The brains over at Zaaz are putting together a very interesting and insightful event called Perspectives on Social Media. If you have even an inkling of interest in social media, communities, and web technologies, I’d invite you to attend this event. Unfortunately, I’ll be just coming back from Los Angeles during this time.
My good buddy, David Eraker, just released a new version of Mindsite. The visuals and flow have all been updated to look and feel super clean. Here’s a quick synopsis of what they do:
Mindsite offers free access to clinical resources to help you overcome the confusion surrounding mental health diagnoses and treatments.
- Get diagnosed online by taking our surveys developed by Harvard Medical School for the World Health Organization to test for symptoms of most mental health disorders.
- Research signs and symptoms with free access to the DSM-IV, the manual used by medical professionals to diagnose, describe, and categorize mental health disorders.
- Learn from our community by asking questions, or browse original articles and videos posted by people like you.
I highly recommend checking out the site if you’ve got the time.
Roughly a year ago, a few of my Lakeside friends and I decided it’d be fun to get together, get some beers and talk about living the startup life. We’d meet once a month at random bars around Pioneer Square and talk about business, technology, marketing and anything else that came into our heads. Over this period of time, I’ve moved on from Redfin to Conenza; Matt from Judy’s Book to Blist; Eric from Jobster to Real Self.
Over the year, we’ve had people join us that represent other companies, such as Fyreball, Shiftboard, Tamarac, and Mindsite. And, amazingly, most of them are connected by two degrees or less; it’s amazing how small the community really is - especially in Pioneer Square.
So if you are interested in joining the group, feel free to ping us using the Facebook group. Our first official gathering is next month (or later depending on the release schedules 
)
Goodness, it’s been a looooong time since I’ve updated my blog. Life has been pretty crazy on my end. Apologies to my 2 faithful readers. A few quick updates from around the Seattle world:
Ha. I wish right. The other day, one of my bud’s, Bahn Lee, forwarded me something interesting he stumbled upon while searching for himself on Facebook. It seems like someone - or something - liked my picture so much that it cropped my head and used it as their profile picture. What’s even more interesting was that his/her/its middle name is Bahn, the same first name as my friend.
I’m thinking it’s a spam bot of some sort creating fake profiles. So, if you see anyone looking like me acting weird, it’s probably me. But if you see someone acting shady, it’s probably one of these profiles.
(see last picture on the list)
In a previous life, I worked as the designer for Redfin. Being the guy in charge of aesthetics, I
had to make sure all of the pixels were aligned properly and consistently. It was my life for almost four years and I took the job very seriously. However, the problem with being a web designer is that it’s so easy for another person to rip off your designs.
Today, my chaps at Redfin referred me to a design jackin’ so hard that it makes Tupac want to cry. It was so shameless, that my fellow colleague, Glenn Kelman, aka G-mail, aka Gangsta Boogie, aka G-Pac, wrote a blog about it.
The best part of the whole thing is stealer wanted to get a refund for the half-assed work he paid for. Here’s an excellent excerpt from the post:
You come to me and you ask me to build you a Ferrari look alike car very cheap ($10.000) .
If I am desperate for the money I will take the job and rent a Ferrari take it for a drive so I will have some idea of how it drives.
In a few months I will give you a car which looks similar to a Ferrari , you can drive it .. it brakes , it has air bags … etc.
Then you come and say to me that it doesn’t perform like one and my replay will be well a Ferrari which you look at costs easy $500.000 so this is what you got for $10.000.
And the full post can be found on this real estate forum.
I hope no one steals this picture of Glenn that I did for him. It’s currently hanging on his door.
Farecast is official sold to Microsoft for $115 million. I first heard of this company at Redfin’s sponsored Techcrunch Seattle party. They had a pretty booth with brochure’s stacked up nicely next to our sporadicly dressed up, sticker-filled walls. Needless to say, it’s nice to see a company that co-sponsored something with Redfin go from small to gobbled in that time. Hugh, pick up one of these with your newfound wealth!
I sometimes wonder what the people writing the blogs I read are like. I’ve met some, but for the most part, I don’t know most of the writers. So, to give you some a view into my life, here’s a quick snapshot of who I am.
