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Entrepreneur Stories 4โƒฃ Inspiration

200: Bouncing Back from Y Combinator Rejection to Building a Strikingly Good Company... David Chen of Strikingly

Entrepreneur Stories 4โƒฃ Inspiration

Millionaire Interviews Podcast & Sir Austin Peek

Careers, Business:careers, Business

4.7 โ€ข 2K Ratings

๐Ÿ—“๏ธ 1 January 2021

โฑ๏ธ 53 minutes

๐Ÿงพ๏ธ Download transcript

Summary

In 2012, David Chen dropped out from the University of Chicago to start Strikingly along with his two co founders, Teng Bao and Dafeng Guo. They moved to Silicon Valley with $100 in their pocket and were accepted into Y Combinator after eating ramen noodle in their 1-bedroom apartment for 5 months. Strikingly is a Y Combinator-backed startup that allows anyone to create a gorgeous, mobile optimized website in minutes, without any coding or design work. It has raised $1.5MM seed funding from top Silicon Valley investors. Join our ๐Ÿ”ฅ Facebook Group to meet other listeners of the podcast: facebook.com/groups/mipvips. This Episode is Sponsored By: HelloFresh cuts out stressful meal planning and grocery store trips so you can enjoy cooking and get dinner on the table in about 30 minutes or less. HelloFresh offers 23 plus recipes each week, featuring a range of flavors, cuisines, and ingredients so youโ€™ll never get bored. Go to millionaire-interviews.com/hellofresh and use code millionaire10 for TEN FREE meals including free shipping. NordVPN has over 14 million people worldwide usiing their service. They have superfast servers all across the globe, so even while youโ€™re using them, your internet doesnโ€™t slow down a bit, plus, you can have 6 simultaneous connections. For their special holiday deal that they are only giving to our listeners, go to: millionaire-interviews.com/nordvpn and use our code ESFI at checkout. Teachable is a platform that allows independent entrepreneurs and creators to build and sell fully customizable online courses and services. Join our over 100,000 instructors who have transformed their knowledge into world-class courses and have earned over $500 million to date. As a special offer to our listeners, visit our link & get a FREE Master Class Today at: millionaire-interviews.com/teachable Justin in Fishkill, New York said fuck it, I've listened to every episode of this awesome podcast, I might as well join the membership to see what it's all about... So why don't you too? Join today to get 2 Group Calls a Month for the Price of 1 at: millionaire-interviews.com/patreon. Want to Support the Show? Well we'd love for you to join our Patreon Group! What's in it for you? Well you'll instantly get a scheduled call from Austin, where he'll help you with your current or future business... Sign-Up Now at millionaire-interviews.com/patreon. ๐Ÿ˜€๐Ÿ˜Ž๐Ÿ˜ *** For Show Notes, Key Points, Contact Info, Resources Mentioned, & the Fabulous 4 Questions on this episode visit our website: David Chen Interview. *** Support this Podcast via Patreon Feedback? Questions? Comments? We would love to hear from you! Hollar at us via: Facebook Group (@MiPViPs), or Twitter (@acpeek or @millionairepod), Instagram (@millionaire_interviews), LinkedIn (@austincpeek), Facebook (@millionaireinterviews), or Email: [email protected]. ๐Ÿ˜Ž๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜€

Transcript

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0:00.0

The Jaguars for the first time in franchise history will be selecting number one in the NFL

0:29.1

draft. You got to think about in the last 20 years we've been the bridesmaid in the

0:34.1

bridesmaid. Right, we're finally the bridesmaid.

0:36.1

The problem with doubting yourself is that you're gonna move slow, you're gonna be thinking too much acting too little, you're gonna be waiting, you're gonna be

0:51.1

hesitating, failure is better than not doing anything. So I would just say that you know don't doubt yourself. Even if you fail that's great embrace it, move on, but just do not doubt yourself.

1:01.1

Whatever you want to do at that point just go ahead do it. There's no better way than just prove it or disapprove it yourself. Back then I was like well where's the investors? Why are you not knocking on my door yet? And there's no

1:13.4

no more movement. We're just in our room eating ramen noodles every single day, buying the cheapest beer so that we can actually feel a little bit cooler.

1:23.4

And all of a sudden they're in front of you and you're all sitting in this room waiting for an interview and all of those people who are there are like super passionate and just very interesting. And that was what drove us to be like loud. This is a place we want to be.

1:40.4

And that's when everything started to take off. So this is prior experience. I have to say there we have to go up the mountain and cut wood and then burn them to get electricity.

1:50.4

We're in that bus station and it turns to me you're just like David I used to believe in you. I don't anymore.

2:00.4

My name is David Chen and with the company strike me.com 31 years old just passed my birthday actually so just turned 31 happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you.

2:12.4

How does it feel to be old now? Tell me about it.

2:18.4

The biggest thing is that you just feel like 11 p.m. or like 12th and just want to go to bed before just like wow did not just get started so you know.

2:27.4

Yeah, that's what I'm feeling. That's always wondering what your work schedule is like 8 a.m. for me and what time is it for you?

2:33.4

8 p.m. It's good. Like this is early for me but used to be like this is like oh, it's so early in the night.

2:39.4

Right. Yeah. No, I'm feeling it but you're winding down your workday, right? Yeah, I actually have a few things to finish up.

2:45.4

Okay. Well, I guess if we have such a time difference, I wanted to point that out because it kind of helps our audience know where you're located. So where are you actually?

2:53.4

I'm currently in Shanghai. The company started in the valley. So we have office in both the states and here. Yeah, just recently I've been in Shanghai. The Chinese internet scene is pretty interesting this days.

3:05.4

What valley? We started in Silicon Valley, right? So we started in the Sunnivel actually San Francisco and then we moved down to a mountain view for live coordinator.

3:14.4

And then after that we kind of like we'll base in the Sunnivel and we opened up about Chinese arm in 2016 and we started going after the Chinese market.

3:22.4

It's very, very interesting, very different, very dynamic. And I guess the entire China is kind of like another Silicon Valley outside of the US and very mobile driven.

3:31.4

So yeah, there are a lot of things to be learned here. Oh yeah, I was joking. I know what the value is, but again, I always try to bring up like well, there's some people like I heard that there's like the awesome right now.

...

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