Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Christmas Day is finally here
Merry Christmas to everyone from the URSA Guild guys, we hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and that you were good this year....
Monday, December 24, 2012
The Importance of the X Chromosome
Last night I attended a "white elephant" Christmas gift exchange with a group of friends, it was all jolly and fun, the gift I ended up with was a 5 lb. Tootsie Roll that was HOLLOW with even MORE tootsie rolls inside. I'll probably get sick eating nothing but processed chocolate instead of going to the grocery store.
Anyways, some CHICKS asked me what I was doing at UCLA, I told them CS, machine learning, grad student blah blah, got some semi-interested nodding in response. Then I told them about our little pet project at the URSA GUILD (which still needs a NAME), and gave them my current pitch.
These chicks got all excited and were like "lets punch some holes in this f!@#r's idea", that's an actual quote from the night without the explicit name-calling.
So I asked them what they thought of our borrower trustworthiness problem without telling them about ANY of our ideas, like having virtual currency, collateral, trades, feedback system, mutual friends, etc. And these chicks both instantaneously jumped to the conclusion that we should have a cash deposit system for the borrower, which the lender can refuse to return if the item is damaged. She was like "yahhh, it's like you gotta quantify your risk or whateverrrr"
Jk, she wasn't a valley girl. But seriously, that was brilliant imo. Actually, she proposed a fixed deposit fee as perhaps a percentage of the original item's cost, but I argued that it should be a variable deposit fee set by the lender, because every lender has a different appetite for risk, and places a different value on any given item. What do you guys think? Fixed or variable deposit fee?
Anyways, only after she gave me her brilliant deposit idea did I regurgitate all of our current ideas. "Virtual Currency? Trades? Collateral? Boys are so perfectionist. They live in their little ideal worlds in their heads. Just make them put down money." True, true, cash $$$ is a solid way to reduce risk to an accepted level. And I guess us men are perfectionist, but hey somebody's gotta stay true to the vision to keep our mission pure.
The deposit is just so practical and enforces a sense of security, I think women demonstrate these 2 traits more than men. These chicks also had another great idea, have personalized profiles for each person, where users can do stupid crap like change their background colors and fonts in their descriptions, and add pictures or whatever. Anything that makes users spend more time on the website is a good thing, WOW these chicks are brilliant. Moreover, the personalized profiles tell a person's story, so hey, if I notice you are an eagle scout that's killed 3 bears I'll probably be more willing to lend you my bow and arrow knowing you'll come back alive next week to return it.
Some other good tidbits they gave me were fliers with CANDY, marketing to the frats for undergrad domination (keg stand publicity tours), and most of all, making everything Pretty. Ebay? ewwww so biznessy. Craiglist, are we still in the HTML fossil age? Sure we're gonna make a feedback system, but we're not just gonna represent it with the old school number of stars, no we're gonna gonna make it new and sexy cos some awesome chicks told us so.
They also laughed really hard at my name candidate "lend-a-friend".
I wonder how many chicks the instagram guys had as testers.
Moral of the Story: Get lot's of input on your idea, but ask friends from different places, aka EVERYONE.
 |
| Homemade Tootsie Goodness |
Anyways, some CHICKS asked me what I was doing at UCLA, I told them CS, machine learning, grad student blah blah, got some semi-interested nodding in response. Then I told them about our little pet project at the URSA GUILD (which still needs a NAME), and gave them my current pitch.
These chicks got all excited and were like "lets punch some holes in this f!@#r's idea", that's an actual quote from the night without the explicit name-calling.
So I asked them what they thought of our borrower trustworthiness problem without telling them about ANY of our ideas, like having virtual currency, collateral, trades, feedback system, mutual friends, etc. And these chicks both instantaneously jumped to the conclusion that we should have a cash deposit system for the borrower, which the lender can refuse to return if the item is damaged. She was like "yahhh, it's like you gotta quantify your risk or whateverrrr"
 |
| Mmmm, I want me some Valley Girl Blueberries |
Jk, she wasn't a valley girl. But seriously, that was brilliant imo. Actually, she proposed a fixed deposit fee as perhaps a percentage of the original item's cost, but I argued that it should be a variable deposit fee set by the lender, because every lender has a different appetite for risk, and places a different value on any given item. What do you guys think? Fixed or variable deposit fee?
