Jonathan Chen On Taking His First Company Public For $1.3 Billion And Now Raising $61 Million To Blend Fintech With Healthcare

Jonathan Chen took his previous company FiscalNote public for $1.3 billion and now has raised $61 million for Nitra which is overhauling the healthcare industry with radically efficient and transparent solutions – starting with spend management. So far the company has raised financing from top tier investors such as New Enterprise Associates, Andreessen Horowitz, or Gaingels to name a few.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The ideal number of founders, and make up of your cofounding team
• The advantage of being a second time founder in fundraising
• How to handle running out of money
• Who you should be hiring at your startup
• Spotting opportunities, and timing your start

SUBSCRIBE ON:

This episode is brought to you by Gelt. As a referral from the DealMaker’s podcast you can skip the waitlist and get priority just mention Dealmakers as your referral on the schedule a call form here.

.Tech Domains is sponsoring this episode. To unlock the special offer for the DealMakers audience, which includes 1-year domain for $10, or a 5-year domain for $50, go to go.tech/dealmakers.

For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash. 

Moreover, I also provided a commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400 million (see it here).

Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below.

About Jonathan Chen:

Aidan Rushby is the developer of an online financial lending platform designed to reinvent how people pay for cars.

Jonathan Chen is the founder and CEO of Nitra, a software development company based in San Francisco.

Previously, they were the co-founder and CTO of Pathover, a social media platform for connecting with friends and family members who have similar interests. Jonathan was also the co-founder and CTO of OrangeNow, a mobile application development company.

Jonathan has a degree in computer science from Stanford University.

Jonathan Chen attended the University of Maryland, where they earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Prior to that, they attended Thomas S. Wootton High School.

Connect with Jonathan Chen:

• Crunchbase
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• TheOrg
• Twitter

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro: Already hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show. So today. We have a really incredible founder a repeated founder and a repeated founder that has done it. You know multiple times with Suk says you know. In fact, he’s a last company you know like hey went public. And now you know he’s raised a bunch of money too for what he’s building and they you know I think that we’re going to be enjoying quite a bit. You know this time with him so without farther do let’s welcome our guest today Jonathan Chen: Chen welcome to the show.

Jonathan Chen: Um, thanks, thanks for having me I’m really excited to to be here.

Alejandro: So give us a little of a walk through Memory Lane Jonathan Chen: how was life growing up in Maryland because you liked it too much. You didn’t leave for quite a while so tell us about it.

Jonathan Chen: Ah, you know, grown up from Maryland was great. Um, um, my entire family there. So I grew up with a bunch of family members East Coast you know, love the snow. Um I don’t think you know West Coast is great. But I think snow growing up is like a childhood thing. You know like playing around with. Ah, Snowman and like all those things so it it was. It was great I you know I went to college there. So definitely stayed there. Um, in in the early stages of my life.

Alejandro: Now you got into into computer science quite early. You know we’re talking about ninth grade I mean that’s a pretty impressive. So what? what? what got you in that direction.

Jonathan Chen: Yeah,, that’s it’s a good question. Ah it wasn’t um, my choice. Actually my my mom Actually this was back in the early two thousand s said that what she thought that computer science and technology was the future instead of her wanting me to be a lawyer or doctor. Like other parents Asian parents. Um, she wanted me to get into software and you know she made the right call there and she signed me up for computer science. Um, my you know my freshman year of high school and you know I Love the class and I just pursued that ever since.

Alejandro: And obviously you know you kept going. You know you got your degree there computer science in Maryland even your master of science too now 1 thing that I want to ask you is eventually when you ended up being going to college you are. Yeah, that’s that’s the moment where you really got into the whole idea of hey maybe I want to launch something of my own now before we even get into that you even were the valedictorian and you gave the commencement speech. So how was that experience like of talking I mean obviously now you talk to to tons of people all the time.

Jonathan Chen: Um.

Alejandro: But I guess you know at that age you know talking to so many people you know I’m sure that was nerve-racking.

