Steli Efti

The founder. A guy with a mop...

I had a very interesting conversation with a cab driver the other day who asked me what I was doing after picking me up at the office at 4am in the morning. I told him that I'm a startup founder. After that we had a very interesting little conversation. Here's what happened...

Cab Driver: So you OWN the business?

Me: Yeah!

Cab Driver: Oh, I didn't realize that without your mop!

Me: Huh?

Cab Driver: You see, I used to sell cheap paintings to restaurant owners in the city. One of the first things I learned from an older sales guy was to look for the guy with the mop when I enter a new restaurant to make a sale.

Me: Why that?

Cab Driver: Because chances are, he will be THE OWNER of the place...hahaha...and man I tell you the rule works. 9 out of 10 times it WAS the owner of the restaurant...

Me: Hahaha...this is by far one of the BEST ways to describe the work of a founder:

It's the guy with the mop. Doing whatever it takes, no work beneath him, no task to dirty if it needs to get done...

We had a good laugh and exchanged some other interesting stories and theories at 4 am in the morning. I just love to talk to cab drivers. Many times you can learn alot if you're only willing to listen.

Supercool Philosophy - Learning to be Free

When I joined supercool school i was really inspired and won over by Steli's "7 Lessons You Learned @ School That Could Possibly Ruin Your Life", so I couldn't hold back and  now i published my thoughts on our Supercool Educational Philosophy.

I am still in the process of un-learning the useless academic formalities i had to conform to when doing my phd, while continuing to delve deeper into philosophical insight. So please be prepared for some hegelian big picture thinking! Also you are all invited to help make this manifesto as readable as possible!

The full paper has 20 pages and i also distilled a short version (3 pages)

Dr. Max Senges, Supercool Hausmeister

A Ebook For Kids Who Love Hip Hop

Ok, I haven't posted in a long time on this blog but you know what that means...we're getting ALOT of things done at Supercool School ;)

In the meanwhile...I decided to publish an ebook online that I had written a long time ago called "Hip Hop Millionaires Success Secrets".

My motivation to write this book came from seeing all the kids who love Hip Hop music and worship their rap stars. I though...hmm...there must be a way to use that motivation and admiration from kids to teach them some valuable things in life.

So I did some research on the TOP personas in the hip hop biz and tried to extract some valuable and common sense business and success strategies from them. Things that you could find in an Donald Trump book but that are based around celebrities that the kids really care about.

So if you have or know children (or anyone else for that matter) who loves hip hop...you might want to give them this ebook to read. I promise they're going to learn some really valuable things for their lives.

Enjoy!

Man In The Arena

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." Yossi Vardi

Source: TechCrunch

Philos Of Philosophy

Although I'm Greek, I don't consider myself a philosopher - I'm much more of a "Doer" then a "Thinker".

But, knowing the meaning of the word "Philosophy" ( friend of truth, wisdom, knowledge) I would say I'm definitely a "philos of philosophy" ( a friend of the "friends of truth" ).

Reading some of Aristotles work today inspired me to share some of the wisdom of my friends with you in this post.

Warning: there is a catch: One of those quotes is actually MY quote. I thought it would be interesting to see if anyone will find out which one is from me ( and if it makes any difference ). Enjoy the wisdom...

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something."
Plato

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."
Aristotle

"Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach."
Aristotle

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
Aristotle

"What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do."
Aristotle

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
Archimedes

"We know all there is to know, but we don't do all there is to do."
Socrates

"Let him that would move the world first move himself."
Socrates

P.S.

Here are some interesting links I found searching for philosophy blogs:

Experimental Philosophy Blog

Facebook Experimental Philosophy Group

MySpace Site of Experimental Philosophy

Seems like "Experimental Philosophy" is big on the net. Though am not exactly sure what it is. Hmm...I'll get back to you on this one.

smart Vs. intelligent

What's the difference between being smart and being intelligent? Here's the analogy I came up with in 6th grade:

If we imagine intelligence as the capacity of our brain, smartness would be the art of filling it. In other words, maybe your room ( intelligence) isn't really big but you are very good in filling it and using it most effectively ( smartness).

