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Awaken* newsletter

June 13, 2024

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Tracy Young is a founder who has been on my radar for a long time. Beyond the fact that she is a successful exited founder, having sold PlanGrid to Autodesk for just under $900 million, Tracy’s family–like my own father–immigrated to the United States following the Vietnam war. With one major success under her belt, Tracy is going for a second, having recently founded a new startup named TigerEye, which focuses on AI-powered strategic planning. I sat down with Tracy to chat about lessons from PlanGrid, what she’s currently working on at TigerEye, and her identity as an Asian woman.

On Identity

I wasn’t the only one with a newsletter on the call! Tracy also recently started a LinkedIn newsletter titled Predictable Growth, a monthly Q&A with women leaders generating revenue for their businesses. I asked Tracy what the motivation behind starting it was, and what she hoped to see it accomplish:

Representation matters. In sales and go-to-market functions, women are underrepresented at the leadership level. However, many impressive, talented, and hardworking women have achieved the CRO/CMO level, and I wanted to hear their stories. So, it’s a way for us to showcase women and give them a platform to tell their stories and how they got to where they are. There are many great jobs in sales, but many women don’t realize that they’re available to them. Anyone can be good at sales, it’s not just men. Reaching the highest levels in sales gives women a lot of power to help out their families, help the economy, etc.

In previous interviews, Tracy has pointed out how women are especially underrepresented in enterprise SaaS. I asked Tracy if she had any ideas why this is the case, and how we can increase representation:

I’m not sure why that’s the case. But you can see it if you look at the stats or walk into any enterprise company. I would guess it’s systemic. I think it starts with the words we use for boys and girls, the way we treat them, and what is expected of them. This is part of our cultural history. One way to change that is to show what is possible. What Predictable Growth aims to achieve is to showcase all these women who are leaders at their companies. There’s no decision that the CEO is making without running it by them. We want to say: “This could be your future, if you want it”, for anyone reading, and hopefully, it’s a young woman reader.

Next, I wanted to get Tracy’s thoughts on how being an Asian woman has affected her experience as a founder:

My PlanGrid co-founder, Ryan, and I met in college. He’s been trying to convince me to start a company with him since I was 18. Being an Asian woman, I didn’t think it was possible. I brushed him off for many years. I thought, “I’m not a founder,” because I looked at all these other founders, and they didn’t look like me. That kept me from starting a company for a long time. Around 2007-2009, I remember Ryan really wanted me to apply for Y Combinator with him. And again, I told him, “I just don’t think it’s going to work.” I didn’t think other people would accept me, and I didn’t want to put myself through it. It wasn’t until Y Combinator put out a request for startups working on the exact problem we were working on that I felt comfortable applying. That request for startups almost gave me permission to apply to YC. But even when we got in, and we were making real revenue, and we fundraised, and we had real customers, and our product was getting better… even then, I still felt that founders should look a certain way. I don’t know how many years in we were before I finally realized how wrong I was.

In an interview eight years ago with Ron Miller at Techcrunch Disrupt, Tracy responded to a similar question very differently. I asked her what motivated her shift in perspective since then:

Back then, I really tried to separate myself from being a woman. I felt like that was not part of the equation. And again, it’s such a big part of me, I am a strong woman. For many years, I pretended that I wasn’t, down to how I dressed. What really woke me up was becoming a mom. Going through pregnancy and birth and postpartum recovery, and taking care of a baby, I think it was really at that point when I realized how strong women are, how strong our mothers and grandmothers are, and how strong my colleagues are. It was a disservice not to acknowledge that our journey is different. It’s not better or worse. It’s just different.

TigerEye

I asked Tracy how she came up with the idea for her new startup, TigerEye:

There’s no shortage of problems to solve in business software. If you talk to anyone who works for a public company, you’ll find a lot of outdated software still in use. After selling my last startup, I worked for a public company and got to use these expensive products that our company was paying for every year. I saw firsthand how they made us less productive and frustrated our team. Many areas need improvement, such as HR software, finance software, sales software, and everything in between, including development tools. 

A common strategy I hear from founders is that they want to start by selling to other startups, and then grow into an enterprise software company alongside their clients. I asked Tracy how she decided to skip that and go straight for enterprise customers:

I like to solve problems that I have experienced. TigerEye comes from my experience running a fast growth company for ten years. When we reflected on our PlanGrid journey, we asked ourselves a few questions: What would have accelerated growth? What would have made the difference between us still running PlanGrid today versus needing to sell? TigerEye is that product. This is a scientific tool that would have helped us grow more efficiently, be more profitable, and would’ve enabled us to be more courageous in our decision-making by providing extra validation. It’s an AI-powered business simulator. You can test out your plans before you make your team execute it. You can test out as many plans as you want and as many scenarios as you want before you bring it to the board for sign-off. Back at PlanGrid, we had a bunch of very smart people trying to generate the same thing that took months that TigerEye is outputting instantaneously now. This is the product that I wish I had to help grow PlanGrid. And this is why we are building for the enterprise. All I know to do is build things to help me with problems I’ve faced.

