Kevin Lee

7/ If you find yourself doing something you didn’t ask for and complaining about it, reframe your mind. You will look back years later and thank yourself for putting your head down, learning this skill set, and doing the job properly. #yourfutureself

6/ What my ungrateful ass failed to realize over a decade ago was that my business organization leaders gave me the privilege and opportunity to learn a skill set that would pay off for the rest of my life. And w/o that skill set, I’d be utterly useless right now.

5/ 7 years later, I once again find myself working with my co-founder (who is x more experienced with video than I am) to film + edit content for our company that we’ll be using for a variety of marketing purposes. We’ll outsource later but have to do it a few times ourselves.

4/ 2 years later, an alumni at Goldman Sachs needed some videos made for a Goldman/Stanford Education Conference. I was selected along 3 other much more qualified media tech friends to produce these videos. The other 3 team members carried but I learned a lot.

3/ The end result was a few decently edited videos and an awesome alumni video that allowed graduating alumni to pay tribute to the organization. I thought that would be the end of it.

2/ I thought it was a joke at first. I also thought I was terribly unqualified. That semester was a rapid learning curve of getting adapted to using a video camera, learning how to take various shots, and crudely video editing on my MacBook.

1/ When I was a sophomore in college, I was in a business organization that decided to make me the chair of the media technology team. I was ungrateful, spoiled, and furious. Filming and editing videos? I had 0 experience and frankly no personal interest at the time.

When a food brand transcends into a lifestyle. This works (instead of being corporate lame) because they have an excellent product leading to a cult following. Popeyes crispiness and flavor >>> KFChttps://twitter.com/PopeyesChicken/status/1222547781891645440 …

One of the easiest things we created for the company early on was a separate Slack group with private channels for each external party like our vendors, agencies, freelancers. Helps us streamline communication without any data leakage amongst parties.

A close friend spent the past 9 years completely re-hauling his family business in one of the slowest moving industries. Last week, he orchestrated the sale of all business assets that created multi-generational wealth for his family. Nothing sexy about it. Just hard work.

There is a difference between being successful and being proud. When you die, all that matters is the pride that you have in your heart and the people that love you.

7/ All of our angels have been INCREDIBLY helpful - in so far as sitting down with us for hours at a time to do deep-dives into tactical parts of the business.

6/ I no longer find myself giving that old advice (especially in the early stages), as I've seen firsthand the power that a large group of angels can provide when it comes to hands-on support, connections, and time.

5/ I was previously taught to give advice to founders in the early stages that you generally want to avoid party rounds because no single person will be invested enough in your success.

4/ "At Okta, Kerrest says that notion is largely over-blown. When he and cofounder Todd McKinnon were building their identity management startup they took public in 2017, they turned to other founders, like the entrepreneurs behind marketing software maker HubSpot, for help."

3/ "Raise from too many angels, and you run the risk of many people being interested in your success as no more than a hobby or second job, with no one person or group stepping in for critical decisions or time-sensitive advice."

2/ "A traditional knock, or at least limitation, of angel investing has been that a group of individuals won’t provide as much hands-on help, or accountability, as a firm that has made a significant financial commitment to a startup, often joining its board of directors."

Blood, sweat, and tears was always a figure of speech until my co-founder and I masochistically decided to do a CPG company. Now I can honestly use that phrase in conversations with my grandchildren without exaggerating.