Chance Encounter…..
Two years ago in Singapore, Sangeet and I were fortunate to meet Andrew and his wife. Fauja Singh had come to Singapore, we went to see him running at Mount Emily Park. I was approached by Andrew who asked if that was the oldest marathon runner in the world. I answered yes and invited Andrew to the Gurdwara to listen to Fauja Singh give a talk, little did I know the talk was in Punjabi!! I translated the best I could…..I probably made up some stuff as well!
Here is a link to that post:
101 years young and still running…..
Since then we have kept in touch, Andrew and his family are now back in London. He is an amazing entrepreneur and gave me very good advice on business and the internet!!
Andrew sent me a link to Google Campus. At Campus, their mission is to create an environment that encourages innovation through collaboration, mentorship, and networking. With speedy wifi, a café, frequent networking and speaking events, and coworking space, Campus is seven floors dedicated to startup success.
Their website: Google Campus
I registered for the talk by Alexander Asseily, he and his business partner started Jaw Bone….
We arrived promptly at 6:30pm and got told that Alexander was running late due to traffic, finally this scruffy looking man turns up.
Whist we were waiting we all decided to check out the fast wifi. My ipad showed slow performance whilst Andrew's and Akash's smartphones showed a fast speed:
Andrew's smartphone:
We all thought to ourselves that they have probably picked somebody off the street and given him Alexander's script. It later occurred to me that we should be happy how we dress. Here is a guy worth millions and not giving that impression. Always seems to me that some people who are rich do not want to give that impression, whilst some people who do not have much want to show off a expensive exterior.
Alexander gave good advice about starting up in business, couple of points which stuck with me are:
If it is hard do not give up, others will also find it hard and give up.
If people do not understand the business, that is good. An easy to understand business has probably already been tried.
Alexander Asseily is a British Lebanese entrepreneur and founder of consumer electronics company Jawbone, one of the most highly valued private consumer electronics companies in the world. Asseily was named the 33rd most influential person in Silicon Valley.
Raised in Beirut, Lebanon and London, UK, Asseily studied product design and mechanical engineering at Stanford University. His senior product design thesis became the foundation for the creation of Aliph, which he founded with his college friend Hosain Rahman.
He lived mostly in San Francisco, CA until 2010, when he returned to London. In 2011, Asseily and his brother Mark founded consumer software start-up Equal Media Ltd. to create State.com, and raised $14M in seed financing in May 2012. State was launched publicly at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2013. Asseily is executive producer of the 2013 documentary, Aluna, and lives in London, England.
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