00:17:02 · David Park, S1, S6, S7, S8, S11
I realized there was some document I needed to fill out. I opened it. I realized it's in fully in Korean. And my Korean's like, it's okay, but I can't, like, do a legal document in Korean. So then I'm doing, like, the most ugliest, like, Google Translate trying to fill this document before my meeting at 9AM. I finish at, like, 3AM. Ad[00:17:19] S1: This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed Sponsored Jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Ad[00:17:48] S6: Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Ad[00:18:00] S7: Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Ad[00:18:03] S8: Sam's Club is the club for every holiday club. Guess who's joining the club this season? Walmart Plus. Yep. Sam's Club Plus membership now comes with Walmart Plus at no extra cost. Two memberships, one great price. Just a $120 Ad[00:18:16] S11: a year Ad[00:18:16] S8: can save you time and over $700. Wanna get in on the membership duo of the century? Visit sam'sclub.com. Come join us. Sam's Club.
00:18:16 · S8, S9, S2
Ad[00:18:16] S8: can save you time and over $700. Wanna get in on the membership duo of the century? Visit sam'sclub.com. Come join us. Sam's Club. Ad[00:18:24] S9: Annual plan only auto renews TNC apply estimate based on average combined Walmart Plus and Sam's Club Plus savings among members of both for one plus versus nonmember or club member pricing slash fees excludes membership fees. See Walmart Plus terms and Sam's Club terms for more info. Ad[00:18:34] S2: The Vuori core short moves with you. With everyday versatility and classic athletic fit. It's the one short for everything your day brings. Invest in your happiness and get 20% off your first purchase at viore.com/4twenty. That's vuori.com/kore2zero. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.
00:19:03 · David Park
[00:19:03] S5: I barely sleep. I wake up at eight. I get there. I'm late to the meeting. That night, he sends me an email saying, actually, I... We don't... We're not gonna invest. We don't think that this is the right fit. That night, because we were two months away from dying, we're two months away from dying, and I had a team. I had one software engineer, either his wife was pregnant at the time or they just had a baby. I realized I had a lot of responsibility and I really messed it up. I cried pretty hard that day. That was like one of the worst days of my life. But luckily, was able to make some last minute calls. There was a VC that was interested before that I was able to get to come in, give us a little bit of runway, which gave us just enough time. But the moral of that story is why do entrepreneurs be entrepreneurs? We wanna avoid the nine to five. We wanna feel free. We wanna live life on our own terms. And I had a lot of that. You know, I thought these VCs, they're lucky to invest in my startup. I'm I'm doing very well. It it doesn't it doesn't matter. But to be honest, being a founder is probably... You have to be probably even more so disciplined. You have to be even more disciplined than the person, you know, waking up every day, showing up to every meeting because there's an insane amount of responsibility. The people who join your startup, they bet on you. All of the people that join my startup, they can get prestigious jobs anywhere. There's a lot of people relying on you, and I really messed it up. It's just important to, like, you take on all this leverage, you take on all this risk, so it's important that you act like it, I think. I remember I was sitting at home. It was late. I'm kind of a night owl, so my cofounder was asleep. It was around, like, 11PM. Suddenly, our site starts going crazy. I see, like, every time I refresh the page, every second, 10 users would come to Jenni. Every second. Jenni's actually included in one of the most viral Twitter threads in history. I think it's actually the most viral Twitter thread in history that has to do with, like, AI or has to do with startups. It is the most viral Twitter thread. And we had open AI credits at the time, and we had a limit of, I think, like, a thousand, 5,000 open AI credits, which at the time was a lot. I think within one hour, we lost all the credits.
00:20:57 · David Park
The users used all the credits because we had such crazy influx. And then I'm calling my cofounder. He's now waking up. I remember I was, like, just swearing at him on Slack. I was like, wake the... This is our big break. We have to, like, capitalize on this. I was just handling Intercom messaging every single person, trying to save every single person. Hey. We're not available right now, but can you give me email? We'll let you know when we're available. Because I I didn't know if this was a one time thing or this was gonna be a sustained thing. That was the first time we ever had the feeling of, like, some semblance of success. Because raising money doesn't feel like success. It feels like, okay, the job really starts. Now we have... We can really get our hands dirty. After that first initial growth, I I was preparing my heart. I was like, okay. There's no way that we could continue growing like this. That was the most viral Twitter thread ever. Like, there's no way we can continue this growth. But, you know, we'll continue our best and we'll continue slowly, but it didn't stop. Every month, we were able to figure out some new distribution or growth tactic, and it just... The growth has been super awesome. That month was two months after the most viral tweet. Yeah. So I was in Korea. I always had this, like, growth on my jaw. I get it checked out every once in a while. It's like, okay. It's been, a few years. I'll check it again. So I went to go get checked. And then she was like, since you're here, do you wanna check your neck too? Since you're here. I was like, Okay, sure. You know things are not good when this nurse is suddenly quiet, and then she says, fifty percent chance that you have thyroid cancer because they see some tumors in my thyroid. I didn't know what to say. At that point, I still didn't think I had cancer because my entire life, all I've known is a life without cancer. So it's hard to imagine. And then I remember I saw, I got an email from the doctor saying that I had thyroid cancer. And I remember like this quote of a tree can't reach heaven unless its roots reach hell. And that's how I really felt. I worked my whole life, eight years of my life, startups, eight years, zero, zero, zero, just failing, failing, failing. Finally, I'm finally able to peak a little bit above the clouds and I feel like we're finally growing.
00:22:51 · David Park, S0, S1, S6, S7, S8
And then I get a cancer diagnosis. Before my surgery, was like, I don't want my startup to die if I die. So I wanted to raise a little bit of money. But unfortunately, I think that the VCs could smell the desperation. That was like, not only am I raising... Ad[00:23:04] S0: This episode is brought to Ad[00:23:05] S1: you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Ad[00:23:33] S6: Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Ad[00:23:46] S7: Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Ad[00:23:49] S8: Sam's Club is the club for every holiday club. Guess who's joining the club this season? Walmart Plus. Yep. Sam's Club Plus membership now comes with Walmart Plus at no extra cost. Two memberships, one great price. Just a $120 a year can save you time and over $700. Wanna get in on the membership duo of the century? Visit sam'sclub.com. Come join us. Sam's Club.
00:23:49 · S8, S9, S13
Ad[00:23:49] S8: Sam's Club is the club for every holiday club. Guess who's joining the club this season? Walmart Plus. Yep. Sam's Club Plus membership now comes with Walmart Plus at no extra cost. Two memberships, one great price. Just a $120 a year can save you time and over $700. Wanna get in on the membership duo of the century? Visit sam'sclub.com. Come join us. Sam's Club. Ad[00:24:09] S9: Annual plan only auto renews TNC apply estimate based on average combined Walmart Plus and Sam's Club Plus savings among members of both for one plus year versus nonmember or club member pricing slash fees excludes membership fees. See Walmart Plus terms and Sam's Club terms for more info. Ad[00:24:19] S13: When you spend enough time around great companies, you notice that the best ones treat trust as a growth strategy, not a box to check. Vanta helps companies build and prove trust from day one. Its AgenTik trust platform connects compliance, risk, and trust at enterprise scale. Vanta delivers a 526 return on investment over three years and pays for itself in just three months. Learn why over 16,000 of the fastest growing companies use Vanta at vanta.com.