Singapore Entrepreneurs

From our resident contributor, Justin Lee, “I’ve always believed that inspiration is an essential ingredient to the success of any entrepreneur. For young entrepreneurs, it is even more important to be able to see fellow young people succeeding so I’m beginning an interview series to bring you stories about young entrepreneurs finding their way around in this big world. I begin with an interview of David Liu, 20 year old founder of FAQQLY.com.” You can read a previous review of FAQQLY here.

Justin: Can you tell me more about yourself? What did you do before founding FAQQLY?

Dave: I founded FAQQLY while an undergraduate at UCLA. I was studying Mass Communication, and more specifically, Internet communication and communities. Since I was 8, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. It was when I was visiting relatives in Taiwan with my family that I received this revelation. During the trip, we stopped by my aunt’s sporting goods store. She had a little store in a very busy shopping mall in Taipei. I’m not sure what it was, but I was so attracted to the idea of owning and managing my own business that my life changed its course immediately… my first “company” was a candy shop on my elementary school playground. I purchased candy at bulk prices and charged a premium to the kids on the playground. Needless to say, a lot of my little classmates had candy for lunch that year, and I was quadrupling (or more) my allowance every week. Later on, at 13, I founded a web consulting and development firm called Shrezzi Design Group. And then at 16, re-founded the company under the name Ink21 Design Studios. We helped local businesses, individuals, non-profits, churches, and Silicon Valley startups develop effective web presences. And it was also then that we were covered by several SF Bay Area newspapers and some magazines such as the online version of Entrepreneur. Some of them are posted: http://www.daveliu.org
Over the past four years at UCLA, I’ve been very involved with churches, student organizations, internships, and different consulting projects. For instance, during my first year in college I had the opportunity to consult several more well known Asian-American actors on their websites (Parry Shen of MTV Films’ “Better Luck Tomorrow” and Keiko Agena of WB Gilmore Girls). And right before FAQQLY, I founded a campus church with a few other friends. I’ve always been a very active, entrepreneurial guy. My closest friends tell me I’m a hardcore workaholic and that I have a tendency to isolate myself in my work. So at the time, I’m trying to find a good balance between pursuing my passion (building authentic community online), and actually having authentic community offline. It’s kind of ironic, I know :)

Can you tell me more about this concept of social networking around questions and answers? I think social networking has always been missing something. It’s felt detached from the real world. It’s a static profile that you update every now and then. It really took off with Friendster, but died down because in the end, it was just a static profile. MySpace provided extreme customization which led to a bunch of young people obsessively updating their still static profiles. Social networking around questions and answers, and with the personal FAQ in particular, is a lot closer to real life conversation and community. What’s the first thing we do when we meet someone in real life? Well, if we’re new to each other, we probably strike up a conversation. Eventually, this initial conversation is more like an interview. Where are you from? What’s your major? What do you do? Are you married? Are you single? What do you feel like eating? Etc. The Myspace or Friendster or any community profile method is more like meeting someone for the first time and delivering a 15 minute speech about yourself. And possibly afterward, listening to their 15 minute speech about themselves. Social networking profiles are usually a lot more like self-broadcasting. To me, this isn’t authentic community. To me, this is actually one of the contributing factors to the stigma of online communities as a place for inauthentic interactions. But online community is a good thing in it of itself. I’m passionate about social networking around questions and answers because I think it improves online conversation and communication. Q&A helps people look beyond themselves and to others, and it also keeps profiles relevant. In the end, people still do broadcast about themselves, but more naturally and on the demand of their friends and visitors.

How did you come up with an idea like this? I designed Parry Shen’s early website back in my college freshman days. Parry Shen is the main actor in MTV Films’ Better Luck Tomorrow, and he is also on FAQQLY (www.faqqly.com/parryshen). Parry had a very extensive FAQ page. I remember putting it together, thinking to myself “hey, I want my own FAQ” and then “hey, what if everyone had FAQs”. The result of those “heys” is FAQQLY. I think our inadvertent “hey’s” should never be dismissed. Usually an inadvertent “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if they had…” or “hey, I wish this would be easier or better, etc” means an opportunity to improve the way something is done. If you find yourself wishing you could have this or do that, or even just thinking “wouldn’t it be cool if…”, then quick, grab a pen and paper and start jotting down your ideas. Maybe 90% of the time it’s been done or it’s actually a terrible idea. But every now and then someone spots a real need that people have and thinks up a way to serve that need.

What’s the pressing need behind why a user should use FAQQLY? Reason #1 FAQQLY makes life easier. People are already “doing FAQQLY” in their everyday lives. When we think of what goes on in an everyday community, we can think of several things: 1) getting to know each other (e.g. the first date is essentially an interview process of Q&A) 2) helping each other out (e.g. I need help promoting FAQQLY to Singapore.) 3) sharing with one another (e.g. I want to borrow my friend’s DVD or book) FAQQLY makes daily life processes simple and fun over the web. FAQ feature 1) It is much easier to ask more questions to more people over FAQQLY. Likewise, it is much easier to answer more questions from more people over FAQQLY. Helps feature 2) It is much easier to leverage your social network for help, either for favors, advices and suggestions, or knowledge about a subject over FAQQLY. Your friends solve your problems together as when you request for Helps on FAQQLY. Shares feature 3) It is easier and more organized to borrow and lend over FAQQLY because a) people take the initiative to post their list of borrowable items for their friends, and b) FAQQLY keeps track of what you borrow and lend out so that it’s harder to forget to return items (for instance, I still have my friend’s Fight Club DVD. I borrowed it from her in high school. I kept on forgetting to return it, and eventually I lost it. Oops. Not on FAQQLY.).

