Cheyoung Ahn & Bekhruz Malikov of Night Owl Network: All the Mixers End at 6 PM, So They Built a Community for Founders Who Hustle till 3 AM

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to our audiences. Welcome to the 19th episode of the 18VC podcast. And today we are so excited to have Cheyoung and Bekh to join us, the two co-founders of Night Owl Network, and a community for night owl builders, founders, and dreamers who have been working hard during the daytime and have to miss all the different events because they all ended before they are finally free. And so they've been building this community for them specifically so that they can join some events after sunset.

And for those who may be unfamiliar with us, we are a student-run podcast featuring student founders, young founders, as well as investors willing to back them, back the smartest and youngest minds. And we hope to become the first public signal to identify these high-potential founders in the long run. And this episode will be hosted by me, that's Philip, and also David. Hello.

And yeah thank you so much for joining us, Cheyoung and Bekh. And I think we first met Cheyoung at our friend Evan's hackathon. Cheyoung's been co-hosting the event with Evan at the time, and later we had the chance to attend the summer interns and founder late-night mixers hosted by the Night Owl Networks, and filmed some rapid-fire interviews for the attendees. It's been a super cool and fun experience.

We met a lot of interesting people there. So, super appreciate for your invitation. And also thank you so much for joining us today. And we can quickly get into our topic. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for inviting us. We're really excited. Thank you for having us. Yeah, definitely. And maybe we can just start by what time did each of you go to bed at night, and what are you working at the time?

Well, yeah. For me even during a school year, I was a bit notorious for having a very bad sleeping schedule. So I would go to bed after 2:00 a.m. on most days. But I think it got worse over time, especially in the summer since I don't have morning classes. But last night I went to bed at 2:00 a.m., which was honestly pretty early for me. Yeah, because some days I go to bed as late as 4:00 a.m.

But Oh I just find myself to be a lot more productive after I go to the gym and I shower, which is around 9:00 p.m., which is around now when we're Ooh recording the podcast, yeah. Oh, that's How about you, Bekh? Yeah, I think it's funny you say that because you lived in a dorm where I was your resident assistant, and I feel like I always saw you come after. So we had these events, right?

We usually hosted these events in the dorm for Stanford students at 9:00 p.m., and they usually last till 2:00 a.m. It was our roles as resident assistants, and I always saw Cheyoung come to them at the later end of it at 11:00 p.m., midnight. And I just knew that's when her prime time was. I think personally for me, I would agree. I think I usually also find myself very productive at that time.

And I think, yeah, I feel like a hamster running in a ring at that time. So yeah, I would agree. I think David was also a very typical representative for night owls among the three of us. Yes. I have to say I'm guilty of sleeping pretty late, so I'm excited for this episode. Yeah. Great. That's great. Yeah. And maybe just for a quick start, for listeners hearing the name first time what is Night Owl Network, and what are you trying to build?

Yeah. I can go if you Sure. Yeah. So Night Owl Network basically the whole story is we were respectively working at our respective jobs and internships or startups during the summer, so this summer, from 9:00 a.m. to very late. For me, it was 9:00 p.m., and I think for Cheyoung it was at a similar time. And I think one thing that I noticed is that I really wanted to connect with people who are like-minded like me, and as passionate and as ambitious.

But the issue is, usually all the mixer events and I did research on this, it was on Luma, I went to Cerebral Valley AI, all the AI events, all the mixer events ended at 7:30 p.m. maximum. And I was like, "Well, what can night owls.?" I feel like we're just being left out at that point. So I was like, "Well, Cheyoung, let's start this. Let's make sure we build space for all the night owl builders that are as passionate and really want to connect late at night." And it's a dual purpose, such that they get their work done after internships, but at the same time, after that, they can connect together.

And that's how it started. Yeah. And everything happened really quickly because just randomly Bekh texted me. He said, "Oh, I'm trying to put together an event. Can you help me out?" And after I read through his proposal I thought to myself, "This is too good to just be one event. Why don't we just create an entire community around night owls?" And I really like the name as well because I've seen Bekh work until very late at night in the dorm lounge, and I also am a night owl myself, so I really wanted to build a community for fellow night owls.

And because I stay in SF and I have been staying here for the past two months I have been to a lot of late-night events. But there weren't any super late-night events for true night owls, and I think the best way to bring people together is by hosting events and by building that strong community. Yeah. Sure. And what would you mean by true night owl events?

Should that start by 12:00 p.m., or 12:00 a.m. actually, and also started from 1:00 a.m. all the way to, I don't know 3:00 AM. Because when people think late-night events, a lot of people think parties right? Because parties last until very late at night. Yeah. But what we wanted was a community for sober night owls, if that makes sense. Because our intention wasn't to host crazy parties, but really to bring people together who work until very late at night.

Yeah. Whose minds work best late at night. Yeah. I would say, I think I really value bonding not through going crazy and jumping and dancing. Yeah. I think bonding really happens when you have the deep conversations. I agree. And so I think that was something that we hosted the event based off of, just these deep conversations getting to know each other late at night instead of going crazy and partying.

