A Girl Nerd's Diary

Xoogler, ex-Yahoo, supporter of women entrepreneurship, and an evolved netizen who is trying to build something awesome in the mobile internet space.
Elsa Chang
Elsa Chang

Founder of Ridematch.Me. Current location: Santiago, Chile.

TwitterFacebook

Tags

Archive

2012 (1)
2011 (13)
2010 (23)
2009 (45)
2008 (30)
 

Goodbye Upcoming

Robot_cry

Being broke is hard, but losing my passion is even harder. I left Yahoo two weeks ago.
 
I would never have joined Yahoo in a million years if it wasn't for Upcoming. And very few people know that I had worked for Google before (2004-2006); everyone thought I was crazy that I would join Yahoo as a Xoogler (ex-googler). I was not crazy, there was not social media stuff within Google beside Orkut in 2006, and you all know how well Orkut does. Upcoming was acquired by Yahoo in 2005, and it used to be THE event site for tech geeks and indie rock fans. When the recruiter contacted me about this position, I was very excited and hoping that since this is an acquisition, it's probably being run independently like Flickr. And the best part was, it didn’t look like Yahoo at all.
 
I had a great team when I first started. I got my first taste of working knowledge in social media beside forums and discussion boards. Events became my life, my career, and my passion. Since then I hosted many internal and external Yahoo events and tech conferences (not my core role but I picked that up on the side), I turned into a professional boothbabe :).

But slowly, my team was trimmed down from 12 people to 3 over the course of a year. The only property that was able to fend off the invasion from the mothership is Flickr because they are not that deeply integrated with Yahoo like Upcoming is, which was a smart move. It's funny how everyone says "Oh event is so important, but let's have the engineers at Upcoming to work on some other stuff."

How many times have my peers hacked out some great ideas and didn't get executed because of stupid internal bureaucracy? And then a few months later those ideas got cranked out by other startups?! How do you keep your spirit up when it happens over and over again?

While I love my team and peers and bosses who were great to me, many of the people there are lacked of vision and simply talkers.

The company is now run by many enterprise and non-web, non-Internet people, let alone any Web2.0 expert is in charge. I remember once one of my seniors told me she talked to a VP about Upcoming and Foursquare, the VP said "I don't get it, if I want to go out I'll just call my friends, why do I need to go online and look for stuff to do?", "And what is Foursquare again?" At that moment I decided it really is time to go. I am not saying everyone should be a LBS fanatic and narcissistic and broadcast every single fucking thing they do, but as a VP (non-finance or HR function) of an Internet company should at least know what these services are and their meanings.

Is TechCrunch being totally fair to Yahoo? Absolutely not. Yahoo is still a billion company with millions profit. How many of the startups TechCrunch covers are even making money? Yahoo might not be innovating as much as we would like it to, but a few of its properties are still number one in their categories, such as Y! Finance, Sports, and News. And not to mention Yahoo! Japan is still the #1 site there, as well as Yahoo! Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan. I still want Yahoo to exist in the space and provide values to users.

I just don't want to work on listing services like Yahoo always does. Community and UGC are so important that Yahoo doesn't really seem to get even though Answers was once very successful property. Further, Yahoo bought a series of Web2.0 products and just neglected them. I love events, and that was the sole purpose of me joining Yahoo. I still have a lot passion with events, but I had been checked out for a long time ever since I was assigned to do something else. I spent a lot of time doing work and learning stuff outside of Yahoo over the past 1.5 years. I learned how to build mobile applications, I helped running other people's conferences, I ran a fundraiser for a micro-finance organization I support, and I have been taking a class on GIS. My passion and energy need an outlet.

It was a no-win battle with Yahoo. It is not worth the fight for me anymore. The moment I gave my notice, I stopped drinking...

 

Posted
 

My notes

Almost wanted to name it "life's little notes", but it's just too cliche and corny. Dear friend Cathy Yang emailed me a compilation of advice her friend - Janice Shih put together for another friend who just graduated from college.  Some of the points really struck me, and I want to share with you too in terms of how I relate to them.  I have successfully done some of them, I learned some of them thru mistakes I made, and I am still learning some others.

On Finance -

Be able to support yourself financially- it is extremely liberating- be good with money, don't go into debt, figure out how to save, invest, get a good job to support yourself. Don't ever depend on someone else to support you, even after you get married.  Maintain your financial independence so that you can support yourself if you need to- not to be morbid, but you never know what is going to happen and too many women get trapped.

Stay away from credit cards - unless you pay the balance each month.

- Being raised by parents who are clueless about money and investing and having to work since age 14 have taught me the value of money.  I have always been good at the above.


On Career -

You can try 5 different careers in your 20s. It will make you interesting and fun. Everyone likes to hear about my adventures working for a matchmaker and a kickball organization.

