Editor Profile - Denny K Miu was the Founder and former CEO of two companies, Gigamon Systems and Integrated Micromachines (now Touchdown Technologies). Denny has extensive experience in developing technology, products and business relationships. He has been a Professor, an engineer, an entrepreneur, a team leader as well as an individual contributor.
Denny is currently the Executive Editor of LoveMyTool.com, his third start-up. You can follow him on Google Buzz or subscribe to his RSS feed.
I grew up in Macau, a small island town south of Hong Kong, 60 miles on the opposite side of the Pearl River delta. While Hong Kong was a British colony, Macau had belonged to the Portuguese. Macau was about one-fourth of the size of San Francisco but with about the same population. Unlike Hong Kong, Macau never had much of an industry except for gambling and prostitution. But outside the few neon-light streets frequented by Hong Kong tourists, Macau was actually a place of natural beauty and a fun and safe town to grow up.
I have great memory growing up in Macau, including the time when my younger brothers were too young to hang out with me and my weekly recreation was limited to visiting my father's barber shop by myself.
It was typical for Asian children to go to school for five and a half days. So every Saturday, I would come home around noon, finish my homework and my household chores, and before dinner, walk unescorted for about twenty minutes to the busy part of town.
My father was one of the eight or so barbers who worked in this small shop. I remembered him as a team lead of sort since he was always the one closing the place and counting money for the shop owner. Usually when I arrived, I would sneak in quietly and sit on the long leather sofa to read the latest comic books. I would wait there until he was all done with business. My dad would then summon me to climb on top his high chair and I would always be his last customer getting my weekly trim.
Afterward we would go out for a simple dinner and watch a movie together. Since I wasn't allowed to make noises during the show, the high point of our evening together was always our conversations after the movie when I would ask my father all kinds of questions and he would explain pieces of the plot to me. It was fun because it was as if I got to watch the movie a second time.
It was also fun because we typically walked along the seashore enjoying the scenery and the breeze. After the nice walk I would ride on the back of my dad's bicycle to go home together, bringing leftovers as token gifts for my young brothers and my mom.
The one thing that had made a strong impression on me during those wonderful father-and-son walks was the tide. I understood very early the difference between high tide and low tide.
When it was high tide, everything was wonderful. The sea smelled delicious and the breeze felt soothing. People were happy too, especially the fishermen.
When it was low tide, the feel was completely the opposite. You couldn't see the moon reflecting off the water anymore. You smell death all around you, not to mention the sewage. No one was enjoying themselves. No one was making small talks. Everyone avoided eye contact and walked quickly to get away from the sea.
The other thing that struck me the most about the tide was the fishermen, what they did during both high tide and low tide.
High tide was harvest time for them. They started their days early and they sold their catch on the streets at night. Their kids are happy too. They loved playing on dry land in the alleyways, buying treats and toys with money that they had. But interestingly, I noticed that the women were busy too, sun-drying octopus and anchovies, clearly preparing for a time when they would have less.
Then when the low tide came, the fishermen would be even more busy. They were busy repairing their fishing nets and they were busy putting their fishing boats on tilts, so that when the tide returned which it would always, they wouldn't find themselves stuck in the stinky mud.
This is probably the single best life lesson I could ever have learned as an entrepreneur, that there are cycles in business. As a result it is natural that things look very different when you are up and when you are down.
Throughout my professional career, I have learned not to take things too personally.
When things go well and my company is making money, I try not to let the compliments get to my head. Likewise when things don't go well and my company is losing money, I try not to let the criticisms go near my heart.
When the economy was doing well just a few short months ago, like the high tide in Macau, it was understandable that everything would smell delicious and feel great. It was understandable that everyone around me were happy. But deep down I knew that even though I was the CEO, I had very little to do with our success. We were lucky because we happened to be in the right place at the right time.
But I was also worry, extremely worry actually. Like the fishermen in Macau, I knew high tide would not last forever. Like the fishermen in Macau, I wanted to put aside some of our catch when they were still plentiful.
I worried about the founders team. What would happen to the company if one of us got sick. How would I find a replacement when I could no longer offer them founder stock.
I worried about potential competition. What would we do if someone figures out the 20% feature set that 80% of our customers actually need so that they could build a less capable but much less expensive product that would be good enough to do the job. What would we do if they put some eye-candy graphical front-ends around an otherwise identical product such that their solution is much easier to use.
I worried about the economy. In all my years in America, 2008 was the first election when neither the sitting President nor the Vice-President was running for re-election. Who would prevent the economy from free falling when it was everyone's vested interest to ensure that we are in a recession (which was just starting in 2007 even though the economists haven't officiate it yet).
Most importantly, I worried about our company culture and our command structure. Having been through a downturn once before, I knew how important it is to be able make necessary but ultimately unpopular decision. I was also haunted with my own experience that a vessel with multiple captains would lose speed during high tide but could lose lives during low tide.
In the end, I chose a path of least resistance which was to cash out. In retrospect, I am glad that I trusted my instinct and took the opportunity to enjoy early retirement.
Clearly the economy has taken a turn for the worse lately and it is not an overstatement to say that we are in low tide.
And it is understandable that things don't smell as nice as it once did. But it is important to remind everyone that the importance here is not just that you have to survive the downturn but that you have to be well prepared for the eventual recovery.
We must once again learn from the fishermen of Macau. If you don't properly prepare your team and lift it off the mud, then when the tide comes, not only will you miss another fishing opportunity, but that you would drown by your own misery.
In closing, one other thing that I have learned from the tide is that when the recovery comes, which might take quite a few more years if not a decade this time, it will come not as a rebirth of the dead but as a genesis of the new. In other words, the rotten fish that you found between the rocks would never lead you to your next catch no matter how much the water rises.
Moreover, the changes that are happening before our eyes are fundamental, long-lasting and most likely generational.
For example, the World will surely be quite different now that Americans have to learn to save more and spend less (such that even if you build them they might not come) and the Chinese starting to spend more and save less (such that they will not be able to nor would they be willing to continue to subsidize our debts).
In short, the opportunities of the future will have no resemblance to the opportunities of the past.
Good luck everyone.
--Denny--
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