What I learned working at a non-tech startup

For much of last year, I worked at a four year old startup called O'BON. Their claim to fame is being purveyors of eco-friendly stationery products. Kind to the environment products like pencils made from recycled newspaper and notebooks with paper made from sugarcane waste. I was the jack of all trades for the company; doing a little bit of everything. My main focus was product photography, handling the company's social media, and warehouse logistics. 

Unfortunately, O'BON closed up shop late last year. The main problem that undid the company was a severe lack of product production. People desperately wanted our products, but our production house in China screwed things up in royal fashion, and we just had NOTHING to sell for the longest time. That led to a dry up of capital, and finally, we had to close up shop. 

The following is a list of things I've learned about starting a business while working for O'BON. Not to be taken as gospel; they are just my observations.

1. If you are selling a product, MAKE SURE your production pipeline is supplying you adequately. Not having enough products to sell (or having chronic shortages) will doom your business no matter how much people are clamoring for it.
2. Not having your accounting books in order from the start will just make a big mess of things later. At that point, fixing it would take enormous capital and cause huge headaches.
3. Be consistent with your marketing message/plan. Have a theme and stick with it for a period. Revamping things month after month will only cause the marketing team to do unnecessary work.
4. SALES, SALES, and SALES. That is one thing you should be doing everyday. At a small startup, that goes for the whole team. Marketing is done with their work for the day? Go make phone calls.
5. Don’t underestimate the value of social media, even when you don’t see a tangible return (immediate or otherwise). A brand’s goodwill may not be quantifiable, but is very important in the thought space of the public. Because when shit hits the proverbial fan - watch your social media blow up with negativity (and you thought nobody thought you existed?).
6. Have an understanding of your startup’s financials and cash flows. Otherwise, watch the company hemorrhage cash like no other.
7. Don’t equate having money in the business account as actually having money.
8. If you are a boss in a small startup, NEVER leave earlier than any employee. Absolutely NOTHING gets done after that if you do. You’re the leader, set the example. 
9. China plays by their own rules – work with them cautiously. It does not matter how ironclad your contract is or how many lawyers you have.
10. Understand the point at which your company is no longer feasible (the proverbial writing on the wall), and then exit in a gracefully and quick manner. Dragging it on does a disservice to your employees.
11. Interns are indeed the best way to get quality work done for little to no monetary investment. With so many college students desperate for “work experience”, you’d be stupid to not utilize them.
12. How much you are paying your employees is directly related to the quality of their work (and other ancillary stuff like motivation, initiative, enthusiasm, etc.). It hasn’t got to be astronomical, but you are going to have a problem sooner or later (employee turnover!) if your employees can get a better salary being a barista.
13. Taking people’s money and not delivering the product; plus spending that money and not having enough for refunds is the ultimate sin in doing business.
14. Big box stores (Whole Foods, Target, etc.) are indeed solid revenue steams if you can get them to carry your products, but they will screw you over when it comes to returning items they don’t sell – guaranteed.
15. Under delivering what is promised (or something completely different) might not be a kiss of death, but you’re going to have a really bad time.
16. An employee (or two) that is detail oriented and pays attention (and gets to) the little things is paramount to a small company’s success.
17. Because invariably there will be one employee (or two) that do great things on a macro level, but often leave small details unchecked.
18. Don’t have enough money to pay rent? It’s time to move to a smaller space, put it on credit, or close down the business.  
19. Re-read number one. 

This is where the fun begins

Presented here is my little speech made at the SFSU entrepreneurship class of 2011 graduation celebration on May 20th, 2011. Congrats again to all my classmates!

Thank you Professor. First of all I would like to thank everyone for coming this afternoon and honoring our class with your presence. These past two years have indeed been extremely tough and rewarding at the same time. And to be honest, I’ve always expected to make it to this day. Because for me, once I started this entrepreneurship program, I was absolutely determined to reach the finish line. My only problem was finding the motivation to start. But thankfully I got that shove out of the plane, and here I am!

Of course, a big thanks goes out to Professor Gaglio. To quote my classmate Lee, this class changed my life. I knew you were a person to be reckon with when I saw the 30 page syllabus that was handed out on the first day of the first class. Little did we know, that was the only piece of written instruction for the rest of the semester! Professor, your hands off approach made the learning that much deeper, because we were forced to make mistakes. That being said, the workload of teaching an entire concentration by yourself must have been tremendous, and I truly appreciate what you have done for us. Thank you for giving me a college education that was many, many times over what I paid for tuition.