So, yeah. Definitely. And we would like to move on a little bit to more about your personal story before you started this initiative. And from what I learned from your LinkedIn, Cheyoung, you've been spending your high school years in Guam. You've been doing Youth Congress Representatives Battalion Executive Officers, as well as Junior Achievement Guam's President.

And how does this experience teach you about building communities? Yeah. So I can talk a little bit about my background in Guam and my experiences growing up in Guam. So during my time in Guam, JROTC was the center of my high school experience. I was the executive officer of my 200 cadet battalion and a big part of my job was leading them and writing evaluations, making sure I hold people accountable, making sure that I really leverage the potential of each cadet.

So my goal really was to try to help every cadet grow, both mentally physically, and emotionally. And because I hosted a lot of community service events and a lot of events within the battalion, I think for me, the biggest thing about bringing people together is having a common mission. Yeah. So when I think of teamwork, I think of, "Oh, how can I motivate these people to align on the same mission?" And that's how Bekh and I align on this common mission to bring together the smartest people who work until very late at night, and that's what led us to build a community around it.

Yeah. So for me, one of my biggest values actually is teamwork, because I feel that alone, there's not much that you can achieve. But if you really want to go far, it's all about finding the right people who can work with you when things get hard. Yeah, I definitely agree. Especially, I think when people have the same interest or have the same vision or mission, I think it's definitely the best way to get people motivated and Right get together to do something that's really meaningful.

And I think you've been also been interning in the venture side of the story at Spring Camp. You've been backing Stanford Founders. And sitting at the side of the table of the investors how do you learn about what is the real need of a founders, and does that kind of inspire you into building the Night Owl Network in that sense? What would be the value you want to provide to some of the attendees to the event you host?

Yeah. So from February to June, I interned with Spring Camp, which is a venture firm that started in Korea, and they recently relocated to Palo Alto. So I've been helping them with their expansion to the States. And during my time there, I got to talk to more than 50 founders, and during those conversations, I really realized that what VCs need and they lack is the signal.

Do these founders actually commit? Are they actually committed to building a startup? And from the founders side, what they really need is not just feedback or just evaluations, but they really need almost a second co-founder. So as a VC, I think it's really important that you become almost a partner, not an evaluator. So we really try to really listen to their needs, what they need, and try to brainstorm with them.

Yeah. And my partner, Hong, he was very good at that. He was very good at really helping them whenever they needed, not just with money and financially, but literally becoming their second co-founder. Yeah. I think And that's the true partnership, in a sense. Right. For what a great VC should be. Yeah. And I guess what we're trying to do with our Night Owl Network is when people come to our events, that's kind of where we have the highest density of people who are very committed, who work very hard.

And for our next event, when we invite more VCs to the event, they also get a look into what these people are building, and they get the first look at potential founders, potential future founders. Or as you said, the signal, right? Right, the signal. Hold your thought right there, because there will be some questions later on for you guys to give us a peek at what you guys are preparing next event.

But I want to learn more about Bekh too. So I did some research on your background a little too. Scary. No. You're good. We're all good people here. It seems like you've been through a pretty varied path, right? You started working as a docent at National Museum of Mathematics in East Coast, and then you were an auto mechanic in Palo Alto, which is West Coast, and then you worked as systems researcher at Stanford's NAV right now.

And RA to now you're working as a hardware software researcher at Cephla. So what's the road here? What's the thread that's connecting you between these different steps? See, that's a good question because I think I've definitely had this broad path. I think, I guess I would say a lot of these expe actually I don't regret it now that I think about it, because all these experiences sort of made me learn so many lessons.

Like for instance, I could talk about the random side quest I did with the being an auto mechanic. It was literally, I think winter year of my sophomore year here at Stanford and I was deciding, what if I just, I really want to put myself out there because I was, I felt kind of shy. I didn't. And then I decided, it's better to sort of step out of my comfort zone and basically go out and put myself out there.

And so I cold called a owner of a auto shop and I said, "Can I work for you?" And he said "Who are you, kid?" And I was like, "Oh, I'm a Stanford student." He was like "That's a little surprising. Why is a Stanford kid just reaching out to an auto shop and trying to get a little side job?" And so he invited me and I went there and I think I learned so much about cars. It was like, this is a different world. I was basically biking after my class, after 4:00 PM, working for three to four hours at the auto shop and going back home.

And I think one thing that tied all of these experiences is it's just like I had to put myself out there because if I didn't, then I wouldn't have learned anything about myself. I feel like I really learned a lot about myself when I just, yeah, I just put myself out there. Now I can talk more about my different, my other different experiences. But I think that those experiences taught me a lot about myself.

Yeah. It seems like you guys both had pretty entrepreneurial spirit from the get go, considering how Cheyoung had had some experience as a battalion executive officer and, you just showcase your hustling mindset, how you cold, reached out, called out to an auto shop right? But could you tell us, how did you guys both get first interested in the startup VC space and was there any specific moment or a conversation with somebody that inspired or piqued your interest into getting into this space? Yeah.

