Mr. Princeton was the one who introduced me to the topic of big data. On one of our commutes while going up an elevator he told me the story of diapers and beer. I was instantly interested in looking into the topic further. Seeing my enthusiasm, Mr. Princeton introduced me to his friend in Toronto, Mr. Data, who is an expert in the field.
After a few phone conversations with Mr. Data, I decided I would meet up with him when I returned to Toronto. Mr. Data and I got along very well, and I decided the three of us should create a big data company.
I took extra care to ensure that Mr. Data and I could work well together. I was also very firm that I would be holding the majority shares in the company. I had used the 51% majority share structure in the forming of this company.
The partners in my new venture for big data were not thrilled with my 51% majority share. I had a reputation with Mr. Princeton, but not very much with Mr. Data. Mr. Data was not so sure the 51% structure would be fair because he believed he could bring much to the table.
Because I had no prior working experience with Mr. Data, I was not so sure how much of a contribution I could expect from him. Taking a note from John C. Maxwell, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, treating him as a 10/10, for the effort of being with me. In the meantime, I allowed the law of process and time to show him of what I was capable.
For the next six months, I would spend as much time pushing the project forward as I could each day. I used a simple rule of +1 to the goal of moving the company forward each day. The problem was I didn't have a clear destination where I wanted us to arrive.
One model in my mind was to raise 100 thousand dollars within the year. I thought that if I could raise a large sum of money, we could hire staff to build the product. Upon reflection, now I know this is a flawed strategy. I had wasted close to six months trying to convince people to let me build something I could build on my own. I had spent the majority of the time creating marketing decks, and going to meetings instead of building the software and the product.
On top of this, the product morphed into many different things. It began as a way to track and predict the buying behaviour of the high-spending, newly rich Chinese. We picked this group to track because there had been a major influx of rich Chinese entering Hong Kong to buy luxury goods. The product would track them via cell phone / Internet usage, to give us an insight into the products they would want. Similar to the story of the beer and diapers, we would be able to help merchants predict the spending habits of these Chinese.
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Swimming with Asian Sharks - Business Secrets from the Pacific Rim
Non-FictionEver wonder what it takes to do business in Asia? How do Asian business executives behave and think? Do you want to create a business from scratch in under 24 hours? If so, this is your guide. This book is a compilation of over one hundred business...
