Category: Episodes

Where the Grass is Always Green

When I was eleven, my family moved to the United States, due to my father’s job working for the Korean government. I still remember my first ride from JFK to some urban parts of the New York city. Still a bit jet lagged, I was struck in awe looking at the graffitis on the streets of NYC. I’ve only seen graffitis from the movies and the sheer unfamiliarity of the view somehow got me scared and excited ambivalently.

Taking a bite of freshly baked extra cheese pizza was a pleasant surprise to my taste and grabbing the oval-shaped ‘football’ for the first time got me all confused.

Continue reading “Where the Grass is Always Green”

Techstars at the Speakers’ Corner in London.

This is a memorable experience.

Before the Techstars Demoday of 2014

When you watch the World Cup, you notice the stark difference between the football players who’ve played on the European leagues and those who haven’t.

The sheer amount of experience you learn competing against the top players, being part of a great team is something that is unparalleled, and this is exactly what will push you forward light years ahead of your pack.

For me, Techstars felt like that experience I needed as an entrepreneur. Even though I had the fortune of selling my previous startup, this program feels like the place where you can really learn how to present yourself, how to crystalize your thoughts, how to deliver your execution, and bring out the best in yourself.

Without doubt, I would recommend the program to any aspiring entrepreneurs to take part in this wonderful journey.

Techstars London: Founder Diaries

Month 1: Enough drama & love for a soap opera.

Great post by Mick @ Spatch on the experience at Techstars’ 1st month.

If you are interested in startup accelerators, go check it out.

Techstars London: Founder Diaries

Techstars S14 – wrapping up Week 4

Time flies. As Jon Bradford (MD, Techstars) puts it, “It feels like you’ve been here forever, yet at the same time, time goes by so quickly.”

Last night, we had a round table (without the table), each going in circles sharing what was the one best thing that you’ve learned in the first month through Techstars. That moment, we all felt that camaraderie, a sense of belonging and kinship as fellow entrepreneurs, and as a fellow Techstars batch.

Continue reading “Techstars S14 – wrapping up Week 4”

Mentor Week 1 at Techstars

image

We were meeting 6~8 people on a daily basis starting Monday til Friday, total of 36 mentors for Smile Family. The meetings usually takes place from 9am ~ 1pm with few short breaks in the middle, so basically most of them ends up to be back-to-back meetings.

Mentors are groups of successful entrepreneurs, angel investors, VCs, executives, or industry experts, so you get wide range of perspective into your business in a short period of time. 

You get to play with your pitch, edit it here and there, literally doing A/B testing and optimizing in a short period of time to see which sticks, which works to whom and doesn’t and so forth.

So in the end, you get tons of feedback, tons of contradicting views and mix of emotions – ‘mentor whiplash’ – which you have to distill and prioritize.

Fun week.

%d bloggers like this: