6 posts tagged “business”
I saw a short interview yesterday online with a very smart guy named Peter Thiel. Thiel practiced law for a few years after graduating from Stanford, started a hedge fund, then founded PayPal with a friend and sold it to eBay. He then invested half a million early on in Facebook which is probably worth a billion dollars now. I also think it's cool he's a chess master and writes learned articles for the Hoover Institution.
In the interview, Thiel mentions that the current technology revolution "is so big, we don't even realize how much it is changing the world." It's true--here I am in Hungary receiving calls routed from my Oregon cellphone so that the callers typically don't know we're outside the US. Yesterday, I knew that Obama was speaking in Germany and was bummed we didn't have a tv. It turned out that CNN streamed it live via the internet and the quality was quite good. I've been chatting, emailing and video-skyping with friends and family across the world and I would have been forced to send postcards instead just a decade or two ago.
It seems pretty clear that as worldwide communication becomes increasingly easy and inexpensive, the business opportunities involved in connecting people who provide intellectual--communication-intensive--services will continue to grow. If I'm wrong, our current business will probably go down in flames. But I don't think that will happen and am optimistic.
Agi's having a girls night out tonight and is watching "Mamma Mia" with her mom and sister in law Aniko. All three of them--and pretty much every other woman I've met--have a huge thing for Colin Firth (who's in the movie) mainly because of his stoic yet sexy performance in "Pride and Prejudice."
But what I really wanted to write down here are just a few thoughts about my efforts to start up an online business. I'm just going to list them off, bullet-style.
- the freedom to spend your time however you want is both exhilarating and bewildering;
- self discipline is crucial and mine is lacking too often;
- having a talented web designer as a wife is great;
- it is the most intellectually challenging job I've ever had; you have to become exposed to, learn and do your best to become good at a huge variety of things: techie-website terms & tools; marketing; accounting & taxes; customer service.
- being an employee of an existing business is great in many ways, and "easier" than running your own; quite often, you can simply feed off the success of the creators of the business--not exactly like a parasite, unless you're in HR or Legal, like I was... :)
- the reason there are huge tax breaks and perks for business owners is that most businesses flame out and die; it is very difficult to run a successful enterprise; if your business does make it and creates jobs for others and tax revenue--the government loves you and rewards you; the wealthiest people in the world are business owners.
- it will be very challenging for us to make a big success of an online business, but my wife is very supportive and we're off to a good start.
- if I can make it happen (we'll know for sure within about a year), then it will be very gratifying, exciting and I can see myself doing this for decades to come--building a business empire, that is.
Time to get back to work...
As part of our master strategy to create several student-oriented website businesses, we've been working on a site that will allow students to ask questions, get answers back, find penpals and connect with tutors. We initially were calling it "Students Accelerated" but after thinking about it, reading about different business names on www.techcrunch.com, and then getting good feedback from various friends I emailed, we've opted for something a little more fun. We're not going with BrainMentor.com or Staccr.com, but I came up with www.MindZinger.com and I think it has what we're looking for. So we'd like this site to complement our existing www.essayinstitute.com.
Ivy has done a good job so far with her design "mock-up" and we're just about ready to hand it off to our Hungarian programmer (who we found through www.odesk.com) named Csaba.
We also bought our tickets for Budapest last week (check out www.cheapoair.com for some pretty good prices, but lame customer service) and our departure date is officially April 6th!
Something else that's great news is that Ivy's company wants to keep her on the payroll and she'll be working part time at half her regular Americano salary! That gives us a great foundation for living in Hungary. I was also surprised when I told my boss this past week that we've finalized our plans about moving overseas, he actually is interested in trying to keep me on as an employee too. I'd definitely take the opportunity to work remotely, but I still think that, realistically, it won't work out. Either way, we are very excited.
Over the last several years, Ivy and I have uncovered some money principles that we have found to be true and helpful for us:
- Recognize that the best things in life--and most of the good things--don't require any money (e.g. walking around outside; visiting family and friends; reading books from library; conversation)
- Cultivate an interest in the things that require less, or minimal, money (e.g. have friends over for dinner instead of automatically going out to eat; listen to itunes radio instead of buying new cds)
- Live below your means, avoid debt and save (e.g. it required some degree of inconvenience but we successfully have had one car the last five years)
- Be an owner--and a seller (of real estate or business interests that go up in value and then sell them for a profit; e.g., real estate or business equity)
- Recognize that consumption does not equal happiness or satisfaction (Ivy is much better at applying this than me. It is radically counter-cultural to choose NOT to spend money on something to have fun. But we find that when we do something that requires more effort on our part, it's often more satisfying: e.g., cooking your own food; reading an unread book you already own rather than buying a new one)
This past week Ivy and I agreed upon a new business name for teaching various languages online: Turbo Languages. The Essay Institute www.essayinstitute.com continues to get lots of hits each day (lots for us) and we are progressively getting it optimized for search engines.
Last night was my company's Christmas party at the Bay Meadows racetrack near San Francisco. It was fun: pretty good food, some dancing, we shared a whiskey sour and talked to lots of co-workers. Ivy was, predictably, the most stunning woman at the party. I've also scanned in and posted the High School Prom-style complimentary picture, complete with cheesy background. I definitely enjoyed, however, winning $500 in cash at the raffle after dinner. Corporate largesse at its finest.
I read these are Bill Gates three principles or keys to success:
1. Have a vision
2. Be in the right place at the right time.
3. Take immediate massive action.
