Visioning My New Hackerhouse
By the end of May, I came to the realization that in just 8 days, I would have no place to go. Initially, my plan was to take a break from…
By the end of May, I came to the realization that in just 8 days, I would have no place to go. Initially, my plan was to take a break from my job search and attend yoga teacher training in Hamalya. However, due to visa complications and waning interest, it seemed unlikely that I would be able to pursue that path.
Feeling floated without an anchoring gravity in my life, I joined forces with two determined friends, I built a hacker house in a mere 3 days.
On the first night, I reached out to Phuong, the founder of a Vietnamese ed-tech startup, and asked her to throw away her plan in Virginia. On the second night, we enlisted the help of another friend, Eugene, who is a workaholic and shares the ambition of building a school. We sealed the deal on this venture during a birthday dinner with a mutual friend. Finally, on the third night, we managed to secure a house for our hacker house project. We decided to name it “SF powerhouse” to include Phuong, who doesn’t possess coding skills, but really strong in the Edtech business.
Starting from scratch, I am determined to construct a clear vision of myself and engage those around me with this vision. To accomplish this, I have posed the following several questions to myself.
How do I picture myself after the next two months?
I want to become fearless and find my path.
Currently, I’m still uncertain about my future. Where do I want to live? Will I be able to find a job? Or do I want to start my own business? Within the next two months, I want to become someone who has found her path, whether it’s a company she’s passionate about working for or a project she wants to pursue. If my current situation is like wandering in a forest, I want to find the start of a trail within two months, even if the trail is hidden in the bushes.
What do I want my house to look like?
I envision a house filled with work momentum and intellectual discussion.
I imagine a space where we can brainstorm ideas and build products together. Phuong would provide us with all the business and startup knowledge we need, Eugene would offer his expertise in product design and front-end software, and I would contribute my skills in data analysis, machine learning, and large language modeling. Although our skill sets complement each other really well, I am not sure if we will end up working together. In the wildest case scenario, I picture the three of us starting a business together. In the happy case scenario, I see us mentoring each other in our areas of expertise and potentially collaborating on short-term projects. In the boring case scenario, we would simply work in front of our laptops without talking to each other.
In summary, I envision a house that can motivate me when I am procrastinating and unblock me when I am stuck.
How do I want my daily life to look?
I want to work hard while maintaining a healthy balance.
Work: I want to have an open-door mindset where I always have a project I’m building to discuss with others for their feedback. I want to show that my projects have real impacts beyond just technical aspects. Currently, I’m focused on Edtech LLM projects and want to have weekly project sprints to learn quickly and test my hypotheses.
Health: I want to prioritize my health and exercise almost every day, whether it’s through yoga, jogging, or boxing.
Social: I want to meet new people and learn about them. I want to visit their offices, sit next to them, and see what they are working on.
Writing: I want to continue with my writing challenges. After I finish, I would like to try writing in Chinese, if possible.
Reflection: I want to have time to relax and reflect on weekends in Golden Gate Park. I want to reflect on my future and my four-year journey. I also want to spend time writing notes of gratitude for my friends.
What do I want to learn from my housemate? What do I want to share?
Eugene: I want to learn about his speed of learning and execution. He is not patient but is fast, and has a lean startup mindset. He is the person I’ve seen pick up software engineering the fastest in my life. I’d like to learn how he learns and how to sketch out the correct MVP. Ideally, I want to try out a one-week project together.
Phuong: I want to have lots of edtech and product discussions with her. She is patient and knows how to collaborate with people. She may not be the fastest, but she is reliable. I always enjoy learning from her without feeling stressed. I want to go to lots of networking events, research interesting tech companies, and potentially help out with the startup she is working on now.
Esther: I want to share my knowledge of large language modeling and machine learning with them. I want to share all the potential future people can build and start from this technology, and potentially help them connect the entire pipeline to their needs. Additionally, I want to share funny memes and websites that I build, to bring fun and ridiculous ideas to the house.
This is the 14th post from my 30-day writing challenges. I was inspired by Tung Nguyen, a friend who is a famous blogger. He overcame the fear of creation through mass-producing blogs and eventually found his own niche audiences.