Jun Loayza

→ by Sean Percival < @percival >

∴

at 11:00am Feb 17, 2009

jun1

I first met Jun Loayza at one of Andrew Warner’s Mixergy events. The format was American Idol style, I was playing Simon, Jun the hopeful entrepreneur. A panel of judges tore apart his site, offering advice on SEO, PR and social media. Jun followed up with me after the event and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. I’ve got to know Jun and can’t help but admire his spirt, now its your turn.

Info

Name: Jun Loayza
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Blog: http://www.junloayza.com/

Five Questions with Jun

1. Are you originally from Los Angeles, and if not where?

I was born and raised in Orange County, California. I know what you’re thinking and NO, I didn’t grow up near Laguna Beach or any where near where The OC took place. I live in Westminster, which is located 25 minutes from the beach. Picture the Little Saigon of SoCal and that’s where I live.

I actually did love growing up there; nothing really to complain about. The only thing is that asian people really are BAD drivers. Driving on Bolsa is a nightmare!

2. What brought you to Los Angeles?

I came to LA to study at UCLA. What people say is true: college is definitely the best time of your life!

3. What’s your favorite thing about Los Angeles?

My favorite thing has got to be the beach. My friend, and former team member, Stephen Johnson and I would go surfing out in Venice last summer for our breaks from work. The startup life is tough, and having a relaxing surf at the beach really eases the stress and gets the creative juices flowing.

4. You share a lot of experience about the startup life, what’s the hardest part of it, and what do you do persevere?

The hardest part about the startup life is the uncertainty. I have no idea if our startup company will succeed; I have no idea if next week I’ll be able to pay my student loans. But you know what? We always some how always pull through, get a client, and are able to survive at least for another month. I will compare the startup life to one big giant rollercoaster ride. When things are going well, you are soaring throught the air. There is absolutely no greater feeling in the world than to see your company succeed.

On the other hand, the rollercoaster has to come down sometime. And when you’re down, you’re way down. A lead developer can leave the company right before launch, a company sponsor could be lagging behind on payments, or your founder may be unable to stay in the states. It’s an absolute crazy lifestyle.

So how do I persevere, and even more importantly, why would I want to persevere? You will always here career coaches talk about, “You have to find your passion in life.” Blah blah blah… personally I feel the word “passion” is WAY over used in our society. But, I do feel they have a point here. I have tried to corporate life and I hated it. In the entrepreneurial world, I am self-motivated and am able to watch my baby grow and succeed.

When I really think about it, I’m not really persevering; instead, I’m just living my life the way I should be living it. I am built to build companies. Hopefully, I have it in me to build successful companies rather than just failures…

5. What is next for Jun?

I have a few things under my wing right now.

Number 1 is Viralogy.com. Viralogy is a social media rank that ranks your online influence and compares it against your peers. For example, who has the most blog subcribers, unique visitors, twitter followers, digg popular ratio, facebook friends, linkedin contacts, and I could go on and on. We aggregate your social media influence and create a rank that you can compare against your peers.

Who is most influential in society: Gary Vaynerchuk or Guy Kawasaki? We’ll soon be able to find out the anser.

Number 2 is FutureDelivery.tv. This is the funnest most productive show in the world. During February and March, we will be focusing on brinigng Venture Captialists in as guests so that you can find out first hand what it takes to be funded.

Number 3 is Site Vitamin and Pro Buiness Blogger. We are creating a web tutorial that we teach companies step-by-step how to leverage social media to brand and market their company. If we’re successful, then companies won’t need to hire social media consultants anymore :P. I bet a bazillion people right now are hoping that we don’t succeed, hahahaha.

Thanks for chatting with us Jun, keep hustling.