The Facebook Effect vs. The Mimvi Effect (the essence of a winner)

On March 11, 2010, I took on the task of helping Mr. Kasian Franks recover from an aftermath attack from giants like Warner Bros., EMI Records etc. He showed me evidence the case was thrown out of court. However, Kasian was down for the count and the story on March 11, 2010 is written here: http://www.alivenotdead.com/gordonchiu/Dinners-Deals-New-York-profile-931583.html

During March 2010, there wasn't even a website. If I said no, he might have been defeated and gotten a job making $75-$100/hour not bad but not the dream nor purpose of a true entrepreneur. After evaluating the algorithms, I was convinced based on his ideas and the fact this was a true entrepreneur to be his adviser at  www.mimvi.com; Dr [dot] Chiu [at] mimvi.com. 

I then found various competitors and compared the algorithmic results. For example, I would type in random keywords  www.chomp.com versus  www.mimvi.com and Kasian's proprietary  algorithms were vastly superior. Try it yourself:

1. games

2. money

3. fashion

No, I did not have to help him. But I knew, I was supposed to. Six months passed and Kasian today has a company sporting a valuation of more than 18M.

I said to myself, if this kid could be threat to the film industry such that they sued him for billions of dollars, if only the public knew that he could one day create thousands of jobs -and we sure need jobs.

And like Mark Zuckerberg's story of Facebook or Bill Gates' story in Microsoft, may Kasian's continued success be an indication that dreams are still possible and to never give up! And while the debate goes on regarding Mark Zuckerberg's donation of 100M to Newark, NJ schools, at least the opportunity for such a donation exists in the heart of a young entrepreneur who's been helped. Kasian like Mark is a giving man and aside from a superior product a giving attitude is a key ingredient for me in choosing winners.

Mark Zuckerberg's donation:

And Kasian is definitely not the Mark Zuckerberg story. For readers who don't know the half of it. Mark and Eduardo were friends at Harvard. Eduardo gives him 15,000 USD to startup the business and gets diluted out in equity and in role at the Company.

Larry Cheng who used to be at Bessemer Venture Partners and currently now at Volition Capital in Boston tells a great story of two friends falling apart similar to The Count of Montecristo and where Mark Zuckerberg wants to own everything including an infatuation with Eduardo's girlfriend from Wellesley ( blog). 

And if you go to Eduardo Saverin's linkedin profile you'll see where he is today: New York. Many Harvard graduates meet at The Harvard Club in New York City as the social hotspot for meetings and deals (like Yale Club, it is very high profile and nice place to have meetings).

It's unfortunate how things play out but reality is young geeks can end up owning/changing the world. The key will still be finding ones with hearts of gold and helping them stay that way.

"Thefacebook"

About the Film: The Social Network

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-eisenberg-20100926,0,2093822.story

http://www.docresume.com/eduardo-saverin-girlfriend-the-social-network-finchereisenbergtimberlakegarfield-tyrone-rubin-film-show.html

The Social Network Movie:

Psst ... it's also great that Patrick Lee(Founder of AliveNotDead) is sincere about his goals and mission.

And Kasian ... if you read this, you should write about what you gave up to get back on your feet after the Warner Bros incident. How the VC world treated you. And the people who helped you get back on your feet are part of a tremendous turnaround story.

As we watch Eric Schmidt's interview on Charlie Rose, I think about how mobile search and MIMVI have really become the representing idea as Google=Android won't be indexing/searching for Apple.