Visiting This Page again

I guess this is where I was writing about my adventures with the app... Still going at it. It's been a pain working with the resource we have, and as I'm learning more and more about app development, trying to stay focus and not pivot has been difficult. Not to mention that both my partner and I have been too busy to micro-manage the development of this app

Survey

The Fitness App's Survey is finally up! Please help me gather some data, so I can deliver an app that you gonna use:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CMLNBSY

Planning SF Trip

Next weekend is my friend's birthday and we are taking a road trip up to SF for her birthday. My partner and I spent nearly 5 hours today planning this trip.  This is what we came up so far

Birthday - San Francisco Road Trip

10:30am

- Philz Coffee: 101 Forest Ave

Palo Alto, CA 94301

(OR)

- Coupa Cafe (**maybe GO HERE FIRST)

538 Ramona St.

Palo Alto, CA

11:00am

Go to downtown Palo Alto to have breakfast possibly at

University Cafe

http://www.yelp.com/biz/university-coffee-cafe-palo-alto

(THEN GO HERE):

The Creamery

http://www.yelp.com/biz/palo-alto-creamery-palo-alto-2

12:30pm

Stanford

450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

2:00pm

Leave Stanford, drive to San Francisco pier

3:00pm

Pier 39 (walk around and lunch or snack):

Beach Street & The Embarcadero

5:00pm

go to hotel and rest 

6:00 - 7:00pm

start getting ready for dinner and night out

8:00pm

- dinner - Gary Danko

800 N Point St

San Francisco, CA 94109

http://www.yelp.com/biz/gary-danko-san-francisco

(OR)

- Chapeau

http://www.yelp.com/biz/chapeau-san-francisco

10:00pm

- 25 Lusk

http://www.25lusk.com/

- Ruby Skye:

420 Mason St

San Francisco, CA 94102

(OR)

- Alchemist Bar & Lounge

679 3rd St

San Francisco, CA 94107

http://www.yelp.com/biz/alchemist-bar-and-lounge-san-francisco

(OR)

- 83 Proof

83 1st St

San Francisco, CA 94105

http://www.yelp.com/biz/83-proof-san-francisco

(OR)

- Local Edition

691 Market St

http://www.yelp.com/biz/local-edition-san-francisco

(OR)

- Southern Pacific Brewery

http://www.yelp.com/biz/southern-pacific-brewing-san-francisco

(OR)

- Tope

http://www.yelp.com/biz/tope-san-francisco?hrid=otMhXeDyYaYj0K3sEhoixA

(OR)

- Sugar Lounge

http://www.yelp.com/biz/sugar-lounge-san-francisco?hrid=sSqJmwvovRPbIc-X8iFfwQ

(OR)

- Tonight Soju Bar

http://www.yelp.com/biz/tonight-soju-bar-san-francisco

Sunday:

Coffeeeeee and lunch in Palo Alto :

coffee: Red Rock Coffee Co:

201 Castro St

Mountain View, CA 94041

Lunch: Il Fornaio

http://www.yelp.com/biz/il-fornaio-palo-alto

We are super excited, as SF has always been the place we wanted to move to


One day, when we change the world, I'll look back at this post and say.. I did it = )


Dreams....

Moving Forward

Life has been crazy as usual = ) I’ve been spending many many nights at PeopleSpace. Met some VERY COOL people! Got dragged into some node.js introductions.

As far as the StayFit progress goes.  It’s moving along. We found a design company to do the mockups. The guy is pretty cool . Surfer dude and all.. we loved the designer and met him at the entrepreneur revolution. Turns out this surfer looking dude is partners with the course instructor’s brother!

As much as I loved the artist himself, I wasn’t sure about the partner’s commitment. As he always has an excuse or was trying to upsale .

We had a good 3~4 hours deep session with the designer, helping him understand our vision. Understand where we were coming from and why we were so passionate about it.

Met some cool people at PeopleSpace last night. These guys were working on creating a facility for afterschool programs for kids. They were so passionate about it. It reminded me of how fortunate I was. Not to sound ignorant, but there are kids that don’t even know or think that they need to go to college. Life after high school for them is just that. Life after highschool.

