to lunch with (hope she likes Mexican food)

We've been delaying the hiring of several positions due to no GM. Rumor has it a candidate is mulling over an offer right now. Once this person starts there should be a flood of new hires; employee #3, #4, #5 and #6 aren't too far away.

generic t-shirts

2004-11-11T13:20:00.000-08:00

I wore a free t-shirt I got at a Halloween party to work this week. I thought it wouldn't be a problem because it would be under a flannel with only the sleeves showing. Problem was, it ended up being kinda hot. I desperately wanted to take off the flannel but couldn't because the t-shirt had a big green and white skeleton on it under an ad for Heiniken. This reminded me on a incident from my high school days.

One day, a buddy of mine, Hank, was suffering through Spanish class in a wool sweater. It had to be at least 90 degrees that day and he was miserable. When I asked him why he didn't take it off he replied, "I can't - generic t-shirt." He lifted the front of his sweater to reveal one of those iron-on graphics for The Beastmaster. We laughed so hard. Remember that Hank?

H O L L Y W O O D

2004-11-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

Last week I realized that the famous Hollywood sign is clearly visible from my window. It was semi-exciting. What was notable was that the fact that I am living and working in L.A. finally sank in. Two months of bumper to bumper traffic, the ghetto-bird flying around at night and several trips to the beach did not make the same impression that those big-ass letters did. Ain't it funny?

then there was one

2004-11-05T13:45:00.000-08:00

Today is the last day for one of my neighbors. He's been contracting with evite for the last few months building them a log-file analysis tool. Its been fun sitting across from him because we often nerd-out together talking about the benefits of using "NOT IN" vs. "NOT EXISTS" in SQL queries or discussing the future of open source databases. And, he hasn't minded the D&B that the white creature has been pumping out lately.

So come Monday I will only have one neighbor. He's biz dev and is frequently in meetings or traveling. Most likely all the cubes around me will be empty. I'm told they will hire me some co-workers in the next few weeks, but I'm not holding my breath - our projected headcount for the end of this month was 5 but I'm still all by my lonesome.

MediaDailyNews 11-02-04

2004-11-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

Check out this commentary from Chris Schoeder, VP of Strategy at The Washington Post "MediaDailyNews 11-02-04"

I've always believed that the internet has and will continue to change the world. Not only in the way that we do business or communicate, but how we gather and process information and how we socialize and interact. Its right up there with the telephone, in terms of the effect on society.

So how does my little startup play into this? Not in any major way. We're not creating a better way of cataloging the web or helping people meet and trade ideas. However, I do believe that we are solving a important consumer problem and thus adding value to the internet.

white creature

2004-11-01T18:17:00.000-08:00

There is a white creature living under my desk now. Surprisingly, my neighbors have found its roar entertaining and are not bothered by its presence.

pho after the rain

2004-10-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed a good bowl today just two blocks from work! There is a place called Pho 2000 just around the corner. I was skeptical at first because I was greeted in Korean when I walked in. But when my bowl came, the broth was clear, the meat was soft and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Turns out the owners are Vietnamese and they own three other locations. They hire Korean workers for this location because most of the customers are Korean. Makes sense, right? We are in Koreatown.

logo selection

2004-10-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

A friend is looking at designs for the Chinese character for dragon to use as a tattoo. He's taking extra precautions to make sure he chooses the right one. This got me thinking about how the logo of a website is kind of like a tattoo: it should represent who you are and it is relatively permanent.

We're still trying to finalize the logo and tagline for the new site. I have seen at least 25 versions of the logo and they start to look the same. I keep myself focused by asking myself how it will look on the site, on t-shirts and in reports. How about as a tattoo?

usability and web-savvy

2004-10-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

Last week we went to usability testing where we sat behind a two-way mirror and watched a moderator ask people questions and try to perform certain tasks on our new site. Overall, the site performed well and we got really constructive feedback on how we can improve it prior to launch.

I was impressed by how web-savvy everyone was. Most referred to the navigation and form elements by the technical names. They talked about list boxes, tabbed-headers and databases. When I commented on this being due to the fact that we were in Southern California another attendee said that they same thing happens in the Midwest or in the South. Pretty neat.

Most were excited about new site and receptive to its business model. There was one cynic though. During one of the interviews a guy pointed to the two-way mirror and called us the "Harvard people behind the glass". I wanted to knock on the window and say, "hey man, I went to Yale."

rock the launch party

2004-10-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

I attended a launch party for evite last night: a good time but a bit surreal, as my wife aptly put it. The event was co-sponsored by MTV and Rock the Vote. There were a few C-list celebrities walking around: Ryan Seacrest was the host if you call showing up and talking for about two minutes being a host. Polly Shore, Chandler and Lorenzo Lamas were there. They must support Rock the Vote because I'm sure they've never used evite.