Jonathan Chen: Yeah, it was actually a ah funny thing um throughout high school in my early life I had terrible ah stage fright. Um and I think you know in college I Really want to um, really conquer this fear of Mine. So. I would say in my junior year I really wanted to um, do the commencement speech and you know I wanted to deliver that speech so it was part of my goal and at the same time it was terrifying as well. If I really wanted to conquer my fear there because I knew going forward in life like public speaking is just like a skill set you you just need to have like everywhere you go. So you know I worked super hard and you know, um, definitely you know, got top grades of course and then it was something you had to be nominated. Um for and um, the know set of Deans ah had to select you for. So yes, it was extremely terrifying but it was something I really wanted to do because um I knew. You you know going forward in the future is just something that was a skillset that was necessary.

Alejandro: And you know during the high school years there in Maryland you met team hu who ended up being your cofounder at fiscal note. So why? So you didn’t have to go too far away to to meet who ended up becoming your cofounder for your first company. Which was an incredible success but then tell us about how the that idea of perhaps you know like building something came about because you know you guys you know, started pushing this thing you know right out of college. So I mean within college they call it year. So. How was that experience like of you and Tim you know all of a sudden you know thinking hey maybe maybe do something here.

Jonathan Chen: Um, yeah, um, you know lot I guess like a lot a lot of people think that you know you just have an idea you just go for it I will say um more often than on and this happened with my second company too. Um, before fiscal node my first company or our first company. We actually chat about many many ideas. Um, and even before I was chatting about ideas with Tim just like myself I throughout my tenure at ah in college I actually try like 6 different ideas and I build like different apps all failed by the way. All didn’t really care anywhere and Tim and I also have many different ideas that we were trying to pursue. But then we realized after you know a couple weeks of doing it wasn’t feasible wasn’t like that great of an idea. So I think it just starts out with just having conversations with friends and people and just throwing out ideas and eventually. You know you’ll land on something that um, you know you really like and you decide to to go for it because the opportunity was there.

Alejandro: So how do you guys land on fiscal note you know what was that process of that brainstorming process of taking a look at things taking a look at different markets and then all of a sudden you’re like my God this idea is meaningful enough. Let’s go.

Jonathan Chen: Yeah, um I think as a younger entrepreneur it was less so less less analytical and less practical. Um whereas nowadays I think as someone more mature we definitely take a look at the markets in in more detail. But previously. You know first company as first time entrepreneur I think for us, it’s about having that experience already in the field. So Tim um, who’s who was a Ceo and currently is still a Ceo of fiscco node um did work in government’s had experience. Um, you know with with that environment. And solve a lot of the issues. Um, you know being there. So the idea kind of came from his experience working. Ah you know as a student member board of education for Maryland and all the issues with data. Um. And the decision making process and we wanted to build fiscal to really solve those issues and that was kind of like the process there. It’s really finding that that core problem and figuring out you know, can we bring ah bring a solution.

Alejandro: And how do you guys I mean you were you were quite young. So what was that process of figuring you know hey I’m going to be Cto. You’re going to be Ceo and we’re gonna be co-founders. So how how did you guys think about distributing responsibilities and and what that would Intel I mean being so young.

Jonathan Chen: Um.

Jonathan Chen: Um, yeah, you know I think this is probably widely widely known already like in general when you start a company. Um, ideally I personally think ideally 2 or 3 founders is um and the best. Ah, you have the Ceo you have some technical person and then third person. Um either someone in operations or or growth or or you know one of those 2 areas um in general and um, we did have a third cofounder who was kind of working on um, sales and growth. Um and ops all through at the same time. But for myself since my background was in technology it was obvious I was ah, always the obvious choice for a cto.

Alejandro: So then going into plug and play. You know why did you guys think hey maybe we should go and and and take on you know, an accelerator experience.

Jonathan Chen: Um, yeah I think ah, it’s It’s probably the best routet to go if you have no experience right? like just starting companies or just Anything. We’re just networking and you’re just starting out and you really don’t know you know where to start off. Um, join an accelerator. It doesn’t have to be plug and play can be you know anything even something local in your community. Um will definitely help you just structure your understanding of how to approach startup and just getting connected with the right people probably in the area so you can start getting investments start. Um, hiring folks and start building the true company.

