Today's Entrepreneur: Ken Zi Wang

Kristin Karaoglu · September 26, 2012 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/2a71

No. 1 mistake: Giving up too early, along with not listening

Today's Entrepreneur is Ken Zi Wang, CEO and founder of Fandrop. Fandrop gives people the ability to capture the best part of their web browsing experience and share to any network. Any fragments (videos, maps, flash games, images, articles...) of a page can be saved and shared at ease, while preserving their original functionalities.

Ken will be competing at Vator Splash SF tomorrow, if you'd like to attend to the event register here.

Vator’s community is the home to entrepreneurs who embrace their passion and follow their dreams. Our profiles allow members to express themselves by sharing their interests, lessons learned, as well as bits and pieces of their roller-coaster journey.

These profiles give entrepreneurs an opportunity to showcase themselves and tell their story. So if you are an entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur, or even an aspiring entrepreneur, we'd like to hear from you.

I am a(n):
Entrepreneur

Companies I've founded or co-founded:
Artseason, Buzzreport

Startups I worked for:
Artseason, Buzzreport, Fanbulous, Fandrop

If you are an entrepreneur, why?
I want to change the world.

My favorite startups:
Quora, Github, Facebook

What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?
Most frustrating: working with larger, slower corporations which in turn slow you down
Most rewarding: working with the best of the best, the people that understand you and work 80 hour week with you to achieve the same vision

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs make?
Giving up too early, along with not listening / listening too much to others' feedbacks

What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?
1. Surround yourself with people smarter than yourself. This requires you to know yourself's strength and weakness
2. Be optimistic but at the same time rational, be humble enough to let others say what they think of your product
3. Stay focused and build things. Don't start getting to the market too early yet not too late.

(Want to be profiled? Just fill out your Vator profile and we'll find you! Or you can email newsroom@vator.tv)

Kristin Karaoglu

Woman of many skills: Database System Engineer; SplashX event producer; Author of Startup Teams

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Related Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs

Fandrop

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on August 21, 2012

Novelty/Innovation:

Fandrop is a fast, elegant and fun way to discover and share the best content on the web while preserving their look and feel. It's as easy as pie. It's web surfing, reinvented.

Most people are frustrated with discovering and saving relevant web content. Existing tools had relatively rigid features and were not built to have network effect.

Fandrop allows users to accurately capture the best part of their web browsing experience and share to any network. Any fragments (videos, maps, flash games, images, articles...) of a page can be saved and shared at ease, while preserving their original functionalities. We have filed for a provisional patent on some of the technologies we are using.

As Fandrop gather the best curated content from users, it's effectively breaking down the web into fragments via collective intelligence. Content distribution and discovery will no longer be based on plain URLs or links, instead they will be based on highly relevant fragments of the best browsing experience. It's internet indexing, reinvented.

Competitive advantage:

Existing discovery tools had relatively rigid features and were not built for viral sharing. Existing products also focus only on only a subset of the problem but not trying to solve the big picture. In order for the mass to adopt, the service needs to cover all bases and be so intuitive to use that once you look at it, you get it.

Fandrop solves the pain points of web discovery and content sharing with ease by combing the best elements of existing tools. The interface is intuitive and anyone can figure out quickly. It’s easy to organize and can be accessed from anywhere, anytime.

The Fandrop team has the technical advantage of being very product oriented. We have filed for a provisional patent on some of the technologies we are using. We are data driven and extremely analytical. We understand marketing of this app would depend greatly on network effect and viral growth.

In terms of user acquisition, we do not have a chicken and egg problem. First of all, the fact that it is a utility itself, does not require other users to be in the network to begin with. Secondly, as you join through existing networks (facebook, twitter), we automatic pull all the content you have previously shared and save to the app. This enrichment of content from the get go yields high conversion rate. Thirdly, the app itself has built in virility as every time content’s being saved to the user’s account, it has the opportunity to spread through the user’s other networks (facebook, twitter etc).

Ken Zi Wang

Joined Vator on August 21, 2012

Programming since 12, computer science major, Masters and Doctorate at Columbia, started ecommerce business at 18 (yearly revenue 100k) and sold, ran a social news startup (buzzreport) and exited.