I recently received my DNA testings results from 23andMe, a Silicon Valley company whose mission is to be “the world’s trusted source of personal genetic information.” At $399, the 23andMe Full Edition isn’t cheap, but I’m very pleased with the service. My report was overwhelmingly positive with few red flags to look out for. While I haven’t started a family yet, I believe my data will be beneficial for my future family. I have two criticisms of the service:
- Spit collection process is confusing – The kit they send includes two sets of directions – one from 23andMe and one from ORAGENE-DNA, the company that makes the collection kit. the 23andMe direction are almost a copy of the ones from ORAGENE-DNA, but it’s still confusing. I had to explain the process to other family members who I ordered the kits for.
- Online site’s UI is a bit confusing – Genetics isn’t a simple topic so I know designing an easy to use site for delivering test results is a difficult task. That said, I believe they can make significant advancements by segmenting the data representation into two groups – easy to understand high level summaries and an advanced view with detailed descriptions and analysis.
How does this relate to wine and your preference for different grape varietals? According to my test results, I “can taste certain bitter flavors.” This is based on the gene TAS2R38. Here is a description from 23andMe:
Gene that encodes a taste receptor capable of detecting PROP and related bitter compounds. Has two main versions: PROP taster and PROP non-taster.
Friend, Master Sommelier, and television personality, Andrea (Immer) Robinson has long said that taste is personal. She often says to, “drink what you like” and “trust your palate.” Genetic testing, as offered by 23andMe, is proof that there is no universal palate and taste is truly personal. I’m sure there are additional genes yet to be discovered that further shape our taste perception. So, that wine that I think has a bitter finish and unbalanced tannins might be truly fantastic to someone who doesn’t have bitter taste perception – neither of us is wrong.
Of course there are psychological issues that affect wine selection and perception. A few years ago, Constellation Wines ran a study that “found that wine consumers fell into six categories, dubbed by the study as Enthusiast, Image Seeker, Savvy Shopper, Traditionalist, Satisfied Sipper and Overwhelmed.” That said, even at a more basic level, it’s becoming more and more clear that genetics shape our food and wine preferences.
If I were a chef, I’d consider starting my meals with an amuse-bouche that helped to determine the taste preferences of dinners. How about 4 small bites that feature bitter, non-bitter, high salinity, and low salinity. Then, tailor the cuisine to each diner’s palate – now, that’s a cool idea…
Posted in: Food and Wine, Product Review / Recommendation, Psychology, San Francisco Bay Area, Technology.
Tagged: 23andMe · bitter · food · genetics · perception · preference · wine
I just received two shipping notifications from Amazon for orders placed over the weekend. However, it seems the item being shipped was omitted from both emails. It seems they have a bug with their systems. Here is one email with my personal information obfuscated.
Greetings from Amazon.com.
We thought you’d like to know that we shipped your items, and that this
completes your order. Your order is being shipped and cannot be changed
by you or by our customer service department.
You can track the status of this order, and all your orders, online by
visiting Your Account at http://www.amazon.com/gp/css/history/view.html
There you can:
* Track your shipment
* View the status of unshipped items
* Cancel unshipped items
* Return items
* And do much more
The following items have been shipped to you by Amazon.com:
——————————————————————–
———————————————————————
Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC):
Shipped via UPS
Tracking number: 1ZW88XXXXXXXXXXXX
———————————————————————
——————————————————————–
This shipment was sent to:
Eric W Goh
Austin, TX
United States
via UPS (estimated delivery date: July 28, 2009).
For your reference, the number you can use to track your package is
1ZW88XXXXXXXXXXXX.Visit http://www.amazon.com/wheres-my-stuff to track
your shipment.Please note that tracking information may not be available
immediately.
If you need to print an invoice for this order, visit Your Account
(www.amazon.com/your-account) and click to view open and recently shipped
orders. Find the order in the list and click the “View order” button.
You’ll find a button to print an invoice on the next page.
If you ever need to return an order, visit our Online Returns Center:
www.amazon.com/returns
If you’ve explored the links on the Your Account page but still need
assistance with your order, you’ll find links to e-mail or call
Amazon.com Customer Service
in our Help department at http://www.amazon.com/help/
———————————————————————
Please be aware that items in this order may be subject to California’s
Electronic Waste Recycling Act. If any items in this order are subject
to that Act, the seller of that item has elected to pay any fees due
on your behalf.
———————————————————————
Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address
that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.
Thank you for shopping with us.
———————————————————————
Amazon.com… and you’re done!
http://www.amazon.com/
———————————————————————
Posted in: Annoyances, Random Musings, Technology.
In this day and age of lean, low-cost, bootstrapped technology startups, it’s easy for founders to ignore the issue of startup capital. Years ago, it was probably the issue given the most attention. Many brick and mortar businesses took $200k or more to start. Even technology startups just 10 years ago would have had to consider initial costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
These days, a dedicated server can cost well less than $100 per month and those leveraging cloud computing can get started usually for less than $50 a month. Open-source software has also lowered costs substantially. Back in the late ’90s, we’d always worry how many database servers we’d need and how much the Oracle licenses would cost us. Remember cost per power units? Today, most startup web businesses don’t have to purchase any server software at all.
It’s no wonder then, that many of today’s startups consider their capital investment at or near $0 and just think about the opportunity costs. My advice is to really consider what your minimal costs are going to be for the first year and fund your company’s checking account with that amount.
Will you need legal services? Incorporation fees (which I’ll address in a later post)? Are you going to run any advertising to promote your business? Planning on doing any give-aways? What will your servers cost you for the first year? Do you need to have some graphic design done for you? Office space? Well… you get the idea. In practice, I’ve found that for businesses that we said would cost “nothing to start”, sans opportunity cost, often can rack up $5,000 to $20,000 pretty quickly.