Reason #2 FAQQLY sparks opportunities for friends and acquaintances to hang out in real life How so? For one, the focus is less on self-promotion, and more on getting to know one another. I go out to learn more about you, you go out to learn more about me, and this potentially results in more personal content than if we both had to sit there and start writing about ourselves. There is never an end to questions. But what I really like about FAQQLY is its ability to get people offline and into real, face-to-face community as well. For instance, I ask for Helps saying “Can someone give me a ride to my job interview on Wednesday afternoon?” My friend offers to pick me up over FAQQLY. Well, this is awesome! But what is more awesome is that my friend is actually going to pick me up in person and along the way we’ll have a conversation, and I’ll remember how he helped me out (social capital was built), etc. The result of FAQQLY is real life community in this instance. Think about the Shares feature in the same way. I ask my friend if I can borrow his DVD. He says sure, where do you want to meet up for it? We’re meeting up to make the hand off. And hey, maybe we’ll even watch the DVD together and invite some friends to join us. This is where authentic community happens, in everyday, real life.

Reason #3 It’s fun. It’s useful. FAQ I like to think of it as an interview with all of your friends as your interviewers. It’s fun to be interviewed, and it’s fun interviewing others. Helps I have a friend who found her ride to her job interview off of Helps. She found her ride from an acquaintance who had nothing to do that day. I’m sure they got to know each other better on the car ride. I was really happy to hear about this. Shares I think it is awesome to never have to pay another rental fee at the video store. Imagine having 200 friends sharing an average of let’s say just 10 items per person. That’s 2,000 items at your fingertips to browse through and borrow. You might discover common or diverse tastes, or you might think “well, this friend and I have similar tastes, what else does she like? maybe she has something that I want.” Etc. There is more planned. We want to “upload” and adapt everyday life processes to FAQQLY

How do you see FAQQLY different from Google Answers or Yahoo Answers? Google Answers is more about expert help. They hire a few hundred consultants or experts to answer your questions. The type of information asked for and provided tend to be technical or research questions. The quality of information is certainly higher, but you literally pay for it. Yahoo Answers is very interesting. They’ve picked up quite a bit of activity lately, and have caught the attention of the press. I heard they just hit 10 million questions and answers. I’ve been following them more closely these days as it seems that Yahoo putting more attention and resources on it. How is FAQQLY different? Yahoo and Google Answers are both about information, not about people. Their communities are formed around information. Our communities are formed around friendships. Most of the information exchanged over FAQQLY is personal information, or conversation. Pete Cashmore at Mashable! calls us a Myspace meets Yahoo Answers. I think this analogy is right on.

What were your considerations before starting this? Especially since you’re still in school? At first I thought I would be able to throw this thing together, no problem. (I was a lot more naive then.) So when I first founded FAQQLY, I had no idea that within the next year or so I would temporarily drop out of school to work full-time on it. There weren’t many considerations. Costs of a web startup are low. My dad threw in a few thousand dollars to help get us started. And I had a significant amount of web and team management experience from past entrepreneurial ventures, consulting projects, and internships. It took me a while to find the right mix of teammates, and off we went. I decided to take a quarter off this past quarter of school to work full-time. A global tech company called VIA Technologies, Inc. found us and we partnered up to work on an educational portal for one of their special community projects in Asia. So even before the end of the year, I packed my bags and went from Los Angeles to Fremont (SF Bay Area) to work full time at VIA’s US offices. It was difficult leaving my girlfriend and friends behind, but I felt that this was the opportunity of a lifetime and I had to pursue it with everything I had. For the record, my girlfriend and friends have been amazingly supportive (for the most part). However, my girlfriend now developed an aversion towards my Sprint PPC-6700. It’s an HTC SmartPhone that I use for phone calls and web and e-mail, mostly for business. I think I would be lost without my faith, girlfriend, friends…. and PPC-6700.

How did you bring together your team, could you tell me more about the challenges you faced? Did you face obstacles because you were young? I brought together the team through A LOT of networking and interviewing. It was very hard to find the right mix of people I felt comfortable working with. At times I just wanted to “satisfice” and work with what I had. But I am glad I toughed it out and waited (i.e. actively searched) for the right partners and teammates that I could work best with, and that I knew gave FAQQLY the best shot at success. Challenges? It was difficult because there were at times personality and vision conflicts. And making it more difficult, sometimes friends were involved. It’s also incredibly hard to find students to staff your startup team who share the same level of commitment and drive for your startup. Students are hard to secure. For instance, they have a relationship problem with their girlfriend. Or maybe they are going through midterms, finals, etc. We’re young. Our peers and even ourselves, we may be more prone to these ups and downs. And you know what we don’t have to anchor us down (at least most of us in college)? We don’t carry the ultimate responsibility to pay the bills, feed ourselves and our families. When you hire a guy that needs the salary to pay the bills and support the family, you’ll get a dedicated guy! Even if you pay students, I think you will never find the level of commitment that you can find in someone that depends on your company to survive. Long story short, finding the right people can be incredibly tough. If by chance you do find the right people, be good to them and hang on to them for dear life! I think being young can be good. The right people might just have a heart to help you out because you’re young and ambitious (again, make sure you believe in what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and then others will also). I also think that if you are considering a low-cost venture, then do it. Right now I don’t have a family to support. And actually, my family is supporting me still. What do I have to lose? If I wait any further, am I really going to get around to starting up? Realistically, probably not. The longer you put it off, generally, the more responsibilities and obligations you’ll have to your current job or to your future family or etc. If right now the only thing stopping you is you, then you are in a good place (in the time line of life) to startup. It is impossible to find the perfect team.

Continuing with David Liu’s tips for young entrepreneurs….

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