Starting a Company as a Second-time Founder

I asked Tracy what she thought about distribution at PlanGrid, and how that has changed for TigerEye:

PlanGrid was always mobile first. We really benefited from timing. Steve Jobs announced the first generation iPad, and we decided to start building construction software for that device soon after. We were one of the first enterprise apps to launch on all of the app stores. 

Let’s say you’re a construction person and you’ve got your new iPad or other tablet. You search for construction because that is your profession, and PlanGrid pops up as the top result. If it looks interesting, you might download it, and we had a freemium model so users could try us out. As a mobile-first company, having great SEO on the app stores was crucial for our inbound growth. That’s how we thought about distribution for PlanGrid, but that is totally irrelevant for TigerEye (although we do have a mobile version of our software). TigerEye is an enterprise-grade product, and you can’t just try it out as an individual. It is being deployed to whole departments, and that is a completely different distribution model. For many years, PlanGrid was sold on a per-seat basis. At TigerEye, we have an unlimited seat model, and it’s deployed to several teams at once, and the starting fee is five figures. It’s an enterprise-grade product. And so for us to get deployed and adopted usually takes a field sales team two or three conversations with the company, because it’s not just sales, it’s revenue operations, it’s strategic finance, and then it’s a champion at the C-suite level. It’s very different from PlanGrid’s model, where anyone with a credit card in a job site could swipe their credit card and buy PlanGrid today.

Next, I asked if she felt that being a second-time founder came with any benefits:

There are definitely benefits. For example, the first 15 people we recruited were people we had handpicked and worked with before. As a result, we were able to recruit a talented team with a strong track record and a strong work ethic. It’s difficult for first-time founders in their early 20s to attract talented individuals. The people who worked for us were our friends or recent college graduates. From our decade of experience, we’ve also seen what works and what doesn’t in terms of core values. This time, we made sure to have a set of values that we live by personally and professionally. These core values are non-negotiable and we share them with candidates we’re trying to recruit during our first phone call. We’re serious about it. Everyone says they care about their core values, but we actually hire and fire by them. 

Tracy’s emphasis on core values stood out because this was the first time I had heard a founder emphasize them to this degree. I asked Tracy why this mattered so much to her:

Through my experience growing PlanGrid to 450 employees and scaling the team to 1,300 employees post-acquisition, I got to see what slows down a team. I got to see how infighting can destroy a company. There are minor things that you can put in place to mitigate this, such as basic rules of engagement. We have a document called “Our commitments to working with each other,” which outlines how we work together at TigerEye. The document clarifies our five core values. It’s very simple, you cannot misinterpret what the core values mean. I’ll give you a couple of examples: 1) I will walk it like I talk it. 2) I will never speak destructively behind my teammate’s back. 3) If I have a problem, I will go to you and talk it out because we’re professionals and I can trust that we can have the hard conversations. If everyone follows these rules, then we’re in a really good place. That means that when there are problems, we can speak openly as a team and get through it together. We were very deliberate about the culture and work environment we were creating, especially as a remote company. I think our culture is especially important because we aren’t together every single day.  

Fostering a Culture of Authenticity

Throughout my research, a consistent theme Tracy touched on was being authentic as a leader. I asked her if she felt there are boundaries to authenticity and if it’s fine for CEOs to express fear or lack of confidence to their team.

There is definitely a line in terms of vulnerability and authenticity. It’s never acceptable to be disrespectful. Some might argue that they’re just being direct, but there’s a difference between being direct and being rude. It’s okay to question things and suggest new approaches. When I’m concerned about something related to the company, I share it with the team. I either present a potential solution or let them know that I’m working on one. This approach makes it easier to lead and get the team on board with the direction we’re heading. They may not always agree, but at least they understand why I’ve made certain decisions. If they understand, it’s easier for them to commit to the decision, even if they initially had reservations. 

