.ORG was the not-for-profit community website that Gus and I launched in 4Q99 as a helpful resource for our peers whom we knew would experience the same growing pains that we did when we first moved to Taiwan.

Both of us have a history of actively volunteering for community service projects - so our commit-
ment to .ORG was a natural extension of the things we normally did with our spare time before
the Internet came along.

If we could break-even through ad revenues, great, but even if we didn't, we were happy to cover the costs for such a worthwhile cause. Gus is a technical guru with an incredible eye for design. I'm a stickler for detail and insist on professional, high-quality content. Together we created a pretty good looking website, so much so that just about everyone confused our efforts with that of a pure play start-up dotcom company. Because of this, Gus and I were constantly on the defensive:

    Them: (impressed) Hey that's a nice looking website you've got there.

        Us: (happy) Thanks! We about killed ourselves putting it together
               but we had a lot of fun doing it!

    Them: (inquisitive) Cool! So. How do you make money?

        Us: (humbly) Uh... well... we're not exactly sure...

    Them: (defiant) You need to HURRY UP and get funding!

        Us: (confused) Uh... well we didn't exactly do this for money...?

    Them: (demanding to know) Then why?

        Us: (delicately) Well, we thought it would be nice to help our fr ...

    Them: (rudely cutting us off) Yeah ok WHATEVER. You do realize
              that VCs are pretty skeptical these days of the advertising
              revenue model. I mean it's a nice idea and all but at the
              end of the day if you can't show profitability you're going
              to have to change your business strategy blah blah BLAH.

No one believed that we did it because we simply wanted to give back to the community. When does anyone ever ask a volunteer of a non-profit community organization (which is essentially what .ORG is but in the New, New Economy) how the hell they make money?!

Hello?

I think you need professional help...

Humor aside, we weren't completely ignorant of its potential as both a meaningful endeavor and a profitable business. And that is where ORIENTED.COM comes into play, a regional and commercial spinoff of the former .ORG website.

1999

January-September	Gus and I initiated the concept of ORIENTED.ORG in December 1998 and soft-launched the site in 4Q99 as a non-profit, voluntary-run portal for the international community of Taiwan.
October	Co-founded IPO-Taiwan with Neil Hickey

2000

February	Gus made the decision not to join me in taking ORIENTED to the next level, wanting to go back to b-school instead, so I got the .COM URL back from the cybersquatter who owned it and began drafting a business plan for regional expansion and commercialization
April	Took a week off to the bay area, burned out from trying to run IPO-Taiwan, write the business plan for .COM, maintain .ORG with Gus, and hold my full-time day job, all at the same time
May	Terminated IPO-Taiwan indefinitely
June	Published first Email Bulletin for ORIENTED.ORG
July	Began to look for a new business partner for .COM, raise money, and raise awareness in general of what I was trying to do (unsuccessfully)
October	Out of sheer frustration, I came up with the idea of creating HeyChristine.com as an attempt to raise awareness/support through my own personal network; I think I also needed an outlet to vent!

2001

February	Launched HeyChristine.com for public view
April	Activated the URL for ORIENTED.COM
	My desire to move back to the U.S. steadily grew, thus my renewed conviction to finish the b-plan, pitch it, and see what happened, as there was nothing else keeping me in Taiwan. Meanwhile, I watched the dotcom hipe go up... and then come back down... and then go down even further... and then roll over on its back
May	Gus got into graduate school!
July	Family reunion in Taiwan, all work on .COM was put on hold
October	Turned down an incredible job opportunity in the U.S.
November	Finally saw the end of the b-plan, and resigned myself to "Fate"
December	Made critical change to the .COM business model

2002

January	Throughout the month of January, I finished the financials, screen shots, and business plan, which I officially completed on this day, and started to raise funds
February	Experienced start-up jitters! I raised ~ half of what I needed and decided to roll with it, as the site would take some time to build
	Moved into the smaller room, in anticipation of being mobile
	Formally engaged law firm, accountant, web design team
March	Received official company registration
	Received first set of funds to my bank account!
	.COM launched as the ORIENTED Happy Hours while the core business was still under development
April	Trip to Shanghai
May	A Milestone: Figured out what I wanted in life
August	Gus and I terminated ORIENTED.ORG, with the official announce- ment posted here detailing the future of the online community we built together
	Made the decision to move back to the U.S., knowing that if I didn't take advantage of this down time to leave NOW while the rest of the site was under construction, I would never be able leave Taipei once we officially launched towards the end of the year.
	Resigned from my full-time job of 4+ years
September	Trip to Beijing
October	Last evening in Taipei after residing there for 7.5 years
November	Moved to the San Francisco bay area, finally
December	End-of-year launch didn't happen

2003

January

Headed back to Taipei once again to support the final development stages of ORIENTED.COM... and thus the saga continues...