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Sunday Buzz: Size Matters (by Denny K Miu)

I recently came back from a seven-week trip to Asia, visiting Japan, Hong Kong and China. I always make a point of taking inventory of the electronic gadgets that I packed when I travelled. It is a nostalgic measure of how technology has evolved, constantly improving my personal and professional life over the years.

This time I carried an iPhone 5, an iPhone 4, a Kindle, a Nexus 7 and a Macbook Air.

Throughout the entire trip, my iPhone 5 was my camera-of-choice and my "Star Trek" communicator (whenever I had Internet connection). With Photo Stream and iMessage, I was able to stay in constant contact and share real time experience with my family at home (who are almost all Apple users).

Sunday Buzz: Think Indifferent (by Denny K Miu)

It wasn't that long ago, about fifteen years, after Steve Jobs had triumphantly returned, that Apple was still a dying company. Only less than 3% of the personal computers sold annually were made by Apple. Michael Dell famously said that if it were up to him, he would simply “shut the company down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

But yet, as true then as it is now, Apple had devoted followers, especially among the self-appointed elites who were willing and could afford to pay the premium, otherwise known as the "Apple Tax." It was something that the rest of us who hadn't drunk the kool-aid would never understand.

Back in the mid-90's, I was struggling with my first startup and I had to constantly visit venture capitalists for possible investment. One day I was in a VC's office and I noticed that he had an expensive Apple portable computer, a PowerBook, sitting inside a cradle on his desk and connecting to an even more expensive large monitor. To start conversation, I asked him why he would use an Apple computer as opposed to Windows alternatives which were cheaper, faster and had more available software.

Sunday Buzz: Don't Cross the Desert with A Horse that Has No Name (by Denny K Miu)

If you enjoy the TV series Breaking Bad and you are a struggling entrepreneur, then you probably would also identify with the main character, Walter White.

After all, like many of us, Walter was a highly educated, brilliant scientist under-employed, under-utilized and under-appreciated in a suffocating institutional environment who decided to strike out on his own in order to better provide for his family.

He took risk and the initiative to cut out the middleman (i.e., dis-intermediate) in order to extract equitable monetary gains from his technical knowledge by delivering something of values directly to the marketplace. Along the way, he had to learn survival skills that he didn't have and collaborate with people whom he wouldn't normally admire. In the end, like his fellow entrepreneurs, he achieved his ultimate objective which was to be in total control of his own destiny.

In this opening scene of Season Three, Walter was driving across the New Mexico desert with his beat-up Pontiac and playing on the radio was his (and my) favorite road-trip song.

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name,
It felt good to be out of the rain.
In the desert you can remember your name,
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain.

Sunday Buzz: When All Else Fails ... Stutter (by Denny K Miu)

“If customers like you they’ll listen to you. If customers trust you they’ll do business with you.”

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Everyone makes fun of the idiots who travel aboard and encounter natives who do not speak English, they then over-compensate by speaking slow as if that would make a difference.

Entrepreneurs do the same. But instead of slower, we speak faster hoping that if we could just throw in more bigger words quicker, we would eventually enlighten a path bright enough for our customers to discover better understanding.

--

Contrary to popular belief among entrepreneurs, building a business is not only about building product. Building a business is about building relationship. And meaningful relationships are built by listening and not just talking.

If you want your customers to like you, start by listening.

Sunday Buzz: Lesson from the Candidate (by Denny K Miu)

There are many lessons in life. The ones I treasure the most are the ones I learned outside of school. Among them, the hardest lessons were the ones I learned while making the strenuous transition from a scholar to a salesman.

Since last Tuesday, many political scholars are attempting to learn from the election. And I am no different. But as I learn, I am also reminded of the following lesson which I have learned along my journey as a struggling entrepreneur.

Customers care a great deal about post-sale support

My last company was a partnership which meant every early employee was also an owner. There was no one single decider. I used to joke that as the CEO, I could buy as much toilet papers as I wanted as long as I didn't change the color. Because doing so would require a board meeting. So I intentionally spend much of my free time away from the office. I immersed myself in sales, taking care of many major accounts personally.

Sunday Buzz: Binders Full of Opportunities (by Denny K Miu)

When a politician asked a stupid question or gave a stupid answer, we could easily excuse their behavior for being intellectually-challenged or politically motivated. But it is difficult to ignore when an otherwise respected journalist asked a less-than-well-informed question during a national forum.

During last week's presidential debate, CNN’s Candy Crowley asked a seemingly legitimate question which was that why couldn’t iPhones and iPads be manufactured in the United States? This was essentially the same question that Obama himself reportedly had asked the late Apple CEO during a private dinner with a group of tech executives.

