Navigating the Ups and Downs of Startup Life | Joanne Chang, Co-Founder at PicCollage

Founder Journey back on the ground in Canada. We are continuing our international spin to this season with a interview with Joanne Chang from Piccolage. Joanne is originally from Taiwan. Piccolage is a Taiwanese and US Company that has expanded into Vancouver. Not every journey to startup life is straightforward. Joanne and I talk about bucking cultural trends and expectations and discovering your own passion and purpose in life as a startup founder. We also talk about the continuous growth you experience through your founder journey and the ups and downs that brings, not just economically, but mentally.

3, 2, 1.

We are back again with another episode of Founder Journey. I am still doing a season that's dedicated to international founders, but we are back in Vancouver and we're joined by with Joanne Chang from Pick Collage, originally from Taiwan. And so we're still sticking with the international theme here. We're going to talk about the tech ecosystem in Taiwan and what's the great magic that's happening there. But Joanne has now moved to Vancouver and is building and expanding her company through North America. From Vancouver, Joanne, welcome to Founder Journey. Please tell us a little bit about piccolage and then tell us about yourself and your journey.

Hi. Thanks, Ray. Thanks for inviting me in here. Super fun. So Piccollage, let me see. Piccologe was one of the apps that we created. Kind of like the beginning of the time when we started doing iOS apps. Before that, we actually were doing Facebook apps. So.

So we're really going back here into the olden days. We got Facebook apps. That's probably like circa 2007. 2008.

Yeah.

And then iPhone didn't come out till 2008. And so piccolage probably what, 2009?

Yeah. 2009. 2010.

2009.

Yeah.

10. Okay, well, go back. Facebook. You're building Facebook apps. What was the experience like?

So initially this company was founded by our two original founders, and they met in Stanford, and then they were at a company together, and then they decided to leave the company and start their own thing. So one of them was in the Bay Area, the other one was in Hong Kong, and they. They kind of worked remote together. I think they caught on the wave of the Facebook developer age, where Facebook was really encouraging developers work on Facebook apps. So they tried multiple things, and it seems that they always wanted to do something serious. So they started with business card apps, but that didn't work. So then they went out and having dinner with friends, and then they started talking about dim sum, and then they did a dim sum app, and then that kind of worked like more people were coming on they were like, oh, okay, something more fun seems to work a little bit better. I think after that, our CEO had an idea about something that had to do with the stock market. So he put together this casual game, which is like buying and selling your friends.

Buying and selling your friends.

Yeah. It's like at the time you had those casual games.

Yeah, well, I was just getting flashbacks. I'm dating myself here. Facebook apps. Back then it was Zynga was the powerhouse and farmville and other types of games. I guess at that farmville, you're buying and selling sheep and carrots. You just take that and say, okay, well, let's apply to our friends and buy and sell our friends.

Yeah. So at the time there were a few of these types of apps around. And the story that I heard was that at the time there was another one. I forgot the name of it, but a lot of the gamers were there. And then Friendstock launched. And then I think Friendstock was the app. That Friendstock was the app. And then I think that other game crashed. Like they were out for a day or something. And then the gamers were really bored, right? So you think of it as like, not don't think of it digitally. Think of it as like a town, right? So you know this bar is out, right? Because like, you know, no, they can't open that day. It's shut down. So everybody's like, yeah, they're all bored, right? So they're. Where are we going to go? To our next joint, right? So then they come onto Friendstalk, right? And it's new. And then, you know, you can start, you know, raking up points really fast. And they were like, really happy about that. And then they just settled there, turned it into home, and they started bringing their other friends over. So then it got more and more popular and that's how they were able to get like their first, like bootstrap, kind of like that bootstrap money in and try to build the next thing. So then at that time, I think there was the crash.

The 2008 crash. Yes, I know that all too very well.

