BONUS! Year in Review 2015

Welcome, welcome to Startup Life Hacks. Ever wondered if you have what it takes to start a business? Join us as we share with you inspiring stories from these amazing entrepreneurs. Let their journeys bring you one step closer to achieving success.

And now, here's your host, Romel Cabal. What up Hacker Nation, this is Romo Cabal and welcome to Startup Life Hacks 2015 Year in Review. First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you for having me in your ears while you're driving, cooking, doing the dishes, or whatever you're doing to absorb the content. For subscribing, for sending in the great reviews, I'm doing this for you.

Now I apologize for the delayed episode, but there were a lot of events this holiday season that left me out of my studio, which involved going to LA to pick up my parents that flew in from Japan, non-stop family gatherings, and also recovering from a stomach bug that's been going around lately in San Diego. Oh, and also falling 13,000 feet in the sky, but more on that later. This is a special episode not only because it will be my last episode of this calendar year, but this will also be my first episode reflecting on this year's accomplishments, failures, and lessons learned.

Something that I feel like everyone should do, even if you don't have a business. It's good to reflect and look back at what you've accomplished to see where you've come from and how far you've come since then. And now is the best time ever as we're entering the new year, 2016. I've seen some podcasters and bloggers do this, and personally, I think this was usually their best episode slash blog to listen to.

Mainly because it really makes it humbling to know that they're going through the same challenges I'm facing as I'm running my business. And I can learn a lot from the trials and errors, as well as tips on what I can do in the future to further my business. And that's what I want to provide to you. And I hope you walk out of here with a few key takeaways before this episode is over.

In this episode, you will know a little bit more about me in case you haven't listened to my awful first episode, how I started with podcasting earlier this February to this current episode and everything in between. And a little bonus, what's in store for Startup Life Hacks for 2016. So a quick background about me. I'm a master's of engineering student in electrical engineering at San Diego State University.

Go Aztecs. I was born in the Philippines but raised here in San Diego. I mean part of the reason why I've lost my accent and adopted the California tongue. I grew up very traditional.

I was taught the traditional values of going to school and getting good grades to get a safe and secure job with benefits. Stay with the company for 20 years to get a pension to live a comfortable life. Sound familiar? I'm not saying that this is a bad route to take because most people take this route.

I'm just saying that I found out later that this was not the route for me. And seeing as though you were listening to this podcast we pretty much on the same boat I always felt that I would fuse technology and business together and make a living out of it I was always good at math at a young age In fact I was usually the first to complete the multiplication table in elementary school whenever we had a contest Even though I was a shy kid while growing up, I had a good sense on putting things where they need to be visually.

Not many people know this, but I was originally a marketing major my freshman year in college, hoping to be the next real estate mogul. It wasn't until I took a year off after the first year when I took a pivot and switched to electrical engineering to put my math skills to good use. Between that change to earlier this year was a crazy one. I tried starting two companies.

The first was a shopping cart theft profession company we called FineCart. We placed top three in a business plan competition with no prior business experience. I mean, that didn't even continue on after my partners and me won. The second was a mobile gaming company I called the Dawn Studios, where I repurposed game apps and send them over to iTunes using the freemium model.

Meaning free to download, but extra bonuses you can unlock by purchasing coins or credits. Now I'm pretty embarrassed about saying this, but the first app was a twerking running game. It was inspired by Miley Cyrus' shocking 2013 VMA performance. I mean, I don't even think it's in the app store anymore.

that failed as well, although there were plenty of lessons learned. Fast forward to earlier this year to my podcasting business. I decided to take some fun classes that interested me. I tried to take a fundamentals of entrepreneurship course aside from taking engineering courses, but the system wouldn't allow me to add the class to my schedule.

But once I finally talked with the professor, she allowed me to crash and actually sit through the class every single day. I took notes and participated in every assignment and project. One of the projects was actually to interview a startup founder around a community and discuss about how that person became an entrepreneur and what steps he or she took to get to where they're at. After everyone presented their findings toward the end of the semester, I saw everyone's eyes light up with ideas on how they can innovate and start companies of their own.

I mean, that's when I had the idea for the podcast. I wanted to have the same effect and inspire others in a larger scale. And I chose podcasting as my medium. I chose podcasting because you can connect with the listener better.

Obviously through myself and the guest's voice to the listener's ear. You can hear the passion through the voice. You can hear how excited they are about their business. And that was something I wanted to capture.

I had no journaling experience prior to this. So I started from the ground up. I didn't know what equipment to use. how to get guests, I was nervous, I was afraid, but I was excited because I get to go out of my comfort zone and actually do something that excites me.

