20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 21 June 2019
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Justin Kan is the Founder and CEO @ Atrium, the startup providing a full-service corporate law firm that uses modern technology to give startups a legal experience that is fast, transparent, and price-predictable. To date, Justin has raised over $75m in funding from some of the best in the business including Founders Fund, a16z, First Round, General Catalyst, Thrive, Initialized and more. Prior to founding Atrium, Justin was a Partner @ Y Combinator, the globally renowned accelerator and the birthplace of some of today's largest startups. Before that Justin was the Co-Founder @ Twitch, the world’s leading video platform and community for gamers which was acquired by Amazon for $970m. If that was not enough, Justin is also a prolific angel investor with investments in the likes of Cruise Automation, Rippling, Zenefits, Triplebyte and more.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Justin made his way into the world of startups and YC? How that led to the founding of Justin.TV, later Twitch? What was that a-ha moment for Atrium?
2.) Why did Justin feel that being an investor full time was not for him? How does Justin think about and approach the learning process as a founder? What advice does Justin give to those who want to quit? What was it that made Justin embrace the series of self-improvement habits he now practices?
3.) What does Justin mean when he says, "attaching yourself to outcomes will only cause your own suffering”? How does Justin think about and advise founders when it comes to burnout? How does Justin feel about the "crushing it" culture in tech? What can we do to normalise vulnerability? What were Justin's biggest takeaways from "The Score takes Care of Itself"?
4.) What have been Justin's experiences with therapy? How does he advise founders thinking of engaging with therapists? What have been his biggest lessons that drive success in therapy? How does Justin look to show authenticity through positivity? What does that really mean?
5.) What have been Justin's biggest takeaways from "The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership"? What are the core principles? What is required to roll out these values and principles within an organisation? What are the fundamental challenges to successfully roll this out on a large scale within your company?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Justin’s Fave Book: The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
As always you can follow Harry, Justin and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are back for another Founders Friday here on the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and |
| 0:04.0 | what an episode we have in store for today, our guest, an incredible founder, who I've been |
| 0:08.1 | lucky enough to have on the show before, but a long time ago, and recently he shared a lot about |
| 0:12.2 | lifestyle, diet, giving up alcohol, and I really don't think we've covered that enough on the 20 |
| 0:16.7 | minute BC, and so I'm stoked to dive into that stay with the one and only Justin Kahn, |
| 0:21.1 | found and CEO at Atrium, the startup providing a full service corporate law firm that uses |
| 0:25.9 | modern technology to give startups a legal experience that is fast, transparent and price |
| 0:30.5 | predictable. To date, Justin has raised over $75 million in funding from some of the best in the |
| 0:35.2 | business for Atrium, including Founders Fund, Andresen Horrors, |
| 0:38.8 | first round, general catalysts, thrive, initialised, and more. |
| 0:42.3 | Prior to founding Atrium, Justin was a partner at Y Combinator, the globally renowned accelerator and the birthplace of some of today's largest start-ups. |
| 0:49.8 | Before that, Justin was the co-founder at Twitch, the world's leading video platform and community for gamers, |
| 0:54.7 | which was acquired by Amazon for $970 million reportedly. If that wasn't enough, Justin's also |
| 0:59.9 | a prolific angel investor, with investments in the likes of cruise automation, rippling, triple |
| 1:04.4 | byte, xenophates, and more. But before we dive into the show's day, at the end of the day, |
| 1:08.6 | your customers have to be at the center of everything you do, and that's why M Particle is just so crucial being your real-time customer data platform, |
| 1:15.6 | or in other words, M Particle is the fastest, most efficient way to keep customer data in sync |
| 1:20.4 | everywhere, from marketing to analytics to customer support. M Particle empowers different |
| 1:25.2 | teams to execute on their KPI's independently whilst |
| 1:28.3 | understanding the customer holistically. But don't take my word for it. They have the lives of |
| 1:32.3 | Airbnb, Spotify, Jet.com and more, all as loving customers. So to find out more, head over to |
| 1:37.3 | mparticle.com. That's mparticle.com. And the only thing that I think is equally important as |
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