Alejandro:  So I guess for the people that are that are listening to to really get it. What ended up being the business model Fiscal note.

Jonathan Chen: It was ah it was a saas company right? So like essentially we built software and we sold the software to businesses. So essentially what Facebook did was we we gathered government data public data. Ah, like regulations legislation that was distributed by the government through gov websites and the issue there was as someone working and understanding the law. Um, especially on compliance teams within businesses themselves. It was very tedious to you know, go through all these different websites and understand. You know what new law was introduced in your industry and it was just a pain to butt there. So what we did was we aggregate all that data into 1 platform and then we have analytics and also workflow software to help those folks with their day-to-day. Jobs. Um, and you know with that said. The ah the software itself we sold seats like a Percy basis and it was a so subscription over like 1 to 3 years

Alejandro: And your responsibility there you know was so easy product and getting it right on the product at what point do you realize? hey you know I think that they were into something here.

Jonathan Chen: Um.

Jonathan Chen: Um, yeah, um, you know probably is very interesting. You know there’s so many playbooks it’s it’s really, ah, it’s trial on air. That’s probably the best way think about it. You’re pumping out 10 features potentially 3 of them are going to actually stick. But. The velocity of how quickly you do so will determine how quickly you’ll figure out what those 3 are so for us like we were just like you know, a client was asking for something or telling us about an issue. We just try to get out as quickly as possible because like you know those are where you get your ideas essentially is talking to clients and customers. Sometimes I mean. Probably more than 50% of the time they’re not right? but like you need to move fast and sometimes they’re half right? so that you can kind of figure it out. Um from there. So just you know we got to move super super fast and you know pump out as many features as as you can.

Alejandro: And the company you know, did many many rounds of financings all the way up until you know, becoming a publicly listed company on The New York Stock exchange but but I guess the the question there is what was that journey like because I know that at the beginning.

Jonathan Chen: So.

Alejandro: You know for you guys. You know what’s probably not easy to you know you have to probably kiss a lot of frogs until you were like to find the one that that made sense.

Jonathan Chen: Ah, oh it was definitely a lot of frogs for sure. Um I would I would say you know for us to the road to Ipo was you know was a 9 year journey and it was a lot of ups and downs to the point where I think. You know what makes a second time entrepreneur. So ah, attractive for vcs honestly is because it’s like you’ve been to war and you survived and you have so many battle scars to the point where like if you get cut a few times more It’s like it’s nothing right? So like after the the first year was tough I would say the first year year and a half is tough like. Course like every start probably went through this but we almost ran out of money. Um, and you know we had to basically pull employees aside and tell them you know the hard things that are about to happen and you know the lot tough conversations in that in that aspect and. After a certain point of 2 3 years of doing this like you know some apocalyptic event happens. You have to let your team know and its all is very awkward and sometimes very stressful but I have to do it maybe 2 3 times you kind of get used to it and it’s expected and then if your early team stays on with you. They expected this will and. Um, that also speaks you know to how well you should hire in the beginning is folks who are really resilient to you know issues and whatnot so it was a very tough journey. Um, there’s many times many apocalyptic events that could have killed the company and um, that happens all the time and really, it’s not about giving up is about.

Jonathan Chen: Think about solutions how to get past that. Um, that hump right consistently and you just keep going and keep your eye on the vision there.

Alejandro: And I believe that prior to the ipo. The company had raised a what was that like a little bit over 200,000,000 yeah

Jonathan Chen: Yeah I would say 2 2 3 hundred millions um we also raise a bunch of debt as well. So it’s like ah it’s like a mix.

Alejandro: And when the company did the ipo in August Twenty Twenty Two it ipoed at one point three billion I mean what what goes through your mind when you know August first 2022 you see the company that you found it.

Jonathan Chen: Yeah.

Alejandro: You know with your high school buddy. You know going public you know like the value that you create one point three billion I mean it’s it’s it’s kind of ridiculous I mean what was what was going through your head. Yeah.