My parents. Sorry everyone but I am going to do this in Chinese: <Chinese> Mom, dad, thanks for the support throughout the 23 years. I will not throw away all the hope you have place in me. I am up here today because you two. Thank you. </Chinese>

To my close friends that have made it here this afternoon, thanks for supporting me throughout the years. All the chats, debates, ball games, food runs, movie nights, trips, arguments, and other various hijinks we have reminded me that I do have a life outside of entrepreneurship.

Last but last least, my beloved classmates. We did it! We finally achieved the American dream of being a college graduate with a mountain of debt. It has been an honor to go through the entrepreneurship program with you guys. I have high respect for each and everyone of you because we all know that it takes a special person to make it here today. Thank you for the support, the laughs, the learning, and most importantly, the late nights at the library annex. Please keep in touch, because not only are we the strongest network we have, but I also have photography services to sell to all of you. 

I would like to end by saying this to my classmates: its time to jump out of the plane - there is no going back. Because this is where the fun begins.

Thank you.  

D minus eight - random thoughts

Only eight more days until my graduation ceremony. Eight more days until the first day of the rest of my life. Yesterday was the final day where I have something academically due for class. I am a free man - the burden of academia is finally over after 18 long years (oh hello there grad school, not yet please). So you can say I DONE, but I am hesitant to say I am DONE (no tweets, no nothing), because no it has not hit me that I am done yet (the fact that next week is the ACTUAL finals week and I still have work on campus probably contribute to it). Though I guess I am getting to a point where it is hitting me little by litte (I slept REALLY well last night, and waking up without academic obligations was damn nice). 

At least my body is telling me it is over. How nice of it to wait until my final projects were turned in to hit me with a throat infection (actually it started on Tuesday as I was knee deep in trying to complete my last projects - how wonderful). But man today it was the mother load - I slept really well, but woke up feeling more crappy than the previous day. Felt like my throat was on fire. But hey if there is a good time to get sick, now is the perfect time is it not? I guess two straight months of 11 hour work/school days and a full academic workload finally taken its toll on me (no she did not say goodbye). You know what, it is okay, because on the bright side if I was not as healthily living as I was, I would probably be getting more than a throat infection.

Major congratulations to myself and my 25 other classmates for finally finishing the grueling two years of the entrepreneurship program at SF State. The amount of apathy that was in class yesterday was absolutely hilarious. Everybody basically busted tail for the past four days to finish the final three major projects, so everybody was dead tired in class. Whatever the professor was (still!?) teaching during class just completely went over our heads. Can you blame us? We just turned in our last projects - we are DONE. Nothing we could have done yesterday would otherwise prevent us from graduating. Quite frankly I don't know how some of us stayed awake haha. Of course the professor could care less - as far as she is concern the learning never stops (and she would be right).

Anyways I was incredibility disappointed I did not get celebrate with the class for drinks after class ended due to the fact that I had work on campus. But hey I am going to be unemployed in a week so I need all the money I can get right now. Besides the grand celebration is only eight days away haha (cake and champagne!).

It may have been a tough week workload wise, but the Giants winning six in a row certainly help me pull through. I think it is about time the team go a on a run like this, and the fact it is doing it the Giant's way is just incredible (winning by one run, not scoring more than four runs a day, torture torture torture). Now that I am done with the burden of school, time to go to more live games! Not to mention I have yet to see a live game where the Giants have won so my goal is to un-jinx myself really soon (so when is Washington in town?). Anyways, wait until the Panda comes back form his injury (he was raking before he got injured) and the team will only continue to improve and stay atop the NL West as they should. Though I like how everybody is avoiding the Zito situation not that Vogelsong is pitching so well (Bochy practically brush Zito off by saying couple of days ago that he is still three to four weeks day and will need to build arm strength before he can return).

So I wonder what I should I do for finals week. Well I still have internship to go to. I am practically done with my product photography assignments, now I am taking over managing the company media, which is very exciting for me. Managing the blog, flickr, Facebook page, and twitter will give me experience into managing those of my own. Besides I am an introvert, so me making sales calls will hardly be effective (entrepreneurship Professor said hiring an introvert to sales is a royal waste of money and time). I think the web is that perfect wall and filer between myself and others so that I can be more natural (why do you think I blog? lol).

But for sure what I will be doing is purging my room of the clutter that have accumulated over the past couple of months (I know, impossible!). Probably going to junk anything and everything that has to do with college (accept for the stuff that has to do with entrepreneurship, because you know, kind of important). 

The thing I am looking forward to next week though, is watch all the TV shows I have yet to watch do to all the busy. It will be mini marathons after mini marathons. I've always love end of semester TV marathons - there is no TV experience like it.

Oh yeah - SLEEP!