Looking back and looking forward
- In 1984, I was born on May 2nd.
- In 1985-ish I was between 1 to 3 years old, and didn’t remember much.
- In 1988, I spent most of my days reading lots of Enid Blyton.
- In 1989, I learned how to ride a bike, proper. This was in some giant loop in Taman Zabba (Taman Tun). Thanks dad.
- In 1990, I won my first competition in Subang Parade. It was for digital art, where we supposed to draw a caterpillar and a butterfly. I was later interviewed by a Chinese magazine. Inspired, I spent the rest of the year drawing things on MS Paint.
- In 1991, I did my first year in Chinese primary school, Yuk Chai, in Taman Megah. I spent the whole year pretty much daydreaming, doing homework, and getting caned for not doing my homework correctly.
- In 1992, I performed NKOTB’s “The Right Stuff” in front of the class. Alone. Singing, dancing and all. I vaguely remember laughter. But I was happy I did it.
- In 1993, I started drawing comics about my classmates with superpowers similar to Dragon Ball Z characters. My older brother was casted as the villian. He was my biggest fan.
- In 1994, I started reading Edgar Allen Poe’s complete works. Especially “The Raven”. It was after watching a reference in a Simpson’s Halloween special.
- In 1995, after many deaths, my insect habitat produced a caterpilliar which turned into a Monarch butterfly. It flew off into my neighbour’s garden.
- In 1996, I started listening to too much Nirvana. I could sing every song. Every. Song.
- In 1997, I didn’t talk to girls, at all, despite all my friends telling me it was a good thing. A girl kissed me behind a boathouse in a summer camp, and that changed my mind.
- In 1998, I had my first girlfriend. And became really good at shoplifting. (No known correlation)
- In 1999, I rode to school and back, listening to The Bends by Radiohead. For an entire year. Occasionally, I’d do OK Computer for a couple of weeks.
- In 2000, I performed my first ever gig, Counting Crow’s Mr.Jones with someone who would later turn out to be one of my best friends, Jeff.
- In 2001, I organized a record breaking fundraiser event which made RM16,000+, with a nett profit of RM14,000. It was fun.
- In 2002, I joined the “American Degree Program” because I wanted to do World Religion, Theatre, and Psychology electives. I performed Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Telltale Heart” at a college competition and won Best Actor.
- In 2003, I wanted to create something a virtual world that rewarded users based on diversity of chat conversations. I thought it would encourage more strangers to talk about different things, and the world would understand each other better. I did not quit school to pursue this, but I wrote my first ever business plan.
- In 2004, I spent the year studying in Sydney. I wrote 77 songs on my acoustic guitar. Some of which I eventually performed. Bright Eyes, Broken Social Scene, Deathcab for Cutie dominated my playlist.
- In 2005, I spent most of the year in San Francisco, studying courses about changing the world.
- In 2006, I was running multiple projects, side businesses, and joined MindValley.
- In 2007, I was going out / partying 2 to 3 nights a week.
- In 2008, on my birthday, I left MindValley to basically do nothing. I eventually joined Joel to try out some ideas.
- In 2009, I raised money from a VC, and we got pretty darn serious about making a successful business.
- In 2010, we had two great businesses, SAYS.my and GroupsMore, which were growing fast. We moved into a giant house with a swimming pool and ping pong table.
- In 2011, we grew SAYS.my into SAYS.com and sold GroupsMore to Groupon. I travelled around the world learning about business, myself, and the world.
- In 2012, I celebrate my birthday by going to work, spending time with my colleagues, sharing at a ‘town hall’, creating a flyer, eating chicken breast on my balcony, browsing the web, playing old songs on my guitar. Doing all of my favorite things, with all of my favorite people, knowing i’ve been living free since the day I was born, and things can only get better.
- In 20** I work on great ventures with great people, in cool creative spaces, creating the future… and play my part in perpetuating humanity’s next renaissance.
- In **** I die knowing that all this is part of something strange and beautiful.
Thanks friends for the Happy birthday wishes.