ASCEND, an undergraduate professional student organization, hosted an entrepreneurship event with John Xie, the founder of Minus.com, a file sharing site, on March 15.

Minus, a free image sharing site that prides itself on making file sharing easy and accessible. Founded in 2010 by Xie and Carl Hu, who wanted to offer the simplest possible sharing service.

The event began with Kevin Ouyang, VP of Technology of ASCEND, who introduced Xie. Co-sponsors of the event included Golden Key, the International Honor Society, Beta Alpha Psi, and Delta Sigma Pi.

When asked about starting a business, more than 90 percent of the 60 students in attendance raised their hands.

This interactive event was mostly a Q&A session; Ouyang and the student audience asked Xie extensively about his entrepreneurship.

When asked about Xie’s experience with his partner Carl Hu, Xie responded, “It’s like a relationship at the end of the day.”

Being an entrepreneur and having a partner is like “being in a relationship,” John Xie said. “You can’t sleep after not talking on the phone with your partner for more than 2 days.”

“I met Carl Hu by chance during the last semester of my senior year in college.”

Hu, CEO of Minus.com, was the Principle Software Engineer at Amazon.com before partnering with Xie. 

The Co-Founder, COO and CMO of Minus.com and CEO of Cirtex Group, the leading web-hosting service provider, first began his entrepreneurship journey at the age of 13. In 2010, Xie was recognized as one of the most promising business leaders under 25, according to BusinessWeek.

Minus.com, which commenced in the summer of last year, is an online file-sharing platform-- amongst the first to use the drag and drop method. This site has over half a million registered users and serves over 10 million hits a day.

When a student asked Xie what it took to be an entrepreneur, he responded “As an entrepreneur, you should never give up; you must realize the weakness and find the strength.”

“As a college student, you should take advantage of all the opportunities and good ideas flowing in your mind; go for it and just give it a shot.”

“I got a lot of my good ideas in the showers.”Xie’s message to all aspiring entrepreneurs is pretty clear: if you have a good idea, react and work towards it. 

For students who are interested to learn more about Minus or would like to use a free image and file sharing website, visit www.minus.com.