There was the crash. And then our CEO was like, you know, Bay Area is like dead. Like nothing's happening there. So he wanted to explore other places, so he decided to come to Taiwan. And that's where he met me and our other co founder. So we have four co founders in total. So. So at the time, I knew of our CEO from a friend of a friend. I always knew about this person, but I never met this person. And I Was like, always, like, listening to stories about this person and then finally I meet this person. And yeah, it turned into an interview. I thought it was just like, check it out. And then he was like, do you know how to do this? At the time, I was doing HR at like, an insurance company. And for me, I wasn't like, at the time, there was no Facebook in Taiwan. And the whole mentality is everybody wants their kids to go to, like, you know, big companies, right? That's the thing. So nobody really wanted me to go to big companies. It just felt like a thing to go to a big company. So I was always thinking, okay, I got to be at a big company. So I did that. And I wasn't really interested in doing HR stuff. I guess, like, for me, my, my whole going to work was all about, like, making the PowerPoint presentations look great and, like, dressing really nicely. That's it. So I guess those are the two places where I was like, using my visual. Like, I get to play with my visual sense. So then, yeah, so I didn't. I stopped working at the insurance company as hr. And then our CEO contacted me. I went into the office, and then he was like, so you want to help out? I'm like, okay. So I went in. And then, you know, after a while, it's kind of like, you know, I think I really need a, like a full time job. So then I started going out, like, interviewing. And then I think he saw because I started wearing like, you know, interview clothes. And then he, he. I think he got nervous. And then he was like, he was like, okay, so you know, how much like, you know, no, what do you want as like a real salary? And then, and then I was like, oh, wow, this is turning into a real job. And I was really not sure about this. So then I started. So I asked the headhunter, and then the headhunter told me, you know, you could always go out and get a bit like a job at a big company, but these startup things, like, you don't know when you're gonna stumble across another good opportunity, right? You should just do it. I was like, what? And then I asked my parents and, yeah, I think you should do this. This is more suited for you. I'm like, what? And then I asked my friends, and then they were like, oh, yeah, this sounds actually more so counterintuitive from every.

Other Asian parent coming out. Say, no, no, no, go work at kpmg. Go work at Deloitte. Or ey, like, take that big company job. It's like, no, hey, Joanne, I think you're better suited for this crazy adventure startup.

And I was like, what? And then all of a sudden, I was, like, questioning, how do people actually see me? Right. I had a vision, a different separate vision of myself than other people. So I was like, okay. So then I tried it out. For me, I did not know what the startup world was all about. Our CEO, they were setting up the operations in Taiwan, which was, to me, it was bizarre because it's like, just a company with just a few people, but I still have to, like, put together the structure of, like, a big company. Right. So think about when you're in a big company, right? You, like, like, for foreigners, you have to have, like, you know, some kind of process for that. And usually in a big company, you have, like, you know, 10, like, 10 team to help. Yeah.

To.

To, like, put together, like, the foreign, like, employee part. But then we only have, like, how many people? And we also have to set that structure up, too. So for me, I was like, this is so weird and so insane. And the only time when I really. I think the time that felt comfortable about it was when I found our accounting firm, and they were upstairs, and then they needed to. They needed me to sign something, and they came down and they knocked on the door and said, hey, you need. I know you. You need to help me sign this. And I was like, wait a minute. This is like a real company. Like, before, it's like. It's just that. Before, it's all one building, and you're like. And that's like your company building. But if you're in a startup, right, what you're doing is the same as in a big company, but it's just that they're not in the same company as you. So I was kind of like, oh, that was kind of the first time.

Like, having an external accounting firm working for you and you having to liaise with them and work with them, but it's not an internal department.

Yeah, yeah. So that. And I think it's just the physicality. Like, if it were just email, I would kind of feel like it's still really far, but, like, to have that guy, like, run downstairs and then knock on the door and say, hey, you know, I need you to sign this. It made me feel like, oh, actually, this feels exactly like I was in, like, a real company.

So. So friendstalk was the moneymaker, the bread, bringing in all the users, bringing in all the revenue from ad revenue, I'm assuming. But you had this user base, and so you As a group, were starting to iterate on different ideas and different products, different apps. I'm assuming they're still Facebook apps at this time. And how can we leverage this install base and introduce them to new apps?