I could start because mine is really weird. I mean, for basically in middle school, I started reading bunch of biographies. It was either Benjamin Franklin or John Locke. Basically, not all politicians but it was just reading about biographies and they really inspired me to just be a kid who's always curious. And then, fast-forward to high school, I started reading about really crazy books.

Like we're talking about Elon Musk's, Ashlee Vance's book on Elon Musk. Read that in ninth grade, and I was like, "Wow, there is a different world out there that I really need to be part of." And then I think that was my initial interest. I was so interested in the sort of entrepreneurial world that I wanted to actually drop out in 10th grade. And I was like, "Am I really going to do this?

I haven't even finished 10th grade. Why would I do this during COVID?" It just didn't make sense to me. And at the same time, it did make sense to me because I was like, "This book is really inspiring. I just want to build. I really like building." And then I was, and then I said, "Well it's okay. I think let's just wait till college, because I don't know what college I'm going to go to." And fast-forward two years, I have no idea where I'm going to go.

I obviously aimed for top schools, but I did not expect to get into all of them. And then I got into Stanford and I was like "That's. I don't know if I want to go there." It's West Coast, and I have no idea what Stanford is about because I knew Harvard, Princeton, all those schools. I know what they're about, but I didn't know what Stanford is, and I just knew it was a good school.

And then, fast-forward two years into my sophomore year, I was like "Wow, now I know why I'm here. I think this is the place. It is Silicon Valley. It's the place to build." And I realized that I thought I was confused in the beginning why would I get into Stanford, but now I know. It just makes sense. And so I think this feeling of entrepreneurship, this feeling of building, this feeling of trying to ideate every now and then being inspired by books and reading books and just talking to people like Cheyoung just keeps this fuel in me, keeps me interested in the startup world.

And I think that's how it developed over time. It was like, I would say it was like an on and off relationship for me. But I'm hoping it'll be an on relationship, because I'm really interested in this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can also talk about my journey as well. My journey was also not very linear, because when I was younger, I was re I hated STEM. I was more into design, humanities.

So I actually wanted to become a fashion designer, and I also loved reading biographies of very successful people. So I read this book on Coco Chanel so I really she was my role model, and I wanted to open up my own apparel business. But deep down, I knew that I wanted to start something of my own. So that was kind of my ultimate goal. Even if I have to work a 9 to 5, ultimately I want to start my own business.

And then I got to high school and I was told to think a little more realistically. So I started actually thinking about what I do best. And because I was in JROTC for four years of high school and I did a lot of community service and government work, I wanted to go into the military and to study linguistics, which would've given me a completely different lifestyle. So I thought I'd be joining the military because my older sister's in the military as well.

So I applied to the military academies. I got in early before I applied to other schools, so that was, like in my head I was like, "Oh, if things don't work out, this is what I'll be doing." But then, kind of like Bekh, I aimed high I tried to aim high, so I applied to Stanford, I applied to some other schools, and I ended up getting in. So that summer, I tried to really expand my horizons and literally went to every single startup event that I could find in Korea during my time there. And while talking to all these people, I really learned to think bigger.

So if I want to start a business, I can actually start a business in other industries as well. So I started studying more about AI and where this was going. Got to Stanford, took my first coding class ever and I feel like how I got into the startup space was just truly by exposure. I just tried to expose myself to as many events and people as I could.

And naturally, I learned to really like the fast-paced environment and just this joy of starting something from scratch. And we want to move on a little bit to the kind of origin story for this Night Owl Networks. And I think you guys shared a little bit already but can you just walk us back to, I think you have a LinkedIn post like three weeks ago from now. I think that's the first time you've been mentioning this idea in public.

What's exactly the conversation between you guys at the time, where you finally decided that, "We should do this instead of maybe we should find some other events, or we should maybe wait for others to do this"? And yeah, what's the moment like? There was no moment of doubt at all. It was very quick, and we were very quick with execution as well. He sent me a message.

I really loved the idea, and we were both like, "Oh, let's do it." And then we just started doing our own. We were both good at different things, so I did a lot of marketing, and Bekh did outreach. He got the speakers ready. So I feel like we both kind of knew what we had to do to put this together, so it was actually really easy to put it together.

What do you think, Bekh? I would say, yeah. I would agree on the execution part. Not sure about the easiness. of putting it together. Yeah, because I think lead time being two weeks putting on an event for 120 people, I think it can be very challenging. I think the main challenge that we faced was convincing speakers to come because there was a general partner that was going to come at a pretty big VC, but he realized that the time is too late for him.

So he's not a true night owl, but I would say he wanted to support us, and I think the biggest thing was just convincing Speakers to come and people to come. I would say everything had to move fast because, again, the lead time was two weeks. I was like, "This is very exclusive. It just has to be because we really want people to be committed," and those who are usually committed are the ones who really want to build and meet people that build at the same pace as them.

