YouSaid · the spoken record

Kuan Huang

lines on the record
27
first
2015-10-16
most recent
2015-10-16
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “To be honest with you, for the next five years, I don't know. Next year I can tell you is that we will launch our iOS app in a month and we want to cover the entire country in a couple months and then hopefully we expend beyond the United States”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Mostly they are like a roller coasters jump in between like you know things and things for example especially for startup sometimes we have you know big press release we have to you know really look into is our servers strong enough to hold the traffic sometimes we have mistake in a system or in a product we have to fix people you know sending emails saying okay hey I'm not getting emails not getting text message can you fix it sure So that's kind of the day. Not a day is same.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “You know what? There are so many, but I think lately Elon Musk, that's what this person being talking about in the media a lot, Steve Jobs, I guess.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “I actually go to medium right now, medium.com reads lots of articles there and also I use Insta paper which is a beta works product. My favorite thing is their weekly digest. They basically recommend articles I should read based on what I used to read or what I saved in the Instapaper because I saved lots of articles about tech, about investment, about the general trend of internet.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “So I know people who build products, they just send emails. It's editorial product. They don't need to really know how to code. I assume we're talking about technology startups. So I think there are lots of tools out there you can learn how to code. You don't need to be an expert. All you really need is can I learn enough technical stuff to help me to build a prototype, a prototype that's good enough to prove my concept And then I think you can, once you have something get other people excited, then you can use that to pitch either investor or your potential technical co-founders. I think that's what I would suggest.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “The number one thing I would highly recommend is you need to be a hacker, like hacker's mind, how to get things done fast and get things out fast. I think that's the number one thing I would recommend.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “So for us, I think we are not really focusing on monetization right now, but I think potentially first we understand that's why one of the reasons I really want to understand people's daily routine is that we can offer you something that's truly tailored to a user. For example, if it's going to rain, we can offer you to buy an umbrella, we can call it Uber, ride for you, if it's code, we can recommend what to eat, what recipe you would need to make some food you feel warm at night. We also know the weekend weather, so we can recommend you what to do. So I think it will be like a blend of commerce and advertising that's tailored to this person's specific needs because we have data about you.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “That actually really helped us to scale much faster so we can go, for example, our last expansion basically we were able to expand to six states all at once and I only need one or two more people to the editorial team.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Second is before I was only dealing with the weather in New York City. Now how do I deal with the weather across the entire country? So basically that was actually also That's a big challenge for us So I was lucky enough working with data scientists and beta works we built a pretty awesome technology what it does was basically it monitors the weather across the United States and then we can group regions have the similar weather pattern together So our editors only need to write one message for location that have the similar weather patterns So for example in New York State there were 2600 locations that has the weather forecast that we can group these locations into probably 20 or 30 groups based on a similar weather pattern so our editors only need to write 20 messages to cover these regions”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I think I like to start with the challenge. So the particular challenge for Palm Tree was how do you go from New York City and the scale to other regions with limited resource? Because for Pancho, every day we have actually real human beings write these forecasts. It's not really automated by any machine or algorithm. So let's say we start with New York City. All we needed was one editor. Now in order to cover the entire country, how can I do that without hiring a thousand editors?”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “So beta always had different, like, I think they have slightly different models for different companies. Pancho came out of Beta Hackers in residence, so the company came out from that program, well, not really program, but came out from that opportunity basically. So they basically invest take equity of the company, bigger share of the company, and then the team and me, we all get equity of the company. And then Beta works. They basically get much more involved than a traditional VC investors. So from hiring to building product to launch, getting PR, they actually really, really involved.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “I think, for example, for lots of early stage companies, I think first where you launch something, the first month, what you really focus on is the engagement, how many daily, active, weekly active you are really looking at because if you launch something and then maybe you get a featuring app stuff for whatever reason, you get 10,000 people use your service. And then within three days, there's only 1,000 people using it. Then you know something's really missing there versus you might at the beginning you grow pretty slow. You might only get, I don't know, 2,000 people using the service, but over this four or five months, you still have like 80% of people still coming back. Then you know you have something sticky. So once you figure out engagement, retention, then you start going scale. Okay, how can I grow faster? That's kind of the approach Pontcho has taken.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “I think most of experience I have very positive, I think first of all you just need to be like you need to have this hacker's mind like you know you will not be able to get everything right you know you will not be able to get everyone who install use your first service and continue using you gotta figure out what a key audience you're focusing on and then you really really really put all the resources you have and focus on these people”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Well, I think first of all is how do you get the product to market as fast as you can? How do you only focus on one or two things that really matters? How do you focus on a few simple key metrics that help you to get to next step? So the other thing like companies, early stage company phase and also then when you grow from one person team to three people team to 10 people team, 20 people team how do you scale up not only just scale a product but also how do you scale an organization you will face lots of common challenges and the beta networks have lots of expertise in that”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “So I consider beta works as not only just an investor but also a co-founder. They're really involved in product development. First thing is when you run a startup, there are lots of things like HR managing payroll, finance or like legal stuff. These are things you as a founder you don't really want to deal with. Especially you have very tiny team. You don't want to deal with that. So they will take care of that for you. Second, building when building company they are like they're really involved in terms of building product how do you go to the market strategy but that work has lots of experience in like building super early stage companies because for many early stage companies you face a very lots of similar problem they've been there done that they have them they have seen hundreds of companies been through that stage so”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, so we definitely start with very small niche market and expand that we learn. And when there's a very special thing, it feels very local. So the weather forecast we write for New York City is different from how we describe weather in Seattle. Because, for example, if it's raining in New York City, people would be like, oh my God, it's raining. I hate rain versus in Seattle. It rains almost every day. You never ask people to bring the umbrella.