2025/10/9
Life is good with jazz. I’ve been listening to good old Red Garland a lot lately.
Getting the first dime in account is difficult. As much as I tried to stay positive, sometimes it’s hard to not run away from everything.
It’s also a good lesson on human nature. I’ve seen people’s behaviour, actions, words I couldn’t disagree more. I’m throughly disappointed in Dr S, and couldn’t be bothered to reply him. (And still did. Just to be polite)
In May I was insulted, humiliated and cried at Jia’s house (my sister got so angry, she fought back for me); I was put down by people from Hangzhou government, the guy literally said we have no value and means nothing to them; I’ve been told by kinder officials in Shanghai: “it’s all a game, don’t take it too seriously, blow the bubble, take the money and leave”; we were in Suzhou for the grant application, the judges were so rude to us, GRY said “cunt” when we came out in the elevator, I almost laughed and we went to have hotpot; I’ve meet more officials from Taizhou(as much as I don’t want to go), the guy boasted himself, asked me for 30% of equity without any contribution and told us we are there to “fish cash”…That’s why I know China has already lost this AI competition. I don’t know about robots, since hardware requires craft and lots of labour(which is a lot cheaper in China), but in terms of the technology that fuel the logic and soul of automation, or any innovation, the air is thin and soil is dry. People will call you scammer without a reason. People will insult you and treat you like shit just because you are young and a woman. People will doubt everything about you. People will say no at first glance just because you are ‘different’.
I’m also grateful that we received help and support. From people from the industry, from grandpas, from the accelerator… and of course my family and friends.
From time to time I feel incredibly lonely, then I realised my family sees how hard it is. The whole thing.
Sometimes I wonder if things aren’t greener on the other side. Maybe the land of innovation is as dry in Europe. Maybe I started the whole operation in China that’s why I feel the most resistant. But it doesn’t feel this way in the UK- I’ve received kinder words from people in the UK. Or because I’ve not seen VCs* and businesses people, but only industry people there. Or maybe it’s difficult in a different way, maybe the difficulty is not in start in Europe, but to scale- since it’s a more fragmented market.
*(I start to genuinely dislike people from VC. It’s different from college students saying ‘finance is evil’. I start to actually see how egotistical people can be in this industry, especially when they are young. Also being cautious, frugal, is wildly different from being an arrogant ass in the name of being cautious. The position of ever need fund raising will put me in constant game with them. It’s really really a massive waste of time, compare to developing product and serving customers. But it took up most of my energy now, unfortunately.)