2013 Year in Review

Remember last Christmas in Beijing eating pizza with my soon to be wife Wendy wondering if I (we) would live in Beijing or Shenzhen or Shanghai!

Wow, how fast a year can pass!

That location decision ended up being Shenzhen – mainly because my tech co-founder and other team members were primarily in Hong Kong (and Hong Kong cost of living is too high for a bootstrapping entrepreneur)

2012 was summed up in first 6 months doing Chinese social media consulting, and the next 6 months focusing at China-Axlr8r accelerator for my startup Social Agent

2013 was a year I buckled down. .. matured…focused

100% Focused on Social Agent

Besides a couple Startup Weekends and training seminars, 2013 I have fully dedicated to building a product – Social Agent. And pivoting, and refining the direction to find the product/market fit.

Social Agent = a place where companies can hire sales reps to build leads. Companies use the website to list their job, and agents use the mobile app (finally got an iphone app)

Team Building – both Business and Personal

Team building, as well as refining. I say both business and personal.

In business, I have built up an amazing business relationship and trust with Chris Li, our Social Agent co-founder, CTO. He is such a patient guy – so lucky to have him on the team!

Dan Sont, a rockstar developer, is re-joining our team and heading the mobile app development. He was here earlier and had to get back to Canada but will be back again after the new year!

We’ve also built up a great network of advisors and freelancers who are really committed and may step up more in 2014.

Sadly (or maybe positively) some have come and gone. I’m a bit bummed out, mutually agreed by both parties, my assistant Amy Gu has left the company after working with me for 2 and a half years. But this is also due to pivots in the product and her career goals. We still chat regularly on skype and she’s pursuing other goals in other cities (she also wanted to live in a new city)

In personal, I have been a bit more strict about who I spend my time with. I don’t want to get “stuck up”, but I realize we only have so many hours, day, weeks, months, years in our lifetime – and once they are gone they are gone. So I don’t want to say I have “unfriended” people, but I have just been more conscious and aware of those I spend my time with.

Getting Engaged + Having a Baby on the Way

Enough said here 😉

Full post read: Engagement & Baby on the way

Finally launched a Podcast – Global From Asia

After inspiration from a much needed trip to a Dynamite Circle meetup in Bangkok, I finally just made it happen and launched a podcast, GlobalFromAsia.com . I admittedly say it’s always been 2 reasons (a) I’m shy to hear my own voice, and (b) I’m wondering what exact topic to cover, not wanting to be pigeon-holed into “China” forever. I’m excited about the topic to discuss running an international business from Hong Kong, and have already released 14 episodes with 2 more queued up and 3 more lined up.

100% in China (Asia)

Its also been a full year of not getting back to home in USA. I’ll be heading to USA in Jan 2014 right away so its not that bad.

Spent almost all of my time in China, but also went to:

Hong Kong
Japan
Thailand
Taiwan (well…almost. Wendy had passport visa issue)

Well, I love reflecting – I’m also going to try to get back blogging more. Will post my goals for 2014 in a separate post later this week.