The journey of a Bay Area startup: Cloud and You

Saigon. Hot. Sweaty.

We met up with our Vietnam team and they are going to help us translate the PSD files. Phuong was sick so she had to go to the ER and asked if she can finish it this week. I agreed since she is also pregnant. Congrats to Phuong and Phuoc on their newborn in 6 months or so.

Khoi and Sopheap from Synova had helped us get some postings in Vietnam for a senior Java developer. Turns out that we have one person that is interested in working so that is great. Took some cool pics of Synova office (they work hella hard) and went to Seventeen Saloon where we saw some hot banging ass chicks…on old white men (literally sitting on their laps) lol. I was told they were all prostitutes.

We will have our first meeting this week on Saturday to meet all the new interns. Samantha, who is the designer that will help us, will get to meet Kam and JM. Kevin will also be there. He is our Java intern and will be working with the senior guys I am going to set him up with. 

Finance is a huge issue for any startup, but we do what we can and do what we need. I mean, I quit work already, traveled across the globe to the motherland, learned a lot of new things, but still we need some finance. Probably visit SVB to get a loan or a credit card. Let’s see how deep the rabbit hole can go.

We have two finished PSD pages done! Once the translation can be done I will be going to wire Phuong the cash, have Kevin code the preliminary for now. Khalid will work on the notifications and all that jazz.

I am in my hometown now. Mosquito up the f-ass. Hot. Last day here with my family then tomorrow morning I hit up SGN airport to fly back to the forefather’s land. SGN prices are hella pricey compare to here. Check it out.

1. Coffee in KG - 4,000VND // Coffee in SGN - 26,000VND
2. Pho in KG - 18,000VND // Pho in SGN - 45,000USD
3. Vietnamese sandwich in KG - 15,000VND // Vietnamese sandwich in SGN - 38,000VND
4. All taxi prices are the same. 10,000VND per KM

1USD = 20,000VND. 

Tumblr,

I am finally taking the step to resign from work to focus on our company full time. At this moment, we are getting ready to slice up the images for the Vietnamese to work on. They will translate it to XHTML for Harshad and our new intern to work on. This Saturday Kam and I will have to go to SJSU to interview our new intern which codes in Java.

I have picked up a new methodology called the Kaizen. Kaizen is actually used in Toyota to better their problem solving skills. You might take more or less of what I think and read on it. Thanks to network marketing in the past (I suggest you guys never start…), they had taught me how to utilize the Kaizen methodology.

Kaizen means ‘mini improvements’ or ‘improvements by babysteps’. I truly believe in this because at the pace of us at right now, any improvements is golden. One difference about Kaizen is that it teaches us how to get the product out fast with minimal changes. Until the product is almost out, we can go back and correct on things. Most methodologies will partake a different approach; by completing step one then review, then to step 2. Kaizen does it in a whole so time is not wasted then we will edit upon the completion of the project. Now, it does NOT have to be completed. This method had been for Toyota for 60 years in Japan and currently being used still for their cars.

JM and Monte will be leaving tomorrow night, flying out in the AM the next day. I will work closely next week before Thanksgiving with Khalid to have him finish the design. Taking that design and doing one last revision before taking off to SGN. Kamneel will work closely with Harshad and Kevin to make sure they get the functionalities of the page.

I hear that SGN changed a lot. Will be uploading pictures when I arrive. So far, I have changed the landing pages to LaunchRock and did a little changes here and there to make it simple. 

We are almost finalizing our design and will keep you in touch with whats next!

Feel free to visit us at www.cloudandyou.com and sign up for our beta.

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Today we started off with a cup of java from Big E in South San Jose. That gave us a little bit of jolt. We continue to email other professors from universities (Top 50) around the country to tell them about our idea. So far we haven’t gotten a bite yet from them. 

We also got in touch with our financial advisor who will be on a conference call at 3pm, on Saturday. Hopefully there are good news. We are hoping for the best to kickstart our business if Asif invests in us. 

Another task we did was finding VC to email. We already contacted Andreeson and Horowitz, Accel, Menlo Venture, Redpoint Venture and so on. Haven’t heard back yet, but we have heard back from Vina Capital. They are based out of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Not sure if getting funded by a VC is a good idea (no pun intended for the Viet Cong haha), just kidding. Let’s see how this goes with them. If anything, we will need to travel to Vietnam.

As for the weather, it kind of sucks right now. We are on our desks trying to design and email, but the sound of drops of rain hitting on the ceiling makes us very sleepy and groggy. Besides the weather, we are still strolling along. 

Last night we met up with Cassey at the Wine Affaire in San Jose. Had couple of drinks and went home.