Silicon Valley was never meant to be

I was speaking to some business professionals a few weeks ago. We’d just come out of a presentation by Methven Ltd, where the CEO Rick Fala shared with us his vision, and direction for the company. He shared with us the financials, operational and corporate strategy. He also noted that the biggest issue the company faces is marketing. They mainly market B2B, preferring to work with large clients like hotels and business chains. Not so much on private individual clients. Their bathroom products are for the top end niche market. They are headquartered in Auckland and have plants in China. All the design, innovation and magic happen with their designers in Auckland. For example, they created a special shower head that uses less water and can give you a more fulfilling all over spray.

I told him that I would like to help with their marketing and especially with regards to social media as I consider it my forte. He was surprised by my directness and said that not too many young people go out there and carve their own fortune. I told him that I have always wanted to be an entrepreneur, wanting to add value to society. Through the conversation, he then told me this story about Silicon Valley and Stanford University. Silicon Valley was never meant to be. It was that entrepreneurial culture that stems from Stanford that have that spillover effect on the surrounding area: Palo Alto, aka Silicon Valley.

People in Stanford are young and ambitious; they always wanted to outdo each other. This is a common trait among youth. New inventions, the Bell Labs, William Shockley and the electronic transistor are all results of the competition and natural drive of hungry young men. Silicon Valley have a history of over 100 years in entrepreneurialism. It spanned companies like Hewlett Packard, Cisco and Google just to name a few. Entrepreneurialism is a philosophy built into the DNA of all Stanford grads. It is a culture, like how I was infused in the LaSallian culture during my time in SFI, always keeping ‘Age Quod Agis’ in mind. Whatever you do, be the best that you can ever be.

Yet, here, we do not need fancy infrastructure or high tech devices to be entrepreneurial. Who says that we have to all be tech entrepreneurs? Sure, that is the direction the world is heading now. But, we have to play to our strengths of being here in the Waikato. As the world population looks to double in the next 10 years, food entrepreneurs are crucial. Doesn’t sound that fancy? Well you can always change the title. We here in the Waikato are meeting a need that always has demand for, aside for water of course, blue gold.

As youth, we already have that entrepreneurial attitude built into us. We are between the kid and the adult stage, so take advantage of it and make the best from both worlds. Remember, we have not absorbed that much of conventional knowledge so yet to become ‘uncreative’. On the other hand, we as youth still have that ‘child mind creativity’ in which we are not afraid to try new things, we take risk and pretend we don’t know about them. Broaden your horizons, try not to say no to anything; and if you do have to say no, make sure you have a very very good reason to justify it, like death. Otherwise, go for it and take every single opportunity that comes your way.

Have the assumption that the world is a wonderful place, and strive to add value to it. Back to Stanford, people there, as I said are young and hungry and always want to win over their peers, even in friendly games. Who’s not addicted to winning? Let that drive your competitive spirit. And it is that competitive spirit, of ever growing Stanford startups that attracts the VCs and angels. From, guess where? New York City! (Corporate kings are not that smart). And what attracted them, the entrepreneurial culture displayed by the youth of Stanford.

You don’t have to think far to be creative, in fact it’s in all of us since young. We just happen to lose it as we get piled with more and more ‘expert’s advice’. To be creative, take something original and try to tweak it a bit so that it looks different from what other people see it. And they’ll go, WOAHH!!! You’re brilliant! When in fact you’re simply changing their perception of that very same object.

To start that entrepreneurial revolution right here in Waikato, it needs just one small spark from someone influential. Then expect it to spread like a wildfire of ideas and ventures trying to outdo each other. Julian (fictional) is an influential chap, who has his circle of followers, everyone likes him and people respect him. One day, he starts the idea of having smart bins around campus. These bins automatically sort it out based on the trash’s chemical composition. It has proven a hit! Other people see that he’s successful, and want to outdo him and create something even better. This cycle goes on and on, each trying to outdo each other on sheer competitiveness. Do you think ‘older’ people would do this? They’ll probably get tired after a few rounds. They might not even try it because they fear that it may fail. This is a different scenario altogether for us.

We, youth, leaders of today (not tomorrow) shall lead the change in innovation and entrepreneurship.


All Rights Reserved ©
Andre Teow
26 Sept 2011

AT live new logo

On my mind right now, exams in less than a month time, semester ending pretty soon. Joined SIFE (will explain in detail in next post). Gaining event management experience

Logo for this blog, and also my future company(hope to be on par with Richard Branson's virgin on day. About this logo:
1. Designed using CorelDraw X4.

2. Started of as a vector graphic, vector allows my to maintain the details in the picture when enlarging, eg) picture won't be blur if enlarged.

3. Reedited the vector on CorelPhoto-Paint x4.
I wanted to give it a nice chrome metallic shade, went to 3D effects, chose the cylinder option, this was to add a perception of a rounded 'AT'. 'AT' was done by simple brush strokes by the way.

4. Next, I transferred it to photoshop cs4 where I filter and 'AT' layer, blurred the image a bit so the colours whould kinda mix together. Finished of by adjusting the hue and saturation and then added a drop shadow just for the effect.

5. Tranfererd back to CorelDraw where I add in the word'live'. I wanted a tough but professional font at the same time, so it was quite a hard choice, but at last settled for Eras Bold. If you know sites where i could download fonts. I need it!

