Paradox

This morning I had a Skype call with the founders of Hyperink, a publishing startup based in San Francisco. They recently raised $1.2 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator and SV Angel, making them at least 4 million in valuation.

We met — as many in the valley do — via a mutual friend. I had helped a guy named Derrick Kho set up an internship program called Startup Roots earlier this year, when he contacted the NUS Hackers for publicity and introductions to good student programmers. When I went to the valley I stayed with a bunch of NUS students, one of which turned out to be his girlfriend.

"Have you heard of Hyperink?" he asked on my first night there, propped up in the cold on the doorstep outside.

I had, but I didn't really knew what they did. Derrick told me. "Maybe I can set up an email introduction — I think you guys should really meet."

We did, and I spent Saturday morning talking to Kevin, one of the co-founders, and then programming at the Hyperink offices.

When I got back to Singapore, Kevin set up a Skype call because (it turned out) they wanted my advice on setting up a digital publishing workflow. (By chance, I'd spent most of my time at Pandamian doing something similar). I obliged by pointing them to half-a-dozen tools, including an EPUB generator I adapted for Pandamian and then maintained, as free and open source software. In exchange, they were willing to give us access to their authors to test out a marketing tool we were planning to build.

"Thanks for your help," said Matt, the other co-founder, shortly before we concluded. "When Kevin first told me about you, he said 'holy shit I met this guy and he knows so much about ebooks.' And that turned out to be totally true, and then some!"

I felt pleased at that, but then the Skype call ended and I was faced with an incomplete assignment, and I felt bad again.

Here's my problem: I find it hard to reconcile my status as a student with my status as an ebook 'person'.

I am a terrible student: right now I'm doing level 2 modules in NUS when I'm third year, and my classmates look at me a little funny when I tell them, slightly embarrassed, what mods I'm currently studying for. Sometimes I change the subject, because I don't want to see the looks on their faces when they find out.

On the other hand, they're not sure how to react when I tell them what I do on the side. I also don't tell many of them about my extra-curricular activities.

I'm not sure how to judge my self-worth. My pride at my ebook work (and my obsession with some of the problems in the field) are mostly buried under my insecurities as a student. I'm not disciplined in studying, I get distracted, I fail subjects. I'm at least half a year behind on my peers, and I'm likely to repeat a semester, delaying graduation for half a year.

And on the side, I'm giving advice (and code) to a million-dollar company.

How do I reconcile this? I know I should feel proud, but right now I'm struggling with constructing a processor out of logic gates, and doing badly at it. I suppose there's only so many Cs and Ds one can take before thinking badly of oneself (okay, I know I'm not an idiot, but there's psychological wear and tear, just try it for a year or two).

(And, yes, some people would say this immunization to failure is necessary for an entrepreneur).

I suppose my insecurities about my academics has tempered with my obsession (and pride) with doing good work in digital publishing. Maybe that's a good thing.

Maybe not.

On the bright side, at least I know if I fail I can always get a job as an ebook consultant.

Haha, now wouldn't that be a laugh?

Towers

I'm sitting in the plane, back from Incheon, Korea (it was a one hour transit on the way back from San Francisco) and I'm thinking of her.

I miss her.

I don't miss her all day, every day. It depends on the environment. Right now the plane's quiet and sleepy and the blanket drawn up around me's comfortable, so I want her in a seat besides me. In San Francisco I didn't want her there - it didn't feel safe, especially when I was making my way back at night. (My friends say they'd heard gunshots one night out in SF, and got so bloody scared they drove back home to Mountain View and didn't return for a few weeks.)

American cities are strange. San Francisco is ugly and large, and while I got rather good at navigating the city, I never understood the way the poor, homeless people could coexist next to the yuppies walking down the street. I got out at the Civic Centre BART station, and stood there, mouth agape, at one of the most beautiful parks I'd ever seen in SF. I was about to take out a camera when a well-dressed old woman saw my open mouth and asked if I needed help — she gave me directions and then warned me to 'watch my wallet'.

On Saturday, after a meeting with another publishing startup in the city, I took a CalTrain down to Mountain View. Angad picked me up in a VW convertible.

Mountain View is beautiful. It's nearer to winter now, and so there are wild splashes of pink and reds in the underbrush. The streets are clean. The shops look sleepy and small, and Castro Street is chockful of quaint food shops (all healthy, in typical Californian fashion).

Angad took the roof down and we drove to Palo Alto, where Stanford is. The whole area leading out of SF is beautiful. It was then, driving in the cool ocean breeze, with the roof down and music blaring, did I wish that I could bring her down with me to see what I saw.

I'm sure London is as beautiful as California is. One day, we'd go together to explore the whole city. But we explore everything, anyway. It's only a matter of time.