Justin Kan opened up about his journey of building Atrium, a company working on disrupting Legal Tech and helping more transparency. The company is no more; Justin returned the rest of the money to his investors.
In the video post on YouTube, he mentioned things he learned after its failure. I have added some of the notes after listening to 17 minutes of his video.
- Know your customer: Be obsessed with knowing who your customer is and doubling down on their pain points.
- Growth: Once you raise a lot of money from VCs, you have to show growth. As a result: too many quick hirings. It can adversely impact a company’s culture.
- CEO’s fault: If a company goes bonker. It is the CEO who is going to be responsible for it.
- Risky journey: Startups are a risky bet for everyone. It is not for everyone. A few succeed, a million others fail about whom media never talks.
- Product first: Building a product should have taken priority over sales and marketing hype. Product any day is the true differentiator.
- Empathy: As a founder being empathic takes a long way instead of being a narcissistic asshole.
- People leave: Once you fail, you are on your own. The same friends you shared booze will walk away in seconds.
- Honest to self: You have to be honest about the purpose of starting a startup. Are you doing it because of FOMO or, you truly, believe in the journey?