To your second question, I think it is completely okay for a leader or anyone in the company to show that they are human, and as humans we experience fear and insecurity–they are natural emotions. As a leader and a productive teammate, it isn’t beneficial to dwell on these negative emotions. It’s challenging, if not impossible, to suppress these feelings because they will eventually surface. My approach is to allow myself to experience these emotions when things are tough, but also to take control and not let them linger. For instance, I might allow myself a day to experience these feelings, but the next day, it’s time to put on a game face and figure things out together. As long as there’s movement and progress, then it’s okay. Feelings like anger, insecurity, and sadness, when prolonged, are completely useless. They don’t serve anyone any good. They’re just there making everyone feel bad and that is absolutely not okay.

I asked Tracy what actions she takes to make sure everyone on her team is comfortable being authentic and vulnerable with each other:

We do this fun activity. We all take the Enneagram test. New teammates will take the test and present their enneagram results sometime within the first few weeks. The presentations are basically: “This is when I’m at my best. This is how I am at my worst. This is how I want to get feedback.” This helps us understand who we are as people because there are all kinds of different personalities, and conflict comes from two personalities at their worst coming together. If we can acknowledge and understand that might happen, it’s easier to get through it together. Essentially, it’s having self-awareness and giving your team a blueprint of being aware of who you are. 

For those who don’t know, Enneagram is a popular personality test that emphasizes how you interact with other personality types, making it a popular choice for teams. I am normally skeptical of these kinds of tests, but even I am a big fan of Enneagram, and I think it has helped me better understand myself and my interactions with others. For those curious, Tracy is Enneagram type 1, “The Reformer”. A fitting type for a person with such ambition and vision.

Shoutouts

If you are a leader in sales, RevOps, finance, or marketing, TigerEye has built a go-to-market planning tool to help you track, plan, and predict your go-to-market performance. The tool analyzes every change in your CRM using artificial intelligence to guide decisions and show you where you’re headed.

If you are interested in checking out what Tracy and TigerEye. have built, please drop her a note on LinkedIn or on X (f.k.a. Twitter) @Tracy_Young. Thank you Tracy for the interview!

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Stories

John D. Tran Overcomes Industry Barriers to Empower Startups 

Navigating the world of law and order as an Asian American can be convoluted. However, as John D. Tran Talks about working with start-ups like AHN, overcoming industry barriers, and the power of mentorship.

A fun fact that encapsulates John’s impact is that he was the trademark attorney who helped protect and register the ASIAN HUSTLE NETWORK name back in 2019—a contribution that underscores his dedication to empowering the Asian American community.

As a Partner at the Rhema Law Group®, John has spent over 20 years working as a Registered Patent Attorney, Intellectual Property Counsel & IP litigator, driven by a mission to aid startups & emerging companies navigating the complex business world. 

Finding Balance & Purpose in the Madness

In 2012, with the arrival of their boy-girl twins, John and his wife Rosalind Ong switched gears. Both seasoned lawyers at larger firms, the duo seized this joyful moment and joined forces to partner at a private law firm, Rhema Law Group, which specializes in intellectual property, business, and corporate law. While people may think being a lawyer trades much of one’s freedom for endless tedious readings into acts and regulations, John finds a nice work/life balance being a “cool” dad to twins (double the coolness), playing basketball, and being an avid sports fan, but finds ultimate enjoyment in spending time with friends and family.  

Protecting the Interests of Start-Ups & Emerging Businesses

Working as a lawyer for startups can be tough, considering how new and fragile they are in the market. While his work requires a focus on quality, integrity, and community, John treats startups with extreme care and attention, prioritizing personalization and case-by-case flexibility for each of his clients. He understands that these new businesses often operate on tight budgets, but also wants his clients to recognize the importance of investing in intellectual property protection right from the start. 

This is not just about legal protection—it’s an act of partnership, building relationships with the clients, getting to know who they are, and helping them grow. John said in an interview with AHN:

“With start-ups, even those backed by investors or venture capitalists, you’re usually dealing with a limited budget that needs to be responsibly allocated across various areas, such as R&D, marketing, sales, employment, and more. A good IP attorney will understand these constraints and focus on identifying the core IP of the start-up that needs to be protected from the outset while determining which IP can be addressed later.

Also, we find it important to conduct IP ‘think tank’ sessions, where we work closely with our clients to identify what protectable IP the company has and then develop an overall IP portfolio strategy. From trademarks, patents, copyrights and even trade secrets, approaching a business’s IP ensures that the start-up’s IP is properly protected at every stage of its growth. It’s incredibly rewarding to work with start-ups and emerging companies, watching them grow and mature over the years, and being a small part of their journey to success.”

John finds pride in working with primarily Vietnamese, Asian and minority-run companies.  His client list ranges from the small entrepreneur with an idea to multi-million dollar manufacturers with hundreds of employees working overseas. 