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Oh, we definitely start with focusing on very small niche market. First, it was the Beta Works community. So people work at BetaWorks, the more like very tech savvy, internet savvy people, all of them have smartphones. Then we expect to New York City, which lots of people who live in New York City, they actually, like first the weather in New York City is really ridiculous, especially in spring you will see the weather, like temperatures swing from 40 degrees to 60 degrees so there's a big range and as you will see like in March it could be snowing in the beginning of the month and then get really hot one week later and then start raining again so it's crazy so so we start with the beta works community then go to new york city then expand to more and more regions right now we have pancho service in around 15 states”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yes. So weather is a very interesting thing, like weather also checking transit updates. That's the thing you don't check every hour. for most people you only do that like at the beginning of your day when you're about to leave home for work and at the end of the day before you head home that's the two moments you actually check this information for most people it's not like Facebook Tinder you check in a way have like five minutes That's very special thing about weather and the transit stuff. So that's why I think it's very important to understand people's day routine and getting information there when they need to know, when they need it.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “famous weather personality. So we sort of like, okay, let's build a weatherman on the internet. Doesn't need people want to check weather and then let's add more personality to it. So that's how Pontia has been operating. And we expand to cover more Besides whether we also tell people about transit in New York City, the subway system is kind of crazy. Sometimes the train's running fast, sometimes the train will be stopped running late. We also let you know at the beginning of your day.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “That's how I started. And then in the past two years, the thing has been iterating many times. And then we sort of come to this place where this weather service, first it understands your daily routine. So it understands when you wake up, when you leave work, so we send the weather forecast to you instead of you try to remember when to check weather. That's first. Second, the weather is really, really boring, so we want to make it really fun. So our weather forecast is not about just 50 degrees. It's the wind speed is 12 miles per hour. It's all about the personality. It's like in old days how people get weather from TV, which is you have a weatherman explain the weather to a weathermen usually either very good looking or they have beautiful voice or they have great great crazy sometimes personality so it's like for example in the states El Roker is probably a very”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Yes. So she knows my schedule when I was at school. So she would know, okay, Thursday night, I'm going to study lating the library. So she would call me if the temperature is going to be low. She would call me to bundle up. Every time I went back home, I lived on campus. So every week I went home. She would check the weather for me for the following week. If it's going to rain, she's going to bring me an umbrella. If not, then she wouldn't say anything. So that sort of the inspiration. So I was thinking maybe”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Do is, I want to do something I personally want to use. So I start thinking, okay, Saul, how do I actually, what the problem I had? So first of all, I always forget to check whether. I never really remember to check whether. And I start thinking, okay, so how I got weather when I was at school. So I grew up in China, so I went to college in China, and my mom was actually my weather service.”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Yeah, that's a great question. So, because back then, basically, I was not interested weather at all. Although there were like hundreds of weather apps out there, I was still using the default iOS weather app. Because for me, I just thought weather is super boring. I wouldn't have thought about doing anything in a weather space until I met the partner at the bed I worked with Sam. So Sam is a really interesting weather space. And we look at the market cap, how big the market is. How many people are using weather channel and then you look at the innovation there is like, okay, there's a huge market, but the innovation is horrible. People go to back then, people go to weather.com and they're looking for weather. The first thing they said was where the heck is weather? So it's obvious there's something missing there. So I start thinking, okay, if I want to build something in the weather space, the first thing I want to...”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Build it and then launch it, so that's how I start Pancho and I've been working on this for like two years. And why do you?”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Actually, get a cash rewards. So that's how we debuild it and we raise the money from IAC and I think within a year slightly more than a year we sold it back to IAC and after that I joined Beta Works so that was 2013 I joined the beta works as one of the hackers in residence I think back then there were like four or five of us joined at the same time we happened to be available during that time and some of us I feel all of us have built a company before raised the money some of us have already sold the company so you know it's not our first time building companies so we were given like three to five months to build a company that we want to start so I worked on poncho and then we it took me like two and a half months working with somebody at BetaWorks”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “But for our listeners who aren't maybe give a little background. Sure. Yeah, so I see umbrella company that owns lots of internet companies like Vimeo, Daily Beast, Ask.com, Urban Spoon, City Search. So they started this incubator called Hatch Labs. The idea was to build in startups inside IAC. So I joined them. I was the first hired engineer. So I helped them recruit and build business and also doing some due diligence for certain startups they were also investing. And then I started company there with a new partner and we built a mobile app that simulates casino experience and then the way people use the game, play a game was they watch video ads to get token to play the game. And the game is like a slot game. So when they win the game,”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Sure, yeah. So before joining Beta Works, I got into a startup world probably around two thousand A, two thousand nine. My friend and I work, the first project we worked on was an iOS app that helped people to identify birds in the field. We received the money from McAfee Foundation, so we basically spent a lot of time building product and getting, I think, thousands of school teachers students to use the app so that we had lots of fun, but neither one of us had any idea about how to make money. So we managed to spend all the money from Makata Foundation build a great product. People loved it. It was featured in the app store back then as well, but we didn't know how to continue that as a business. So after that, I joined Hatch Labs. So Hatch Labs,”

    2015-10-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 017: BETAWORKS WEEK: Kuan Huang, Founder @ Poncho · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source