Do What You Love To Make The World A Better Place

I recently watched this TED video that highlights the importance of doing work that you are passionate about, not only to be a happy person, but to inspire others to do the same as well.

The importance of knowing yourself should not go underemphasized. The sooner you can find out what it is that makes you happy and what you can be passionate about, the sooner you can go after it with everything you've got. Some important questions to ask yourself are: 

- What am I good at and what do I like to do?

- How do I make important decisions and what do I value?

- What important life experiences have I gone through, and what can I learn from them?

- What is it about people you look up to that makes you aspire to be like them?

To sum up the message of the video: Surround yourself with amazing people and find the thing you can't not do. Discover what that is so we can inspire ourselves to take action and do what we love, to inspire others to do the same.

There is no one who embodies that more than my younger brother, who recently sent his video submission for a scholarship. Please view the video to see a living example of these principles!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jpe-LKn-4gM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=plcp&v=GDhU4t1pgV8

EDIT:

Update: Here is my brother's keynote speech at the National Space Club's 56th Annual Goddard Memorial Dinner http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn9I4kEFO60

Nothing To Lose, Everything To Gain

My friends, sometimes without knowing, inspire me to do amazing things. Sometimes it's by friendly competition, and other times when I tell them my crazy ideas, they simply tell me to go for it because I have nothing to lose. For some reason this happened twice today. For one, I managed to connect with the CEO of my dream company, but I'll write a whole post about that another day.

The other one I want to focus on today is that I will be "pitching" to a seed-stage venture capital firm tomorrow, Romulus Capital. It's not necessarily pitching because what I really want is feedback. They are offering 15 minute sessions to MIT students, and I will first pitch Roli Polies, then some other software ideas I've been kicking around in my head. We'll see how it goes - I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Plus, it would be fun meeting other young entrepreneurs at MIT.

Roli Polies: The Beginning

Today marks the beginning of Roli Polies. Roli Poli Wheelies will offer people faster, lighter, short range transportation. I've been contemplating this idea for about two years and I've finally decided that it was time to take action and execute the idea. I registered the domain here: www.rolipolies.com. I will finish the concept development by Christmas time and begin customer validation, however, I plan to develop the technology regardless of what happens. While I know this goes against the lean startup mentality, I believe the learning experience will be more valuable than making money.

This is what you get if you visit rolipolies.com as of 12/6/12:

I used a website called launchrock.com to create my "launching soon" page. Their site is very simple to use and while it can be a little bit glitchy, I definitely recommend it because it allows you to create a page very quickly. Along those lines, I used namecheap.com to register the domain name for the website. With the little time that I've been using them, I already like it more than the wix registry I used to create saulopez.com. 

Speaking of which, Dharmesh Shah came to speak to our class - Founder's Journey, or Entrepreneurship in Engineering - and he gave us tips on inbound marketing and SEO techniques. I have applied those to optimize my personal portfolio, saulopez.com. While I do like my current one, it doesn't transition well from web to mobile (due to iOS and flash problems) and I've had to create a separate mobile bounce page of the site here: m.saulopez.com. 

My friend Cody - of peregr.in - and I will be working on our startups this IAP (4-week Independent Activities Period during the winter at MIT). As part of my incubation period for my startup, I will be learning web design to develop rolipolies.com and my new portfolio. I am intrigued by web design because it emphasizes elegant design and user experience. During IAP, I will be developing a prototype for my startup, learning ruby on rails, working on my research - http://fluid.media.mit.edu/projects/luminar - with the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab, and on the final week, I will go to China for the Service Leadership Program (SLP) to teach engineering design to high school students. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm excited for the road ahead.

Why?

I've been inspired by a wise entrepreneur to create a blog. I'll do my best to create content regularly, although I might forget about it from time to time. My goal is to post updates on my entrepreneurial pursuits, professional and academic endeavors, and share some of the knowledge that has been passed on to me from meeting successful CEOs through MIT's Entrepreneurship In Engineering course, "The Founder's Journey." This is my journey.