Building Leaders and Communities

His legal acumen has been shaped by mentorship, as he profoundly affirms his gratitude and advocacy for what mentorship has given him, “I think mentorship is so important, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without being fortunate enough to be mentored by some great people in my life, both professionally and personally.”

Above all, mentorship is not just a veteran-novice work of professional guidance, but, to John, it is a way of personal growth for everyone involved. This mindset coheres with his work ethic, where he hones his expertise (as startups can be quite a hard case to crack, your honor) while supporting their growth. 

“Mentoring builds up individuals, individuals build up communities, and communities raise families, support businesses, and can become the social networks that bring people together. For me, personally, mentorship has been a valued and rewarding part of my life. My wife and I have been fortunate to mentor several individuals for over 15 years, many of whom we met while volunteering at a leadership camp for foster care and at-risk teens.”

For John, mentorship is about time, consistency, and authenticity—qualities he embodies both professionally and personally.

“One particular mentee has become a little brother to me. We have mentored Salesi since he was 12, and then he served in the Army after high school and later worked at our law firm as a paralegal. Now, we’re proud to say that he has just been accepted to law school on scholarship! He was the first in his family to graduate from college and is now on his way to becoming a lawyer. Watching him grow and being there with him through the years has been such a rewarding experience, and it truly highlights the power of mentorship.”

A photo of John D. Tran (L) with his mentee who served in the Army and has just been accepted to law school on scholarship.

Navigating the Legal Landscape as an Asian American

Now, let’s get to the part where most Asian parents will be intrigued to see—being an Asian American attorney. There’s nothing that excites them more than when their kids come home and say “I want to be an attorney.” Respect, stability, and profitability—needless to say more. However, as an Asian American attorney in a predominantly white male-dominated industry, John has faced a sense of isolation and underrepresentation within the industry, forging the urge to always have to outperform himself. 

“I remember the first time I appeared in court on a case—the judge looked at me, smiled, and asked if I was still in law school because I looked so young (haha). It’s that Asian curse! But thinking back now, although there have been great strides made in recent times, the legal industry is still greatly underrepresented when it comes to Asian American attorneys. In my field of intellectual property law, I primarily practice before the federal courts, which are still largely dominated by older white males. That’s just the way it is, and as an Asian American attorney, you can sometimes feel like you’re the only one and feel pressure to prove that you belong in such a competitive space.”

John has overcome them by focusing on his craft and building a reputation for doing great work. John’s advice to aspiring legal professionals all comes down to self-awareness and passion, emphasizing the importance of choosing a practice area that aligns with one’s strengths and personality, as well as the value of giving back through mentorship and community service.

“Matching your personality and skill set to a particular area of law is often overlooked. For example, if you’re an extrovert who likes to be ‘in the action’ of things, becoming a transactional attorney who drafts contracts and agreements at your desk all day may not be the best fit for you. Conversely, if you’re more of an introvert, choosing to become a litigator where you’re in court frequently and presenting oral arguments to a judge or jury may not be a good fit either… Additionally, I think serving on some non-profit organizations and local organizations are things that help provide joy & fulfillment, including what we talked about earlier regarding the power of mentorship.”

Connect With John D. Tran / Rhema Law Group®

“One thing I love about the law is that, for the most part, it is impartial.  So, if you’re a good attorney doing great work, it doesn’t matter if you’re white, black, brown, or blue,, there’s no limits to what you can achieve and accomplish.”

X: @patentjt

Website: www.rhemalaw.com 

Contact:  jdt@rhemalaw.com | 949-852-4430 

  • 7 min read
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News

Keith Dorrington and IW Group Bring ‘Hou Yi’ to Life, Exploring Family and Identity

Inspired by a career geographic shift and the late 90s nostalgia for a foreign land, Keith Dorrington and IW Group’s “Hou Yi” is an exploration of family identity, ego, and how love and care have the power to change the course of things.

Keith Dorrington, the man behind the storyline of “The Fighter,” and award-winning AAPI marketing firm IW Group have collaborated on a new movie project, which serves as his follow-up to the critically acclaimed boxing drama “The Fighter.”

In China, the film tells the story of a self-absorbed executive who unexpectedly becomes the guardian of a three-year-old orphan named Hou Yi. Despite the challenges of language and cultural differences, this unlikely duo develops a profound connection that transforms both their lives.

On “Hou Yi,” the movie broadens his cinematic ambiance, shifting from less “kicking and screaming” to a more subtle and lighter tone. However, the complexities of family and existentialist values that can be felt in “The Fighter” are still well-retained, even if there’s a perspective shift to fatherhood.

