Welcome to my website! I assume you are here because you want to learn more about me and we might have some interaction in real life.
My Earlier Life in China
I was born in a very poor rural area in China in the 1970’s. My father was unable to attend college due to political reasons at that time, so his new dream was to send me to one of the top universities in China. My father saved every penny possible and spent much time and effort to ensure that I would be able to attend a top-notch university.
His hard work paid off and I was accepted into one of the best medical universities in China, the Fourth Military Medical University (http://www.fmmu.edu.cn), to be trained as a dentist in 1991. While I was there, I saw a computer for the first time in my life. I was instantly attracted by the “Apple II” computer, which did not even have an internal hard drive.
At that particular time in China, however, it was almost impossible to change your college major. During the next 5-years at the university, I spent all my spare time in the university’s computer science room. I became a self-taught computer geek and gained recognition as a computer guru at the medical university. Many people came to me for computer-related help.
After graduating from the university in 1996, instead of becoming a dentist, I chose to develop medical-related educational computer programs and later, started to develop medical information networks on the internet. Within 5 years, I was the CEO and co-owner of one of the top 3 medical information websites in China, employing over 50 talented professionals.
Life in the USA
In the summer of 2001, a month before 09/11, I arrived in Chicago to rejoin my wife, who was pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.
Chicago Computer Club
I could barely speak or understand English upon my arrival and was rejected for even volunteer jobs. Later, I worked in a local computer store as a computer technician and saw the growing demand for consumer I.T. services. I started my own retail computer shop business in April 2003, named it as Chicago Computer Club (http://www.cccc.us ).
By treating customers as they should be treated, providing excellent customer service and top-notch computer technicians, Chicago Computer Club expanded quickly. I converted the business to a franchise in 2008. With a new location every year, Chicago Computer Club had 8 retail locations by the end of 2012.
Jexet Technologies
In 2008, more and more business clients inquired about comprehensive business IT services. The Chicago Computer Club business service department was founded and later was spun off as Jexet Technologies ( http://www.jexet.com ), which provides outsourced managed IT services for businesses who rely on IT to run their businesses every day.
In 2016, after 7 years of growing the company, the company had about 20 employees and was running smoothly. I trained a new CEO and handed over the day-to-day business operations to him.
Business Peer Groups
I have been a member of Technology Marketing ToolKit group since 2009, a member of Entrepreneur Organization since 2012 and a member of Taylor Business Group since 2013. Spending about $30K a year deeply involved in those groups, I learned a lot about the all the aspects of business from peers of those organizations.
Angel Investing and Startup Mentoring
After I left Jexet day-to-day operations, I got a lot of time to read and think. This articel changed my whole perspective of where the world will be in next a couple of decades: The Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Part 1 – Wait But Why
I went deep into AI, super excited with its possible impact on future human civilization.
As I was looking for a new adventure, I started to invest in early-stage startups. Later in 2016, I became a member of Hyde Park Angels and Nameless Venture Group investing in SAAS, AI, IOT, and blockchain areas. I am also a mentor at 1871 ( http://www.1871.com ) and mHUB ( https://mhubchicago.com ) mentoring startups twice a month.
Here are some of the more than 40 portfolio companies that I have invested:
- https://www.regrouptelehealth.com
- https://catalytic.com
- https://hologram.io
- https://www.kin.com
- http://provi.com
- https://www.gistapp.co
- http://www.chowbus.com
- https://nanograf.com
- https://www.hellojoy.ai
- https://humanpredictions.io
BlockChain and Cryptocurrency
In May 2017, I started investing in cryptocurrency, doing algorithm trading, arbitraging and investing in promising tokens, coins, and mining. It was a really fun time, the blockchain technologies are amazing, and the volatility of the market was so crazy! Lost a lot of money playing different crypto game and luckily ends up a very positive return that helped funding my SAAS veture in MSPbots
Robotics Process Automation in IT Consulting business, http://MSPbots.ai
Never send a human to do a machine’s job. ~Agent Smith from Matrix. Starting 02/2019, I am working with employees inside our own IT company to implement RPA, Bots and Machine Learning technologies to free our employees from the mundane, repetitive, boring day to day tasks. Improve the speed, availability, and quality of the repetitive tasks. I merged with Jexet Technologies with my longtime friends Tom Andrulis’s company Intelligent Technical Solutions (http://www.itsasap.com), so I can focus on process automation for ITS instead of day to day, and grow a software product out of that called mspbots.ai, spent millions of dollars of my own money and 90-100 hours a week for 4 years, MSPbots did a $5M round raising 06/2023 to use data driven process automation to help MSPs management team to better manage the people and process.
My Personal Life
I am married to Huiping Liu, and I have 3 beautiful and smart kids, two girls and a boy. Our favorite family activity is traveling the world.
I like reading, traveling and watching movies.
I am a Very high D, high I in DISC profile, and an INFP as the MBTI profile if you are familiar with those profiling tools, https://www.16personalities.com/infp-personality
Core value fits are very important in any human collaboration. Here are my core values so you can take a look to see if we are a fit!
- Integrity is fundamental to my core values. I can’t work with people that I can’t trust.
- Be vulnerable: I do open book management in my business, sharing the best and worst 5% of my personal life experiences in my EO forum. I am an open book.
- Win-Win: I love to work with smart people who share the same values as me. Every relationship should be a win-win situation and that’s the only way to create long-term valuable and lasting relationships.
- Abundance: I grew up in a scarce environment in my earlier life. It took me a long time to get into the abundance mindset. I believe that the world I live in right now has too many opportunities that I can take, too many things I could do to help people and make a lot of money. I can be very picky about what I will or will not do.
- Positive: There is always shit happening in life, but I always look for the bright side. <Martian> is a perfect movie to show this point.
- Constant Learning: I love reading books and watching movies that make me think! I love to hang around with people who are smarter than me.
- Time is the most valuable asset: Unlike money, once we have spent time, we will never get it back. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.