Anyways, only after she gave me her brilliant deposit idea did I regurgitate all of our current ideas. "Virtual Currency? Trades? Collateral? Boys are so perfectionist. They live in their little ideal worlds in their heads. Just make them put down money." True, true, cash $$$ is a solid way to reduce risk to an accepted level. And I guess us men are perfectionist, but hey somebody's gotta stay true to the vision to keep our mission pure.
The deposit is just so practical and enforces a sense of security, I think women demonstrate these 2 traits more than men. These chicks also had another great idea, have personalized profiles for each person, where users can do stupid crap like change their background colors and fonts in their descriptions, and add pictures or whatever. Anything that makes users spend more time on the website is a good thing, WOW these chicks are brilliant. Moreover, the personalized profiles tell a person's story, so hey, if I notice you are an eagle scout that's killed 3 bears I'll probably be more willing to lend you my bow and arrow knowing you'll come back alive next week to return it.
 |
| Seriously? At least don't fake the paws with manicured toenails. |
Some other good tidbits they gave me were fliers with CANDY, marketing to the frats for undergrad domination (keg stand publicity tours), and most of all, making everything Pretty. Ebay? ewwww so biznessy. Craiglist, are we still in the HTML fossil age? Sure we're gonna make a feedback system, but we're not just gonna represent it with the old school number of stars, no we're gonna gonna make it new and sexy cos some awesome chicks told us so.
They also laughed really hard at my name candidate "lend-a-friend".
I wonder how many chicks the instagram guys had as testers.
Moral of the Story: Get lot's of input on your idea, but ask friends from different places, aka EVERYONE.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Databasing
Started working with Postgresql, their pgAdmin tool is actually very handy. I think I got everything down. Now to dive into Django...
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Some cool events coming up in Jan.
Wish we could go to all of them, but might not have the time to:
http://la.getuncubed.com/
http://leanstartupmachine.com/events/la-january-2013/
http://ythackla.appspot.com/
http://www.meetup.com/Los-Angeles-Hack-Night/events/89035512/
http://la.getuncubed.com/
http://leanstartupmachine.com/events/la-january-2013/
http://ythackla.appspot.com/
http://www.meetup.com/Los-Angeles-Hack-Night/events/89035512/
Monday, December 17, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Quick update
Met with Scot the other day for a bit and had some productive discussions. Will start storyboarding on Monday....excited!!!!
On a different note, now I see why developers like using Macs...installing Django on Windows was an ABSOLUTE PAIN and took me a couple of hours just to sort through all the errors. Had to install 'distribute' in order to install 'pip' which was necessary to install Django. Then my window's environment variables weren't set correctly so I couldn't access python in my command prompt. THEN I ended having to change some registry values to be able to use django-admin.py without tagging on the whole path.
For example, I didn't want to type "C:\Python27\Scripts\django-admin.py startproject mysite" so I had to change the registry. hahah /end rant.
On a different note, now I see why developers like using Macs...installing Django on Windows was an ABSOLUTE PAIN and took me a couple of hours just to sort through all the errors. Had to install 'distribute' in order to install 'pip' which was necessary to install Django. Then my window's environment variables weren't set correctly so I couldn't access python in my command prompt. THEN I ended having to change some registry values to be able to use django-admin.py without tagging on the whole path.
For example, I didn't want to type "C:\Python27\Scripts\django-admin.py startproject mysite" so I had to change the registry. hahah /end rant.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Domain names = headache
We are closing in on the end of our final's period at UCLA and I am so excited to go back home for almost a month!! I won't taking much of a break though since I want to get a big chunk of the alpha version of this website up...More updates to come soon!!