And yeah, I think everything just moved so fast, and I think there was no doubt, no time to wait. Although I did at some points, I'll be honest, I was kind of doubtful because I feel like my self-esteem sometimes is pretty low. So I was like, "Bekh, why are you doing this? You've never done this." And I was like, "But wait, this is the moment where I have to step out, where I have to go out of my comfort zone." And then therefore, it happened.

Yeah. Definitely. That's super cool. It's like you guys just get the same mission, and your guys' thing is just, "Let's get started," right? There's no need to wait for others to take the step. And I think talking about this night owl population, I assume you are targeting those already very hardworking people, and because they are hardworking, so these events that are hosted earlier, they're not able to join.

And are you saying that this is kind of serve as a filter or something like already screening out some people that's not truly that dedicated into building? Because they are basically saying that we are kind of sacrificing our time that should be for rest or something like that to another event that definitely takes your energy. Are you kind of attracting this kind of people and basically building up a natural kind of filter so that you can attract the right kind of people that you want to get into this network? Yeah.

Yeah. I can answer You want to go ahead. Yeah. I personally think that when you are first building out a community, the best way to build out a strong, tight community that aligns on a mission is by making it invite-only. Because later on, we want to attract more people but right now, the reason why we're focusing on making this community exclusive, when we say exclusive, we mean hardworking people.

And we're not just narrowing it down to just founders necessarily, or just interns, but I think it's more about the mindset. Are you willing to give up three hours of your nighttime to come and share what you're working on or to inspire and be inspired by other hardworking people? And I think by sharing this event in public people who are watching our events from our posts can get inspired, and they can start working hard and then join us later down the road. So I feel like we want to actually, in person, have people who are very hardworking from the start or who are working on something, but later on down the road we believe that by sharing this event with other people they'll be able to join us down the line.

Yeah. I think this really goes back to the point of betting on people, but also betting on yourself. I think by going to these events, you're sort of betting on yourself because think about it You sign up you think it's going to be a really great event. You go to the event and you're like, "Wow, these people that I'm meeting, who knows? They could be my future founders." We could end up at the same company working full time building whatever crack projects we're building.

So I think it really is a matter of this commitment, and it reminds me, it's sort of a parallel to when I was an RA at a dorm here. I think for people to be really committed, we were taking deposits. It was like, if you want to come to this yard party, you have to deposit $50, because people that truly want to come will deposit $50 and those people really enjoyed the event. People that dropped had regrets later.

So I think it's just a matter of not having regrets, because I feel like when I don't attend the events that could be life-defining for me, I usually regret it. And I think we wanted to make a sort of space where you're betting on yourself and you're betting on others to be something big in the future. Yeah. Retracting the conversation a little bit earlier, and Cheyoung, you visited this whole topic a little bit, but when you guys were working on this idea of network, how did you guys divide up the work?

Could you go into details on who is specializing in this one area and the other? Yeah, of course. So Bekh and I hopped on a call before we started organizing, and Bekh already had a proposal ready that he showed me, which talked about the mission of this network and the direction that we want to take this network. And then I told him that, "Oh, I really like this idea.

Here are things that I can do best," because I live in SF, I've been to a lot of events during my time here, so I had an idea of what I liked from these events and what I didn't like. So I handled more of the marketing side because I post on LinkedIn a lot. I love meeting people. And Bekh did more of the operations side of things. I think it's the design in you, the CS and design part of you that really made this pop as a marketing person.

For me personally my role was divided into just reaching out to people because I want to stay humble, but I think some things that I would be good at is sending good emails or making sure people come to the events. So I think my role was mostly interpersonal connection connecting with people online and making sure they would really like this event. At some point, I was so interested in this that I vibe coded a website and there was a few pages. There was the check-in page for guests.

There was a page for, I don't know. It scrapes a database, and it basically says, what are the best days for us to host this event based on online traffic and when people go to events? And the day was actually, that's why we picked the 29th, right? Was it? Yeah, it was Wednesday. We picked that date because of that. So that was my role. Yeah, and I think the best thing about our teamwork is that we didn't wait for each other to tell us what to do.

We would just gave each other more active feedback and active ideas to keep it rolling faster. Yeah, definitely. I think that's what matters the most at the beginning of whether it's a startup or is it a initiative, is that each of you are taking up your own responsibilities and been doing the work pretty actively. And we do want to have a little bit recap about the first event you guys have hosted.

So I think at the spot, there are three panelists during the event. There was a Bling Capital investor, a micro AI lead, and there's a third panelist. I think Pavan was kind of a surprised guest that volunteered from the audiences at the spot with anything. Can you just tell us the story and what happens at the time, and was it a surprise for you when things kind of goes off the script and.

Yeah. Can you just share a little bit more about that specific moment? Yeah. I can talk about it because I was sort of ideating this whole panel thing. Originally, I wanted the panel to be a very hybrid of Jimmy Fallon/regular panel, because I've noticed a lot of conferences that I went to, like, for instance the Humanoids Summit back in December, I noticed that the panel is good, but people can doze off if people talk for too long.

