My Interview at TigerStartups

TigerStartups is an up and coming tech blog that focuses on "Asians in Technology." The founder, Peter Shen, was nice enough to interview me for their "hot seat" segment.

In The Hotseat With Bernard Moon, Founder Of SparkLabs And VidQuik

Recently, Bernard Moon graciously took some of his busy time to talk with us and be part of our Hotseat segment. Bernard is a serial entrepreneur, who has left footprints from Chicago to San Francisco and as far as South Korea. His latest ventures are VidQuik and SparkLabs, which he talks more about in depth below. Previously, he was Managing Director of the Lunsford Group, which is a private investment firm consisting of entities in technology, healthcare, and real estate. He was Co-founder and VP of Business Development at GoingOn Networks, a social media platform for companies. He is a mentor for Mucker Lab, a startup accelerator based in LA. Bernard is also a prolific blogger and is a frequent guest writer to various technology journals, such as VentureBeat, Mashable, TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb. His latest blog in VentureBeat is titled “4 signs that your startup is ready to pivot.”

Now in the hotseat, Bernard Moon.

Can you tell us more about Vidquik, your video conferencing startup? Such as what phase of the project the startup is in and what can we look forward to in the near future?

Vidquik is seeking to provide companies with a flexible and powerful web conferencing platform for their websites. While not for every industry, we allow our users, such as e-commerce sites and sales organizations, to replace their text chat or phone interactions with video engagement. Vidquik allows you to easily embed our platform into any website and allow customers to interact with your customer service or sales representatives. We have a powerful intelligent routing system that directs your customers to the appropriate representative by tags. So our users can tag a call center "seat" or sales team "seat" based on geography, product line and other factors.

We will be launching some pilot tests soon with a few clients and have been in a long beta development period, which we hope to get out of soon. If you visit our website, we don't have our core product displayed since we planned to show it after a few pilot tests.

We did a blog article about SparkLabs inaugurating its first class of startups, tell us how it is going and what you hope to accomplish with SparkLabs?

SparkLabs is a fun side project for me. It's always rewarding to help out other entrepreneurs. The first class was selected with some good buzz and it's been great engaging with these first six companies. It's an awesome group of passionate, incredibly talented and intelligent entrepreneurs.

HanJoo, Jimmy and I really wanted to help grow the startup ecosystem in Korea and help put Korean entrepreneurs on the map. This means helping Korean startups go global and effectively penetrate new markets outside of Korea. We recently add two general partners, Jay and Awy, that will help with market entry and growth strategies for our companies into Southeast Asia and China.

You have been a dedicated entrepreneur here in the states but you have been in touch with the entrepreneurs in Korea as well as investments there. Tell me why it is important for you to keep a connection over in Korea vs focusing solely here in the states?

There wasn't any conscious decision on such activities, it is simply part of who I am. I have many friends in Korea and Asia, and I come from a large family where most of them reside in Korea. Though I am American, if I have something to offer and help any entrepreneur whether in Korea or elsewhere, I would do it. But strategically, starting SparkLabs made sense because of my various connections to Korea.

Besides being an entrepreneur, you seem to enjoy your role as an adviser and mentor. Can you tell me why do you feel strongly about doing this role?

Some of this I already described, but part of this comes from my first startup experience, which was actually with Jimmy Kim, my co-founder of SparkLabs. We suffered, learned everything on the fly, begged our parents for money, accumulated credit card debt and faced rejection over a hundred times. We loved and appreciated our first startup experience, but we also decided if we could help others suffer through a shorter path that we would do it.

You are already a successful entrepreneur but let's say in 5 years, you have more than achieved every goal you set to accomplish. What do you hope to give back to the community that brought you to that point?

I wouldn't say that I'm successful. I still haven't hit a home run. Just a single, a double and waiting on a couple at-bats. Even if I exit Vidquik successfully, I will be back at it right away. Financial success has always been secondary for me. I simply love the whole process of building a new company. Taking a concept on a napkin, building the product, building the partnerships, hiring people, and all the uncertainties of startup life.

Anyway, regardless of how Vidquik turns out, I will go at it again at least a couple more times. Regarding my community activities, that's always been a part of my life. If you can't balance your life between your professional goals and giving your time to various causes, it might be difficult to do so in a whole-hearted manner when you have more time. I believe it's better to make such commitments early in your life whether it's a nonprofit, religious organization, or some cause. I will say once we had kids, I had to step down from a couple nonprofit boards because that's a whole other level of time and commitment.

You grew up in the Chicago suburbs but now live in San Francisco. Tell us what do you miss about Chicago?

Food. I missed hearty food and steaks. Also the diversity of foods that you would only get in NYC or Chicago. My wife and I sometimes miss the "big city" culture that only NYC and Chicago provides. The shows, museums, big park festivals, etc. San Francisco is great for a small city. It's a city of character, which is similar to Chicago.