What do you think of when you try to picture a dot-com's launch party? Drunken software developers gettin' down? That guy from QA making out with that girl from Customer Service? People drinking and eating and celebrating? That's what I imagine. Last night was more or less a bunch of beautiful people sipping Grey Goose martinis while listening to house-music. It was a launch party, LA-style.

dot.com political groups

2004-10-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

The office is abuzz with talk about last Friday's debate and how the two candidates performed. Got me thinking about political groups in the startup environment. Most dot-commers seem to fall along traditional party-lines but there are some independent groups that you won't see in mainstream politics too.

Conservatives - Upper management
Concerned with issues of cash; how much there is; how quickly it is running out; how hard it will be to raise more. They are not conservative when it comes to granting themselves equity.

Liberals - Marketing / Technology / Human Resources
Central philosophy revolves around investing in one or more core initiatives like "brand", "redundancy" and "sensitivity training". Liberals are always at odds with Conservatives on how to measure ROI. Partners at VC firms are known to be swing voters: they cross party lines between the Conservative and Liberal camps.

Moderates - Finance / Accouting / Project Management
Moderates are attracted to the potential upside in stock or equity at startups but want to continue leading 9-5 work schedules. They require extra office supplies and constantly complain about the lack of "structure" in the work-place.

Independents - Consultants / Agencies
Support social-welfare programs for dot-commers who were laid off. These ex-pats of Conservative or Liberal parties drain startups of their resources by charging $250 an hour. They frequently extend project completion dates and infrequently provide any documentation about the work they have done. Independents are always blamed for mistakes by the Liberals who hired them.

Green Party - Various
They are a party of those who like to party. You can identify members of this reclusive and loosely-associated group on Friday mornings by the bags under their eyes or the wrinkles in their clothing (didn't he wear that on Thursday?). Members are always looking forward to the next "convention" where alcohol and other mind-altering substances will be consumed or used in large quantities.

Foreign Legions - Software Engineers / Customer Service Reps
Primarily concerned with issues of immigration. Technically, they can't vote but they formed their own party anways. Members hail from India and mainland China. These college-educated professionals do most of the work but get none of the glory. They are secretly supported by Conservatives because their vote can be bought for promises of an H1 visa.

Preservatives - Various
Maintaining the startup approach to work and the dot-com way of life is the focus of this dwindling group. Presevatives hate Moderates and Independents. Many join Liberals in opposition to Conservatives on certain issuesl. They work long hours and are fond of caffeinated-drinks, foos-ball tables and large computer monitors. Membership in this party reached its peak in the late 1990s.

cold pizza for breakfast

2004-10-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

Some of the folks I sit with are about a week away from releasing a completely new version of their site to the public. They have been working 14-16 hour days in preparation. Some have even pulled all-nighters.

Last night a large group stayed past midnight pushing out a beta version. Normally, only ops and engineering stick around for this type of activity. This is what the startup spirit is all about: camaraderie, unity and company pride.

They must have ordered pizza for dinner because I found a few left-over slices in the breakroom this morning. Cold pizza is so good.

free food

2004-10-06T17:57:00.000-07:00

I had visitors from New York in the office yesterday. My first contact with another person working on this startup in over two months! It was interesting to hear their impressions of the office.

They really liked the space and said that it felt much more dot-com than being on the forty-somethingth floor of a sky-scraper in Manhattan. The liked our cubes and the casual atmosphere. But they said that they would not trade their free soda and cabinets stocked with all manner of goodies and snacks for anything. Ironic, huh?

The free food at my last startup was ridiculous (I put on 15 pounds the first two months). We had free soda, gummi bears, red vines, m&ms, bags of chips and even power bars. All the free stuff went away eventually - we were losing millions of dollars a month!

Maybe the free food selection will be upgraded once we're making some money. I'm okay with this because it means that we're wiser the second time around.

office music

2004-10-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

Music is a necessity as I work throughout the day. I listen to Digitally Imported's Trance channel almost everyday. The feel-good vibe and energetic pulse keeps my head bobbin' and my productivity high. I have my own channel setup on Yahoo! LAUNCH as well. Check it out.

One of my favorite activities at my last startup was bumping music in the evenings. I gained quite a reputation around the office for my ecletic taste and love of bass. There are two DJs who might give me competition here:

One likes to listen to the The Tom Joyner Morning show. Its pretty funny and keeps the morning hours from dragging.

The second plays tunes off an iPod and CDs. I was impressed by hearing both Depeche Mode and Dr. Dre on the same afternoon. There was quite a stir last Friday when Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam's "Lost in Emotion" came on. I thought it was cool.

I'm looking to add a pair of desktop speakers and a sub-woofer to my cube in the near future. Soon, the office will be reverberating to the sounds of Slicksta.

i don't eat dog

2004-09-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

"Where do you want to go for lunch today?"

What started out as a normal question posited by countless cubicle-bound plebians each workday got ugly really fast . . .