My girlfriend is working on an iOS app and is trying to learn objective C.  Poor thing was hammered left and right by random strangers commenting on how ancient objective C is and how she should learn Swift.  It’s neat to see people in the community care so much.

As much as I love being a bit more active in the tech scene. It’s really cutting into my personal life. I went there straight from work and was there till 11 30 or so. By the time I got home, I was so exhausted, barely brushed my teeth and passed out. Next day, rise and shine , once again, at 4:30 AM, hit the gym and then off to my full time job…. 

Anyhow, glad to see that I’m finally taking actions.. let’s see where this road takes me. 

StayFit

I just realized that I have not said anything about the idea itself. Well, here's the idea

StayFit app coming soon!
Have you ever found yourself wanting to break a sweat or simply enjoy the trails at a new location,or go for a run yet didn’t know where to go or what to expect? That’s why  we developed StayFit. We wanted you to live your fit life worry free.  StayFit is like Yelp falls in love with mapmyrun and they have few offsprings. Imagine having your best friend, who knows everything about all fitness places, on demand. She’s beautiful and smart and will tell you about the new crossfit gym with the bad coaches or the snow on top of the trail. StayFit will help you discover new horizons.

Advisory Board

One of the great advice I got at PeopleSpace was that as a startup we need to find our board of advisory as soon as we can. Few points were made on this :

• Choose your board early
• Don't be afraid to look on Linkedin
• Find two types of advisors : one with money, and one with passion 
• Don't be afraid to use Tedtalk

I've been trying to figure out who should be on our board. In order for me to look for the right one, I need to first figure out the industry in which I should look for.

I'm a bit hesitant to approach a stranger to be our advisor at this point, as we don't even have our startup deck together. 

Reality... New Beginnings

Yes I know! Another period of being MIA on this blog. I've been busy shaking the boat at corporate and walking away on not so good terms. Now I work at a small company that's considered a start-up. I've never been so away from engineering . I manage our projects and see them come to life. It's nice because my hands are open in what needs to happen, I make a change in the world and I'm learning every single day. At the end of the day, the industry is not my passion and I work for someone else.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm just a dreamer. A girl who dreams big and is so naive to believe. Believe in humanity, believe in making a change, believe.. believe that she was put on this planet by a higher being to resolve problems and make an impact. Change... those 5 letters excite me. As you may have read in my posts, I've been talking about being an entrepreneur for a long time. I am full of ideas with a great lack of execution. Recently I really started being more involved. I want to make this happen. Sometimes I wonder, maybe I should just quit my work and focus on my ideas 100% of the time. Well, that won't be very logical now will it ? : - )
My partner and I got involved at PeopleSpace. They have tons of great advice, which really was like a reality slap to the face. We chose one of our many many many ideas and are making mock ups for it. Right now I'm working on the survey questions for it. I will be documenting our progress in here:
Jan 2012 :
Idea Generation
Jan 2013:
Idea Pivot
We stayed up till morning few nights out of our eureka moment = )
December 2013:
LLC - CSpeed Solution was formed
Jan 2014 and March 2014:
Lots of talk with a lack of action
Lots of $$$ spent to go to seminars
April 2014:
Bad corporate expereince, left without having a job, so started focusing on this again..
Elevator / taxi cab speeches were done
Started putting requirements and business deck together
June 2014:
Started looking for developers. Learned a lot:

• Don't go to India unless you are BIG
• Stay LOCAL so you can meet and greet
• Have your requirements ready

July 2014:
We tried to do the mockups ourselves. We are not really artsy, as we are engineers and know little about design. The tools out there for mockups were horrible! So we are now paying for a designer to design them for us.

Life as it is..