If you’re not concerned about these numbers, that’s good. Why put the money into a company account, you ask? Because, it forces each co-founder to get serious about the business and put their money where their mouth is. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed people who claim to be serious about a business, but when it comes time to fund a company that needs $2,000 per co-founder, they decide that they don’t want to move forward. The crazy thing is that often these people were making high 6-digit salaries prior to working on the startup. Somehow, the act of paying the company makes the true sacrifice of startups a bit too real for some. It’s a great test to make sure you’re all on the same page and gives some indication that each is willing to do what’s necessary to make the business a success. Also, it exposes if your founders are really terrible with money. Perhaps they don’t have a few thousand saved up and the company expects to have to go 6 months before funding or some liquidity event. How are they going to pay their living expenses? If they have such poor money-management skills, how are they supposed to manage a business? It’s better to have these kind of founders quit early.
In short, come up with a reasonable number and require that each founder antes up their fair share. It will save you a ton of wasted time in the long run.
Posted in: Austin, Texas, Startups, Technology.
Tagged: funding · how-to · Startups · Technology
After years of business and personal travel, I’ve gone through my fair share of luggage. I’ve coveted the expensive designer luggage from Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada. I’ve purchased cheap stuff from no name brands. I’ve owned lightweight “hiking-like” pieces. And, I’ve built a collection of high quality luggage from Briggs & Riley (which is amazing quality, but quite heavy).
After all this experimentation, I’m really enamored with the lightweight soft backpack from eBags called the Weekender Convertible. Maybe it’s that I’m older, wiser, and happily married, but I no longer care if I look smooth walking through the airport. It took me a while to get over the poor aesthetics of a backpack, but I’m glad I did. First, having it centered on your back keeps you from having one arm tweaked behind you. And, you don’t have to worry about the 3-4 feet behind you anymore. Secondly, most airline staff don’t give your bag a glance. When the overheads are full and they are asking people to check their bags, you can just walk right by with your backpack. Finally, the soft construction means that you can squeeze it into almost any spot. For those times when you collect too much while traveling, it easily expands to fit your new found stuff.
This bag is similar to Rick Steves’ Convertible Carry-On bag. It’s a little bit heavier, but the construction is much better and it has a few more compartments for logically dividing your stuff up. Personally, I think the Rick Steves’ bag is really poorly constructed, even for the low $99.95 price.
So thousands of dollars of luggage later, I think I might have just found the perfect bag. And it costs just $69.99. Go figure…
Posted in: Fashion, Product Review / Recommendation, Random Musings, Travel.
Lately, I’ve been meeting with entrepreneurs in the Austin area and giving them some advice on their startups. I realized that regardless of the company, there is some common advice I tend to give to everyone. This reminded me of when I was interviewed by Steve Spalding of How To Split An Atom, a couple of years ago and was asked the question, “How do you start your own business?” In this post, I’m going to focus on what I believe is the most important issue – choosing your co-founders.
Here was part of my response to Steve’s question:
Found your company with people you really trust, respect, and admire. Your company may outlast the average marriage in the US, so you better be sure these are people you are willing to work with for the long term.
I believe the five most important attributes can be summed up with the acronym: T.A.P.E.D.
- Trust – Trust is the most important criteria for choosing a co-founder. You’re going to be too busy to watch over each other with every move. You need to be able to trust that the person has the right capabilities and the right motivation.
- Adaptability – I like to use the “MacGyver test”. Imagine you guys are stuck on some island where there are some bad guys trying to kill you. Is this the person that can help you defeat the bad guys with nothing more than a Swiss army knife, some scrap wire, and a stick of gum? Startups are challenging in that you’re always resource limited. You need people that can embrace these limitations instead of complain about them. We’ve all worked with people that romanticize the days when they had two executive assistants. Don’t found your company with those people. Work with people that can adapt to any situation and excel.
- Passion – Your co-founders need to be passionate about the space you’re in. It’s not enough that they “just like startups” or see “some upside potential.” There are going to be a lot of bumps in the road. If they don’t love what they are doing and have great passion for solving the business problem, they are likely going to quit when the going gets tough.
- Energy – If you worked with your co-founder in the past, were they the person you’d most likely see at the office at 3AM? Work/life balance is important, but in a startup, you’re going to have to work crazy hours. You just have to. If you went to school with your co-founder, were they enthusiastic about getting stuff done? You can even see a person’s energy in sports and in the gym. Driven people tend to work hard in all aspect of their life. Choose people you know can go the distance with you.
- Differences – While it’s important to share the high-level vision, it’s good to have some differences. Do some research on group think and you’ll see why. Ever wonder why the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster happened? Or how anyone could think the Bay of Pigs was a good idea? Smart people do dumb things, especially when not challenged. Differences lead to creative solutions and help you avoid the pitfalls of group think. It’s good to have these differences. But, it’s important that you don’t spend all your time debating things. Just like a functional family, you need to be able to compromise and move on, once you’ve decided on the correct path.
While I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs in startups, I’ve had great luck with my co-founder. Back when I chose to work with him, I didn’t have all these criteria. I simply trusted and admired him and went with my gut. But I was fortunate enough to have worked with him at a startup for a couple of years, so I really knew him well. If you’re looking to found your startup with someone and don’t have as long of a history with them, do spend the time to analyze if they are the right fit.
Stay tuned for: How to start a technology company – Startup advice, Part 2 “Put your money where your mouth is”
Posted in: Austin, Texas, Startups, Technology.
Tagged: cofounders · how-to · Startups · Technology
