kaolin fire presents :: photo gallery

Business Trip with (company name deleted) in Vancouver

Well. Well, well, well. This was an interesting trip, and I definitely learned a lot: about business as well as vancouver -- though in both cases I was likely merely scratching the surface.

I was supposed to meet Dr. Kim in the hotel lobby around 5pm. I flew in earlier because I wanted a chance to acquaint myself a little with the cityWhich meant I was leaving SF at the ungodly hour of 10am. Which meant I was driving to SFO on my bike -- thank whatever powers or lack of powers that be that it wasn't raining. I managed to stow my helmet in a lockbox in SFO which meant I made it to Vancouver with just my regular little shiny blue smallish backpack (even with the extra pair of shoes and copious amounts of reading material). $23 Canadian Dollars took me to the hotel where I check in without a hitch and then proceeded to roam around Vancover for a few hours (after getting directions to a mall to buy a watch as I found my cellphone wasn't covered in canada...)

I took the long route to the mall, sticking to the affluent hotel-ridden area. My gods, it was ritzy and *clean*, a cross between new york and san francisco only caricaturized. A silly little roof caught my attention (coolroof.jpg) and so I clambered through a parking structure to get a good shot of it. It was niftier in person, and later I found that I wasn't the only person to think it was cool -- it featured prominently on all of the tourist guides I ran into.

I wandered along the industrial coastline for a bit, staring at the amazing mountains, and watched a plane land delicately in the water -- that was cool. (waterplanelanding.jpg)

However, I did manage to make it to the mall, eventually. I amazingly enough didn't lose my sense of direction in the slightest (there was water close on ONE SIDE, and nowhere else... that was noth :) and followed a restructured version of the lobby girl's directions perfectly. I got my first glimpse of a Starbucks in canada and was properly horrified, thinking they were simple an american phenomenon. The macdonalds on the other hand didn't surprise me at all. Avoiding starbucks (avoiding coffee in general so as to avoid addiction, using it only when necessary), I wandered through three levels of canadian shops and found one selling watches. I got a spiff pocketwatch for $20 Canadian Dollars and wandered a bit looking for a clock until I remembered that my camera had one; set the time. All was good.

Wandered out through another entrance and passed a chick (boyfriend in tow) with *MY HAIR COLOR* -- faded to the same shameful obscurity. I hadn't run into anyone of the sort before, and while her hair wasn't as long as mine, it was shoulder-length and as such an admirable endeavor. I complimented her on her hair as I bounced off, and she did a doubletake laughing and waving.

I found myself walking past a lot of art shops and decided to stop in one when I noticed prices posted on all the art. Some as low as $1k Canadian Dollars, most in the $80k range, some as high as $200k. I had some good fun instpecing painting techniques (scaring the proprieter) and then accosting him with questions about the petina of a particular piece (bronze, but the "robe" was decidedly mottled pink shell, somehow) which tipsy-topsy'd his world. I bounced away to the next stop...

My feet acting as a chaotic dowsing rod -- always with a direction but never a destination, I wound up in a tie shop. Figured it couldn't hurt to get a tie and wound up with two. And two beanie baby jerry bears thrown in to the deal. And some interesting conversation about how nobody in Canada has heard of Jerry Garcia.

Throughout my wandering, I'm tossing money at beggars like it's play money (it seems like play money! though no more than hours, really... there's a rant in this that I wrote later, but I haven't digitized it yet so can't link to it yet...) One guy really ropes me in and we talk for probably an hour, roving around. At this point, I'm finally heading back to the hotel. His name was Rob and he used to sell Fire Extinguishers to places all over the US. His business went down, he had it out with his wife, and he left for Vancouver and the promise of something new. When he got there, he got a lift from someone -- or started to; they drove off with all his stuff, and he'd been on the down and down for about a week since then, with just the clothes on his back, a beaten up bike he found somewhere, and a bag of bricabrac he found elsewhere. He told me a lot of stories, mostly about how he couldn't stay on a bicycle -- he'd been in a bad wreck at 17 on a motorcycle where a drunk driver in a truck flattened the ridges on his engine with his bone. The leg was pretty mangled in a state of permanent light-blue-tinged bruise. Someone had befriended him the night before and offered him a job elsewhere, given him a place to shower and shave, but it was still a day or two until that came through. I've always been a happy sucker and parted with a silly amount of cash, with plans to meet up with him later. He didn't show then, but he did leave behind a panther beanie baby (fell out of his bag as he was leaving), which is now sitting prominently between the two jerry bears on my monitor. :) Good memories.

Back at the hotel, I hurriedly dressed up for show, and went downstairs. It was fiveish. Around six I went upstairs and grabbed a book so that I could at least enjoy the passage of time. At seven, Dr. Kim appears, a bit bedraggled from rain. We agree to meet back downstairs for dinner in five minutes, and I get materials to present to him what I've got so far -- the palm and a powerpoint presentation.