- Hm... I haven't tried that many yet, and I am happy working in tech.
On Health -
Running is a gift you give yourself!
- I have been doing it at least once a week either in the gym or by the Emeryville Marina.  This routine is extremely important to me.

Take excellent care of yourself.  Remember that YOU have to take care of yourself. No one else will take care of you.
- Learned that in my early twenties after staying in a hospital for 2 days for a severe flu, heavy nose bleeding, and malnutrition caused by tremendous stress from school and life during my final year at college.

Don't drink too much- being hungover is such a waste of time- you could be spending enjoying all that life has to offer.
- Still learning about that.  I am not denying that I have a minor alcohol issue.  But I admit nursing hungover is absolutely a big waste of time.
Never stop learning- get an advanced degree and always be pushing yourself to grow.
- Still trying to accomplish that, only if i partied less.

On Attitude -
Be a good, nice person- regret and reputation are hard to shake. You can be the most beautiful person on the outside; but, if you aren't good on the inside- it doesn't matter. Positive examples are Aubrey Hepburn and Paul Newman.
- Learned that over time.

 Be grateful- focus on what you have instead of comparing yourself to other people and lamenting what you do not- all the good in your life will pass you by if you do.
- Stopped doing that long time ago, and life has been wonderful since.

Don't "awfulize" things - take things in stride, learn from them and move on to be a better person. Don't waste time dramatizing, start fixing!
- I am getting better at it now, but still need more practicing

On Relationship and Friendship -
He's not worth crying over.
- Yes, no one is worth my tears anymore. 
Be open to meeting all types of new friends and just keep smiling
- Always my thing. :)
When you are with the right partner in life, it isn’t really that hard.  When it’s right it’s right, you don’t have to make excuses for them, they show up when they need to and they love you like no other.
- Have yet to see that happen, but time will tell.  I still believe a good relationship takes work, and I am more than happy to work hard on that when I find the right person.  I still believe in love, wholeheartedly.

Never EVER cut your friends out for a relationship, because they might not be there when your heart gets broken.
- I never EVER do that.  Have I not said enough how much I value friendship?

Do not obsess about getting married.  If you want to get married, set that intention.  And then set about becoming an amazing person you would want to be married to.
- Now I know.  I am writing down what I would want in a person to be married to and try to become that person first.

If you are making excuses for your boyfriend, dump him.  If you are constantly asking your friends for advice about him, dump him.  If you complain about your boyfriend to others, dump him.  If you always nag your boyfriend, dump him.  If your mom doesn’t like him….ugh…I hate to admit this – but she’s probably right, so dump him!  In other words, this guy isn’t bringing out the best in you nor is he rising to the occasion (and the occasion is YOU!) so why would you want to keep him? 

- This is interesting.  I never thought about this before, but maybe it's true?
On Wisdom -
Life is LONG.  Longer than you can imagine.  Move at a pace that feels natural to you.  Do not listen to the expectations of others. 
- I recently got hung up on some comments from an old friend and parents that drove me nuts.  But I got over it pretty quickly.
The best is yet to come! 
- Hell yeah!
Extra -
Live abroad -

- Done that in my early days.


Learn a second language.

- Learned third and forth language and going to learn fifth.


Volunteer -

- Never stop doing that.


More from me -

I have determined to live a fabulous life since three years ago no matter what happens.  I have let go a lot of my baggages and embrace what I have now.  I thought I couldn't love again but in fact, I am more than willing to give than take in a relationship at this point.  I used to love someone more than myself and that feeling was wonderful.  I'd rather hurt than feel nothing at all.

 

 

Posted
 

Timing

I had lunch with an old coworker today. Vikram started a company recently and is dealing with all sorts of common issues most startups encounter. As we were talking about how I met a lot of successful entrepreneurs in San Francisco lately who are only in their mid-20s and already making millions from their startups, we began to think what we were doing when we were 25.

Vikram and I graduated at the same year, and it was about the time when the first dotcom boom busted (yes, we are old). We are both driven and ambitious people, but during those years, a good job (both big corporations and startups) was hard to come by, let alone getting VC funding to start our own business. I remember during 2001-2004, I jumped around companies so often that I lost count on how many contract jobs I had taken until I landed a job at Google in early 2004. So did Vikram (and he is a Stanford grad). And the worst part was, we didn't have our US citizenship. We were more worried about having to leave the country than executing our badass business ideas. We took any job we could find just to get by.

Eight years later, we are still energetic and wanting to get our own ideas executed from the ground up. He started his and I am working on one and hopefully I will start my own someday.

What were you doing when you were 25?

Posted
 

Mint's CEO Aaron Patzer on Startups

Great presentation on the process of starting Mint. The first 5 minutes sum up the reasons why I decided not to go to bschool, and it explains why "ideas are cheap, execution is expensive".

Mint CEO Aaron Patzer on Startups from Techcrunch on Vimeo.

Posted
Posterous theme by Cory Watilo.
​