Posted 11:12 PM by Andy
It's another slow Friday afternoon so here's an update of the last quarter.

Work. Three months ago I did not know what the future entailed as I had just quit from EBay China and was pondering a move back to Cali. The break was refreshing but I was also antsy to progress in my career. Within a week of moving back, I received two offers, almost simultaneously. The first was from English First, who was looking to recruit a product manager to create wireless versions of their online courseware. It was a compelling offer but I declined it for a start-up. I am employee number two for our firm and we are creating a stock option-related software service. I will manage product strategy, business development, and investor relations going forward. I had brought back a textbook on options that I read in the dawn hours during my first week back since I thought that would be a good refresher. Little did I know it would become immediately relevant. So far I have completed the product spec for our main service and our engineers have produced user accounts and a demo. A test site should be ready in two months and our first release in four months. My learning has been varied as I brushed up on US securities law (FAS 123 - share-based payment), accounting regulations on expensing stock options (fair value), and option pricing models (Black-Scholes, binomial). I even helped created some mock-ups in Dreamweaver and some pages in Netbean IDE. We have a preliminary revenue model and an investor presentation deck ready. We're about to approach VCs formally for funding. My first choice is the venerable Kleiner Perkins. It's a no-brainer as my childhood friend Chi-Hua is a partner there so I hope to close $1.5 million in a few months.

Personal Life. I moved apartments again before the new year mainly to get away from my old housemate. Alex was not a bad guy, but his libido is fierce and a definite disruption to my domestic life. I'm now in a two-bedroom pad near Babaiban with the newly opened metro line 6 stop outside my complex. I have the usual amenities of satellite TV (for my NBA fix), broadband, and onsite gym. I'm negotiating with another tenant in the same complex for a joint-ayi-sharing arrangement so hopefully I will have home-cooked meals again soon.

Friends. New folks in town include Arlene, Corine, and most recently Joey and Zoey. I hung out with Arlene a few times before finding out she has a boyfriend, at which point I made a mental note to distance myself. Corine gave me tickets to Tennis Master Cup championship but I only caught the second-half of the Federer dominating display over Ferrer. Her pad is awesome and centrally located in People's Square, complete with a foosball table so I'm glad we will be holding small group there now as opposed to Xujiahui. Joey came to my office first as we talked business and shared some industry knowledge. Zoey is Joey's cousin who is in Shanghai, changing gears from a pop-singing career in Taiwan. I also like to hang out with local friends like Haze and Ava as they are easy-going and down-to-earth gals.