Yeah, so it wasn't that strict. I guess it was that direction where it was like, okay, we need to structure, but, yeah, we need to kind of like, figure out the next thing. Right. And then the revenue from friendstalk was starting to go down, so it was like, we need to try to figure out how do we build the next thing. Right. So then we tried multiple different things. There was something called, like, a quiz creator. I think one of the learning from that was that it was doing really well until I think the database disappeared or something, and then the whole thing. So then it was like, it's like the next day we come in, it's like, oh, you know, it's all gone. It's like, what? So then I think that learning is that, oh, I guess you always have to have a backup or something. I guess that's more of the tech side of stuff. That seemed a bit traumatic.

Tough lesson to learn, but lesson nonetheless.

So the reason why we got to pick Collage is because Multiple reasons. One is, I think we were thinking, how do we, like, you know, how do we get the company to the next step? And this was more of the genius of my other co founders. I was more like, kind of like diving into learning different things. But they felt like we still needed to have, like, a Silicon Valley presence. People who upload photos, good users, iPads coming out. I think maybe a lot of grandparents would like that. Okay, good idea. And then our CTO, he wanted to try out iOS apps. We needed a prototype to apply for incubator programs in the Bay Area. So he turned that into, like, a photo collage app, which is the very first prototype for Pic Collage. It was just like, you can't even save anything. You have to take a screenshot if you want to save your collage and everything. I think the idea was that it was fun, intuitive, and because the code was really good, so then it was really smooth. So I think that was one of the main buying points and features of that. So they took that prototype around and went to different incubators, and we got accepted to 500 Startups. So we were batch.

This is Bay Area 500 Startups?

Yes. So we were batch one. There was batch zero before us, so we were like the second batch. So it was relatively new. It was pretty cool. Before that, I went to Parsons for a one month illustration course because I decided I wanted to do design and that was a lot of fun. I think that gave me a little bit of confidence to go to the next step. Because right after that month we were at the incubator program at 500 Startups and I think that was a very important step in our growth because before we were kind of like it was more developer heavy so everything kind of was built by the developer. We weren't really thinking that much about UX UI and. And then it was kind of like I was always thinking, you know, never really looks done, it's kind of clunky. But I don't really know how to say this from 500 Startups. I think they gave a lot of really good mentorship, especially in usability and UI design where they would ask us like a lot of the things that they would ask us is like how is that user experience from when you look at the. And then download the app with. And then go.

User journey.

Yeah, the actual user journey, like the steps of that. And I think from there we became really conscious about this.

This is really interesting. So, so not only are you now this founder of a startup, startup culture, startup life is all brand new to you and you're kind of going through all the motions. You yourself started to have some self discovery of what is it that you really wanted to do, where's your passion? And you started shifting towards design and saying this earlier offline, like we always said that a perfect founding team with early stage startups has, has three parts of a triangle. Three core skill sets. The first one is the CEO because you need a mouthpiece, you need somebody out there to talk, talk, talk, talk and evangelize and build network and whatnot. The second one is a cto, somebody that has a technical expertise that can actually build a product, build an MVP that can get in the hands of potential customers and users. The third one that's most often missing is UI ux. It's that design mentality, the people, the person that actually understands how to make something functional, something that can be functional in the hands of the users and identify that journey. And so you basically shoehorn yourself into that role and started to make that your Persona and who you are, that UI UX unicorn that everybody's looking for. But to have that in the founding team, it's rare and it's definitely noticed when it is there.

Well, I would say that I'm very lucky because our CTO actually cares a lot about UI and how that experience is so he cared a lot about that. Our CEO actually also cares a lot about that. So he kind of, he was really like, he really wanted to have that process where we would have user feedback sessions every week. And we still have that up to now.

Well the other thing to keep in mind though, this is 2010, correct. And so again back then in 2010, 12 years ago, UI UX wasn't as emphasized and user journeys and user feedback people were just focused on shipping product, getting stuff out there, iterating and it's not perfect. That's fine as mvp test it. But fast forward today people wouldn't think about pushing stuff out unless they've gone through some UI UX sessions and strategies. So kudos to you as a team and your CTO and your CEO for understanding how important UI UX was back then.