So I was like, I've got to make this really creative, really off guard, catch people off guard. And I think Pavan's picking a random panelist was by chance because our third panelist couldn't come. So I was like "I think we have a great audience. I think there's probability of at least one person being a good panelist. Who knows?" And so I was like "Audience, who's brave enough to come on stage and talk about their experiences?" Because in my brain, at that moment, I saw that there was an investor a full-time employee at a AI firm, but there was not an intern in the audience, I guess, except me, but I was not going to share my experiences.

And so I was like, "I have to get this triangle completed. I have to get a third person, the intern's point of view, or a founder's technically, point of view as well." He's like a, I guess, dual. And so I was like Pavan raised his hand, and there he was on the stage. So I think it all happened quickly, and I'm glad that he was chosen as the panelist by the gods of Night Owl Network.

And yeah. It was great. Yeah, and I think you've been hosting the panel a little bit different. I think you try to get the audiences more engaged into the conversation instead of audience only listening to what you guys are talking about. And I think you prepare a little, a small game for the Yes audiences to participate. Yeah. Was that Did you plan that ahead of time, or is it kind of more of a Yeah.

It was planned off the cuff like Okay 15 minutes ahead of time. Okay. Originally, I planned for it to be a 24-hour before event thing, to plan it before but given how busy, how it was only organized by two people, it was hard to sort of do everything at once. So I was like, "In 15 minutes, I've got to decide, how am I going to engage the audience? What are they going to like?" And it seems like a lot of things that people like are games because psychologically, people just love games, board games or whatnot.

So I was like, "Hey, Claude, generate me a game that you think people will like." And in that instance, it made the game Fund It or Flee It, which basically is a game where I ask the panelists, but also the audience. I'm pitching a startup. I'm saying, "Here's Duolingo but it has a AI-based feature where grandmas sort of can figure out what each app in the phone does," or something like that. And I ask the investor, an intern, and a full-time employee what they think of this idea.

And then I ask the audience, "Would you fund it, or would you not fund it or flee it?" And I think people, I would say they enjoyed it. Yeah, they like the game. Yeah, definitely. I think that's a super cool idea that I never met before. Looking back at the event what would you say was the biggest thing that you guys came out of it with? Obviously, there was these two spontaneous genius ideas that somehow worked together, but was there anything else that you'd like to point out from the event?

I think the biggest thing that I noticed from the event was how much people didn't want to leave towards the end because the conversations got so interesting and so deep and fun. So I noticed that a lot of the people there knew each other just a call away or a connection away. So somehow, they all kind of have a mutual. And I could really tell that the conversations got really personal towards the end, and they were genuinely having a good time and learning more about each other.

And I think that's when the best connections happen. I guess some of the best friends that I've made during my time in SF is through the genuine conversations and actually promising to do something together next time, which I noticed at the event. Would you say that's the biggest takeout that the participant attendances did out of event one, the personal networks that they can carry out long term, right? Those who might be their coworkers next year or co-founders the year after.

Yeah. Just to kind of add on to what I was saying, I've been to a lot of events, just also during the school year and also during my time at SF. But I will say, not every event is the same. Because I can go to an event, or I can go to five events, but that doesn't mean I'll meet someone that I click with at every event. But the reason why I still go to these events is because when I go to 10 events, I know that at least at one of the events, I will find someone that I will click with long term and that's how I've made really good friends in that stuff.

That's what we hope for the people who come to our events as well. For the attendees, we really want this to be the event where they meet long-term friends, and I think it happened from my observation. Yeah, I think I was pretty caught off guard by the late night staying past the end of the event time. I was like, "Wow we've done this, and people are actually loving this," and they stayed to talk for a long time.

I think that would be our goal for also the next subsequent events because I think I would want to see people really talking for long hours if they would so wish. I think that's a really special time to do so. Yeah, I definitely agree. During the event, we met Jason from Yo. So actually, we kind of connect on LinkedIn prior to the event, and we just kind of met each other on the spot.

This is quite an interesting experience, and it later turned out to be like a visit to their house. I think what they're doing is super cool, and I think definitely the events, I personally got some pretty good connections from the events, too. So I really appreciate what you guys are doing. And we can move on to some other parts that you guys are working on.

For Cheyoung, I think you've been building because we've been doing a kind of interview during the events, right? I think you've been also building this one called Commit Social with Steve. And I think. the one sentence will be, it's a verification layer for all human efforts, because I think a lot of AIs or agents can do a lot of work right now, and you guys may want to make sure that there was a real human commitment behind that, instead of just asking AI to do some random stuff.

Could you just share a little bit more about maybe the problem you've been seeing and the story behind this initiative, too? Yeah, absolutely. So in one sentence, we're the verification layer for human work, but we are starting out as a proof-of-work platform for engineers, especially for HR recruiting. And the reason why I'm starting this is because of my background in Guam.

I had mentioned that I was in JROTC, and one of my biggest roles was to write evaluations for cadets and hold people accountable. And what I learned is that accountability isn't punishment. It's the thing that made the cadets grow. And I wanted to go into HR because of my experiences in high school but now with AI, I think this is very timely that I work on this.

