The following was first posted on Vishen's personal blog on Nov 23 2005, on MindValley's 2nd Birthday. It's being republished here without any edits.
A lot of my friend know that I started a small internet company called MindValley a few years ago.
But few know the real story.
So here's the story behind MindValley – on the 2nd anniversary of the day we named our business.
It all started in the summer of 2003 when I was Director of Sales for a rapidly growing Internet business based in San Fran. I ran their New York sales office in the beautiful Chelsea Market building.
That summer I had asked for a month’s leave so I could travel home to Malaysia and marry Kristina, my girlfriend of 3 years. I was granted leave and we had a wonderful wedding in Malaysia followed by a honeymoon in the Arctic Circle (Kristina, being Estonian has a fondness for adventure and cold places). But at the end of that trip, on the day we were supposed to fly back to New York, I received an unexpected email from my boss.
I was gone too long and had been “replaced”. I wasn’t angry - business is business but I arrived back in Manhattan to find that I would now be making half my previous salary at a significantly more junior position. Kristina and I were plunged into career uncertainty at the very start of our married life.
But all bad things happen for a reason. Working in Silicon Valley had thought me a lot about the Internet. Being a Sales Director had thought me tons about marketing and sales. And I had been quietly using these skills to offer advice and guidance to people I knew who had products they wanted to sell online. I was earning a few hundred dollars a month at that point with my side hobby.
Money trickled in – not much, but enough to cover our daily expenses.
As I continued working on my day job, I also worked to expand this personal business. I was now working 12 hour days on 2 jobs and times were tough. But slowly, Kristina and I saw money trickle in.
At around this same time, my friend and college housemate Mike Reining had just graduated from Stanford's MBA program and was going through an entrepreneurial streak, excitedly looking for new business opportunities. Mike noticed the site I had and convinced me it could be bigger.
Since Mike was possible the most brilliant person I knew and we had been close friends for 5 years I decided I could not hope for a better business partner. Together Mike, Kristina and decided to form a company. On Nov 23 2003, after searching for a good domain name, we voted for MindValley.com because it was available and sounded a heck of a lot more positive than our second choice – RainBridge.com.
In the meanwhile I worked hard at my day-job to boost my income. By October 2003 I was once again the top performer in the New York office and was promoted. The future looked okay. I took Thanksgiving to Christmas off as Kristina and I traveled to Malaysia and then Estonia to spend time with our parents. While there, free from my day-job, I was able to focus my time on building up our little side business. Mike was still job hunting in Silicon Valley and he too, had a lot of time to put in. To us it was still a hobby, nothing more.
When Kristina and I returned to New York in January we noticed something significant. Our little business had tripled in size over the last 2 months. Kristina said it happened because we had spent that December actively working on the business without the distraction of a day-job. “You just had to commit to it”, she said.
I showed up for work that January excited to start the new year. But something did not feel right. I felt trapped and unable to lead the kind of life Kristina and I wanted. I wasn’t spending enough time at home and we did not have the freedom to travel or enjoy life. I walked into work, and suddenly felt like I no longer should be in that office.
But there was one problem. My company had just sponsored me on my H1 visa and Kristina on a worker spouse visa. To quit now would be to give up our legal right to stay in the USA. I was Malaysian and she was Estonian. I sat down with my CEO and made a deal. He would let me work part time for a few months. I could then spend the rest of my time at home working on my home business.
I walked out of that office and never turned back.
Kristina and I walked through New York that weekend feeling so confused. Could I risk giving up my job and my right to stay in the USA. Where would we go? What if MindValley failed? We decided to stick to MindValley and give up our US visas.
At this time, Mike received an incredible job offer from eBay. Despite this, he continued to spend his nights devoted to MindValley. I worked full time from home while Kristina and Mike worked part time.
Slowly the business grew. Kristina designed our logo – which represents a valley, a soaring bird, and the letters M and V. She would later also come up with the name BlinkStart, for our first product. And all our subsequent products would later carry a name starting with Blink.
By April, we were making enough money where we knew we could live comfortably and never have to work for anyone ever again. But without an H1 visa we knew we had to leave the USA. We took a month off that June and drove 3000 miles across the country I had called home for 9 years. I stayed back just long enough to celebrate the 4th of July in Seattle. We then flew to Malaysia the very next day.
In Malaysia, Kristina got a job working for a NGO while I worked from home for 6 months attempting to grow the business. Mike remained at eBay and steadily climbed the ranks while he diligently spent his free time at home helping grow MindValley.
And grow we did. At the end of those 6 months we had grown in profits tremendously and in January 2005 we hired our first 2 employees. This was a big deal for us. I had been working out of my bedroom for 1 year and needed a change.
We set up the company to have 2 divisions. MindValley e-Commerce focused on marketing other people's product via the Internet. We were simply internet retailers. But retailing was not as much fun as inventing. So we used the funds generated from these e-Commerce ventures to fund the second part of our business, MindValley Labs. At the Labs we tossed around crazy ideas for new products and worked with our engineering team to build experimental new web applications. Our first product, BlinkList was launched in August 2005.
The summer of 2005 created tremendous changes for all of us. Mike had been promoted to Head of New Venture strategy for eBay. He had successful got eBay to buy a 25% stake in Craigslist and then he made Silicon Valley history by getting eBay to buy Skype for $4.2 Billion.
Then he did something that most people cannot comprehend. He quit eBay at the peak of his career, and moved to Malaysia to devote his time in full to MindValley.
Kristina got accepted at the University of Edinburgh and moved to Scotland that September.
I joined her in October, now spending my life partially in Edinburgh working from home, and partially in Malaysia where Mike now runs our 7 person Kuala Lumpur office.
And so here we are. It’s funny how life works. You tend to read lots of spiritual mumbo-jumbo about bad things being “blessings in disguise” but I’ve found this to be largely true. Losing my job and my H1 visa set us on path that has been incredibly exciting so far.
MindValley has helped us move towards our dreams. Kristina has been able to afford to study in Edinburgh. I have been given the freedom to work virtually, anywhere in the world and not be limited by geography. I compare our lives now to 2 years ago and realize how much our lives have improved as a result of the decision we made to venture in MindValley.
At our first company party at the Luna Bar, Kuala Lumpur. Celebrating Mike and Anita arriving from California and saying farewell to Kristina who was leaving for Edinburgh.
I no longer see MindValley as my home-based business - I see it as a living breathing entity, meant to grow, survive and continue to churn out great products and provide opportunities for people involved with this 'project'.
So Happy Birthday MindValley - and here's to many more years and to all other lives you'll someday change.
Then again, maybe he does not have to do 100 consequetive posts.