Also, why do all the good website names for our product seem to be taken?? FriendLend.com, Friendlend.org and other cool names that I've thought of all are taken...
I've done some research on this and it actually takes quite a bit of luck, money, and time to get domains that are registered but not really in use. Some people/domain sites apparently buy all the common ones real early and sell them for HUGE gains. GoDaddy has a domain buy service where you have to pay an agent to be the middleman. The agent makes offers to the website owner, but there is no guarantee that the owner will even answer the agent or agree to sell their website. By the way, the domain buy service costs $70 with no guarantee...Also, I've heard that some people sell their popular websites up to $3000+ that is just ridiculous!!
I guess we'll have to come up with some creative/cool sounding name and build the brand up!!
Also, why do all the good website names for our product seem to be taken?? FriendLend.com, Friendlend.org and other cool names that I've thought of all are taken...
I've done some research on this and it actually takes quite a bit of luck, money, and time to get domains that are registered but not really in use. Some people/domain sites apparently buy all the common ones real early and sell them for HUGE gains. GoDaddy has a domain buy service where you have to pay an agent to be the middleman. The agent makes offers to the website owner, but there is no guarantee that the owner will even answer the agent or agree to sell their website. By the way, the domain buy service costs $70 with no guarantee...Also, I've heard that some people sell their popular websites up to $3000+ that is just ridiculous!!
I guess we'll have to come up with some creative/cool sounding name and build the brand up!!
Monday, December 10, 2012
Web vs Mobile Apps
We've had some discussions about whether to start with a website/web application or a mobile phone app. I vouched for a web app because any web browser on a computer or phone can access it, but this link shows mobile overtaking web and starting to challenge TV. No matter which one we choose first, I'm sure we'll eventually implement both the web app and native phone apps.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/05/flurry-mobile-apps-television/
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/05/flurry-mobile-apps-television/
So many tech events in LA!!!
Here's another cool one that focuses on mobile development.
This should be interesting bc we are beginners in that front and could use a nice intro.
http://www.meetup.com/TechinMotionLA/events/91687682/?gj=wc2c_e&a=wc2c_gnl&rv=wc2c_e
This should be interesting bc we are beginners in that front and could use a nice intro.
http://www.meetup.com/TechinMotionLA/events/91687682/?gj=wc2c_e&a=wc2c_gnl&rv=wc2c_e
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Thinking about project management tools
What are some good ones that people recommend?
I think Basecamp is a solid choice for general project documents. I've heard nothing but glowing reviews about it: http://basecamp.com/
However for more of the coding files, I've heard people recommend Github. The only problem is that everything is public if you get the free version - and we probably don't want people seeing our code haha. Is $7/month worth it? Or is there a equally good free but private version elsewhere on the web??
Edit: I'll have to take a look at some of these....http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3822550/looking-for-free-github-enterprise-fi-edition-alternative-for-private-installa
I think Basecamp is a solid choice for general project documents. I've heard nothing but glowing reviews about it: http://basecamp.com/
However for more of the coding files, I've heard people recommend Github. The only problem is that everything is public if you get the free version - and we probably don't want people seeing our code haha. Is $7/month worth it? Or is there a equally good free but private version elsewhere on the web??
Edit: I'll have to take a look at some of these....http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3822550/looking-for-free-github-enterprise-fi-edition-alternative-for-private-installa
Thursday, December 6, 2012
UX designer? maybe not
Some interesting ideas on bringing on a User Experience designer...
http://branch.com/b/when-should-startups-hire-a-ux-person-fireworks
http://branch.com/b/when-should-startups-hire-a-ux-person-fireworks
Food for thought
“The problem with the Internet startup craze isn’t that too many people are starting companies; it’s that too many people aren’t sticking with it.”
– Steve Jobs
– Steve Jobs
The beginning...