Jonathan Chen: Ah, quite honestly um I think you know we got we got a last so the ah ah, um, what do you call it the period of time where it’s like the the lockup period I was say oh crap we got we all lasted lockup period. But ah, but besides that like I think it was. And incredible experience to be on the floor. The New York stock exchange. Um, it’s only you know things you just see on tv and um and when I guess when I was there I was thinking back to the early days and we we wanted to you know, get this far but ah. Being much younger, we were like early twenty s it was just about having fun and building something with with my friends. Um, and the fact that we got it this far was just like it. So amazes me like how you know we just didn’t give up and we just kept going so ah. It was just quite an an amazing journey. There.

Alejandro: Now in your case, you took the ah foot of the gas or fiscal note you know a little bit earlier. You know before the ip I mean now you’re with with nitra which you actually started in October Twenty Twenty one but I guess you know you had a bunch of projects on the side. You know why you were in fiscal node. Mean you you you had that entrepreneurial drive and I’m sure that eventually you know like you were like my god fiscal note is growing like crazy this is becoming more like a corporation type of feeling and you know maybe at that point you know you realized that you had to do something about it. So what? What would you say that really triggered. You you know to to perhaps you know, take a look outside and and think that the grass could be greener. You know somewhere else.

Jonathan Chen: Ah, yeah I think you know as as a founder in general I think most folks are always looking for opportunities and new opportunities and just like not in terms of like job wise but like opportunities in the market right? because like I think in order to start really amazing companies. Um. Ideas are great, but it’s about when you pursue an idea and how ripe the market is right in the timing of everything so that’s like you know you could you could be an amazing like engineer and you could start a Facebook like company now but you probably won’t get anywhere. Um, you really had to do it like in the early 2000 s right? So it’s always like looking for. You know is it the right timeline for a certain certain industry to really dive into um and you know so for nitro specifically I think ah you know I was monitoring. What was happening in the fintech space and I mean I’m sure most people on the podcast know like fintech was like exploding back. You know like 2021 Twenty Twenty and you know crypto definitely accelerated that aspect as well. Um, crypto was insane. You know, backed in. So ah, the next What what generally happens you know when you observe an industry and you observe a huge change that is occurring um is once the technology or a certain trend becomes very general and um reach reaches the masses it tends to verticalize start to verticalize into specific industries.

Jonathan Chen: Um, you can see that with like On- the man back in the early Channel Thousand and Tens First you have very general Ondeman um companies and then it starts to like verticalizing the specific like industries and it’s the same thing with um, just like ah any type of trend in general but fintech was what’s happening now right? so. You know you have companies like braxs ramps Stripe. They’re very general generalized but then you have companies that are starting to take that and then target a specific industry and be the winner in that industry and we or you know for for Nitra I Just felt like the opportunity to um, do this. And for the an issue that we chose in Health care was just too big of an opportunity to miss out On. Um, so I decided to um, unofficially Pursue Nitra because I was technically still at physical notes. Um, and then after the ipo I I took my leave and started to Pursue nitra.

Alejandro: That’s amazing now with Nitra you know for the people that are listening to get it. What ended that up being the business model. How do you guys make money.

Jonathan Chen: So it’s it’s similar it’s it’s saas so basically what nitra is is. We’re building financial services for the healthcare industry so you can think like doctors physicians even the medical suppliers and whatnot so general healthcare industry and we’re building services that are you know corporate card. Ah, financing loans insurance, banking services and really taking what was very ah traditional like most folks in the industry still using traditional banking solutions traditional lending solutions and don’t really have any form of technology or workflow softwares. In their financial workflow. Um, like we’re building basically the next generation of that for this particular industry and um, you know for ah this ah this industry in general I think the ah. It’s kind of similar to fisco you know, given our experience. Ah my experience in the past you know we basically have a kind of Freeman model for our corporate card. They use a corporate card and we make make money on the interchange fee but we also are starting to charge more for our software components because you know we don’t just want to be the finance. um part of the the um ah the experience right? You know your so card. Sure we also want to build software that kind of enhances the financial workflow experience for the doctor for the clinic in charge of subscription as well.

