Dillon Chen Wants To Bring You Instant Internet Access Anywhere In The World

Written by Sam Sawchuk // Also shared on Startups.co.

Dillon Chen is the founder of Source Wifi, a company focused on bringing you instant internet access anywhere in the world. Source automatically connects you to Source providers, allowing you to connect to the internet automatically without the hassle of passwords. Dillon is a drop-out from the University of Pennsylvania who was inspired to start the company from his experiences backpacking in Europe where getting data from the cell provider was way too expensive and the public WiFi always asked for his personal information.

DETERMINATION

Q: What are some challenges you faced when developing your venture?

Confronting my own flaws and managing my own psychology. I make so many mistakes every week and sometimes it’s hard not to get discouraged. I tend to beat myself up over these things. I’ve gotten much better at just focusing on the task at hand rather than focusing on the past.

Q: Was there any point when you thought it was over? That you were going to fail?

Every week. But then the next moment some other piece of news comes out that makes me think otherwise!

FLEXIBILITY

Q: As an entrepreneur how important has flexibility been in developing your venture?

Extremely. But there’s a quote that goes something like “Strong opinions, weakly held.” Stay aimed at the vision, but if your current path seems like it’s going nowhere, test out another avenue. If you’re hyper-aware in the beginning, you can avoid the pain of a pivot later down the road.

IMAGINATION

Q: What was was your spark, where did it come from?

I’ve always started small lemonade stands and other ventures. When I was in 4th grade, I sold origami rings made of dollar bills for a markup. For Source Wifi specifically, it was a lot of little annoyances that added up. I was backpacking in Europe and during that time I rarely had internet access. Getting data from my cell provider was way too expensive and the public wifi always asked for my personal information — I just thought that there had to be a better way.

Q: What are your non-work habits that help you with your work-life balance?

Reading books! There are so many different things that are vying for your attention during the day, you need to slow down and relax. For me, I need something that totally absorbs my attention so I don’t think about Source. Books do that for me. They let me step into other people’s shoes and out of my own — I try not to just read business books, read fiction.

Q. What is your best tip for entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurs have to be both irrational and hyper-rational. If you’ve read High Output Management, there’s this 2-by-2 matrix. One axis is the level of extrinsic motivation and the other uncertainty in the environment. For things that are highly uncertain and where the payoff is extrinsic, no rational method of motivation works. You just have to do so something because you want to. So basically, just keep at something. On the rational side, you can’t believe your own hype. You need to test every decision.

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