Dorrington’s partnership with the multicultural firm IW Group is one to note as the agency is known for connecting and highlighting cultures in their campaigns through impactful storytelling. Set in China, this movie marks a dynamic cross-production as Dorrington’s personal experience and the firm’s cultural expertise will meld into the rawest and most well-done cinematic universe for the audience. 

Dorrington expressed, “Bringing ‘Hou Yi’ to the screen has been a deeply personal mission of mine for over two decades. I’m thrilled to take this important step in making that happen.” He will executive-produce the film based on his original screenplay. He added, “This story means the world to me because it is inspired by the events surrounding my own daughter’s adoption. While I spent time in China in my former career, I’m by no means a cultural expert. I’m excited to partner with IW Group to deliver this story in the most authentic way possible.”

Keith Dorrington | Writer of “The Fighter” (2010) (Image Source: BigSpeak)

As a multicultural and multigenerational organization, IW Group has long been acknowledged for their cross-cultural marketing endeavors. Boasting a strong portfolio of partnerships with Walt Disney, Warner Bros., and the mega-viral “Barbie” campaign last year, the agency will be the main force behind “Hou Yi”’s marketing strategy and cross-national account management. Moreover, this also marks their initial direction towards filmmaking, which promises an explosive celebration of culture and stories.

“As an agency that works at the intersection of Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and Asia, we feel there are some amazing untapped opportunities in his current media landscape,” said Bill Imada, co-founder and chairman of IW Group and 2024 AAF Advertising Hall of Fame inductee, who serves as a producer on “Hou Yi.” “With IW Group approaching our 35th anniversary next year, I felt it was time to embark on an exciting new chapter and I can’t think of a better way to begin this journey than to collaborate with a writer of Keith’s caliber to bring his powerful and inspirational story to the silver screen.”  

Bill Imada, co-founder and chairman of IW Group and a 2024 AAF Advertising Hall of Fame inductee, who is also a producer on “Hou Yi,” said, “As an agency that operates at the crossroads of Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and Asia, we see incredible untapped opportunities in the current media landscape. 

Bill  Imada |  Co-founder and chairman of IW Group (Image Source: Bill Imada/ LinkedIn)

Telly Wong, IW Group Chief Content Officer and SVP, who is also a producer on “Hou Yi,” added, “We have two simple goals for “Hou Yi:” to produce a great film that resonates with global audiences and to explore the additional role our agency can play in the evolving world of media, entertainment, and culture. IW Group has always specialized in telling unique cultural stories in bold and innovative ways, and this new venture takes that philosophy to an exciting new level.”

  • 4 min read
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Stories

Spinning Dreams: DJ Baby Yu’s Quest to Celebrate Asian Talent and Transform the Music Scene

Paddling the world of parties and turntables, DJ Baby Yu’s story may not be in many Asian parents’ favor, who prefer more stable nine-to-five academic jobs. He talks about family expectations, the entertainment industry, the values of his “unconventional” job, and more. 

We all love dancing, don’t we? Sometimes, it feels good to just let your hair down and move to the music for a bit. That’s where DJs come in, blending beats and energizing crowds from all walks of life.

Nonetheless, this job may receive quite a few skeptical and questioning frowns from Asian parents. Uncontrollable parties, unprecedented futures, and unstoppable debaucheries are what the music industry is all about, many would argue. However, DJ Baby Yu is here to bring more Asian creatives to the forefront, shattering the traditional barriers that may hinder them.

Rewind to 28 years ago, in tight-knit local college radios and nightclubs, flooded with ravers and heart-throbbing hip-hop music. Daniel Nakayama, known as Baby Yu, who made mixtapes featuring hosts like Ye, Ciara, and The Game, might be unmoored; but he knew what he was doing and that he was doing it for the fun of it all.

Asian Parents and Conventional Jobs

If the nine-to-five cyclic life is considered to be successful in many Asian households, then the fun-blasting, bass-hitting life would be considered to be one of the most unconventional career paths. “Not all of us are destined for high-paying traditional jobs,” he said. “Generally speaking, our parents weren’t supportive unless we finished school, earned a degree, and pursued a prestigious job.”

Upon the chance meeting with an old friend who happened to be DJ-ing at a house party, uninvited yet inspired, he bought a pair of turntables and records the day right after. Starting to DJ in high school and defining his career at university, he describes the universal battle of fighting for your dream, especially for someone with an immigrant background, where traditional values were the guiding star.