Alejandro: And I guess you know now that you had that experiment with with with with fiscal note Obviously when it comes to putting the band together here and and the team you know the way that you think about hiring employees for an early stage company is completely different for. The time that you’re you know, hiring for later stage companies. Why is that the case.

Jonathan Chen: Um, yeah, you know it’s ah it’s it’s always very tough like hiring. It’s sometimes hit and miss and you know I’ve been hiring for 10 years and it’s you just it’s you’re not always, you’re just never going to get it right? like hundred percent of time and. I think for for me, there’s a couple of things I look for right like a course like skillset is kind of like a prework isite I think you definitely you know skillset you could test for like for engineers you you know, coding ability all these things. Um for sales like your ability to to close clients. But really, it’s about 1 thing I look for is about attitude. And the um, the understanding of what you just got yourself into is extremely important. So the probably the best story I have for this and in particular is at Fisco Nots ah you know we hired really stellar people and it was pretty much in hindsight that we kind of found this out because like. Our company after the first year at fiscal notes we were run out of cash and we pulled everyone aside and we had to tell them hey we’re running out of cash. Can you take a huge pay cut ah and and or like take 0 pay and it was a very tough conversation and we had about 12 employees then um, this is at fiscal note. Um, early days and every single 1 employees said that they would take the pay cut and they believe in us and they believe in the company. Um, and you know they did and it was really it was really awkward somewhere I would tell you that um because no one got paid but then we eventually pulled it off. We raised like a bridge round that led to a massive series a of $7,000,000 and then we backpaid everybody.

Jonathan Chen: But really, it’s about employees that and folks when you bring on the company like it’s not about the good times like everyone’s happy in the good times right? But like what that really tests is like when you think about to yourself when you’re about to hire this person is if there’s a bad time happening if if there’s apothelypic. Apocalyptic event. What would this person do right? like will this person just leave us and just be ah goodbye this company’s failing right? and to me like I always ask this question every time I interview somebody like what do I think this person will do will this person stay will this person would hustle harder and try to make sure that we all survive and. You know, get to the next stage because like that’s truly what I’m looking for like skill set is 1 thing but like it’s the tenacity and like um your ability to take on huge amounts of stress and uncertainty in in terrible times.

Alejandro: And for Nitra. For example, you know I’m sure that the amount of experiences and listen and lessons learned with fiscal note you know was pro and Bo you. So I guess with Nitra. You know when you guys were thinking about tactical ways to be able to achieve product Market Fit Faster. You know how did you guys think about that.

Jonathan Chen: Um, yeah, um, it’s ah it’s very interesting I think you know for us. It’s truly about how fast I mentioned this earlier like how fast you can pump out certain features and how close you can get with customers. Um, ideally in the beginning you want to have. Just 1 or 2 customers that are like your champions. So like even just one that you just started with one customer and I know a lot of people in the corporate environment. They tell you hey you got to interview 10 customers find similarity similarities you know and then you know find out the tradeoffs of what what you’re building and then build the right thing. Ah, that’s great in large companies. But I think in smaller companies. There’s a lot more uncertainty and you just want to make a customer happy and you start building for 1 or 2 customers. Even this is very specific because what will happen over time is you’ll start to build ah something for the general masses. But it’s hard to it’s like it’s like it’s it’s like a dilemma where you like you want to build something where a lot of people will use it and you feel like it will um, be relevant for like you know 10 twenty thirty or 100 different customers. But the dilemma is you have to get to talk to a hundred different customers who potentially will be customers but in the beginning. You know you you only have the opportunity you really taught the 1 or 2 if you want to get it out fast enough and start getting revenue. So by advice generally I mean what what we did is like we started off with just a few customers. Um, find out what the issues are and generally ah some of them sometimes they overlap sometimes they don’t but.

