[quote style=”boxed”]Say no to many good ideas. Stick to your best idea.[/quote]
Jin is the founder of Original Stitch, the leading online destination for buying customizable dress shirts. Jin also serves as the Executive Vice President of Mobile Solutions at Splashtop Inc, a mobile solutions for the enterprise market. He started Splashtop KK to expand Splashtop award winning mobile solutions into Japanese enterprise market.
Prior to Splashtop, Jin was the founder of StartForce, one of the largest on demand virtual desktop service providers on the web. StartForce grew to host more than 100,000 virtual desktops in less than 2 years with offices in Silicon Valley and Tokyo.
Prior to Startforce, Jin was the founder of Nuvoiz, a R&D arm of a Japanese Wimax carrier. At Nuvoiz, he invented Wi-fi roaming and NAT Traversal for mobile devices- which later was granted US Patent #US8130760. Prior to Nuvoiz, Jin was the founder of ShareSpace, the first SaaS based groupware in Japan which later was acquired by Asahi Net. More than a decade later, it is still a popular groupware in Japan sold under the “Asa One” brand.
Born in Malaysia, Jin immigrated to California to attend University of California Berkeley majored in Bachelor of Arts in Legal Studies. Jin is a United States citizen and now a Tokyo resident. Jin is a frequent speaker at professional events on entrepreneurship and technology. During his free time, Jin enjoys ballroom dancing and conversation with creative people.
Where did the idea for Original Stitch come from?
I was inspired by Dell and NikeID. I had the idea for custom shirting when my friend Jeff took me to my first tailor shop experience when I was 25.
What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?
Working with my team executing incremental improvement towards our key performance indicators. I use Splashtop and Asana to stay productive.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Tap our own talents brilliant minds, run the ideas by my team. If we think it has legs, we will just hack it out, test it, measure, and iterate.
What’s one trend that really excites you?
The custom revolution is upon us. Technology and manufacturing process ripe to enable new type of E-commerce business model.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
I am a super early bird, and I use Splashtop.
What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?
Being in a company run by many mid managers who hold long meetings that achieve nothing. I learned to ignore bureaucracy, just execute fast, fail fast, and make fast progress.
If you were to start again, what would you do differently?
Surround myself with absolutely the best people with related experience as early as possible.
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
Always ask yourself how is this thing you are working on is going to help humanity thrive better.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business? Please explain how.
Say no to many good ideas. Stick to your best idea. Iterate that best idea till you find product market fit. Understand super clearly your growth drivers. Focus your limited cash in scaling your growth drivers.
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
I have way too many failures as an entrepreneur. One of them was increased burn rate before we found product market fit.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Build the “Uber for Education” to disrupt traditional education institutions.
Tell us something about you that very few people know?
I enjoy ballroom dancing.
What software and web services do you use? What do you love about them?
I use Spalshtop because I can get things done while I am on the go, stay productive one minute at a time. I use Asana often because it gives me the power to do more in less time so I can make more positive difference faster.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
The Silicon Valley Boys by David Kaplan. Because it’s fun to take a look behind the scene at how great companies were built in the valley.
What people have influenced your thinking and might be of interest to others?
Asana co-founder Justin Rosenstein
Connect:
Original Stitch on Twitter: @OrigStitch
Original Stitch on Blogspot:
Original Stitch on Facebook: http://facebook.com/origstitch
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.