As a child of immigrant parents from Miyazaki, Japan, I share the growing pains experienced by many first-generation Asian children. Our parents often try to shape our futures, pushing us toward careers like doctors, nurses, or lawyers, without considering our personal interests and passions.

At the end of the day, those expectations only came from their own experiences and their desire for their children to have a happy and stable future.

However, once my parents saw me perform on TV, heard me on the radio, and received praise from their friends’ children, they understood that I had found something that made me happy. That realization was all that mattered to them.

The Mash-Ups of Highs and Lows in the Music Industry

This industry is no stranger to a bad reputation, where another rising public darling replaces the ones who don’t transform, where every part of your career move is baselessly evaluated and overblown, where the radio label could count you out if they can no longer profit from you.

DJ Baby Yu (center) with Drake (left) and Jeezy

It’s tough work being an artist in this competitive landscape. One may have to toe the line for mainstream appeal. Some may scream “Smash it, I’m here to do my own thing.”

Whatever approach they may choose, the Internet has given rise to the demand for artists with distinctive musical personalities. “There are no rules for how you should express yourself in life,” he says. “If people understand and believe in you, they’ll follow. If not, that’s okay—they’re not your audience. There will always be those who appreciate your art and direction. Focusing on this has helped me overcome any obstacles life throws my way.”

He Did It for the Fun and He Did It for the Asians

Despite the struggles, Daniel took a moment to reflect on what he had learned from his shows around the world, where he gets to travel to new places, meet new people, throw joyful parties, and try new things.

As I matured in the industry, I ventured into new areas, working on artist development and taking on marketing and branding projects for companies like Puff Puff in Thailand and Whims in Austin. Event planning is another passion of mine, and I particularly enjoy creating fun and unique events.

A shot from the Wiz Khalifa: Under The Influence of Music Tour in Toronto, Canada, featuring Daniel as the tour DJ for Jeezy

Back in Toronto, he was holding a “branded party” called Playbook Social, where he mixed “food, cocktails, karaoke and DJs.” The party sold out, seated the most versatile community in the city. Of course, if you were in the game for the right purpose, like-minded individuals will team up and recognize what you’re doing, even way before you realize it. It turns out that what he’s been doing has such a tremendous impact on the AAPI community.

There have been several times in my life when loyal supporters have come up to me and thanked me for what I do, often ending with the phrase, “You’re doing it for all the Asians!” For a while, I didn’t fully understand that sentiment. In my mind, I was doing it for myself, for the love of music, and to make everyone around me happy.

However, as I traveled and understood my cultural position in the industry, whether I was the only Asian in a room full of Hip Hop leaders or in the pop scene dominated by white people, I realized there weren’t many Asians in these spaces. Times have changed now, with K-pop gaining global popularity, but back then, it was different. Asians weren’t the creators of R&B, soul, Hip Hop, house, rock, or pop music; we were lovers of these cultures, trying to fit in.

Connect With DJ Baby Yu

Curating a unique and eventful experience is the ultimate wish of any musician. DJ Baby Yu has never been one to shy away from collaborating with rising Asian talents. His upcoming event, a collaboration project with UPRISERS, a Japanese female-owned AAPI streetwear brand, is meant to bring together great Asian talent and leaders for celebration and appreciation.

I’ve teamed up with UPRISERS, a Japanese female-owned AAPI streetwear brand, to celebrate their 5th anniversary. Other AAPI groups, such as FACE (Filipinos Advancing Creative Education) and Represent ASIAN Project, are also promoting this event. My goal is to bring together great Asian talent and leaders under one roof to celebrate each other.

This event is also one of the official events of SKAM Summer 2024, a two-day DJ and influencer weekend at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood, created by Sujit Kundu of SKAM Artist (more information at https://skamartist.com/skamsummer).

“Now, I truly understand when people say, “I’m doing it for the Asians.” As a leader, I want to guide and nurture the next generations with the experiences and knowledge I’ve gained over my 28-year career, especially within the Asian community. Collaborating with Uprisers is one way to bring Asian leaders together to celebrate life and acknowledge our achievements.”

Event details:
RSVP: https://UPRISERSxSKAMSUMMERxBABYYU.eventbrite.com
Date: Monday, August 19, 2024
Time: 8 PM – Midnight (PT)
Location: Kimpton Everly Hotel, 1800 Argyle Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90028

Personal contact
Website: https://babyyu.com/
IG: @djbabyyu

  • 7 min read
Ivan Zhang

Awaken* newsletter

From Gamer to AI Unicorn Co-founder: A Conversation with Cohere’s Ivan Zhang

If you have followed the news in any capacity over the last few years, you have undoubtedly heard about LLMs, and the companies building these models. Though the consumer-facing models from companies such as Open AI have captured the hearts and minds of the public, enterprises have different concerns–things such as data privacy, and model reliability.