It's been awhile since I've written here. In fact over a year!
A lot changed in life, I thought a lot about what matters to me the most and why. I had to have a one on one with myself to come up with the answer. I went snowboarding, just me,myself, and I. I didn't want to talk about idealism and what I think matters to me, or what looks good to matte to me. I wanted to be able to say I've done x, y, and z; therefore, a matter to me the most . I dug really had into my past : growing up in Iran, coming to America, what I did as a child, what I didn't do as a teen, what I tried to accomplish as an adult.. and in the heart of it all lies the answer : Change! I wanted to be the agency of the change for the better. I've done that my whole life. I continued to do that, regardless of the limitations that wearing hijab brought upon me while in high school , and I do that till this day.. every single day..
I also got a new job. Leaving the company I was with, Raytheon, was very difficult. I had mixed feeling. I could not believe how sad I was , rather than happy, to say goodbye. To leave behind years of great work, to leave behind, colleagues who had became friends, and to start from scratch. Having to prove myself as a female engineer, who is more than just a bubble head. Change is good.. it's scary, but necessary. If we don' challenge ourselves, we'll never improve. All are cliches, but in reality, once you get used to change, it's not so bad. The thought of change, the idea behind it.. once we get agility, it is not at all so bad.

My new job is different... the culture is very very different. I'm still learning. Love my supervisor. I've been so "blessed" I've never worked for someone I don't like or someone who likes to micromanage me. Recently, I became a certified Scrum Master. Exciting things.. and just when I thought there's no way I can incorporate much of that at work, the opportunity presented itself for me to do just that. We are still in the pre- preliminary stages,but it's exciting.. to be the change agent , to foster a culture of collaboration, to make individuals act as a team, and to make products that are extra ordinary.

Innovations and I go way back.. I've been working with couple of people in my new company, trying to put together an innovation team, trying to empower engineers, trying to make dreamers dreams come to reality and make ideas into business opportunities.

My business partner and I mixed our passions for engineering and fitness and created StayFit. We are working very hard to make sure it comes to life. I love fitness, I love changing lives.. I love making people realize how CAPABLE they are and how much they can do. I love making people believe in the simple reality that mind is over body...

I can't lie.. I'm thankful.. for all I have..
"I own a loaf of bread, a bit of intelligence, a tiny amount of taste!
I possess a mother better than the leaf
Friends, better than the running brook
And a God who is nearby
Within these gillyflowers, at the foot of yonder lofty oak,
On the stream's awareness, on the plant's law " 

ARM/ Embedded/ VLSI / FPGA

Received a phone call from a distant relative today. We talked about  design, verification, synthesis and timing closure of CPU Sub-systems. Of course with  a lot more technical words involved. After I hung up the phone, I started looking online. Everything was so familiar yet so strange. It has been awhile since I last touched anything in that category. As a matter of fact, last time I ever played with a chip / board or did anything cool like that was my undergrad days. It was a sad moment. I had forgotten the simplest things.  When did that happen to me??! I used to know ARM7/9/11 like the back of my hand. There was not a single thing I did not know about them and now I had no clue what I was looking at.
Decision :
Need to start reading more.. Just because I don't deal with them everyday at work, doesn't mean I can forget
Decision 2:
Need to spend at least 30 minutes a day innovation and brainstorming.
Decision 3:
Need to touch up on my old stuff..

Post 2

Thought 1

I was looking for a birthday card for my boyfriend and it came to me! what if there was an online store with all sorts of cards possible, where it could also deliver same day or next day with a reasonable cost ?  I thought that was a good idea but not one that will bring me money..


 Thought 2
 
A co worker and I participated in an innovation challenge for work. We submitted 7 ideas in five different categories.

Thought 3

Going snowboarding for three nights.. who knows maybe an idea pops in my head while in the mountains.. :-)


Side Note

Picked up a new book on my nook.. I have mixed feelings about it... I should probably be reading something more technical ;-)

Day 1

Today it hit me.. It's about time for me to start really focusing on the next big thing and think about what my business can be...
I spent some time reading this article on starting and engineering services business. Is this the route I want to go ? Am I ready to write up my business plan ? What is this service that I would be offering ? Networking ?Solar systems? Green Technology ?! Security ?!
Certain bullets are very obvious to me.. This new idea needs to be something I know how to do and can do well.. so it's not necessary spread spectrum or satellite communication that I went to school for but rather networking , IDS, firewalls and that sort of thing. I need to like this idea and don't mind doing it for long hours at a time.. It also needs to generate a steady consumer need...

I'm not sure what business I'm going to start or where I will end up, but this blog will reflect my journey.. The journey of an ordinary engineer to success...