Just finished watching Startup.com, a documentary about an internet startup company that failed during the dot com era. One of their co-founders came to give a talk to our New Ventures class a few weeks ago, sharing some of the lessons learned from their venture. While this venture was launched nearly 10 years ago, when it was relatively easy to get venture capital funding, I feel that it is still very relevant to the current times, even when funding is difficult to come by. One of the key mistakes the team made was in overemphasizing the importance of raising funds over strategy and building the company. They viewed their investors as their customers, when their customers really were the government and those who got parking tickets. The guest speaker also noted that they should’ve brought in more experienced people earlier on, who knew how to manage and had some experience in the public/government sector. The personality dynamics as depicted in the documentary was rather interesting too and I kept thinking how difficult it is to find good partners that would function well, even when the going gets tough? How to manage the big ego’s?

studying for our last microecon quiz. That class is completely useless.

slept 1.5 hours on Monday and 10.5 hours last night. Makes you really value rest.

got late night craving for some good bowl of pho. Haven’t had pho in a while. there’s a pho place nearby. planning on getting some ph …

KFC or soup and salad for dinner? It’s ceasy that kfc can offer $3 meals now

The other day I blogged about my [preliminary] thoughts on the proposed stimulus package. I’m sure my views will change after I wake up …

Should I go back home for spring break? Need to decide soon.

All star game unexciting this year. This will be shaq’s last all-star appearance. I remember his first one. I feel old.

Need to refocus my priorities. Is learning how to tweet helping?

test

trying this out

Is the stimulus package that just got passed by the Senate a good thing for America? Will households spend most of the stimulus package or will they hold on to it lest the economy worsens?

if you know that you’re expecting a tax refund check from the IRS, plus a stimulus check, chances are, you’ll spend more money than if you weren’t expecting two checks from the IRS. That’s what happened to me last year. I knew that I was getting a tax refund plus a stimulus check and for a period of two months, I did more shopping than usual online and spent probably half of the balance on stuff I didn’t really need (at the time, I felt there was a “need”).

Some argue that people will just hold on to that money and not spend it, which is counter to the aim of the stimulus package. This was my view earlier in the week. However, my opinion changed when I thought of who would likely be the ones to hold on to their money, and who would be most likely to spend their stimulus checks. I think those who are either out of work or are very concerned that they will lose their jobs soon or have been denied loans will either hold on to the money or spend it on necessities. The national unemployment rate is currently over 7 percent, so perhaps around 25-30% of the households will exhibit this behavior.

The rest (70% or so), I believe, will spend at least part of their stimulus package and it will primarily be this group that will help jump start the economy. And of course, the ones with all the wealth are least affected by the downturn, so they’ll continue to live lavishly I’m sure.

One thing that should be noted (and that hasn’t been discussed in the press) is that this is only the second stimulus package in the last how many years? And only the second time stimulus packages will have been distributed since the Internet went mainstream. Surely we have learned some things from last year and businesses will build on what they did well last year and learn from their mistakes in how they serve their customers with stimulus checks in tow. I think this year, we’ll see more businesses rolling out the door mat to incentivize customers to spend their entire stimulus check to get a large discount or major perk in return.

It’s interesting to see that Taiwan is trying to stimulate its economy by giving out stimulus vouchers that must be redeemed and cannot be held on to. Do you think the stimulus voucher model would work in the U.S.? Why or why not?