Enter Cohere, a company developing LLMs to address these issues. Started in 2019, Cohere partners with companies such as McKinsey, Oracle, and all the hyperscalers, and boasts a valuation of $5.5 billion. I sat down with one of the co-founders, Ivan Zhang, to talk about his journey.

TLDR; Key Takeaways

If you only have a few minutes, here are a few golden nuggets from my conversation with Ivan:

  • Sales should be customer-centric. This seems obvious, but have you ever started a sales conversation by talking about your product? Instead, try starting the conversation by asking your customer about their pain points, and then addressing them.
  • Data will be a bottleneck for AI development. Not in the sense that we will run out of internet to train on, but rather that there are types of data which we don’t have a lot of published datasets for. 
  • Your startup doesn’t have to be in the Bay to succeed. Cohere is headquartered in Toronto. This works for them because VCs are more open to remote work after the pandemic and Toronto has a lot of budding technical talent.
  • A key signal to look for when hiring is mastery in any domain. Learning how to master something is fairly transferable. Masters in one domain can likely become masters in another.
  • Being the lone Asian in a leadership room takes some time to adjust to. Getting more reps in has helped Ivan get used to his position.

Tell me about your upbringing, what pushed you to become a hacker?

I was born in Shenzhen, China, and moved to Toronto when I was eight. As a kid, I was always on the computer, even in China, playing the most random arcade games. I don’t want to paint Asians with a broad stroke, but if you’re a male Asian person who has been to high school in the past decade, more likely than not, you’ve played a ton of video games. I did that a lot, and I feel like it built a digital tolerance and stamina for sitting in front of a screen for long hours. Gaming was a big part of why I’m so drawn to building things, working really hard, and doing crazy hours in front of a screen. 

When I got to university, I discovered the hackathon community. Every weekend, we would just meet up at random Ontario universities and sometimes U.S. universities. We would build for the whole weekend. Gaming addiction primed me to get really good at software engineering. I spent my entire first year going to hackathons, building stuff on the side. I had this realization that I could be spending 18 hours playing League of Legends, or I could use the same energy to build stuff, which is also very fun and not as frustrating as a solo queue. It felt like a natural progression.

How has your role within Cohere changed as the company has grown?

When you’re in a startup, your role tends to evolve a lot. That’s been especially true for my time at Cohere. When we started, I was hands-on coding every day, building some of our early systems and pipelines. Eventually, the company grew, and we hired people. Some of our founders had to step up and do some people management.

Eventually, we hired people managers as well, so I have to do less of that. Nowadays, I’m much more settled. I’d say I spend probably 50% of my time still doing technical stuff like machine learning and data processing. For the other 50%, I spend time with customers, either building new relationships, fostering existing ones, or really bringing in business. I think that’s a big part of a founder’s job, like founder-led sales.

How was the transition to doing sales? Did that come naturally to you?

As someone who spent most of my time as the most backend of backend developers, it was definitely uncomfortable at first. When you think about sales, you might think of a business guy with a suit trying to convince someone to give you money for stuff. But when I started doing it more and more, it ended up being about genuinely trying to learn more about your customers, asking them good questions, and figuring out what issues they have. It’s honestly the most important thing you could do. Why are you building anything if you don’t know what your customers want? 

Sales has been super fun because it informs my technical work. I’m starting to see patterns across these conversations, which help inform what we should focus on. Another aspect is that as a founder, when you’re doing sales, you’re meeting executives and other founders as well–so you’re building good professional relationships. For anyone who’s new to it, you should expect some discomfort. But, like anything, you just learn to do it.

Why did you guys decide to focus on enterprise?

The enterprise market is often seen as boring, but actually, most of the world’s efficiency will come from automating a lot of these back-end use cases that don’t necessarily need human potential. A lot of these tasks we’re automating don’t need a well-educated human being sitting at a computer for eight hours a day. We’re much more interested in unlocking that human time for something else. Enterprise is where a lot of this kind of work is done. For example, Oracle is one of our customers, and they’ve deployed our models into their NetSuite features. So, a ton of HR and ERP use cases are now powered by our models. Our mission is scaling intelligence to serve humanity, and what better way to do it than to target the people doing this kind of back-end work at scale? 

