What Does “Seeing Dots Connected” Mean for a Tech Entrepreneur — The Annual Letter in 2016 (2 Yrs Ago)

[Dear readers: In another month, RoboTerra is going to be 4 years old. I have shared with you the “10 Words That Grew A Global Company” which was essentially the first annual letter that I tried to summarize what kind of team we aim to build to achieve our vision. While I start to work on my annual letter for the super exciting and challenging year of 2017, here I wanted to share with you the letter I sent to mentors and friends after 2015: 2 years after the vision of the company was set and things were running, and 2 years before today. Hope this originally-only-intended-for-close-circles letter can shed some light for you to understand what exactly it means for an entrepreneurs to see the dots being connected right in front of her — this process is real, validated with success from reality, thus for those who saw it happened once, would know the power of being #extremelyauthentic which leads to the best things coming from within.

I will share at the right time my letter written last year (which summarizes 2016, and the newest one now being developed to summarize 2017. Hope your new year is starting with a great momentum in everything you thrive to achieve.]

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Dear mentors, friends and family,

Happy very belated 2016 and Happy fresh Monkey/Ape/Gorilla Year!~ Here finally comes the annual email I have been looking forward to sharing with you about the past amazing year, which I won’t do as long as last year. The past 13 months since my last email, continued to be packed with 100-hour-work-weeks, but the year unfolded with amazing opportunities that I truly felt marveled about and deeply grateful of, while RoboTerra continues to enjoy a solid growth through its Year Two. Flying across the Pacific Ocean back to Silicon Valley on the Chinese New Year’s Eve now, here is the story of my experience Being the CEO of RoboTerra, Year 2.

First, a piece of confidential-still good news to share with you all: my California office just received an DHL from Davos, and I was nominated and selected into the Young Global Leaders (YGL) of the World Economic Forum for a five year period. I have to figure out which YGL alumni so kindly did the nomination when the official news is out next month. But the heaviness of this very unique role’s duty is on my shoulder already — I believe RoboTerra the team deserves every honor as the world’s most promising educational robotics company, however being recognized among peers with the worlds’ best young leaders from business, social fields made me a bit overwhelmed in not only pushing RoboTerra to the next high in business success, but also its social impacts in every way we can to deserve such a high expectation. Same feelings for the “Top 25 Women in Robotics” recognition when it arrives last winter.

So on the social-impact notes, from the “data generated from smart hardware for better individualized learning solutions” proposal that I discussed in my last big email, RoboTerra has already done the following: we have presented some of our early findings about robotics and STEM learning as an invited speaker at the World Championship of FIRST Robotics Competition last Spring. And the RoboTerra Global Impact Grant program has sponsored more than 20 high school teams so far in robotics competitions with a couple thousand USD each. I can’t be proud enough to see how the RoboTerrian teams enjoyed their competitions and learning, and the impact the amazing students bring back to their communities in sharing the fun and importance of STEM Learning and Gracious Professionalism across boarders.

Business-wise, so much to report and I will do it briefly:

- R&D front, we have rolled out the World’s 1st “Virtual Robot” Learning Cloud that enables kids of 10 years old and above “real programming” — programming in C++, designing and controlling the robotic kits, which tracks cognitive pattern for individualized feedback and learning solutions. Prototype developed and tested through the year, and launched via CES Las Vega, you can learn more details from either our website www.RoboTerra.com or CNBC report here

- We had a very successful China Product Launch as well via Stanford Beijing Center Robotics Education Global Summit, proudly taking up cover stories of many leading biz + tech news media. I was invited to lead the panel on AI + Robot session of Sina Annual Conference (consider China’s NYTimes Tech Summit). Lots of updated product info, students achievements and tech specs can be found on our Chinese website.

- Among many other awards and achievements, we were recognized as one of “Top 30 Innovation Company of the Year” where Ashton Kutcher facilitated the recognition as a star tech investor.

All the product developments and brand recognitions, are based upon existing and becoming process for strong market responses. Our B2B partnership model with top schools and educational institutions growing strong, and on the B2C front, with the launching of our user-friendly “Castle-Rock Learning Cloud” now, RoboTerra is coming into stores many of you shop at: RadioShack, BigCyber, Andy Mark, etc.

With the exciting 365 days condensed into the above several paragraphs, running a business is never easy. I didn’t read much in the past year due to time availability, however among the several titles I devoured, Columbia alumni Ben Horowitz’s “The Hard Thing about Hard Things” is my top favorite. My body shakes when I read through the almost-stifle moments the author described because it is so true: I fired three team members, one is the CEO assistant to me, one my long-term friends China BD Director, and one a top famous executive talent I pursued for months to get board but serious harassment complaints started within weeks of his joining. Co-founder who joined the team from Day 1 couldn’t bear the reality of uncertainties and extremely stressful, “no-life-at-all” life-style, converted into a “consultant role” while CTO stepped in to be a partner. So the RoboTerra partners team now is me, with two Stanford fellows with Apple/Tesla/GoogleX background.

From PR front, I want to hold RoboTerra away from the attention of big sharks in the pond but it seems unavoidable: while I write this article, I found that ZDNet just did an article on LEGO & RoboTerra

As Horowitz said, there are “Peace Time CEOs” and “War Time CEOs” with different traits, I definitely think I am a “War Time CEO” and the war is on already. We raised $3.7MM for Series A, now with a Cayman entity holding RoboTerra US and China, we are determined to go for the global market because we believe, every kid deserves a chance for his or her creativity to be empowered by fun learning and technology.

2016’s battle hymns is on already. Besides the global major distribution channels mentioned above, we are in the process of signing DXXXX IP licenses for extended product series, we will be major exhibitors at leading educational technology conferences and Maker Faires of many cities world-wide, and we will be launching a really exciting new product mid-year.

To make all visions coming true for this year, we are extremely talent-thirsty: I will spend more time in the US this year for talent acquisition, building new product strategies and global marketing strategies. Our goal: any 10–18 y/o teens that wants to build a robot, comes to RoboTerra. We aim to become the world’s best company in educational robotics for teens (for now, let LEGO and others to be crowded in the red ocean of the 6–10 years old “toy” market).

Lastly — as a start-up entrepreneur, it is so true that my life IS WORKING on the company. However, every minute of the awake time, I work in the best flow, and every night I sleep like a baby. This is the best life for me at this stage, and this is the best age I cherish. In this universe, I believe “to create is the best exemplification of human spirit”. I feel so fortunate to be able to get life to this stage and status, and you are one factor that shaped my personal history and lead me to today. I am still not good at keeping a good email courtesy because of the mountainous work load, however I am creating a better work-life balance with a better-organized team, which means I am ABLE to respond to all the emails I missed.

I wish every one of you is also able to enjoy the ecstasy of muse flowing through your mind and your body, bringing amazing work to this world, to make it a better one for our children and the upcoming generations.

Cheers to this great time of history we live in,

Yao