Yeah, I think that really, really we have a lot to thank 500 startups for, for like you know, putting that into their process and like teaching us all these things. So I think yeah there were like many aspects to it for me. I was more, I think looking back my role as a team, I'm a lot like a, a creative, like more of like the creative person. Problem solving. I put more emphasis on, on the visuals. Our other co founder, she, she's a very, I think I would say she's very practical. Like she's the very practical person. The reason why we have the name Pic Collage is because she's just very practical at the time. So at the they were again we started from trying like we got into 500 Startups again. We wanted to do something serious. I did my own serious research which is like looking at the competitors at the time. Every single photo app or collage app looks like it was made by a developer. It always had a corkboard background. It always looked like these really stock vector components and I was like we should do something different. Let's do this hand, a hand drawn hand and then like these like, like hand drawn elements to it so it looked more fun. So I wouldn't say that it was like a really good piece of work but I would say that it looked different.

It was different enough that it got.

People'S attention, it was different enough and I think the usability of it was probably pretty cool because like it was like very easy to like shift around like the, the photos and everything. Our other co founder, which is more of our product person at the time, she's very practical and she's like okay, let's just a simple name Piccolage. So at the time, nobody was thinking too much about it. It was just like, okay, some icons, the name out there. And then it was like, it was.

Just like took off.

It just took off. It was very popular from the start. And then it was like, oh, this.

Is an iOS app.

Yes.

Yeah.

And we were like, oh, okay, what's going on here? So then it was like, I guess we continue to iterate on it. So then we would iterate on it and make it better and better. And yeah, that's kind of how the journey began.

Fast forward now, 2022. I just realized how it's 2022 now. Where's. Where's pit collage now?

So we have around 250 million downloads, perhaps around 1.5 million MAU. I guess we've been profitable for like four to five years now. Growth is very healthy growth. The team is a very thriving, young and creative, happy team.

Internationally distributed, concentrated in Taiwan. Where's the bulk of the people?

Yeah, so it's concentrated in Taiwan. Right now we have two people in Vancouver, one person in South Africa. We just hired someone in France and yeah, one person in Italy as founder Journeys.

There's a kind of theme to what we talk about with our founders. It's kind of the shit that nobody talks about. And I want to learn from you. What are some of the things that you wish you knew or you wish other founders were talking about when you were getting started? We kind of gone through your journey and you're really thrown into startup life and realization of who you are, what you are passionate about. But what is that you wish you heard or what are some of the challenges that you're facing that you want to share and want other founders to know?

Yeah, I mean, it was a little. It wasn't as like, although Piccolage Jump started my design career, it wasn't. I didn't get to the thing that I wanted in the very beginning. I actually had to go through, for example, UX ui. So although we had our co founders had really good sense about UX ui, I still kind of had to figure out how, like they knew what they.

Wanted, they just didn't know how to make what they wanted or get to where they wanted.

Yeah, they have good sense, but like for the details, you still need to hire someone who's like, who really knows about this. For me, my main job here was to figure out what UX UI is, what is the learning in there, what's a good direction for it, what's User journey? What are all these different things that it entails and being able to help find that person to be the UX UI designer and to be able to take that role. I think one of the things that was a little bit of a mindset shift is having to realize that actually when you're a founder, you have to find people who are better than you. You can't have the feeling that you're better than them. So that's actually one thing. It takes a little like in the beginning, I think it does take a little bit of a mindset shift. But when you find, when you finally find that person that does things so well, you're just like, oh my gosh, that's so good.

This is like an ongoing challenge with a lot of founders is, is knowing your strengths, but also knowing more importantly your weaknesses. But then even more importantly is being able to delegate to other people and offloading stuff off your plate. Because typically as a founder, you're starting up, you don't have a lot of money, so you're responsible for doing so many things. And it takes time to delegate and train somebody else to take over and still keep your vision. But if you don't do that, you're never going to have the time and freedom to take yourself and your role to the next level. And as your company's growing and scaling.