I can't tell you what's more important. I guess the best is to have lots of both of them. But if I would have to choose - I'd always rather go with smart then intelligent. But I'm biased on this one ;)

How do you differentiate between smart and intelligent?

Think Outside The Fast-Food-Box

Here's a challenge: You have to translate two full Chinese sentences ( 13 kanji symbols out of a total of approximately 47,035 in the  Kangxi dictionary ) in 1 hour. Let's suppose you can't speak or read Chinese and you don't know anyone who can ( just like me ).

Let's look at the obvious options:

1. You go to an "expert" website like kasamba and pay around $30.00 to get it right away
2. You can try to google it ( it's "free" but a waste of time )
3. You call a paid translation service ( cost at least $50.00 and they need forever to get back to you)
4. You send an email to friends who might know someone who can help you ( again free but uncertain)
5. You post it on a blog, on twitter or on facebook and ask your social network ( same things as email to friends )

This task is perfect for a "think-outside-the-fast-food-box" solution:

What I did two weeks ago ( when I had exactly this problem) was I called a local Chinese restaurant with delivery service to order sweet-sour chicken and rise. 30 minutes later, the delivery boy brought me my food and I asked him if he can help me translate this 2 sentence document for an extra tip of $3.00. He was more then happy to help me and had a fun time explaining to me the meaning of the symbols and the sentences. It was great!

There I was...sitting on my desk with the solution to my translation problems: Delicious Chinese Fast Food! Mmmhhh....

Any other good stories on how to solve challenging problems in unusual ways?

It's not about the Source - it's about the "Mmmmh.."

Did you ever thought about what a world-changing, paradigm shifting, curve-jumping invention tomato sauce was?

It's hard to find out who invented tomato sauce ( at least I gave up after 4 minutes of search on Google and Wikipedia) but the idea intrigues me.

Anyway, the reason why I talk about tomato sauce it's because I started to use this analogy alot lately and I wanted to share it with you.

When I think about Supercool School ( or any other web app), I think about tomato sauce. Just like tomato sauce - ScS is a great idea, a great invention per se.

But I wonder if the first recipe, the first mixture was really a success or not more likely a failure. Because it doesn't matter if you like tomato sauce or not - if you got the recipe wrong and you put too much or too little of some ingredients in it - it won't taste good!

And that's something everyone who does something new must understand: we're all in the tomato sauce business!

If you come up with the first version of your product, web app etc. etc. and people don't go instantly "mmmhhh....yummy!" that only means you gotta go back to the kitchen table and work on the recipe ( not necessarily the concept) till you got it right.

The web is a great place full of app-gourmets. Get your idea out there, see if it's tasty, change the ingredient till you got it right - and then make ppl happy!

Because it's not about the source - it's about the sauce!

5000 Years Of Patience

From the presentation of Kai-Fu Lee @ Google.

"We will take a long-term view to win in China. The Chinese have a 5000 years of history. Google has a 5000 years of patience in China." Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google, Inc.

Stealing Beer & Food From Facebook

David and I went to the Lunch 2.0 event yesterday @ Facebook. It was a great networking event and I even got to talk to Mark Zuckerberg ( cool guy). But the coolest thing happened in the end of the event when we stole 12 bottles of beer, 2 packs of M&M's & alot of good food from Facebook. We walked out of the office shouting:

The difference between rich startups with funding and poor startups without? We have to steal food and drinks to survive!

Actually, we didn't really steal the stuff but rather saving it from being thrown away. You see one startups trash is another startups treasure ;) And the cleaning lady told us to take as much stuff as we could carry so...

Anyway...we've been out of our little apartment room for two events over the las month. The Techcrunch Party and Facebooks Happy Dev & Lunch 2.0 event. Both times it was well worth it. But now I gotta get back to work. For all of you who keep asking me for the launch date: Soooon. I promise to publish some great news on this blog asap.

Much power to you!