Far East Movement Kicks Ass! Props!

Props to Far East Movement for being the first Asian-American artists to make the top 10 of the Billboard charts, and for sitting at the #1 spot for a few weeks now. Very cool. Some press about them...

"The Far East Movement go platinum, discuss alternative pop and G6's" LA Times

"'Far East Movement' blazes trail for Asians" ABC News




FM's TV debut

Chase Community Giving, Vote For the Center for The Pacific Asian Family!

HatTip to Teddy Zee. Helping out our friend, Teddy Zee, with his cause! Vote for the Center for The Pacific Asian Family to help them win the $1 million dollars prize of the Chase Community Giving contest. Go to www.voteCPAF.org

"Unite Against the Violence" video was created with the support of various Asian American actors and artists to support the Center for the Pacific Asian Family (CPAF) in the fight against domestic violence and sexual assault.




Music by Sam Geunjin Kang.

Join the fight with CPAF as we try to end the silence on violence!

Sam Yoon for Mayor of Boston

Sam Yoon speaks from the Greenway in Chinatown about the need to tap into new and locally developed technology to bring city government into the 21st Century.

Kollaboration Acoustic 3!

Our friends, PK and Roy, have their show, Kollaboration Acoustic 3, on August 22nd in LA. Kollaboration seeks to identify and empower up and coming Asian Americans in entertainment.



"Kollaboration Acoustic 3. Get your tickets now!! Michael Jackson's "Heal The World" performed by the artists of Kollaboration Acoustic III- Alfa, Mike Isberto, Jinah Kim, Gerald Ko, Megan Lee, Yoori Park, Susanna Yoon. Shot on various locations around the world. Directed by Roy Choi

Live performances on August 22, 2009. 7:30pm Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood, CA. Special guest performance by Jane Lui.

Support our rising artists and purchase tickets here!"

Ignorant Betty Brown Suggests Asian Voters Get Easier Names to "Deal With"

HatTip to Joyce. Texas State Rep. Betty Brown is incredibly ignorant and probably pretty dumb too. Practically speaking, Polish, Swedish and Norwegian are much more difficult to read and spell out than Chinese names.

texas rep. suggests asian voters get easier names to "deal with" Angry Asian Man

Jim Yong Kim, New President of Dartmouth College

Jim Yong Kim is the first Asian American to head an Ivy League Institution. Just giving props to a Korean American here :) His background is fascinating:

"... Kim co-founded the non-profit in his second year of medical school after meeting Paul Farmer, later his colleague on the HMS faculty. The two traveled throughout the world in the 1990s to Haiti, Peru, Russia and Malawi, researching global health issues.

As a result of their efforts to develop effective and affordable treatments for drug-resistant tuberculosis, Kim and Farmer were later appointed advisors to the director of the World Health Organization.

Leading Partners in Health provided Kim with fundraising experience that will be important in his role as the College’s president, he said.

In 2004, Kim was chosen to direct the WHO’s initiative to combat HIV/AIDS. Kim spearheaded the “3 by 5” program, which aimed to treat three million people suffering from HIV/AIDS by 2005.

Kim received a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2003, and was listed as one of the 100 most influential people by Time Magazine in 2006 for his work on global epidemics..."

Anh "Joseph" Cao... First Vietnamese-American Elected to Congress

Congratulations to Congressman Ahn "Joseph" Cao! The first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress. A great step forward for Asian Americans. He was the Republican candidate in Louisiana's 2nd congressional district and defeated nine-term Democratic Rep. William Jefferson, whose terms were riddled with corruption and scandal.

More from CNN, "First Vietnamese-American elected to House 'speechless'" and Associated Press, "1st Vietnamese-American elected to US Congress"

Random Asian Shorts... And Putting a Face to One of the Big Guys

I received various emails on an Asian American video called "Fobman" that a group called New True Talent produced for this year's UCLA's Korean Culture Night. I assume this is a UCLA student group that does various short productions. I definitely give the kids credit on their effort, creativity, and production. The storyline was a little weak at the beginning, but the second half makes it an overall decent short.

I also wanted to help put a face and more information on my friend "Joe" that I've been writing about ever since I started blogging. I recently found out he has a website and blog (jumbo + body = joe). To help verify the truth of my stories and for continuity sake, I just wanted post parts of his own description from his website:

Mostly Useless Information about Me
......
My all time favorite pigout food: Yes
Restaurant: Any place that has the letters b-u-f-f-e-t after the name

Joe cracks me up. He also made this rap spoof video for his church last year. I heard it had more than 10,000 downloads within the first three weeks or so without really publicizing it. I couldn't find the link to the Sony site that had the best download method, but just try the link on his website. Anyway, I guess it just spread around the Korean American Christian community throughout the U.S. Joe has always been a gifted musician and great rapper ever since I've known him in high school.