Eric Kim is the Co-founder of Quantum Mob, a Toronto-based Digital innovation firm that specializes in providing feature-rich digital experiences through web and mobile.
A leader in strategy, Eric is also a creative technologist at heart. He started building websites from the age of 14 and has never stopped since. His interests in software, design and user experience culminated in the creation of Quantum Mob where he also plays a hands on role across various projects and departments ensuring clients receive value.
Eric has held several engineering positions and is exposed to a broad range of technologies & systems prior to building Quantum Mob.
Where did the idea for Quantum Mob come from?
We have always been inspired by the pursuit of science and wanted to help companies accelerate their digital advancement and transformation. We started the company helping startups and enterprises with their technical direction and architecture while working on a few internal products that aimed to help our clients increase their project velocities.
Working as software engineers ourselves, we understood the importance of technology and culture. Quantum Mob is our realization of the crossroads between these two. It’s right in our name.
What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?
My day consists of 50% meetings between departments, clients, and leads. The other 50% varies around what is more pressing between responding to sales and marketing requests, and strategic planning. I still try to find an excuse to sneak in the occasional coding. The workload is never ending. We made a promise between the partners to take time off frequently, whenever we need, so we can re-energize, inject some chaos or randomness, and always be at the top of our game. This was a big change from a year ago, taking my first week off in 3 years.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Always try to figure out the MVP or phase 1 but understand the bigger vision. A proof-of-concept makes the idea cost-effective and easier to win over colleagues, clients, investors, and stakeholders.
What’s one trend that excites you?
The power and practicality of machine learning is astounding. The growth it has shown over all these years looks promising in every field.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
Our leadership team stays aligned by meeting every Sunday for 1 – 2 hours to plan our week. This has become a habit and happens without fail.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Failures are learnings. Conflict builds character. Embrace your nerd.
Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.
The next Javascript framework is on the horizon!
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
Self reflect weekly. All of the things that would normally make someone anxious give me insight into what aspect of myself I should work on. Personal growth will translate to the professional world. Know yourself.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?
Self reflect weekly. All of the things that would normally make someone anxious give me insight into what aspect of myself I should work on. Personal growth will translate to the professional world. Know yourself.
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
Before the Quantum Mob became something, it almost became nothing. We didn’t know a thing about sales, and despite spending an embarrassingly long time experimenting and researching, nothing worked. I had reached out to someone I knew for a very long time, who became one of our sales advisors and is still with us today. This combined with luck allowed us to get to a point where we were able to kick-start our company.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
ML-based lip reading captions for videos without audio.
What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?
A set of clippers so I can look somewhat composed in my Zoom meetings while we’re all working remotely.
What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?
Notion is where I take meeting notes, keep my to-dos, create plans, minor project boards, department wikis. Anything that the current 50+ SaaS products I use can’t fulfill also ends up there.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
I would recommend a popular read by Silicon Valley entrepreneur and cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz, “The Hard Thing about Hard Things” because “it’s all about dealing with difficult situations as a business owner and speaks about equipping yourself as a ’wartime CEO.’”
Horowitz highlights points throughout his career where he had to make the tough decisions that companies in the current climate would be forced to make.
What is your favorite quote?
Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
Key Learnings:
- Know yourself. Know your strengths but more importantly, know your weaknesses and act on them first.
- Trust your Idea: We failed even before we could make anything out of our idea but one thing we never did was giving-up. If there is a problem, there has to be a solution and it’s all about finding it. Once you find it and you start learning from your own mistakes, there’s no looking back.
- Network and build stronger relationships: Over these years, I have realized the importance of building stronger relationships within the community and with the experts who have done it all. When needed, never shy away from reaching out to them for their insights.
Carlyn runs the day-to-day publishing operation here at ideamensch and interacts with our awesome customers and entrepreneurs. She is likely editing this with a cat on her lap.