It'S necessary, yeah, it's definitely really necessary to find people who are really better than you. But sometimes there's a lot of challenge that goes into there. For example, you might feel that it's best to hire people that are better than you, but as you have like a bigger team, then you have to deal with like the expectations of different people. And sometimes other people think that actually because you're the founder or you're the lead here, you're actually responsible, supposed to be better than other people. And then they would look at you and say, why aren't you like performing better? Because I feel like in our team we're a very actions, like a very executional, actions oriented team. So we want to see results, we want to see your designs. But oftentimes when you're designing like a system, it's very hard for you to be like in it, designing things and also designing the system at the same time. And sometimes you just have to give up and just like, okay, I'm just going to be more of the concept person. I can give like the direction, but then like, I might not really be hands on, like be the person who's executing it to, to the best that it's Supposed to look. Right. But then for, for some other people there, they might have different expectations. Right. So some people might see this and they're like, what are you doing? You're not doing anything. I don't, I don't see you doing any work. You didn't do that. So then like, you're, it's like having. How do you deal with like these like complicated emotions? Right?

Yeah. I wouldn't call it imposter syndrome, but it's really like guilt, like I should be, as a founder, neck deep in those designs. But no, you shouldn't because you've hired people to do that and you've hired people better than you to do that. And that gives you the freedom to be doing other things that are critical. But because it's customer facing or front facing, your name and your designs aren't on it. Is that a negative thing?

Yeah, so that's. Yeah. I think there are sometimes not just founders, but also in like the, as we have management, the management, management team, it becomes very hard because if we're so focused on tangibles of like, did you really get this done? Did people see this? Then it's very hard sometimes for management work or work that has to do with a lot of research or structure or building up that structure, it's hard for people to see anything concrete there because sometimes that's a journey and sometimes you might do a lot of search, but people don't really see the results of that. And that result kind of comes afterwards or it builds upon something else at a different time. So how do you, how do you. I think that has been kind of one of the struggles I've been through for a while because it's like, how do I show that I'm doing something? And sometimes like, there are times where I'm very, I feel very guilty for like just kind of like spacing out for hours. And then I'm like, oh, am I wasting time? But then I'm, I'm realizing, no, I'm not really wasting time. I'm actually thinking about a lot of structure and a lot of things. It's just that he didn't write it down. So then I, I do feel there were times where I feel a lot of guilt for feeling like, did I, am I slacking off? Like, I, I didn't make anything or I didn't create anything. Like, does that mean that, you know, like, people are going to judge me for that? Like, sometimes you do have a little bit of fear of that. I think I've gotten a Little bit better with that now, especially since, I think, before, because it's also learning. So for, for us, right, we're all learning. It's not like we're perfect. So that's another. That's another dimension here. Right. So you hire a lot of great people, but then they, they come back and look at you, and sometimes they might expect you to be perfect. Right. But then you're actually learning as you're going. You're not perfect.

It's constant learning and. And they might be coming in thinking, oh, I'm going to learn from you. But you actually, if you hire properly, you're gonna be learning more from them than they are from you. And that's just the reality.

Yeah. So it's very, I think, nearing the, like, you know, mid part of the startup journey till now. It's a lot of, like, understanding these expectations and how people and how do you deal with these expectations and how you feel about them? Personally, I feel like I'm doing a lot better than before because I think before I was still trying to learn that process. So when you're in the middle of learning something, it's just super, super slow. It's not going to be like the professional. I've met people who did the other route in their design journey where they went to that school in New York, they went into agencies, and then they went in house, and they were able, they're able to really know their stuff. We might be the same age, but our journeys are different. And there were times where I'm like, what if I just did that? It seems like it would have been a lot more straightforward, but for me, I kind of had to, like, weather a lot of this and that. So there were times where I was like, very really, like, thinking, did I actually go the wrong route? But then now thinking about it's kind of, I would say, probably not the wrong route because it's different.