Because now anyone can generate the output, anyone can fake a resume or portfolio or GitHub history, but what they can't fake is that timestamped work. So that's what led me to build Commit Social. And MVP is live now, so for the audience, if you want to learn more about it, you can type in commit.social. And sorry, just to add on to that, during my time as a VC, or during my time working with Spring Camp, I really learned that it's really hard to find true signal from founders.

So from the VC side as well, they are desperately looking for a platform where they can really tell if a founder or an engineer or a builder is committed. And if a builder who doesn't want yet to be a founder starts coming onto our platform to log their work, once they do become a founder, they have real proof of work that they can show to VCs. I think the proof-of-work concept comes from the crypto world, right? Is it initially a blockchain technology that Yeah gets this in?

I think so. I think so. Okay. Because it's like a basically, yeah, because I think in crypto you have a crypto ledger, and it's timestamped every time you make a transaction but with that, but for real human work. So every time you ship a feature, every time you work on something new, you can post about it, you can log it, and you can get live feedback from other builders who are on the platform.

Super cool. And it's not a let's say, a forum or something like it's not like Reddit or something like that, right? Just post discussions, but there's some other features on there? Yeah. So for the version 1 MVP, we want to keep it as intuitive as possible. So we think LinkedIn, but for real work, because on LinkedIn, a lot of people are more focused on sharing accomplishments.

And I feel that people are kind of tired of just seeing the output, but not the actual work behind it, which is what we're trying to solve. So on the platform, you can show the progress of your project from zero to one, and for the feed part people can give you live feedback on what you're working on and they can basically become your witness throughout your journey as a builder. Yeah. And we wanted to gamify it by adding some gamified features like leaderboard and the streak feature.

But yeah, we just launched today, so we're really excited for the next couple of weeks. Yeah, definitely. I will check it out right after our recording. And talking about this Commit Social, I think there are some pieces that have been connected between Commit Social and the Night Owl Network. I think both Right of these two parts, you are trying to identify some of the really committed builders or founders there.

Did you see that there is a synergies or kind of thing that maybe they actually are targeting the same group of audiences Yeah, absolutely to some extent? Yeah. Because for the Night Owl Network, we're essentially bringing people together in person, but on my platform, we're bringing together people online, right? So I think the concept is still the same.

It's all about finding signal early on, finding true signal, and allowing people to build that work history, like real, authentic work history over time. Because the only way to, I guess survive this AI era is by building authentic community. So we haven't forgotten about you, Bekh. Yeah. So, tell me about your current work, right? You are working at Cephla right now across AI, biotech and robotics and your autonomous vehicle research in NAV Lab.

So what are you most excited about your work there? Yeah. It's a good question. I would say, I think the future is just so exciting. We went from the wheel to the automobile to an airplane, and now to AI, which can practically predict anything that we're working on. I think I'm excited about this future. But I think to give context about what the company does, I'll first do that, and then I'll move on to what I'm doing there.

I think Cephla is an extraordinary company because the way it started is it spun out of a bio E lab at Stanford. So actually, the co-founder, one of them is a professor still, full-time at Stanford, and the other co-founder finished his PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford. And basically what they're working on is trying to automate microscopy. So, given, say, a client gives the batch of malaria cells.

They're trying to build their own hardware, their own microscopes and use AI to predict whether those specific samples have malaria cells in them, and predict ahead of time whether a person can be cured or not. So I think that's the hardware part, and the software part is the AI part. And what I'm working on is mostly basically the bridge between there. So I'm working on both on the hardware side and the software side.

I've been mostly building the firmware pipelines and sometimes working on the AI side as well. And recently we're trying to have this little factory of microscopes and a robotic arm between that takes the samples between these microscopes and basically has this little assembly. How does it is? Assembly machine? Not assembly machine. It's like Henry Ford's assembly factory.

Like, basically you have to keep going. Like analyze cells, keep going, analyze cells, keep going. So that's what has been going on right now. And what I'm excited about is as we keep innovating in the biotech space, I think in the future we'll be able to probably predict pretty much any disease that a person may have, probably in one day. And I'm pretty sure we're already doing that, but obviously not with a lot of diseases, just probably with a small subset of diseases.

And that's what I'm excited about. The autonomy part, the robotics part, the prediction side, and just biotech. I think biotech will be the biggest space in the future, in my opinion. Hearing from both of you guys on how you guys are working towards you guys' both independent initiatives, besides the network sounds like there's going to be a lot of hours competing for each other.

So how are you guys balancing between working on your own professional path or startup and working on this Night Owl Network? Or is there a positive loop in between where the network kind of helps you with your current work and vice versa? Yeah, absolutely. So the biggest part about hosting events is gathering the right people and reaching out to the right people for support.

And part of my job is cold mailing, reaching out to the right people. So it also feels like part of my work. I think the best way to not burn out is to truly have fun with what you are doing. And hosting this event was genuinely so fun for me. So I personally don't find it to be too time-consuming or too exhausting. I definitely feel like hosting an event can be draining mentally.

