#unfiltered #34 The Impetus to Cup of Zhou

It was a warm autumn 7pm. The golden ball had just found its home beyond the rolling hills of San Francisco. The sky above, dyed violet melting into a soft pink. I was walking up to Liholiho Yacht Club. According to my pal, the best spot in town for Hawaiian food. A 7:30 reservation for our quarterly mentor-mentee dinner.

As I was walking up from SOMA, I was running through the conversation I just had with a founder. He closed the conversation off with: “You should really share this advice publicly.” He was right. ‘Cause in my 3 years in venture capital, I’ve shared that same piece of advice I gave him more than 50 times at that point. I’d been meaning to. I had 11 blog posts written already, just not published. All written in an FAQ format. Yet, the only thing I was still wrestling with was the name of the blog.

It seems trivial in the grander scheme of things. But the perfectionist, inspired by my younger career in art, kept nagging me.

Reality on Ice (ROI). Nah, that wasn’t it. Sounds like a Disney ice show.

Irrogueular. Nah, too eccentric.

David’s blog. Mhmm, talk about uninspired.

Curiosity. Oooh, I like this one, but (1) it’s taken, and (2) doesn’t feel deep enough.

And 80 more where those came from. But none clicked.

Anxious, once again, I began ideating as I bobbed and weaved between the evening crowds. Yet to no avail by the time I reached Liholiho.

Dinner was great as per the usual. My mentor had just joined a new startup, leading a new initiative. We talked work. Life. Athletic endeavors. Romance. And of course, food. It came to no surprise when we two hungry bears needed more to satiate our appetite despite a wonderful meal. After we were “Yelping” places to go to, which we probably flipped through a dozen or two, we gave up.

“David, let’s just grab a cup o’ Joe, and call it a night. Wanna go to-“

“Wait. That’s it!”

“What’s ‘it’?”

“Coffee.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, no, no… for my blog. The name. My job is to grab coffee with folks. And at the same time, just like caffeine kickstarting all of our days, hopefully my blog can help founders kickstart their startup.”

I ended up scrapping 10 of my 11 blog posts. The only one I kept was my thesis. And I started anew. I spent 3 months ideating a name. 3 years, if you count all the random other WordPress blogs I started. But all it took for me was a moment – a spark. The closest thing I could analogize, at that point, to gut feeling.

Afterword

Oddly enough, this past week, three people independently asked me why this blog is called Cup of Zhou. One pronounced it “cup of zow” (like cow). Another pronounced it “cup of zoo”. The last was over text. I don’t blame them. They’re not the first, and they’re definitely not the last. I respond to them all. They’re all part of my American-born Chinese identity’s memoir. And this blog is just another chapter in my memoir.

Cup of Zhou. /cup uh Joe/

Photo by Demi DeHerrera on Unsplash

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#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.

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