The underlying concern is that for the last thirty years, America has been outsourcing manufacturing jobs to Asia (first Singapore, then Malaysia and Thailand, and now China). So what can we do to bring the jobs back as if bringing them back is the key to secure our middle class prosperity.

First of all, we can't bring back what is not ours. America was never a major manufacturer for personal electronics. Following the footsteps of plastic toys, the first wave of electronics outsourcing started in 1983 when Seagate (formerly Shugart Technology) moved their hard drive assembly lines from Scotts Valley to Singapore.

Sunday Buzz: Our One-Eyed Idiot (by Denny K Miu)

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is the idiot.

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Are we better off now than we were four years ago? There are no shortage of experts who would argue one way or the other.

But how about this?

Are we better off now than we were forty years ago? That depends on whom you ask.

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Forty years ago, my family had just immigrated to the United States. We settled in San Francisco. After living with my aunt and her family for a few weeks, who was our sponsor for immigration, we moved into our two bedroom apartment on 19th Avenue, which was considered "inner" Richmond, a neighborhood resided by Chinese immigrants not far from Chinatown. After a few years, my parents saved enough money for a down payment and they bought a modest house on 46th Avenue in the "outer" Richmond district.

This was a risky move because very few Chinese dared to live that far outside of Chinatown. In fact, I remembered the day after we moved in, I walked out of our house to go to school, my new neighbor yelled at me and said, "Why don't you go back to where you came from?"

I was naive and I remembered thinking to myself: why was he so upset and why did he want us to move back to 19th Avenue?

Sunday Buzz: Isaac Newton Explains Sh*t Happens (by Denny K Miu)

Issac Newton was born in 1642, the same year Galileo died, and has been recognized as the greatest and most influential scientist ever lived.

Newton co-invented differential and integral calculus, explained how white light could be diffracted into rainbow, designed the first reflecting telescope (which is still being used today including the Hubble Space Telescope), postulated universal gravitational pull which governs planetary motion and intercontinental missile projectile and most famously, formulated the laws of motion which most high school graduates have at least heard of.

In a way, the three Newton's laws can be combined into one ...

F = d/dt (mv)

which basically says that the time rate of change of momentum experienced by a particle is in accordance with the net sum of the external applied forces.

In other words, a particle will remain in equilibrium, i.e., no change in momentum (either stationary or moving in constant velocity), if there is no discrepancy in applied force.

Believe it or not, this is the key to understanding of human behavior and how sh*t happens around us, as concurred by Buddha and Mao Zedong.

Sunday Buzz: Eat Dessert First (by Denny K Miu)

A good friend of mine always had on his desk a small wooden plaque with the carvings, "Time is Uncertain: East Dessert First."

The last few years had been tough for all of us, especially for the retiring baby boomers, which are the seventy-six million American children born between 1945 and 1964. Since the downturn in 2007, those who are old enough to start retiring have seen their nest eggs shrink by at least 15% if not 50%. Those who still have a few years before retirement, like many of my friends, might even have lost their jobs.

As a distinct generation, born after World War II, we boomers tend to think of ourselves as special, very different from our parents and grandparents. The boomers are blessed with opportunities, as many of us grew up in a time of significant government investments in infrastructure, housing and education. As a group, we are the wealthiest, most active and most physically fit generation and the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time.

I believe the boomers will continue to shape our future. I believe many of us will start to show defiance, that in spite of persistent uncertainties all around us, we are determined to enjoy our desserts. In fact, with eight baby boomers retiring every minute for the next twenty five years, the boomers will be the most important generation ever for anyone interested in selling products and making money.

Sunday Buzz: Time to Undo the Damage (by Denny K Miu)

After graduating from high school, I attended a community college before transferring to a four-year university. Unfortunately when I did, I did it in mid-year which really screwed up my schedule because I had missed most sequences that started in the fall.

I scanned through the class catalog hoping to find sessions that I could join which required no prerequisites. I found one and It was the Introduction to Continuum Mechanics. I went to my advisor who quickly told me that it was a bad idea. He explained that this was a very controversial course which attempted to unify existing mathematical theories on solid and fluid mechanics, and it would be best if I took it after I had some basic studies.

I pleaded with him that there were no other courses available and if I didn't take it, I would lose my status as a full-time student and therefore my financial aids. He relented but asked that I at least met with the instructor.

I remembered that day as it was yesterday.

I found the professor's office. I knocked on the door. The door open and stood there was an old gentleman half of my size. He invited me in to sit across his desk. I explained to him that I was a transfer student. I had not taken any upper division courses and was concerned that I might not be well enough prepared.

He immediately got excited. He jumped up. His nose was inches away from mine and he said, "Good. The less you know, the less I have to undo the damage."