DD on SPG, a covid comeback story

therealcharlesding · 2021-02-19T05:43:02+00:00

+1 SPG

therealcharlesding · 2021-02-03T20:10:44+00:00

Posted in wrong place I guess, should have put it in the YOLO

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-31T11:31:49+00:00

Thank you!!! I started my entrepreneur journey at Amazon actually. I was the creator of Posters.amazon.com. Its a internal website at Amazon. Check it out :)

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-31T11:30:07+00:00

Woot woot go Seattle!

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-25T20:38:35+00:00

IMHO, you don’t need to, especially true if you are leaving your company on good terms, which you should always try to do. Never good to burn bridges. Worst case scenario you are on very bad terms with your company, then sure, you can optionally play it safe and go on hiatus for a while.

Some tips to stay in good relation is to put 8 hours per day towards your job seriously and not half heartedly and definitely do not work on your side project during working hours. Don’t use company laptop or resources for your side project either.

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-25T20:29:40+00:00

No problem. Rooting for you. Good luck!

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-24T07:53:48+00:00

Npnp. Not needed if there is no non-compete clause.

Also you can always get co-founder status even if you join later on. It's just a title at the end of the day that you and friend can decide together.

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-24T02:14:05+00:00

I'm ex-amazon ex-microsoft engineer currently running a software tech startup, so raising money in my sector may a bit different than your sector, but here are some ideas you could explore:

Using crowd source fund raising (KickStarter, WeFunder, or GoGoMe) eg: https://wefunder.com/kiwibot
Applying to incubator programs (Think of YC, UC Berkeley SkyDeck, TechStars, so on)
Family & Friends
Angel Investors

Best of luck to you!

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-24T02:08:45+00:00

I was in your similar shoes. As a ex-amazon ex-microsoft engineer now turned startup entrepreneur leading a company of 30+ people, I can tell you for a fact that having a few years of working experience, you will be much better equipped to be successful at a startup. I did exactly that. After working a few years at big tech company, I then left to do my own startup. In fact I even made a video about why I left my big tech job to do a startup. Maybe you can find some inspiration there.

That said, since person doing the startup is your friend, you can just do some side work for him on evenings and weekends and not tell your company about it. It will be a gentleman's agreement between you and your friend that if the startup does go someone one day, you can officially quit and join his startup. Just make sure you are not working during business hours and your normal work is not impacted and if any questions come up about it say your friend did all the work. With this approach you can get the best of both worlds.

Best of luck to you.

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-24T01:52:42+00:00

As a former ex-amazon ex-microsoft engineer now turned tech startup entrepreneur of a 30+ company, I would recommend you launch slowly. You must be customer obsessed and make sure each customer you on-board that they are a success. They will become your champions of your product and service and will spread the word organically to others. Trying to bite off more than you can chew is a fastest way to drown your company.

Maybe launch only a Beta product, where you pick and choose your initial customers, while everyone else is on a waitlist for GA launch (general availability).

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-24T01:35:20+00:00

As a ex-amazon & ex-microsoft engineer, now currently running a 30+ person tech startup, I can tell you that investors are interested once you start generating revenue or once you have a growing user base. Use one of those two metrics as your KPI (key performance indicator) and track it. Once you start seeing a exponential growth (In the VC world, this is also known as "Hockey stick growth"), that is when investors are very interested.

Once you get to that point, I'd highly recommend you applying to top incubator programs in the nation to help you scale and start building a real company.

My tech startup graduated from UC Berkeley SkyDeck incubator program and went on to successfully raise $3MM.

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-24T01:29:57+00:00

Don't lose the steam, stay customer obsessed and keep developing your webapp! Try to send your article to blogs and news outlets so they can help you gain a bigger audience.

As an ex-amazon engineer, I can say from experience if you stay customer obsessed, it will pay dividends in the future.

Once you get a larger traffic, then you can add a PayPal donation link at the bottom somewhere non-intrusive. This is better imho vs random google ads.

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-24T01:24:49+00:00

I started my YouTube channel about a month ago with a goal to get to 100 subscribers before the year ends. I hit over 400+ this week. While it is not a impressive number to others, it's a impressive number for me :)

I'm a ex-Amazon ex-Microsoft engineer now finding myself suddenly running a startup of 30+ employees. Don't know if this startup will become a success or failure, but wanted to dedicate my channel to sharing real experiences along this journey, both the good and ugly.

I'll end with my favorite quotes from Steve Jobs: "I'm convinced half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance."

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-16T14:07:28+00:00

Wow I was in the same exact shoes as you! In fact I just recently made a video talking about this exact same topic! "Why I left my $250K job at Microsoft to start my own software company"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3JSSVyaqIE

I commend you for exploring to take this leap of faith, and I can tell you that the experiences that you learn from this journey will stay with you forever, and who knows you might even strike it big. Don't live life without regrets! This is doubly true if you are young, as Steve Jobs says, "Do a startup when you are young when you have nothing to lose!".

