How do you build a high-growth company while staying true to your values? In this episode of Not Another CEO Podcast, David Politis sits down with Jindou Lee, the founder and CEO of HappyCo, a company transforming property management through innovative technology.
Jindou shares his journey from graphic designer to entrepreneur, discussing the challenges of hiring and firing, scaling a business, and learning the rules of the fundraising game. He also reflects on his personal experiences, from his childhood in Australia to launching a successful SaaS company, and offers candid insights on what it takes to build a resilient organization.
Takeaways:
Culture & Core Values: Jindou stresses the importance of defining company values early. He shares how HappyCo identified its core values and evolved them over time to ensure they remain relevant as the company scales.
Hiring & Firing with Intention: Building a strong team requires making tough decisions. Jindou reflects on his journey from hesitating to fire underperforming employees to realizing that removing a poor fit benefits both the individual and the organization.
Lessons in Rapid Growth & Downsizing: Jindou explains how the company became more efficient while continuing to grow revenue, proving that success isn’t about headcount but about having the right people in the right roles.
Building with the Customer in Mind: Jindou explains why deeply understanding the end user’s needs has been critical to HappyCo’s success. He shares how small design tweaks—like increasing button sizes—can make all the difference.
Fundraising is a Game: Jindou learned that fundraising is a game with rules that founders must understand. He shares hard-earned lessons about negotiating terms, dealing with investor pressure, and securing critical last-minute funding.
Quote of the Show:
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jindou/
Twitter: https://x.com/jindoulee
Website: https://happy.co/
Ways to Tune In:
Spotify:
Apple Podcasts:
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7c6328f0-9b42-41db-8fe2-d263b4fbb261
Transistor: https://podcast.notanotherceo.com/
#NotAnotherCEO #BusinessSuccess #HappyCo
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:33 What You’d Do Again As CEO
6:16 Experiences Shaping Values
12:31 Navigating Growth and Downsizing
20:49 The Importance of Customer-Centric Design
31:26 Fundraising Realities and Challenges
35:04 Navigating Term Sheets and Legalities
43:09 Biggest Challenges at HappyCo
47:20 Visions for the Future
49:44 Jindou’s Background and Upbringing
53:39 Career Beginnings and Lessons Learned
58:57 One Piece Of Advice
59:48 Outro
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Jindou: everything, it's a game with rules and you have to understand how to play the game and how to play within the rules of the game.
[00:00:07]
[00:00:32] David: Today's guest is a unique blend of visionary operator and hustler a Multi time entrepreneur who 13 years ago set his sights on Revolutionizing how property management is done He took the pains he experienced as a real estate investor and landlord and turned that into a passion for creating a better experience around multifamily apartment management He's raised over 70 million dollars to go after that vision [00:01:00] And today his company works with more than half of the top 50 Largest property managers in the world and his company is changing the way millions of units are being managed across north america And beyond please welcome founder and ceo of happy co Jindu Lee
[00:01:20] Jindou: Hello, hello. I should take you with me everywhere. That's the best intro I've ever gotten in my life. So
[00:01:26] David: Good good. Well, you can share it with your friends and family, you know
[00:01:30] Jindou: I will I will
[00:01:32] David: Okay, great first question as you know first question I ask everyone what's the one thing you've done at happy co big or small That's had the biggest impact and you'll do again if you're CEO of another company in the future. I
[00:01:46] Jindou: really thought long and hard about this, this, um, this question, but I think there's probably like, uh, it's a two part answer. Uh, you know, I don't like conforming. So I'm going to be a two part answer. that the, the first thing it always comes down to [00:02:00] for us, like distilling your culture and your core values, right?
[00:02:03] So really coming, coming together with your team and defining what your core values are, how you live your life, how you want to act with that when you're like, they always say like, uh, Yeah. Culture and core values of how you act when no one is watching. And so how do you distill that into something where everyone go, Oh, I get it is how we want to act.
[00:02:20] So I think that was like key component of that. But the second part is actually protecting the culture and core values that you've created. And I think that's the harder part, right? Because that's actually the tactical, the day to day grind. Um, and so when I, when I, when I talk about protecting the culture, it really, I've learned is there's probably Two tools that you can use.
[00:02:44] One is hiring and the other one is firing. And, and why that's important is like, you you want to make sure that you have, you're interviewing, you're looking for the right thing. So hiring correctly, trying to find the best fit for your [00:03:00] organization. The challenge to that is what I've learned is like. You just don't know until someone starts working with you, right? It's like, it's like dating. You just don't know until you start dating and maybe living together. Oh, the toothbrush isn't put on the right side of the sink or whatever. But I think that's where the, the, the firing thing comes in pretty handy.