6. next, I added a line below the two words. Try to position them like they're on a orbit, used default setting.

7. The words in blue are interchangeble, will think of somrthinhg else later. use my favourite font, Tekton Pro.

The logo is a simple one, pretty amateurish. For now the background is white, if you have suggestions for the background, tell me. I'll incoporate them into my future designs.

Some really true situations..

The eight rules of Dean Carney

The eight rules of Dean Carney, from the book Ugly Americans, The true story of the Ivy League Cowboys who raided the Asian markets for millions. The book is a light read, and by no mean true — it’s highly fictionalized, but fun to read.

1. Never get into something you can’t get out by the closing bell. Every trade you make, you’re looking for the exit point. Always keep your eye on the exit point.

2. Don’t ever take anything at face value. Because face value is the biggest lie of any market. Nothing is ever priced at its true worth. The key is to figure out the real, intrinsic value — and get it for much, much less.

3. On minute, you have your feet on the ground and you’re moving forward. The next minute, the ground is gone and you’re falling. The key is to never land. Keep it in the air as long as you fucking can.

4. You walk into a room with a grenade, and your best-case scenario is walking back out still holding that grenade. Your worst-case scenario is that the grenade explodes, blowing you into little bloody pieces. The moral of the story: don’t make bets with no upside.

5. Don’t overthink. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck — it’s a duck.

6. Fear is the greatest motivator. Motivation is what it takes to find profit.

7. The first place to look for a solution is within the problem itself.

8. The ends justify the means, but there’s only one end that really matters. Ending up on a beach with a bottle of champagne.

Turning point in life

Just to update you guys a bit, I just started university last week, 1/3/10. A little prologue would be more appropriate, right?

Continuing where I left off... And so I attended Hamilton Boys’ High. The environment was different from what I used to experience. Class started at about 9am and ended at about 3 with 90 minutes of lunchtime and 30 minutes of morning tea every day. A period is an hour and I have about 4-5 periods a day. We switched classes every period so it’s kinda like a permanent floating class. Students are allowed to bring cellphones, iPods, PSP’s, etc..... as long as they don’t disturb the peace of the class.

There, I did English, statistics, physics, chemistry and economics. Most of the subjects are okay except for English and economics as I was a total virgin to it. English, because of the heavy Shakespearean language and the ultra boring novel which we have to study, ‘Atonement’. We, in year 13started the term with a leadership camp at Ngaruawahia (you can check Google earth for that!) The camp was good, learned lots of brand new stuff there. One thing that I remembered was the food. One of the best camp foods ever! Completely opposite from the usual scout cooking back home.

Coming back from the camp, I had the chance of seeing a new school year powhiri (pronounced as poferhti). It’s a formal welcome for new students at the school, the year 13’s did the haka or the traditional Maori warrior cry. You know those cheers that were done before any rugby game by the all blacks, yeah, that sorta thing. Very energetic and soulful bunch I would say. Another thing about Hamilton Boys’ high is that they are just sports-crazy. One of the top in NZ for touch rugby, rugby, cricket, football, basketball, badminton, and the list goes on. This school is basically an elite sports school. A new gymnasium has just been built, state of the art facility. The school also has the most comprehensive sports organisation I’ve seen. Nearly every teacher is in charge of a sports club, you’ve got from archery to equestrian (horse riding) right down to mountain biking and rowing. Not to mention the 4 tennis courts, 6 basketball cum badminton cum volleyball courts, two large fields front and back at could easily fit a 2 football fields, a rugby oval, softball and cricket greens.

The academic part was just as impressive as the sporting half. Too long to list, And that includes top in the world for Cambridge IGCSE ! The teachers there were fantastic, you talk to them as they were your friend, no personal barrier in between. I guess this was why the education system back home was lagging behind.

A month at Hamilton Boys’ High, I’ve met up with some pretty cool friends. But in week 4, I’ve receive a letter saying that I was accepted for university. This was when a hard decision came in, whether to continue and finish my high school here OR advance myself to the adult world. This was really the hardest decision I would have to make. I understand that I consider myself extremely lucky to be enrolled at HBHS, many people would jump at the chance for it, and I just let it hang by a thread. The pros and cons are there. If I stayed at school, I might be able to earn myself a scholarship, enjoy my very last year as a boy, attend the school combine social at the end of the year, and graduate from a NZ high school. And if I choose to accept my place at university, I would be able to graduate earlier, start work earlier and make my living a year earlier as well. And all those come at the cost of forfeiting my final year at high school, final chance to be a boy.

After carefully weighing the decision for about a week, I’ve decided to go to university. The few reasons are: getting a scholarship would be tough; my year is full of smart asses. Secondly, I felt that I really and only am a Franciscan and a La Sallian. Thirdly, my goal is to make a difference for the society, improving mankind’s quality of life. And I would be able to achieve this faster by starting earlier.

To Mrs Hassall, Mr Hughes, Mr Nixon and especially Mr Robinson, I am indeed indebted to you for my time at HBHS if you’re reading this. Although my time there was a short one, I will still carry what I’ve learned in my future undertakings. ‘Sapiens Fortunam Fingit Sibi’. My warmest gratitude to all the other teaching staff and friends I've made there.

Next Post: The transition