The first step I took was to seek out some mentors or people that I can learn from. I knew that one of the podcasts I listened to, Entrepreneur on Fire with John Lee Dumas, he had a podcasting course which allowed you to learn how to podcast and go from zero to launch in no time called podcasters paradise and so I invested money into that course to learn how to podcast and here what I like to do I mean whenever I think about doing something I make the initial investment right then and there That way I don overthink it and psych myself out I mean this goes for anything When I plan on going to conferences vacations or take courses online.

Also, be mindful, during this period, I was also working full-time as a technician at Qualcomm and also going to graduate school. So I had some extra cash to spend on self-development. I mean this is also a tip I have for you. Set some money aside every year for self-development and to learn something new.

Learn from people who have been where you want to be. Learn from their mistakes. You can save so much more money and avoid those simple mistakes by investing time and money learning every year. Now I didn't really start podcasting until earlier June of this year.

I had the whole summer to myself with no distractions from school so it was pretty much the perfect time to get things settled before I launched the first day of school. I had got acquainted with the equipment, watching tutorials online, and through the course. Set my website and now it's time to record my first episode. Episode 0.

I never really listened to myself until this moment. I remember listening to myself thinking, do I really sound like this? and quite frankly, this was one of the moments when I wanted to quit and I hadn't even launched yet. I had what people called the imposter syndrome.

Who am I to start this podcast? Who am I to do something outside of what I was taught at school? Where I already invested years in student loans paying for. So I did what any college student would do at that moment.

I called up a group of my buddies and went to a bar in Pacific Beach. Not gonna lie, it felt like the right decision at that time. But I knew that I was only stalling and I needed to get back to work. I needed to remember why I started this podcast in the first place.

So I sucked it up and I started recording. It wasn't perfect. In fact, I was embarrassed. Still embarrassed by my first episode.

There's a famous quote by Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn. If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your first product, You've launched too late. Think about that. The first run of guests was easy to find.

I interviewed my previous boss from a startup I worked for in the past, Braden Marino from Robo3D, my friend and personal trainer, Justin Ayers from Ripe, and also my old classmate from undergrad, Drew Haynes, that started a software company called Devco. All of them had inspiring stories that I wanted to share with you. The rest of the guests came from references, attending meetups, going to conferences, and events You can hear how I met these guests in the beginning of each episode There's always an opportunity out there, you just have to go out there and get it A closed mouth never gets fed That's also what I live by I've learned a great deal from these entrepreneurs And I can't thank them enough for taking the time out of their busy schedules To sit and talk with me for an hour They've given me advice on how to plan out my next move in my business, which I will talk about in a few moments.

Although podcasting is a very social medium meaning that I get to go around and meet a lot of awesome people The majority of my time was spent inside my room editing learning new tools creating content I'd say for every 30 minutes of audio I record, I do about 4 hours of post-editing. Now with 30 episodes already on iTunes, you can imagine the work that was put in. And that's just the editing. 2015 was the year of the hustle.

Like what I always say in every episode Stay positive and keep grinding It's what I live by even after this year is over Aside from business, I was also able to experience some new things During the summer, I went on my first cruise Where I went on the Mexican Riviera I ziplined through the forests of Puerto Vallarta Parasailed in the shores of Mazatlan And just a couple days ago I just went skydiving for the second time in San Diego and that was pretty amazing. Pretty much jumped off a plane 13,000 feet in the air and reaching speeds of up to 120 miles per hour.

All I gotta say is, good thing I wore a jacket. Now for the future of startup life hacks for 2016. You know, after hearing all of these startup stories, you know, I'm bound to start one of my own, right? I'm proud to announce that I've too become a startup founder for a startup named Trainstar.

It was started by a couple of previous classmates from engineering and they brought me on the team to head the marketing. Now, I don't want to give too much away, but we will be creating an app for fitness enthusiasts. I love being active and going to the gym. In fact, I'll be competing in the Men's Physique contest in August of 2016.

So this aligns perfectly. I want to make sure everyone sees every step of the way in our startup. For the podcast, we'll be doing a pivot. We'll be concentrating more on a few startups so that we really get to know the inner workings on how they're doing things and progressing One of the startups we'll be following is Trainstar During the first episode, we'll be interviewing with the founders and find out how Trainstar got started Then in the later episodes, we'll dive deeper and get into conversations with developers Marketing, financing, and all the things you wouldn't get to see in an interview style podcast We'll also be doing this format with a few other startups as well that are yet to be determined so if you're interested in this opportunity then shoot us an email at info at startuplifehacks.

com but in order for all of these changes to take effect we'll be taking a short break from releasing new episodes for the next few weeks if you want to be the first to know what we're doing then go over to startuplifehacks.com and enter in our VIP list so that's all I have for you for this year interview episode of 2015 I hope you have some key takeaways from today hope you have an amazing new year's Looking forward to having you join us in 2016. And as always, stay positive and keep grinding.