Hey everyone, I'm Kevin Ting, a first year EE grad student at UCLA. I grew up in Dallas, TX and went to school at Rice University, down in Houston, TX. A few months ago, when Fall quarter first started, I was going through a pretty rough time, so I started obsessing over innovation in order to block out the other stuff.
I came up with a lot of different ideas ranging from vehicular ad-hoc networks, mobile health, and web services. However after a lot of ideas were shot down, I came up with the current one, which has to do with sharing goods between college students (think Couchsurfing combined with Craigslist). After talking to a lot of people, I decided that this idea was the one I wanted to swing for the fences with.
I then proceeded to go to a lot of various mixers and entrepreneurial events, just to see what UCLA had to offer. I know Rice had some but I never had the urge to attend these events until now. It turns out UCLA has a TON of resources for entrepreneurs - TEC, ITA, Anderson mixers, etc. Through these events, I learned that LA has maybe the fastest growing start-up scene in the nation!!
I saw advertisements for the ITA Venture competition several times in the beginning of the quarter and knew that such an event would be VERY fun to compete in. However, I was always half-hearted about it because I didn't really have a good idea, nor a solid team to compete with yet.
As the quarter drew on, the idea evolved more and more as I talked with more people around the lab, back home, and at mixers. I realized that this idea had a real shot to be something special. So the next big step was for me to find some co-founders. Fortunately, the lab I worked in has some very talented EE/CS majors who knew a lot of web/mobile programming. I was able to convince my good friends Jason and Chenguang to join. However, I still felt like I needed one more dedicated co-founder to make this development team complete.
After sending out a lot of ads, I was contacted by Scot who said he was interested in joining the team. He ended up being the perfect match for us (business AND technical acumen) so we brought him on the starting team immediately. Now, we just need a MBA student to join us in order to complete the team for the ITA competition.
It'd also be nice to have a graphics designer, UI/UX designer, and dedicated market/publicity manager, but that might be asking for too much right now haha. The quarter is almost over so we are in the final push for course projects and exams, but during Winter Break, some of us will get started with the beginning foundations of the web site.
I'm really excited to get this thing rolling, and if you have any advice or questions, don't hesitate to contact me!!
I came up with a lot of different ideas ranging from vehicular ad-hoc networks, mobile health, and web services. However after a lot of ideas were shot down, I came up with the current one, which has to do with sharing goods between college students (think Couchsurfing combined with Craigslist). After talking to a lot of people, I decided that this idea was the one I wanted to swing for the fences with.
I then proceeded to go to a lot of various mixers and entrepreneurial events, just to see what UCLA had to offer. I know Rice had some but I never had the urge to attend these events until now. It turns out UCLA has a TON of resources for entrepreneurs - TEC, ITA, Anderson mixers, etc. Through these events, I learned that LA has maybe the fastest growing start-up scene in the nation!!
I saw advertisements for the ITA Venture competition several times in the beginning of the quarter and knew that such an event would be VERY fun to compete in. However, I was always half-hearted about it because I didn't really have a good idea, nor a solid team to compete with yet.
As the quarter drew on, the idea evolved more and more as I talked with more people around the lab, back home, and at mixers. I realized that this idea had a real shot to be something special. So the next big step was for me to find some co-founders. Fortunately, the lab I worked in has some very talented EE/CS majors who knew a lot of web/mobile programming. I was able to convince my good friends Jason and Chenguang to join. However, I still felt like I needed one more dedicated co-founder to make this development team complete.
After sending out a lot of ads, I was contacted by Scot who said he was interested in joining the team. He ended up being the perfect match for us (business AND technical acumen) so we brought him on the starting team immediately. Now, we just need a MBA student to join us in order to complete the team for the ITA competition.
It'd also be nice to have a graphics designer, UI/UX designer, and dedicated market/publicity manager, but that might be asking for too much right now haha. The quarter is almost over so we are in the final push for course projects and exams, but during Winter Break, some of us will get started with the beginning foundations of the web site.
I'm really excited to get this thing rolling, and if you have any advice or questions, don't hesitate to contact me!!
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