MD Wong

Entrepreneur

Because I don't believe in boundaries.

DropBox, Square, MergeLocal

The most frustrating part of life/time is not being able to slow it down. Keep moving or die. The most reward part is how much more powerful each small win is when its all on your shoulders.

Not being able to respond properly to criticism and not removing dead weight partners. (yah I know - its says no.1 mistake. Please refer to "why I'm an entrepreneur")

1. Grab the Wheel and Steer - Don't be complacent
2. Its not easy - even if you think it is.
3. Believe. Find religion in what you do and be passionate.
4. Everything is important but sometimes you have to choose.

Dave McClure: HIs mouth - he just tells it how it is.

Bill Gross: His entrepreneurial ADD reminds me of my own. I hope to one day be able to draw a path like he has.

Jason Calacanis: East cost swagger, hard nosed but down to earth. No ego when you get down to it and he listens... when he wants to.

Ask for more if you like - I admire and follow self made successful people like most do with movie stars and super heros.

I love mobile. Because I'm old enough to remember pay phones. The world is a different place now - and its still changing at the same pace.

In a different life I may have been interested in automobile or industrial design.

I've been involved with technology in some capacity since I was 9 years old and I got my first laptop (compaq LTE with a 386 and windows 3.1). I was predominantly a gamer but my second passion was getting people to pay me to hook up their gadgets in the late 80s and early 90s. I studied multimedia and business in college and have been infatuated with the internet since AOL introduced the "world wide web" to their feature set and you could easily access for freeish over a 2400 baud modem.

During the bubble I worked for a company that specialized in canceling out the printed phonebook with web ads and a simple directory. It didn't go that well, but I learned a lot. After the bubble, I carried different jobs in the service industry learning how to manage large groups of people and provide the best service to clients in shipping and retail. This had to be one of the defining moments of my life. It gave me a deeper understanding of people, small businesses and service.

After a short stint away from tech, I joined two more startups - both focused on providing live and automated chat technology for large - small companies. These companies brought me back into the fold and back up to par on the design and creation side. 

Most recently, I was the CTO of an online marketing agency but decided my affinity for starting my own company was too strong to quell.

Fast-forward and you'll find me running my own startup helping businesses take advantage of mobile applications - local marketing and customer retention. 

Mergelocal.com provides solutions for ANY size business with branded and non-branded options for the iphone and android. You can check us out at MergeLocal.com. Even better: if you visit from your iPhone or Android you can download the app by going to the site as well.

Feel free to reach out to me any time: mwong@mergelocal.com