We also liked the idea of not having to suck up all of our customers’ data to train these models. In enterprise, we actually ship our models on-prem and we air gap them, so we don’t see any of our customers’ data. In those kinds of scenarios, we have to build our models slightly differently. We have to teach our models to use the enterprise’s internal knowledge bases, use the information returned from these knowledge bases, and then write an answer and cite it. This is all RAG (retrieval augmented generation), which is what we’re focused on because we deploy these models in this air-gapped environment where we can’t continuously suck up people’s usage data. We still have an API and a demo, but the majority of our deployments are on-premise.

What are some areas of AI, whether infrastructure or application, that you think more people should be building in?

I think there will be a bottleneck in terms of training data, but not in the way it’s currently been communicated to the public. Some people paint a picture that we’ll run out of the internet to scrape. I think that’s a naive understanding of how these models work and how to train them. In terms of capturing digital signals—thoughts, demonstrations, audio, video, images, sensory data—there’s going to be a big bottleneck in capturing data from the world that’s not already represented on the internet. The internet does a good job of capturing data and it grows exponentially every year, but there’s information about the world that we experience on a daily basis.

Do you mean information that isn’t easily digitally representable, such as smell?

Yeah, so smell for example–we’d have to build this hypersensitive chemical detector. So if we want autonomous interactive robots in the real world that can smell, there is an information problem we have to solve for the robots, right? They don’t have a nose; we don’t have a great digital nose for them. And I’m sure there’s other stuff.

Why have you decided to keep Cohere headquartered in Toronto instead of the Bay Area?

The three of us co-founders just really like living in Toronto. We grew up here, we have roots here. We also realized that it is actually a pretty great city for A.I. At some point in time, most of the people leading A.I. in the Valley came from Toronto. They came from Jeff Hinton’s lab at the University of Toronto. So there’s a ton of great early talent here. And I think because of how the VC attitude has shifted since the pandemic, investors are investing everywhere. They aren’t restricting investments to the Valley. Remote work is a thing now. And so luckily for us, we’ve been able to raise successfully. We’ve been able to build good models. 

I’ve heard that you don’t pursue brand-name resumes when hiring. What are some signals that you look at instead of pedigree that indicate someone could be a great hire?

I’ve thought about this a lot. I try to think about my own trajectory and places that have rejected me and what signals they didn’t see. What it comes down to is that I look for folks who are extremely skilled at something. Once you’re skilled at something, you can take that anywhere else. Sometimes we want to hire more experienced folks, for sure. But especially in a field like ours where disciplines such as pre-training haven’t been around long enough for anyone to have much experience, you want high-energy, high-autonomy individuals who are excited to learn, experiment, and fail fast.

I try to ask a few questions that probe at stuff related to this. Like, “What’s the coolest thing you’ve worked on?” Then I get to see if they’re going into a lot of detail and are really excited about this random thing. “What’s the hardest you’ve worked on anything?” I want to see if they can go the equivalent of 16 hours a day, seven days a week when they’ve actually gone to bat for something. And then obviously, experience in the field is definitely a big plus, but honestly, the best hires we’ve made have just been high-energy, hardworking, genuinely curious people who are also skilled at software engineering.

How has being Asian impacted your founder’s journey?

I’m not ignorant of it. I definitely know it’s a thing. For example, on my board, I’m the only Asian guy on it. But I’ve been fortunate in that, growing up in Toronto and starting this company in Toronto, it’s not that weird to be an Asian guy in tech. So on the technical front, I don’t see it as a hindrance whatsoever. But it’s definitely been a factor for my own comfort in leadership situations–being the only person that looks like me in certain situations. But honestly, once I got the reps in, being in those situations, it was totally fine. And I think there are a few things that, depending on how you were raised, could affect you in doing business at the leadership level here. But generally, once you get the reps in, it doesn’t even matter.

Is there anything you’d like to shout out?

I’d like to shoutout my wife, she’s a big inspiration for me. Shoutouts to my mom, my dad, my sister. I think my parents taught me what it means to work really hard. I think this is true for many of us immigrants, watching our parents and grandparents work the most menial labor jobs just so we can be fed and go to school. It’s super inspiring. It makes me think: Why am I not working harder? Why am I not thinking about how I can level up and help them retire? My family has been a big inspiration to me. Lastly, shoutouts to Cohere and my co-founders. It’s been super fun, and I’m privileged to be working on this tech. I think it’s genuinely the most interesting thing I could be doing right now.

If you are high-energy, hardworking, and highly curious about AI, please consider applying to work with Ivan at Cohere! You can check out available positions at this link.

Thank you for joining us, Ivan!

  • 11 min read