It does take up a lot of your time and a lot of your thought space, but I feel that it really complements the work that I do. It's like a short-term pain, but knowing that you'll make a lot of people happy, I think it's really knowing that people will be together and happy, and that's what makes it worth it. It's almost like being a mom of five. You're just happy they're running around, and although you're feeling busy and pain right now but they'll be happy.

And in terms of balance, I would say I admit it will be hard balancing work. Right now I'm basically balancing internship Night Owl Network, and I'm also balancing being an RA again for high schoolers at Stanford. It is challenging, but the way I do it is, I guess, time management. I'm like "Take a look at this time. Should I dedicate this block of time for that event or for this job?" And I think a lot of that has worked for me.

I don't think I'm good at time management still, although I said I just gave you the secret for it. But yeah, I think I'm getting better and hopefully I will be able to balance those things in the future. Yeah. Yeah, and I think I would like to bring up the topic of how do you actually get some of the sponsorships? I think Cheyoung already mentioned about you've been doing a lot of cold emailing and is that the way that you get some of the sponsors?

I'm not sure if they are the sponsor of the first event, but I think you mentioned there's another fund and Cresca, these two are interested in your second event. How do you get them, and what's your pitch? What are they looking for in exchange of supporting you guys then? So Cresca, the founder of Cresca, Jing, I actually met her at the hackathon that I co-hosted with Evan, and it was really funny because I've realized that I have been actually cold mailing her on LinkedIn, but she didn't see my messages before I actually met her in person.

So that was a full circle moment. And after the event, I told her about this network that I'm creating with Bekh, and she was more than happy to support us, sponsor us, and I think it's because as a founder and as a VC, she really wanted to meet other founders and other students working on cool things. And in terms of cold emailing, I've been trying to get everyone on cold emailing because I think it's generally the best way to change your life. I feel like I haven't been using my free will enough because simply by emailing someone new, you can literally expose yourself to so many opportunities.

So for the AntiFund, right, I just drafted an email and the partner, Jeffrey, he got back to me, and he got me in touch with one of the other partners at AntiFund, and they were actually really excited to sponsor our event and to actually speak at our event. The only. problem was that it was too last minute, but they're really happy to sponsor our next event, which we will finalize more in the near future. And I suppose you guys are running Night Owl more like a club or nonprofit style thing?

That's a good question. I would say it's neither a nonprofit, neither a club, and I think it's more of a special builder space, I would say. And it doesn't have to be physical. I think people can connect online as well. I think it's this ether of people coming together, Night Owl builders, and really connecting. So, I wouldn't consider it a. I don't know what Cheyoung would.

Cheyoung, what do you think about this? Yeah, I feel that we haven't thought that far yet, but I feel that I agree with Bekh saying that this is more of a space for builders. I don't consider it to be a club or a nonprofit, but right now it's a really special space for builders. Cool. And talking about, I think, the other side of hosting our events was definitely how did you get these 120 people to sign up for the events, right?

Can you also share with us a little bit, I think initially you are targeting 50 people, but it ends up to be 120. How do you get the word out, and how do you get these many people to basically sign up for your event? Yeah. So aside from my LinkedIn posts, I also posted it on X, Instagram, and I think I personally DM'd about 50 of my friends, and then they also sent it to their friends.

So I feel like the word of mouth really works, especially for more exclusive events like this, because you want people to feel some sort of FOMO in order to come to events. That's something that I realized. Yeah, I think word of mouth is very effective. Yeah, I agree. Well said. Looking a bit long term, so say you guys keep building and expanding this network.

After one year, what would you say the ideal image of this network would be? Would it be a monthly or some kind of routine periodic event or a community, a company? Tell us about it. I'm thinking very ambitiously, because what inspired me to do this is all the events that I went to before this, and I think one of the bigger events that inspired me, I don't know if you've heard of this, but it's called Llama Lounge.

It's called Llama Lounge, and it's not necessarily a lounge. It's basically Jeremiah Owyang. It's basically a general partner, his name is Jeremiah, at Blitzscaling Ventures. He started this at a pizza shop with 50 people just his friends hanging out, and then grew to a startup event, so to speak, with over 800 attendees. And basically, he brings in founders and people to pitch and this usually happens during the day.

So, I'm thinking on the more, on the ambitious side, I'm thinking it should be a space for more than 800 people to come in and hang out together late at night and just enjoy the space. That's what I'm thinking it would be but I'm also maybe being too ambitious. But I just like aiming high, and I think we will learn a lot from it. I don't know what you How about you, Cheyoung?

Yeah. Yeah. I also think we have to be ambitious. I think in terms of what we see ourselves doing in the next year, I also feel like as Stanford students, I just wish there was a space for people to just come in and share ideas and simply work on stuff together at night. We do have a campus cafe called Oncall, but it's for everybody on campus, right?

But we're more of a specific community targeted towards specific people. So, I definitely want to keep this community going, get more Stanford people on board, and just really continue this throughout the school year. Would it stay Stanford Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, SF thing, or are you guys since you guys talked about being ambitious, are you guys planning to expand out into other regions of California, such as SoCal, where we are, or East Coast, New York, where Bekh, you're from? Man, there's so many cracked founders from and people from New York City, from SoCal UCSD, UCLA, NYU, Brown Princeton, Harvard.

