Taylor made another awesome video

It has been years that Taylor hadn't make those awesome videos of herself. I used to go and watch her old video blog videos all the time. Now, she made another video similar to those after years. She is the symbol of perfection to me.


It is hilarious! I love Taylor's TODO list! I really like Scott. 

Grading papers and listening to entrepreneurial videos

I graded one series of exam papers these two days. I figured out a way to use my grading time better. I started to listen to entrepreneurial youtube videos while I was grading. It was a very good experience because it was not required to pay 100% attention to the grading. Hopefully, this class had so many good students who wrote most of the answers correctly, so I didn't need to spend lots of time commenting why they got it wrong. I used my time very efficiently specially today.



I found this series of "Best of Startup Secrets" - featuring Michael Skok (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxpB5Hi17Tp2cAs_OoRZSHqohHJhy9AWo) very interesting.


I am not sure why my professor wanted to raise money. At the beginning, I had this feeling (based on what he said) that he had a validated product based on the customer's opinion. However, our last meeting on Thursday showed me that the model that he has now can't be profitable because of not having FDA approval. I started to think about another business model, but if I want to work on my own business model, it changes so many assumptions that I had. I assumed that they have validated the product, and I save time by working with them; however, now I think that I am at the first square.

One day thinking

I started a day with a very awesome talk presented by an outstanding professor from UCI. It is interesting that I can see some professor whom I sent email to before coming here! He presented something related to "Smart social networks" (the Internet of things). Unfortunately, the speed of the technology will cause countries like my country to be more retired than before when the government doesn't let people to adopt these technologies. I think that his talk was one of the most unforgettable talks for me.

I was going to the art building to find a quiet area to talk to my friend that a girl got interested to me. She opened the door of the building for me, and walked closely to me to get my attention. Later, when I was talking to my friend, she passed by to exit the building while she was constantly looking at me. I shook my hand, and she smiled and shook her hand. For just a second, I wish I could talk to her, even though she was not my type of girl.

 Later I talked to my friend whom came here two weeks ago. I talked to him for more than two hours, and I explained everything that I discussed with my professor yesterday. This friend is a good person to be my company partner. I really wanted this from long back ago when I was in Iran. He is the person whom I wrote once in my blog that I consider him as a person more creative than me. He suggested me to go to an internship somewhere in the summer.

If I go for an internship anywhere, it means that I am done with this project because I can't waste three months and go back and start from the beginning. In addition, they are adding new features to the product, and I re-doing everything they do in the summer will take three months. On the other hand, if I don't go for an internship anywhere, I would lose lots of money. I should spend 3000$ out of my pocket, and I won't get at least 7000$ for my internship. It is 10000$. I can outsource some parts of the code to some people to speed of the development process if I can have 10000$.

I really thought about it. I may go for an internship somewhere if I can get an offer. It helps me to get to know the culture of start-ups here, and do some networking and start a new project from the beginning! The only thing I will lose is this project that is nothing since I need to do everything from the scratch. I even need to validate customers' needs myself. So, there is no point to stay here in the summer if nothing changes. I spent my whole evening to think about what to do.

So many assumptions went wrong about my project

I met my professor today. He showed me a list of the requirements that one of the customers wanted. I looked at the requirements and it was almost another product. I had thought that they had a validated product, but it seems that they don't. They validated the product for different segment of the customers that they can't get as they can't enter the market without getting FDA approval. FDA approval requires 200,000 dollars that they can't afford.

Their efforts to get an investor also hasn't paid off yet because nobody wants to invest on a thing without getting a great share. The only investor who he found asked for 70% of shares; it is ridiculous because he becomes the owner of company by having more than 50% of shares. It means that my work of preparing the product for FDA is almost useless at this time. I could develop faster if I didn't want to keep the quality in such a high level. Unfortunately, it also means that I won't get an internship here to work on this project.

Furthermore, my assumptions about their network of people were wrong. They couldn't find at least two more guys to add to the team.

I talked to my professor about my concerns of not having a real team for this project.

Prof: "I expected you to get along with my student (that Indian boy), but you couldn't."
Me: "It was not my fault. I spent whole my previous summer just to work with him and built a team, but it turned out that he didn't even show me a demo of the system after two months."
Prof: "I know that. You are right."

I was interested to work with his student at the beginning, but I don't want it now at all. In fact, if we were a team together it had fewer concerns, but he acts individually. I asked about his plans the previous summer, and he said that he was going to go back to India. I can't rely on someone who doesn't want to stay here. I asked him to involve me with the development process, but he was very reluctant. So, I decided to start individually. In fact, the requirements that my professor asked me were very different from what he tells me now. It made me really confused. Even though he never expressed it directly to me that he didn't want to work with me, and he was socially correct all the time, I can understand it intuitively.