"How about Korean?"

"I don't eat dog."

"I don't eat rat either."

This was the conversation I overheard today. The people who said this thought it was funny. I found their statements completely ignorant, stereotypical and racially insensitive.

"You guys should watch what you're saying." I said after standing up so they could see my yellow skin, black hair and slanted eyes. I'm not Korean, I'm Vietnamese, but they didn't know this.

"Yea, you guys are making statements about a culture you don't know that much about." I was relieved to hear this second statement from some one within their ranks.

The situation was diffused and the assholes went off in search of a meal more wholesome than canine.

If we actually had a Human Resources department this incident might not have happened. These jerks might have gone to racial sensitivity training or they might have known some one who got fired for making racially insensitive statements. They'd know to keep their mouths shut. At minimum, I'd be able to make a formal complaint.

I don't have that luxury but I will talk to their managers if they do it again.

the richest people in america

2004-09-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

Forbes released their list of the 400 richest Americans today. Here is a breakdown of the top ten and how they achieved their wealth:

Bill Gates - Started his own company
Warren Buffett - Investing
Paul Allen - Started his own company
Alice Walton - Wife of Sam Walton, who started his own company
Helen Walton - Daugter of Sam Walton, who started his own company
Jim Walton - Son of Sam Walton, who started his own company
John Walton - Son of Sam Walton, who started his own company
S Robson Walton - Son of Sam Walton, who started his own company
Michael Dell - Started his own company
Larry Ellison - Started his own company

See a pattern here? Besides the fact that the WalMart family makes up half of the list, these people got rich by starting their own businesses. They worked at startups!

Will I get rich off my second startup? No. Will I get rich off my third or fourth? Who knows, maybe, but only if I'm working at my own startup.

what does ACH stand for?

2004-09-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

The coolest thing about working at a startup is that you get to learn new things every day. There is no faster way to learn and broaden your skill set than to venture into unfamiliar waters.

Right now, I'm working on figuring out the best way to accept credit card payments. Prior to yesterday I had no clue about how any of it would work. Now, I know what merchant accounts are and that ACH is the abbreviation for Automatic Clearing House. Ever wondered what a payment gateway service is? Probably not, but I can tell you.

Last week I was looking into purchasing accounting software. Only at a startup would I get these opportunities.

five things on my desk

2004-09-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

I brought in a few items to make my cubicle a little more comfortable today:

A framed photo of my wife
My calculator with the big-ass buttons
My souvenir pencil box from Viet Nam
A pair of headphones
Nalgene water bottle, soy protein bars, instant oatmeal packets

Funny how each of these items map to important things in my life: my family, my job, my culture, music and food.

office space

2004-09-16T16:57:00.000-07:00

My new space is very startup. The cubes are modular desks with cloth panels for partitions. They are white fabric on silver bars and people call them pods. The panels are see-through. Its a very open environment that encourages collaboration and offers little privacy.

The people around me are boisterous and hard-working. It is a casual environment where people feel can joke around while they get their jobs done. Upbeat is a good description.

We have a break room with a leopard-patterned easy chair and a maroon-futon. There is a soda dispensing machine. I have had three cups of Diet Coke already today. Gotta love a good caffeine high.

bulgogi bibimbop

2004-09-15T18:39:00.000-07:00

As promised, I had my first lunch in Koreatown today. I found a food court across the street and bought myself a Bulgogi Bibimbop Combo.

Adjacent to Han's Bibimbop was Ichiban Sushi and Miss Pho Saigon. Normally I have pho anytime I can get it. When there's a choice, pho-get-about-it, right? But today, the idea that sushi and pho were being made in the same place kinda freaked me out. How good can either be? And wassup with the name Miss Pho Saigon?

new digs

2004-09-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

I went into "the office" yesterday to check out my new digs. They were not quite ready for me yet so all I saw was my new cubicle, some wires and lots of dust-balls.

Good news is that the office is in K-town. Parking is free and there are lots of restaurants and stores nearby. Bibinbop or bulgogi lunches - woo hoo!

I'll continue working from home for the next few days and then split my time 50/50 between there and here. No need to be in the office when you are the only employee, right?

top priorities

2004-09-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

My current priorities are:

1) Develop a paid search program
2) Formulate a search engine optimization strategy
3) Write reporting requirements for marketing and operational reporting
4) Choose a web analytics application
5) Revise the revenue / forecasting model

my first day

2004-09-07T23:54:00.000-07:00

I have been in HR-limbo for the last two weeks while the details of my new job were being finalized. In hindsight, it was good to have a few weeks off to unpack, relax and get settled. I'm well-rested and anxious to get started.

My welcome packet from New York arrived today at 7pm. I opened it to find lots of forms and benefits information. One brochure had fallen out of the main stack and so I read it first:

PET ASSURE
Because Pets Are Family

I can now join the nation's largest pet care savings program. Yay!