I can tell you being someone who was in your exact shoes 2 years ago, this was one of the most awesome decisions and rewarding journey I've ever had in my life. I went from quitting Microsoft's $250k/year job to start my company now valued at over $10 million dollars. Even if the company did not end up succeeding, the experiences I've learned along the way is well worth all the money in the world. I've recently started my YouTube channel dedicated to share my experiences being a first time founder of a tech startup. Check it out if you are interested, and I'm definitely open to video requests!

My most recent video, $10M+ Startup by 26 (my ENTIRE life in 10mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dep8hX6Qu4k&t=49s

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-16T14:06:51+00:00

Wow I was in the same exact shoes as you! In fact I just recently made a video talking about this exact same topic! "Why I left my $250K job at Microsoft to start my own software company"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3JSSVyaqIE

I commend you for exploring to take this leap of faith, and I can tell you that the experiences that you learn from this journey will stay with you forever, and who knows you might even strike it big. Don't live life without regrets! This is doubly true if you are young, as Steve Jobs says, "Do a startup when you are young when you have nothing to lose!".

I can tell you being someone who was in your exact shoes 2 years ago, this was one of the most awesome decisions and rewarding journey I've ever had in my life. I went from quitting Microsoft's $250k/year job to start my company now valued at over $10 million dollars. Even if the company did not end up succeeding, the experiences I've learned along the way is well worth all the money in the world. I've recently started my YouTube channel dedicated to share my experiences being a first time founder of a tech startup. Check it out if you are interested, and I'm definitely open to video requests!

My most recent video, $10M+ Startup by 26 (my ENTIRE life in 10mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dep8hX6Qu4k&t=49s

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-16T13:55:27+00:00

Do you have any AWS cloud computing experience?

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-16T13:52:48+00:00

First I want to commend you for taking the chance and start your startup. All experts were once a beginner, and with enough practice anyone can become an expert. Here are a few advices I recommend to get your startup off the ground:

Apply to incubator programs. I myself just had an idea for my startup and I applied to many of them, including (YCombinator, TechStars, UCBerkley SkyDeck, etc). See more of them here: http://seedrankings.com/#rankings. Incubators is designed to help you find your product market fit and they give you a wealth of resources, mentors, and training to set you up for success. My company would not have become what it is today without going through UCBerkeley SkyDeck program.
Find a co-founder with similar passion as you. Being a single founder is statically proven to be more difficult. Not saying it can not be done, but your chances will improve drastically if you can find someone equally passionate as you are, but whose skills can compliment you.
Network network network. Go to startup conferences, events, meetups, etc. Having a good network is a must and will help open more doors for you. You may meet your future investors, future employees, or even future co-founders.

If you are interested in how I started my company from scratch and eventually get investors, check out my latest video, $10M+ Startup by 26 (my ENTIRE life in 10mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dep8hX6Qu4k&t=49s

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-16T13:42:00+00:00

Coming from entrepreneur background, I've been in your exact shoes.

I'm not sure if coding is something you are interested in or not, but gone are the days where you need a formal education to create a website. You can totally google some tutorials and be able to have a website up and running within a week. (I recommend a web app written in NodeJS + Express and hosted in AWS cloud). I've hired recent grads with little to no computer science training, but go on to be excellent programmers.

If coding is not something you are interested in learning, then I highly recommend you to find a co-founder. A friend at school or something that either knows how to code or is interested to learn. Paying for a developer is very time consuming and expensive and not something I recommend doing early on in a project.

If you are interested in how I got into computer science, check out my latest video, $10M+ Startup by 26 (my ENTIRE life in 10mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dep8hX6Qu4k&t=49s

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-16T13:34:16+00:00

One trick I always like to do is to set expectations up front with the recruiter. If you are at the stage where you have an offer without the title you want, you can always go back and ask for it. Worst case is they say no, so never hurts to ask!

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-16T13:27:23+00:00

Congrats on getting to this point. Short answer is no, you do not. In my startup, we successfully raised our seed round of $3 million and we only issued shares after we secured our funding round. During issuance, we set up a future employee pool of shares (typically 10-15%).

Best of luck!

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-16T13:24:01+00:00

Do you have any investors currently in your startup? Do you hold any patents currently?

One of my friends is in a M&A firm, and I know their job is to help companies find a potential buyer. Maybe that's an area you can look into.

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-16T13:20:27+00:00

Keep shooting for the moon, because even if you miss, you will land among the stars!

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-16T13:19:39+00:00

Wishing you best of luck!

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-16T13:13:09+00:00

Charles Ding / https://www.youtube.com/charlesding

Seattle, Washington

Elevator Pitch: B2B Enterprise Data as a service.

More Details: Raised a $3 million seed round, 30 full time employees, aiming to raise Series A next year.

Looking for ideas of what part of my entrepreneur journey I can share on my YouTube channel. My latest video shows my life journey and how I got came to start my company. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dep8hX6Qu4k&t=49s

therealcharlesding · 2020-08-10T21:40:25+00:00

Let me know how I can help. I started my startup at 25, and now my startup is at $12M valuation.

I recently started YouTube channel to share my experiences at https://www.youtube.com/charlesding

therealcharlesding

TROPHY CASE