Full name: Savanrith Kong (Yes, no middle name. Asians don’t like that superfluous stuff). I go by Savan, Sav, Savon, Savin King, King Kong, Donkey Butt, Skeet, Son, and a slew of other Cambodian names.
Born January 18th, 1980 in a Thailand refugee camp. My family fled Cambodia, our homeland, during the killing fields of the 70’s and 80’s. I lost a lot of family members. I consider myself lucky because I could have easily been decimated in a plain of grassy meadows along with my brothers.
Part Cambodian, part Chinese. I claim my Cambodian heritage and background as a source of strength and motivation. I speak it at home with my family but hardly ever in public. If you’d like to come over and eat dinner with us, drop me an e-mail.
Grew up in the projects. My parents raised me in the south side of Seattle. The better part of my life was spent in the Park Lake Homes projects in White Center. I spent my elementary school years at Mount View and Salmon Creek. I then relocated to Burien where I attended Cascade Middle School (still in White Center) and 2 years at - what I consider the worse school out of all of them - John F Kennedy.
Most people would argue that you can’t get any more ghetto than these places, though I found comfort in government cheese, making my own toys and eating lots of rice every day.
I was debater and on the team during all 4 years of my schooling. I made it to the state tournament and found out that there were people nerdier than I am. I also spent one term as a Senate page for Margarita Prentice in Olympia.
My last two years of high school was an awakening to the upper social stratosphere of the world. After being put through a rigorous interview and testing process, I was admitted into The Lakeside School. And, yes people, it’s a tough sucker to get into. I got mediocre grades but loved the experience. I also learned that the rich really do get richer and the poor stay that way. There may be a few stragglers that break that chain, but that was far and few in between. Case in point: all of the my friends that grew up in White Center are working rudimentary jobs and probably will never read this blog; all of my friends from Lakeside are living comfortably and will probably email me about this blog.
During my high school years, I invested three of my summers interning at Microsoft.
I spent my last year of Lakeside getting into Occidental College in Pasadena, California. I dropped out a year later and moved back up to Seattle to work for a startup called NextHost/NextStudio.
NextStudio would go out of business in a year. A good buddy of mine, Kirk Wetherill, and I took some of the major clients and started our own business. He and I ran it for a few years before I decided to go back and finish college at the University of Washington. I received a degree in Communications with an emphasis in digital media.
I ran a consulting company called Skky Digital. During this time, I met David Eraker and a friendship bloomed from our work together. He eventually would go on to found Redfin and suck me into the madness.
I devoted a whole summer of my life working next to him, Josh Horton, and Bahn Lee for no money, a few packets of Ramen and some great games of Halo. I loved those days. We kept the company afloat and it’s now thriving under the reign of Glenn Kelman and Co. (Including Pamela, Sr. Transaction Coordinator who is working her butt off here late!).
I’m currently the Director of User Experience at another great company called Conenza. I love it. I love the pace, people and environment. One can say I’m addicted to taking something intangible and making it real (well, as real as 1’s and 0’s can get). It’s a passion I have and something I take very seriously. Though, from my Flickr pictures, you can definetly see that I’m a party animal, love interacting with people and dogs, and enjoy the daily dose of liquor (see my post below).
Conclusion
There is some power above that’s given me this once in a lifetime opportunity to do something that I love, instead of being buried in the burial grounds of a mass extermination field of Tuol Sleng. I remind myself everyday that I am very fortunate to be in my position. I am fortunate to have my family, my friends, my house, my condo, my dog, my car, my office, my computer, my bills. I don’t take my work for granted; I don’t complain about overtime; I don’t gripe about over-extending myself; I don’t understand the notion of not working hard.
My fortunes have afforded me to take care of myself and my parents. I am humbled by my past and look forward to my future.
Happy Early April Fools Day! Let me introduce my latest blog with an annoucment:
Savan Kong will not be drinking for the entire month of April.
And, no, that wasn’t a joke. I know, I know. My last post was about happy hours and how it’s good for startups. Whatever. You can call me out on it in person if we ever meet.
But for now, onward to more important things. Here are three items that I’ve always wondered about in my startup life:
Powered by WordPress