Well, it's the right route for you. And a lot of people hear me say, like, I'm not a big fan of MBAs or structured learning. I think you're going to learn a lot more and get a lot further with real world experience than you would by learning something from a textbook or in a classroom setting.

Yeah, I guess I think there are, it's like different types of learning for different types of outcomes. So the type of where I was talking about, you know, the person who went to like, that art school in New York and then, you know, went through that route, their work is amazing. I realized that actually they're not probably not suited for startup journey because they're about perfection. So if they're about perfection, then they need to go to like big companies that really need to show that they're like, you know, slick, perfected, they look great. But then with that, for them to go to a startup and then have to deal with a lot of like scrappy processes, scrappy things, things not being perfect, it's actually very hard for them to like be able to adapt to that. Whereas if you're really used to this like startup journey, you're kind of like, okay, you know, things aren't going to be perfect. Sometimes you have a plan in your head and you often have to plan. Even though you have a plan for a future look or a future thing that you want it to be, you still have to ship out what's feasible today. So oftentimes when you're designing for that, you have to design for a lot of flexibility. You have to have the future in mind, but come up with something that.

Satisfies the interim needs now, but also positions you for that future outcome that you're looking for.

Yeah, so it's a lot of designing for flexibility. So one is flexibility for the future and now. And there's also the flexibility of debate. So for example, some person might not like the approach that you are doing, but they might have an interesting approach. So how do you deal with that? I think in the end what I tend to gravitate towards is I read the whole book on something, right? So I try to be the book. And then that other person are like different chapters. So they would say, I want a B and I want a C and Z. And then you're like, okay, so those things are in these different chapters of the book. So how do we make that kind of like work together? Because if you, if you debate the thing that like directly debate the thing that they want to debate with, you're not going to go anywhere because you're not seeing the big picture. So it's a lot about, I think it's a lot about matching the different personalities together and knowing how to communicate. So what I mean here is oftentimes I feel like the creative is kind of like, it's kind of like the cloth maker. You have to create like this big piece of cloth, right? But then the PM or the project owner person has to be the chisel or like the scissors and like shape it into like the clothing that you want. You have to make it work together. So one is kind of like more of cutting and shaping things. And then the other one is creating a lot of different cloth and ideas to be able to make that dress look really good. If you expect the cloth person to be like you, you're not going to get any good results. And if you exact. If you expect the cutting person to be the ideas person, that's not going to work either. You really actually have to have these two, like, forces together to work together to make that perfect piece of work.

No, no, that makes a lot of sense. And I think we're kind of getting back to your HR hat because you probably, you've recognized this a lot sooner than a lot of other people would have.

I'm not sure. I think it's probably really through a lot of, like, conflict and, like, back and forth. I think another thing with the startup journey is it's. It's a very big personal growth journey where you're learning from your peers. So for example, I might not have really good communication skills, but then you see your other co worker, oh my gosh, that was a good one. And you start to learn how that person responds to people and you go out and start to learn other ways of communication. And oftentimes I kind of use the startup company as the kind of. Also kind of like a testing scene for my own communication. So, for example, right? What if communicating with someone with, like, family is hard, but, like, communicating with company isn't that hard, right? So then, then it's like, okay, then I need to change a certain way that I communicate, so I need to practice it, right? So maybe I'll just practice it in the company. And then. Because when you're practicing in the company, the stakes aren't so high, right? So it's okay. And then you're kind of like, oh, when I interact with these different people, this is how they react, right? And then you kind of have a model of how to react in a different way than you usually do it. And then you bring it home and then see.

So study and analyze the personalities that you have at work and say, okay, my mom is similar to that person. So I'm going to test how do I break certain types of news or get certain types of outcomes out of them, and then you go back home and you use it on your mom.