At dinner (we stand around for about 10 minutes, occasionally pinging those annoying bells I love so much :) before we're seated...) we talk and talk, share materials, and think about the meetings ahead. I still don't have a clue what the format is going to be like, we add some stuff and prune some stuff from my presentation, I learn a little bit more about where the company is coming from and what it's looking for, and we realize his laptop is about out of juice and he doesn't have a physical adapter (doesn't need a transformer, laptop powersupplies can generally do 110 or 220...). The hotel doesn't appear to have one ("We may have one in the morning") so we head out looking for supplies. (AAAs for the palm I was borrowing and potentially a travel power converter kit, and potentially rubberbands). At this point it's pouring so I go up and get my hat (didn't bring an umbrella because, well, I figured it would snow not rain), and then we're off (after getting directions from another helpful clerk at the hotel lobby).

On the way in to the 7-11 (fancy meeting one of those there, eh? One of the only places still open!), I'm accosted by more people selling drugs. (Sorry I didn't mention them earlier -- they were very prevalent; perhaps attracted by my hair?) We go in, they don't have anythign we need (not even AAAs), and go back to the hotel. I convince Dr. Kim to jury-rig his plug into the wall with paperclips and go off to bed.

But not before curiousity and ignorance get the better of me and I go down to ask the cute girl at the desk in the lobby whether marijuana and mushrooms are illegal in her fair city or not.... (they are illegal), and explain to her the reason that I asked (being offered drugs on every other streetcorner) -- which leaves her a little stunned. Ah well.

Back in my room, I write down a bunch of thoughts and story ideas (always, always...) and then fiddle with the alarm clock and the phone wakeup service to give myself two modes of attack and then make the mistake of turning the television on out of curiosity. I channel flip, linearly, for two hours, hating myself. I finally pull away and fall asleep.

Morning comes quickly and I groggily get together and meet Dr. Kim downstairs where he's already been up and about (too nervous to sleep a wink); he's had breakfast, and I've never really liked it, so we agree to meet up again in time for the list of meetings. He suggests a couple more changes to the powerpoint presentation (which I make on his laptop -- it's amazing that one can navigate through windows in a foreign language without having a *clue*...), and we started our rounds of meetings....

notes from the meetings

first group:

interested in reverse-merger with someone (someoen willing to go public that they can provide business framework for, leaving de facto control) -- there's a new concept for me. :) they seemed vaguely interested.

second guy:

he didn't trust the figures we spouted, and looking at them after the discussion, I didn't either.

third guy:

he didn't seem to interested in us, but was interested in hiring a team of embedded device engineers

fourth group:

wanted 40% for (monetary value range removed) canadian; looking for IP: technological breakthroughs; they were worried about (company removed) getting rolled over by a larger company later in the game, to which we replied that they would more likely try to buy us out than to duplicate our years of effort.

LUNCH:

learned a little about valuation, due diligence; I think I'd like to get more info on the company that valued (company removed), and see if they'd be willing to give any more info than the summary sheet presented. Also learned that vancouver is apparently a mecca for the computer gaming industry.

5th group:

VERY late, potentially interested in a reverse takeover.

6th guy:

VERY *negative* about every aspect of our proposition. Didn't like our answers, wanted a much more directed and focused approach, less than enthusiastic. Also wanted to know why we were looking for funds in canada as opposed to california.

7th guy:

was just very frustrated with our answers

8th guy:

serious but friendlier. or perhaps just more reserved.

So I learned a lot. I was left with LOTS of questions scribbled on a sheet of paper. Who is the Herndon group? How is a 163 bit elliptic curve equivalent to 1024 bit RSA? -- that's a figure that I spouted because it was on paper, but I don't understand it at all. What is PKI? What is bluetooth? (this was answered later, at least) What is a rotating bit? What is a CPC? Why does everyone say the KVM is an extension of WAP??????? What is CDMA? GSM?

I left with some answers or ideas as well. Know and present the following:

• What are you doing?
• Who would buy your stuff?
• Why would they buy your stuff as opposed to someone else's, or inhousing it?
• what are you looking for, and where will it get you?
• Be as focused yet flexible as possible with all of the above.

We had a little talk with a group that might be interested in using our technology, they told me what bluetooth is, and I had to run to catch a plane. Rah rah rah!

Sorry for being so long-winded...

UPDATE -- Jun 03 2001
I received a letter from the mysterious Dr. Kim; well, a couple, but the pertinent info was as follows:

On Mon, 4 Jun 2001, Dr.Kim wrote:

> Can you please remove, as soon as possible, your web page entitled "Business
> Trip to Vancouver with XXXXXXXXX" from your website
> (http://www.erif.org/gallery/vancouver)?  This is because your notes from the
> meetings are negative and may deter people from viewing our company positvely.

I feel no compunction to do so, as everything stated there is truth.  The 
negative feelings stated were not even my own, but belonged (as stated) to 
the investors we talked with.  However, so as to avoid any hassles with 
lawyers, the trip has been relabeled to "business trip to vancouver with 
(company removed)"

On Tue, 5 Jun 2001, Dr.Kim wrote:

> Thank you for removing our company's name from your homepage, however, we 
> feel that the solution does not fully satisfy our request.  Search Engines 
> are still able to pick up the page titled, "business trip to vancouver with 
> xxxxxxxxx".  For example, if you type "XxxxxXxxx" into Google.com, then the 
> site we

That page no longer exists.  Google has cached it and will renew its image of
the page within the next few months.  I have no control over that.

> As you uploaded my personal photo ("drkim.jpg") onto the site without my 
> permission, I would appreciate you deleting that as soon as possible.

removed.