Introductions

Let me introduce myself. My name is Wilson Tsang. A little bit about myself.
-Graduated from Nursing School at UCI *zot zot* class of 2011
-Worked for a combined 1 1/2 years at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles and doing medical research in Irvine.
-Partnered with a friend to establish a very competitive and large shop at Frank N Sons, selling Yu-gi-oh cards and many other games and collectibles.

This is where I am going to keep my thoughts, while trying to open my own dessert cafe. I am keeping this blog (mainly for myself) in order to look back on it in a few years and see the humble beginnings from which I had come from. If you are willing and wanting to tag along for the ride, I will try to entertain and enlighten you.

The one question that people always ask me when I tell them I am trying to open my own business... WHY?
  WHY would you leave a nursing career behind to attempt to open your own business?
-WHY would you leave a possibly lucrative opportunity continuing to sell Yu-gi-oh cards and make a comfortable living off of it?

These questions always come up, no matter who I talk to. In this post, I will attempt to satisfy everyone (including myself) by answering these main questions and showing my thought process throughout.


 LOYALTY = SECURITY?
Security for our family, security for ourselves. Everyone desires it but a majority of people go about getting it in a very linear fashion. Get a job, get more educated and get promoted, staying at the institution until they retire while accruing benefits and pension packages to carry them through the rest of their lives.

But in these changing times, less and less companies work in this manner. Take my past two jobs in OC/LA as an example. I worked as a temp for over 8 months at Children's Hospital, with the hopes that I would lock in a full-time position when they opened up. My work ethic and abilities were heralded by my fellow coworkers. But when the time came to hire full-time RN, the 3 positions went to external candidates. Did my loyalty to the company not matter? Did I not move down to Los Angeles from San Francisco for a low-paying job in order to prove that I was able and willing only for them to say to my face that one of the reasons they didn't hire me was because they didn't think I was going to stay at their institution after 2 years was up? In Irvine, I did medical research in the capacity of a RN, but they used a temp agency to hire us so that they would not have to give us benefits or insurance. Is it legal? Sure it is. But in this age of cost cutting and financial instability, it does not pay to be loyal. Companies continue to outsource jobs to third world countries in order to cut costs. More and more teachers get canned or pressured to leave before they reach tenure, so that the younger teachers with less experience can take lower paying positions. In this age, it does not pay to be loyal. In my eyes, security must be obtained by yourself.


1. WHY would you leave a nursing career behind to attempt to open your own business?

 Nursing is a stable career. It is one of the main reasons I chose to enroll at UCI, in order to get my nursing degree and have some form of security for myself when I graduated. After getting my nursing degree and working in my various jobs in the medical field though, I realized that this was not where I wanted to be. I despised waking up every morning to go to work in the hospital or in the lab. If I am going to spend half my life somewhere, I'd better enjoy it!
At the hospital, I hated being constantly being surrounded by the sick and dying. After being in the field, I truly believe that people in the medical field, especially nurses, are examples of everyday heroes. Not only do they take care of their patients physically, they ensure that their psychological and mental needs are fulfilled.
Working at the lab doing medical research became monotonous and dull. The same protocol and procedures were used every single day and while I lied to people telling them that it was an interesting experience, it was only that for the first few weeks. I was not learning anything that would further my knowledge base, and I felt like I was turning into a machine that could basically shut his brain off for the whole day I was there, working through sole repetition.

2. -WHY would you leave a possibly lucrative opportunity continuing to sell Yu-gi-oh cards and make a comfortable living off of it?

Many people don't really understand the impact that Yu-gi-oh has had on my life. To most, this card game is just "for children". They trudge through life with their narrow-minded ways of thinking and fail to accept and appreciate what they do not understand. The only people that truly understand are those within the community.

I was somewhat of a celebrity in this community. I topped multiple championship caliber events, recorded videos on youtube to help further the community, while making money through the game in order to finance my travels to other events.Yu-gi-oh has allowed me to travel to 11 states in the past 2 years, as well as Mexico and Costa Rica. Even though most of us don't play anymore, a majority of my closest friends in San Francisco I met through Yu-gi-oh. It has even helped me pay my rent, groceries, and other bills throughout college. Through my capacity and hard work, it's no wonder that my strongest supporters and biggest believers in my success come from the Yu-gi-oh community. These people that I have met throughout my career strongly believe in my ability to succeed and my drive to rise above the rest. The opinions of this community are the ones I take into consideration the most: they have seen my work ethic, my dedication, my social skills at work and my abilities. I can proudly say that Yu-gi-oh has helped me become the strong, independent, business-minded individual that I am today.

But back to the question...why leave?

It is true that I could continue grinding away selling Yu-gi-oh cards as a career. I had contemplated the idea many a times. Yet, when I started planning for an opening of a card store, there were a few things that troubled me. Firstly, there is no exit strategy. If I built up a store for a few years and made it worth 500k, there is almost no chance that anyone with that kind of money would buy me out, because they would prefer to buy something else like a restaurant or a bar. Secondly, I felt that turning this hobby that I so thoroughly enjoyed into a job that I would work at everyday, mailing and sorting cards nonstop,would kill my love for it.

I have spent a lot more time than I thought writing this post and I probably need to be getting back to all the paperwork and preparation that I need to do for the next few weeks. Tomorrow I'll start working as a waiter for my parent's friend's business and learning some tips and tricks for running my own business while trying to figure out the flow and coordination that I will need to incorporate into my own business. Until then!

-Wilson