Jonathan Chen: What happened is your product would start to evolve to a point where the next customer you taught to you know, 80% of the problem is already solved you like hey we were to solve this and they’ll tell you the next 20% and it keeps growing where the and the product becomes more valuable over time and I would not try to try to figure out what are the similarities between you know, like 50 customers and try to build that. I would just incriminatingly build features um to get your product off the ground as quickly as Possible. So and that that’s exactly what we did.

Alejandro: Now I guess a you know another thing to think about in a tactical way is investors because first you need to get the connection and then second you need to get them to invest now one would have thought that it gets easier. You know I say someone that has you know that is. Ah, unicorn founder. You know someone that has built a company worth a billion plus at some point so I guess for you guys. How was this experience second time around you know of taking out your hat and hoping that people are going to throw money in.

Jonathan Chen: Yeah, um I will say it was. It was definitely easier because you remove the um the doubt of credibility where like if you’re a firsttime founder right? like you have to prove to them that you know you’re capable of executing. Um, and then after you prove that then you got to prove that your idea is worth it for them to invest in. So really, you know in the early days at fiscal notes. You know we had to do that or so it’s like getting your foot indoor getting the connections and just getting your name out there just for them to know who you are. That’s like step 1 which ah is just hard in general and and that’s why I say like an accelerator may help because they help you introduce you to generally like investor communities or angelro communities and you can get your Ah yeah, you get your start there. We did pitch like 200 plus investors just to get our c round so it is a. Its like a sales game. You just got a pitch pitch pitch get rid rejected for 99% and you just keep going. Um as a second time founder like I said that’s that part was removed um because we already had the connections we you know we just reached out to folks who already knew. But then you know what what I learned about um, investing in general. It’s you know team and you know the founder is definitely an extremely important for sure and um, if the investor believes in your ability to execute. But I think the most important thing and I think isn’t isn’t set enough. Um, as general advice for people who are trying to get investment.

Jonathan Chen: Number 1 thing you want to do is you want to align with the philosophies and beliefs of the investors now what this essentially means is um, ah you have to be building towards a vision. That’s you know the investor you’re talking to whether it’s a Vc firm angel whatever. Um. It has to align with what they believe is the future right? If they think you know Ai something about Ai is the future and you’re pitching that exact thing you have a much higher chance of getting that investment for us with nitra. It was actually fairly. Um. Ah, we you know we were extremely fortunate where you know we this is very analytical on our part. Um, we were looking at the fintech industry um predicting that it would verticalize into healthcare and various other industries as well and you know what’s you know our philosophies and my prediction. Align with all our investors. They all believe that you know virtualization of fintech was happening and it was happening in this decade and healthcare was also being disrupted and there’s a lot of things that helping happening in healthcare and that’s you know that’s why they invested in Nitra. So if you’re able to get that alignment like that’s when the investment happens. And it’s not about like oh you have a good idea. That’s great. Maybe investor may think you have a good idea but they don’t they don’t have you know they didn’t really do any research in the industry. They don’t have any predictions or philosophies about the future of that industry. You’re not really going to get the investment even if they think you’re a stellar founder sometimes.

Jonathan Chen: So like 1 you know you got to prove your credibility somehow right? and then 2 you got to align with the philosophies of the investor.

Alejandro: Now for you guys with Nitra How much money have you guys raised to date.

Jonathan Chen: So with Nitro we raised about sixty Ish million dollars part equity part debt. Um, and ah it was a massive round I I know you know we were at the tail end of the the fundraising. Um. Craziness of 2021 so we we got lucky there before everything crashed in 2022.

Alejandro: So obviously with investors you know vision is a big one so they were thinking about vision now and let’s say you were to go to sleep to an night and you wake up in a world where the vision of nitro is fully realized what does that world look like.