[00:03:18] You hear this very often from, you know, all the great successful CEOs in the world, like, you know, higher, higher, slow, fire, fast. man, it's, it's a lesson that I still learn today, but if someone. If someone really breaks the, the core values and the culture of what you're trying to do, like you have to let that person go.
[00:03:40] And, and I think what I've learned is I had a lot of guilt with that in the early days. Uh, but what I learned is if you're not happy with someone and how they're acting, are that person is not very happy where they are as well. We all know it and we all just can feel it. And it's almost like just letting that person go and [00:04:00] find an organization or a place where they can be themselves. Um, so. know if I'm just lying to myself, but I feel like great comfort in that, in that essentially.
[00:04:08] David: Want to go that what you just said I feel is the I believe what you what you just said I believe So much that in the beginning part of my career, I'm not sure I believed it as time has gone on and I've worked with more people, hired, fired more people. I agree with that, like the people who aren't doing well, it's not good for them either.
[00:04:32] If they're not doing well, for whatever the reason, they're not going to advance. They're not going to actually achieve anything that they probably want to achieve. And I think that is a really hard, I mean. Firing is still hard, but if you really think about that like It does make it something where you say the longer I extend this
[00:04:56] Jindou: Hmm.
[00:04:57] David: the longer I'm prolonging this this this [00:05:00] pain
[00:05:00] Jindou: Yeah. And, and, you know, like a lot of the times. It's actually like a slow death and it eats away at both, both you and that candidate. Right. And I think that's the, that's the, the crappiest part about it is that if you don't have that frank, honest, candid conversation early on, then you don't, you know, a, I think giving that person an opportunity to course correct. Because we don't know what good looks like, and unless you tell me, I can't read your mind. I think that's important, but after having that conversation, you know, once or twice, you're like, Hey, this is not working out, um, for these, these particular reasons. And it's best just to like on. Um, but you know, it's, it's easy to say from my seat, right?
[00:05:43] But at the end of the day, you're, you're really, you're messing with people's like ego, right? Their, their sense of belonging and, and, and you're messing with their, their, it's their livelihood. Like, I don't know. Right. I remember when I was younger in my career. [00:06:00] had like 5, 000 in my bank account at any time.
[00:06:02] David: hmm Mm
[00:06:03] Jindou: lost my job, how would I pay rent the month after? And, and so I can, I can completely empathize. And I'm like, man, it's a really not a great position for both people, but in the long run, it's better. So,
[00:06:16] David: hmm. How do you when you talk about distilling down the values? Did you do that day one? I mean you started the company day one you you wrote that down when did that happen?
[00:06:28] Jindou: yeah. So, um, how it came about, this is like my first job in my career. Um, I was working for this company. And I got essentially got bullied by the, um, my supervisor, my manager and the founders of this company is a small web development agency. They were bullying, you know, they were just like really crappy people, you know, and they're just like, it was a horrible place to work.
[00:06:51] I used to cry at my desk.
[00:06:52] David: No.
[00:06:54] Jindou: For the whole, like the last six months, my time there every day, I'll go to work, put on my headphones, put on [00:07:00] Eminem, get really angry then start tearing up. And it was like, it was like a jail, right? So I've been on the other side and I know exactly what it feels like for some people. Um, anyway, so I left that organization. It was a great company. I left the organization and then I joined another company in the video gaming industry. And the day, day one, I went into work, I was a graphic designer, so I basically created a script to a thousand images took me like 30 minutes, right? My manager, he wasn't even my manager, he was just the guy who was managing another team, came up and said, Good job buddy. And he is American because I was in Australia, right? He's, he is American. He's like, good job. And he's a New Yorker. Uh, so, so he is like, this is awesome. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
[00:07:42] I don't, I don't like this praise. What is happening here? Um, and, and I just realized, you know, both companies were very successful. Both were founders of both companies were, were Like they, they, they're smart, intelligent, it to make money and be successful. [00:08:00] doesn't matter how you act, you could act a certain way or you can act like a douchebag and act like the most generous person on earth is actually a choice. so I remember like thinking, man, if I start a company one day, I want to, I want to make it a choice to be a good person and good actor and what I think is good. Um. And the money will just come in the end. So fast forward, what happened was when we started happy co, um, I start, I didn't know how to create core values in culture, right?
[00:08:28] Because I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't like from the corporate world. I remember just reading a book and I read a lot and there was one that stood out, which was, um, the journey to Mars or mission to Mars. I don't know if you ever done that, right? So it's essentially like, um, Hey, if you're gonna, the world is coming to an end, you're going to go to Mars and you have to repopulate Mars.