I even asked my professor if he would like to specify each one's shares to make his student sure that I was not here to get his work and start my own business, but my professor didn't agree. "I am willing to give you your shares, but when there is nothing to share, why should we do that? I was waiting for a right time to raise some money and start doing marketing and then we could talk about shares," he said.

Me: "It is almost impossible. You don't have a team; you don't have a money; how are you going to do this?"
Prof: "We are going to build something out of nothing. I know it is hard, but we should do that. I agree with everything that you said today, but I have no other way."

Today was very disappointing and discouraging. I always had this idea that it is a validated proof-of-concept, but it is not. In fact, by changing the target customer, we are still in the very beginning process of understanding customers' needs. It means that their prototype and more than 70% of what they have worth nothing, and I should do it myself. In addition, my progress on this project is much slower than my expectations, and it is mostly because I have other things to do. I have to grade papers, attend classes, and work on my course project.

Power outage (a unique experience)

We had a complete power outage today at the university. It was a very unique experience. I met a boy who said that he hadn't seen such a thing his four years of being here. I explored the university to see what's around. I could see so many good girls that I haven't seen them before. It sounded to me that power outage caused them to leave their classes and to be in the open areas where they never used to be!

The most amazing thing was the library where there was enough light everywhere for people to keep on studying. In addition, all emergency lights and exit lights were on.

It was an amazing moment when a guy was in a completely dark room alone working with his laptop. I was taking his picture that somebody came and asked me why I am doing it. Such a joy-killer.

I met Luna in Gym

I was in the computer lab working on my project that the emergency alarm sounded. So, we should leave the building. I came out of the building, and it was cold. I had no idea that how long it would take to be able to return to the building, so I thought that it might be a good idea to go to the gym. I couldn't go to the gym the whole semester because I was very busy, and I had no other choice tonight.

I was running on the thread-mil that I saw someone similar to Luna was practicing on the other side of the area. "Is she Luna? Really? What is she doing here? Where is her boyfriend?" I asked myself. I hadn't seen Luna for more than 30 seconds, so it was hard for me to recognize her. I decided to go and talk to her.

She was Luna. I could look at her face and talk to her in person for the first time. I am not wrong. She is an awesome girl.

Luna: "I will graduate this semester. I will go back to my town to be with my family. I am going to study my Master at H.. University."
Me: "So, this is your last semester?"
Luna: "Yes."
Me: "Aren't you going to study your master here?"
Luna: "Yes. I was in the fast track, but I changed my mind. I would like to be near my family."
"Oh my god, I won't see her here anymore. You don't love your boyfriend; do you? if so, why are you going to leave him?" I thought to myself. I talked to her about her major, her future plans and a few other things. Something I couldn't understand her, but we had a good conversation overall.

I left her, and continued my exercise far from her. I was looking at her when I was riding a stationary bicycle. When she was going to leave me, she was hesitant to come and say goodbye to me. I looked at her while she was leaving, and I thought that she changed her mind, and came to me and said goodbye. It might be our last visit.

Why God??? Why are you doing this to me? The emergency alarm is very rare here. For more than six months I was exercising here, and I have never seen Luna here. Why should I have seen her tonight? I know that it would be our last meeting. I know that Luna will never ... Her story is over.

Going to a Jewish party (Havdalah)

Luna was going to attend a Jewish party named Havdalah tonight. I don't know why, but I decided to go and see her. I told Kane that I was going to go there, and it was questionable for him. 

"Aren't Muslims and Jewish enemies?" Kane asked. 

"No. They are not," I answered. 

"I think that they can't get along with each other," Kane said.

"That's kind of true, but it has nothing to do with me. I don't like anything that causes distance between people," I answered.

I entered the room and there were only five people sitting there. The room was very small, and I was very nervous. I didn't want Luna to see me alone there, so I started talking to a girl who had lived more than five years in Japan. We had a good conversation. She was 18, and it was her first semester there. The president of the organization was a girl named Sarah who was studying the same major as me in my department. I talked to her. She was kind of nervous around me, so I didn't want to bother her at all. 

Luna didn't show up. We went to open space to sing a Jewish song together. It was amazing. I hold the wine glass (grape juice) and another girl hold a candle. After the song, she turned off the candle in the wine glass. I really enjoyed being with them tonight. We sang the song together, "Lay lay la la la la lay lay ..."

After that, we went back to the room to have dinner. I sat next to those girls, and I started to talk to them. 

When some others began to come to the room, my heart started to beat faster and faster. I thought that Luna might come. "It is what I want. I want someone to make my heart beat like that. I want someone to fall me in love again. I want her." I thought to myself, but she didn't show up.

I added Sarah to my friend lists. I noticed that her religion's name was "Reform Judaism." It is the first time that I heard about it. I didn't know that even Jewish people understand the need for being updated to the current cultural changes in the world.