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
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00:24:49 · David Park
[00:24:49] S5: I need the money within the... You need it wired within this month. It was... Yeah, it was a weird it was a weird situation. So I remember the day of the surgery was really crazy. I was really nervous for the surgery. And then the doctor comes in and says, You have a fever. We don't know if we can do the surgery today. Would you like to reschedule it? And I said, There'll always be probably some reason. So I said, Let's just do it. And then my body temperature kept going up the day of the surgery. So they start bringing ice packs. I'm just laying in bed, ice packs all over my body. And I remember my mom, she saw that I was really stressed. She sat next to me and she said, you know, don't worry, don't worry, things will be okay. Before your surgery, I'll tell you something and it's gonna give you all the strength you need and everything will be okay. My mom leaves a little bit, think, go to the bathroom or something, then suddenly all the nurses run-in and they're like, we just have the operation table, someone pulled out, we need to do surgery now. I was about to go in surgery, my mom wasn't there, they weren't gonna get, I was afraid I wouldn't understand the instructions. I had a fever, the risk of my surgery was higher, all these things, so I wanted to leave. But for some reason in the waiting room, there was a bible verse on the ceiling, and it said something about don't be afraid, leave it all up to God. And then they took me to the Surgery Room, they did the surgery, I woke up. Surgery went well. After a few days, I was able to speak. And I remember I asked my mom, Hey, what was that thing you wanted to tell me before the surgery? And she was like, Oh, I wish I could have told you. It was this Bible verse that I found online. And it was the same Bible verse that was on the ceiling. I'm not a very religious person, but for some reason I was like, Okay, you know what? So much of my life has been these miraculous things. I'm just like sitting next to my first investor on a plane, having Jason Calacanis invest in me from a random podcast, having a crazy viral tweet from someone I've never met, getting cancer. I guess to sum it up like, I've just been so grateful for, like, my little miracles every day. I'm just really grateful all the time.
00:26:38 · David Park
Lately, I don't know why, but start ups, it's been romanticized with, like, all these Netflix series of, like, Theranos or Uber. And a lot of startups really is just... It's not very sexy. It's just putting in the work day after day, finding out what's the most important thing to do. And sometimes the most important thing to do is just, like, get out a spreadsheet, look at these numbers, find us a relationship. And then the next day, through that relationship, how can you make a product decision based on that? These things are never shown in these Netflix series or these movies, like, because they've been kind of fetishized. It... The sad truth isn't that you'll fail. I think that if you build a startup and you really work towards it on a long enough time horizon, you'll probably be able to make something and make somewhat of a living. But the sad truth is it just won't be super eventful many days. Many days will just be really boring. The dread of, like, staring to the void, not knowing what's gonna happen is so much painful than now. Every day there's probably some fire. I probably have to make huge decisions every single day in terms of like how to spend money, who to hire, who to partner with, whether to take a check from this person or like... And it's not nearly as painful as when I was in my room alone and it was just super boring and I had to do, like, these boring things. I had no idea what to do, and it was just, like, not even eventful. So, I guess my advice is, like, just be ready. Just be ready for the many years of putting in the hours, putting in the reps. I wish you the best of luck, I guess. Yeah.