[00:08:47] Yeah. talking, saying this out loud sounds a little bit wrong, but yeah, you're going to populate Mars. Um, who are you going to bring? You can choose 10 people in your company to, you know, to go populate [00:09:00] Mars. And so my co founder and I, we brought 10 folks. Um, we identified 10 people, which So I had the right core values.
[00:09:08] We just felt right with them, the right people we wanted to replicate duplicate, and we went offsite and we just had all these posts posted notes and kind of just wrote down what we, what we felt was, um, what did we want from the organization? What's the culture and then what do we currently have? And what we do not want to get, you know, let go. And the trick to this is you get rid of all the aspirational stuff, right? And then you just focus on like the items that we have today and we want to continue to, to, um, to, to nourish and, and all that. So, so we, we came up with like 10 or so core values, then my co founder and I aside and we picked, you know, Five of them that we really liked and we thought embodied everything from that list of 10. Um, and that became our core values. We did that probably about, um, when we were about [00:10:00] 20, 30 people in the
[00:10:01] David: Wow.
[00:10:02] Jindou: Probably about year two, year three. Yeah,
[00:10:05] David: Great. That exercise. What's so good about that exercise is you have the people in the room. Not you. Because I have talked to a lot of CEOs who say, Well, I just came up with the values. You know, or me and my co founder came up with the value. But actually, How you just described that is, is really good because you're bringing the people in the room who embody those values.
[00:10:34] Have
[00:10:42] Jindou: to me, people don't even know I'm the CEO. Like, they'll think I'm like an engineer, right? Because the Asian good looks right? Yeah, you're an engineer. So and my, my, my way of leading, I'm not very good at just forcing down.
[00:10:54] Like, I don't have that kind of. Personality. So I thought like, and my co founder was the same. He was more an engineer, you [00:11:00] know, um, techie, smart guy. And we felt like the only way to really do this was to let your level down. Like they're the ones that are going to recreate, sorry. to recreate like that next level of people.
[00:11:14] They're going to hire people in their image. And that's how we do it. We hire people in our image because that's, that's what we think good looks like. Um, So that's what, that's what we do. We just thought, let's let, let that level, but our job is to be able to curate who was in that 10. Um, so that's what we did.
[00:11:30] David: you changed those values since you did that exercise?
[00:11:34] Jindou: Uh, yeah. So we use a system called EOS and, um, the entrepreneur operating system. And as part of that, every year EOS, you kind of look at your core values, you revisit
[00:11:46] David: Oh,
[00:11:47] Jindou: you say, do we still live by these? We want to modify, edit, change. I'd say like of the five, we still have three of them, um, till today.
[00:11:56] And then we've added, uh, we've, we've modified two of them, um, and [00:12:00] updated two of them.
[00:12:00] David: got it.
[00:12:01] Jindou: I don't know if that's the right or wrong way. I know some people like, Hey, these things never change. Um, I guess that's the designer in me, right? There's no sort of black or white, just all 50 shades of gray.
[00:12:13] David: Mm hmm.
[00:12:13] Jindou: and, and, and I think to me, I'm like, well, the organization is shifting and changing. Um, You know, like we want to just make sure that we're living our core values. And so we kind of modify it slightly. It's the essence is still the same. It's just the wording is slightly different. And the examples are different.
[00:12:29] David: I like it So let's keep on the people front, you know, one of the things we've met a couple of times now and you know Your business has grown revenue wise a lot customer wise a lot and people wise It did go through some crazy growth periods and then also Periods where you really you shrunk the team, you know And from what I gather the business is growing pretty [00:13:00] well with the team not growing at the same pace now um And i'm curious what your take is on that meaning, you know, is that Have you learned something through this process, you know, and i'm sure a lot but
[00:13:17] Jindou: Yeah, a, it's a, um, I've learned a lot during this, this, um, recent phase of our growth. Uh, you know, we, we added a hundred people in a nine month, um, span, nine, 12 month span.
[00:13:32] David: was basically doubling, right? I mean, that essentially doubling in nine months.
[00:13:36] Jindou: exactly. And then we, um, give you some context. We, then we shrunk. We, we had to do a riff, which was painful.
[00:13:42] We got rid of 60 people in the company. and then for the last 12 months we've steadied our head count, but we've essentially like. You know, it grew the business by 30 percent by just, but we steadied the headcount. We
[00:13:55] David: Wow.