Yeah, it works. It works really well. Because then it's like you have a testing ground. It's like product, right? But for personality. So it's like, I found that it's actually, it works really well and you get to like, elegantly use your communication skills in different ways. And I find that somehow when your communication skills are better, it elevates everything. Like it's not like so, for example, so I feel like the learning, there's like horizontal and vertical, I guess. So the horizontal, the vertical one could be like different specialties or different things that you learn. Right. But then there's the horizontals and then the horizontals are more like the communication skills. And sometimes when you get that all like done, like if you get, get it all, like get it all down, it lifts you to like another place and then you're kind of like, whoa. Actually life is easier because it's not just a startup because you, because you're also using it at home, right?

Yeah. Well, the team's in better sync. You're able to communicate not just with your team again with your family and other stakeholders, investors, customers, channel partners. It just all gets elevated.

Yeah, it all elevates.

But they're all different types of personalities that you need to understand how to talk to and what type of value propositions are going to trigger certain responses from them that you want.

Yeah, definitely.

It's definitely a skill set.

Yeah.

I want to jump back to Taiwan now. So having built such a great strong company, a large team in Taiwan, what's the magic about Taiwan? Why should our listeners look at going to Taiwan, connecting with other Taiwanese companies, maybe even building their own company in Taiwan? Tell us the magic of Taiwan.

So Taiwan is great. It's like one is. It's also a very close knit city. So I remember there were times where you could go to three events per night. It was like everything is close by. You can jump here to there to there. And it's a lot of different events and meetups that you can go to. So that part is really cool. There's a lot of really nice, hard working, passionate people there. And yeah, they're like really awesome. Different types of talent. Developer talent is really good. Our ops team is really good and we have some pretty cool creatives. I'd say perhaps a lot of people or a lot of tech teams that a lot of startups that come to Taiwan, I think that emphasis is usually on the development team because we have a lot of very smart and trained developers here.

One of the natural things that you think about when it comes to tech in Taiwan is semiconductors and chips and whatnot. But there is a thriving SaaS app startup. I think there's some good VR AR stuff coming out of there.

Oh yeah, yeah, A lot of vrar. I'm hearing a Lot of blockchain companies popping up here and there now too. But yeah, I think Taiwan is pretty cool in the sense that, yeah, although the main industry is semiconductor, but Taiwanese people, they're also known for being like startup people. And this is even before the tech times. They're saying that the personalities of Taiwan people are like, they have a lot of grit.

Very entrepreneurial.

Very entrepreneurial.

Willing to tell your children, don't go work for a big four accounting firm and start your own startup.

Yeah. So, yeah, it's like a very entrepreneurial spirit. You'll find a lot of really cool, nice people. It's a very cool place to be in, like, it's a hip city. So you have like these department stores and city views and everything, but then you go into the alleys and then you feel a lot of soul in there because you have a lot of like, really fun carts.

The vendors.

Yeah, the vendors. You have like the restaurants. Oh, it's like, so Taiwan is the place for logistics. It's like, they are so good at logistics. They really, really pamper you. If you leave Taiwan, you feel like, you know, I can't do anything because, like, in Taiwan you get food 247 the 7 11, the convenience store, they make it like, really upscale. So you can do everything there. You can like, photocopy something, you can mail something, like whatever you can think about, whatever you need, you can get it done there. It's like, it's such a. It's such an easy to live place. So that's why I guess I would say if you have like a hectic, like if you're very active and you want to do many different things. Yeah, Taiwan is definitely the place to be. You're always going to have food when you're hungry, you're always going to have things.

And that's such a necessity when you're building a startup, right?

Yeah. And it's a very. It's a very safe environment. So I would go home late at night and I would never feel like danger. And you would see people just like, you know, very leisurely walking down the streets and you just kind of feel, oh, okay, it's not that late. It doesn't feel late. It's fine. And you'll, you'll just.

The reality is like 2am yeah.

Yeah. So it's the place of convenience.

Awesome. Joanne, this has been a fascinating conversation. Love hearing about your journey and the evolution of Piccolage from. Sorry, was it friend, friend stock Friendstock? And your journey of not just being a startup entrepreneur, but also diving into your passion of design and putting your DNA into pic collage and making it what it is today. Thanks for joining us today.

Thank you.