I can just keep naming these schools and people, and they don't necessarily have to go to these schools to be cracked. I think that would be the long, long term goal, bring those people in. I don't think it necessarily has to be Stanford only or Silicon Valley only because I think there's always the overlooked founders across the seas or across the states, and I think it is called Night Owl Network for a reason. It is not called Night Owl Stanford Network, and I think that would be the dream, to sort of introduce these people to each other and expand their network.

Yeah. I agree. Well said. Thank you. Here's the part that I was talking about earlier. So could you, for the audience and us, tease a little bit about what you guys are planning for event two that is coming up? Oh, yeah. That's going to be the Oh, man. I'm excited. Cheyi, if you want to give a little tease, but Yeah yeah. Bekh and I, we actually are going to talk more about this in the coming days, but I can say that it's going to happen in the next two to three weeks.

Yeah. So we are definitely actively planning the next one. Yeah. We're planning it. I think one hint would be Stanford. That's all I'm going to say. I think I've been yapping about Stanford a bit too much, I'm sorry. But that's one keyword, I would say. We're sort of aiming for hosting it on our motherland where our hearts belong. I see. I think it's a beautiful place to host it.

And yeah, we'll see. We'll keep planning and keep going fast, and see what we can do here. And we want to move on a little bit beyond building and to a little bit more of the personal side of each of you. So what would you describe yourself with a word or a few words other than maybe a founder or a builder, or maybe just outside of your work? Yeah, that's a great question.

Other than being a founder, builder or whatnot, I think most importantly, I like giving back to my community. So I think in the future, I would love to be a philanthropist. Because one thing that I noticed is there have been people in my life who have been successful themselves, but have never forgotten where they came from. I think that's one of the biggest things that I value is, no matter how successful I am, I would really love to give back and support those people the same way people supported me.

And I guess I would call myself this sort of wannabe philanthropist for now, and then hopefully move on to the title philanthropist in the future. Just really love helping people out and giving back. Yeah. For me, I would call myself a believer because if you told me that I'd be doing what I'm doing right now, I would not have believed it if you told me a year ago.

But I feel that when I first started out my freshman year, I set specific goals for myself, and I am doing all the things that I said I'd do. And I think it was all possible because I believed in myself and I believed in how far I could go. And I also believed in people who told me that I could do it. Yeah. And I feel like looking back on my life, I always had to make things happen from scratch, and it was possible because I believed in myself.

But also, I believe that I was able to believe in myself because of the support that I had, because of the support system that I had from my family and my close friends. Closing out. For students, interns listening to this episode at 3:00 a.m. who might think that they might not yet belong in sharp space, but I would encourage them to think so because they're watching us right now.

But, what advice would you give them? I would say I have more of a message, let's say just from a friend. A year ago, I was not technical. I did not have an online presence at all. I did not know how to do cold outreach, but I was able to really build out my presence and my network simply by wanting to learn. And I think that's the most important thing if you're just starting out.

Tell people your goals, tell people what you want to achieve, tell people what you want to learn, and nobody will turn you away because people want to help you if they really see that you are passionate about where you want to go or what you want to be. So I really want to tell people to not be nonchalant about your goals. Yeah. You have to be very genuine.

You have to be very honest and open about where you are right now and where you want to go, and people will help you out. Yeah, I agree. I think that's a great advice. I wish I had that advice when I was a kid. But I think in terms of me, I think I've had so many different experiences because I have immigrated to the United States when I was five. So it's been a long time here.

And I think as an immigrant, there just have been so many experiences that made me who I am. I guess based on those experiences, I would say what helped me the most was just stepping out of your comfort zone. It sounds generic, but I wouldn't have. And it doesn't have to be a big leap, like starting a company like Che did. It could be anything as small as hosting a backyard grill party with your friends.

Maybe you've never done that before, but I think now is the time, because that will then make you, as a stepping stool, confident enough to go further and maybe host an event. And then from hosting event, you can start a company and then go further and further. I think everything is a stepping stool, is a stepping stone and if I didn't put myself out there I think I would've been still the sort of shy kid that I was partially in middle school and high school. Yeah, I would just say you are special in many ways, you are unique and you have the ability to do so many great things.

And I wish I told that myself. I will soon. But yeah, just get out there and just be yourself, and just make sure you can change the world for the better. Yeah. Pretty well said. And I think that wraps up this episode. And thank you guys so much again for joining us today. And for our audiences, definitely keep an eye on what you're shipping next. I think their next events.

And can you guys just quickly share where our audiences can find you? You can find us on our Instagram, the Night Owl Network. So if you follow our page, we'll post updates there. You can also find it on our respective LinkedIn accounts as well. Oh, man. I just don't get it. All the events end so early. So we built the Night Owl Network for all you late night owls.

Oh, yeah. We'll see you at our next event