Jonathan Chen: Yeah, ah, this is pretty crazy but for us like we are in the fintech space I’m sure but more so in the healthcare space. We think the bigger opportunity isn’t healthcare care and and I’m sure. Um, for folks who potentially in healthcare space. You know the biggest company is in healthcare. Folks like you know mckesson Carnal Health Henry Shine they’re all when you think about they’re all like medical suppliers. They’re all you know in the medical supply space and and that space is just massive like hundreds of billions if not a trillion dollar you know industry in itself. Um, and yet. These these traditional players that I’m talking about here. You know they’re still doing things that are just not up to today in terms of technology. You know their solutions are very traditional. Um and we want to I hate using this this word but we want to disrupt this entire workflow. Um, and really be the next mckesson be the next carnal health and this is moving beyond fintech you know we’re starting off in fintech and we want to own the entire financial stack of the healthcare space but beyond that like how else can you expand? Well you know going into more workflows and. Um, the medical supply space and um, you know, get into the territory that is you know caral health mckesson and really be kind of the the Amazon of of healthcare.

Alejandro: So let’s shift from future to past. So let’s say you know now we we go to the past but we do it with a ledge of reflection I put you into a time machine and I bring you back in time back in time to that moment that you were still in the university of Maryland. Think what the hell to do with your life right? What was going to happen next and and let’s say you know you have the opportunity of having a chat with that younger Jonathan Chen: and you’re able to give your younger self one piece of advice before launching a company. What would that be and why given what you know now.

Jonathan Chen: Um, ah I mean that’s a good question There’s far so much I want to say um the biggest I think you know probably the biggest thing um is essentially. what you what you want to do is um I know this sounds very ah cliche and it’s it sounds cliche and but it’s really hard to do in the moment is you kind of just you you got to get to a point where you’re numb to rejection you’re numb to like. Bad things happen around you and I wish I I was numb to that much earlier because they definitely want to save the um me a lot of a time and just like frustration and stress I think it’s just like you know, put yourself in situations where there’s. More uncertainty and try to power through it as early as you can um and you know there’s a reason why like ah when you you firefight pretty much every day as a startup founder like in every especially if you’re a Ceo right? You’re firefighting every department if you’re cto is just tech. What not I think. Putting yourself in challenging situations where it’s uncertain and you’re extremely stressful more often will prepare you for that of you know the war zone of of startups. Um, so my advice to myself you know is like ah you know don’t be afraid of rejection. Just.

Jonathan Chen: Keep going and don’t let affect you emotionally because like you know if things are affecting you emotionally it affects the business if you’re more level ah level headed and more practical about things get reject and move on to next thing you’re going to execute much faster and I wish in the early days like like I said for first two years like man it was. Motion roller coaster. Yeah, firefighting out time and not knowing the way the company would survive I think nowadays like we firefight lot I mean it’s a startup but it’s expected and I kind of just power through it and like I know I’m gonna solve the issue like there’s always an issue that comes along and my mindset now is oh. Another issue we’ll solve it my minds back then it like shit is a company. Go die. Oh crap is coming and die and I think you know that wastes a lot of time in general and you worry yourself and you worry your teammates around you and um, if you just tell yourself hey we’re gonna do it. You just power through it like it’s nothing like That’s what I do now and I wish I had that much earlier.

Alejandro: I love that. So why Jonathan Chen: for the people that are listening that will love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so.

Jonathan Chen: Yeah, um, you know you know my company is nitra.com um my content is just Jonathan Chen: Nitra Dot Com I also have Linkedin my handler is or my user name is hackford h a c k b y r d ah. And you can reach out to me on Linkedin as well. Um, and I’m happy to connect.

Alejandro: Amazing, well easy novel Jonathan Chen: thank you so much for being on the deal maker show today has been and on earth to have you with us.

Jonathan Chen: Yeah, Thank you so much for you know, having me as well and really, really, really good questions and you know I wish for all those who are listening I Wish you best luck I Know the journey is hard and it’s Lonely. Hopefully you’re with friends I was with friends which made it a lot Better. Um. And you know I know you’ll be super successful. Just don’t give up and and keep going.

* * *
If you like the show, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. And if you got any value either from this episode or from the show itself, share it with a friend. Perhaps they will also appreciate it. Also, remember, if you need any help, whether it is with your fundraising efforts or with selling your business, you can reach me at al*******@pa**************.com

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | RSS | More