Wednesday, January 14, 2026

2026.1.14. Tiger3 + 2 young entrepreneurs on media+branding

1/14, Wednesday. It's supposed to be sunny, so I decided to go to Tiger before my 11am meeting. Took the bus hoping to catch sunrise over Lake Washington, but alas, none. All cloudy. It turns out that 1) the clouds didn't dissipate until I came down to the high school; 2) I was half-an-hour too slow to make it back to the community center (with WiFi); 3) the drinking fountain was out of service, so I had to fill tap water. The only good thing is that 1) it forced me to wake up at normal hours, 2) very few people on the trail. Blue sky as I was riding the bus back to Seattle!

In the evening, Internet Development Studio hosted two recent UW graduates (~24 year-old): Debhorah Chu the ownder of her lifestyle social channel dobochobo, and Murat Akyuz the co-founder of Toasted, a bagel sandwich shop. Debhorah creates homey cozy short videos about her life, first a student life in the zoom lecture era, then her travel, now life style. She talked about keeping her video authentic, and fun. Murat shoots video of his bagel shop, telling the story of their struggle of a small store owner. Their first store (got broken-in 4 times, permitting problem) took 2 years to prepare. When it finally opened, the line was out of the door, and around the block, most from their followers. He talked about keeping more record (for future videos), building a community (to forge solidarity with their customers), select of thumnails. Both are very likeable. Kudos!