[00:13:56] Jindou: hires, there was churn and we kind of replaced people. [00:14:00] Um, but my, my, you know, my thesis, or at least the way I was thinking about it was, I don't know if you watched that movie, is it five, 300, the movie
[00:14:08] David: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:14:10] Jindou: 300, you know, Spartans can, can take over the world. Right. And, and I was always like, what if we could just bring in the best people? Um, because every additional headcount, you bring in ads, complexity, and I think it's just really hard. You have to manage new personalities, right? And I think that's where large organizations, at least when I've spoken to a lot of people that work for large corporate America.
[00:14:34] Actually, I met one, uh, a CEO of a really large company of 4, 000, 5, 000 people. And I asked him, like, Hey, what do you think about your, your You know, your, your workforce and he goes, Oh yeah, half of them are really, really good. Like a players and the other half are really bad. Like D E players. And he goes, I just don't know which half, and so it just, you know, as a company, as [00:15:00] the organization grows, you, you're less in touch, right.
[00:15:02] With every single person. And so I just thought like, what if we could just, you know, bring in the, like, make sure we, we maintain the high standard, um, and really just keep. You know, keep a players in the organization, right? That, yeah, so that's what I kind of was thinking about. So, really like the last 12 months has just been figuring out who, you know, what sort of, what, what do a players look like?
[00:15:32] David: Mm-hmm
[00:15:35] Jindou: uh, have conversations with people that are falling below the grade so that they can, you know, reach course, correct? Because some people were a players when we were smaller, but when you grow, like It's hard. It's a different company. It looks the same, same name, same logo, but it's a different company.
[00:15:50] So how do you have that conversation with them? Push them to the next level? Um, if, if they can't get there, then you have to again, have difficult conversations, um, or maybe [00:16:00] layer bringing like another leader or person in that role. And they can kind of, you know, they can't grow with the company that way. so that's the, probably the big thing that I've kind of learned is like, you, you just have to keep the bar really, really high. Uh, but it's really hard to keep the bar high. Yeah.
[00:16:15] David: Do you, do you think that people on the team understand that actually this is impre, like this is a good thing that you're, that you're not growing, but the revenues do, they do. They feel that
[00:16:29] Jindou: Yeah. So this is this. This is the kicker. And I read about this all the time. So I'm like, I hit my slap myself in the face because of it. But, um, the real a players understand that. And in fact, you know, like when we did that, um, riff, we had a lot of people that was super sad. I was super sad. We, we, we had to riff people that we actually really like to hang out with, like good people, know, and some of them were actually pretty good.
[00:16:53] Like, uh, like there were B plus, maybe some of them even a players actually, if I would be honest. yeah. [00:17:00] But 12 months later, I get, I talked to everyone in the organization and they're like, Hey, that was the best call we did. You know, like I, today I can do my work. I, I, I'm surrounded by other people that are as passionate as me that, you know, get shit done. Um, that really push, push the envelope and I don't have to like carry them anymore. I, and everyone is put, you know, challenging each other, making sure we're getting to the next level. Um, so I think. What I've learned as a, as a leader, it's, it's kind of our job to, you know, to choose the best team and make sure you don't have like that are not bringing the team up. Um, but yeah, they, they definitely have seen the, the. Everyone was so skeptical when we did the riff where like, they're like, Hey, we, we can't even operate with all these people. How are we going to do it with like, know, 60 less people.
[00:17:53] David: right.
[00:17:54] Jindou: I'm like, dude, this is awesome. And I think what we've done is we've focused a lot on like automation or how do we [00:18:00] automate tasks?
[00:18:00] How do we just not think about adding a body, adding another body? Cause that's, that's the. the cop out way or I just, yeah, I just, we need more people and sometimes you need it. But what we found is, yeah, don't just keep adding bodies
[00:18:12] David: I, what's interesting, you know, when I, when I think about my time at any company, I would interview people, especially more junior people earlier in their career. And I always, people would say, so how do you think, you know, what's the growth look like in the coming year or two years? And I would say like, Oh, you know, I think we're probably going to get, you know, double in revenue, whatever they're like, no, no, but how many people will we add?
[00:18:33] And I would say, Oh, I mean, hopefully not too many, you know, like maybe 10, 50, whatever. And they'd say, Oh, you're not going to grow a lot. Is it something wrong, you know people and I think that's just associated at least In my view like more people equals better more people equals more growth more people equals more opportunities and then we had an advisor who was at a he was cto of this company that One of the most profitable [00:19:00] companies of all time on a per employee basis and our engineers were asking him So when you were hiring and this he's like My goal was to hire nobody And to be as profitable on a per employee basis as possible.
[00:19:13] And he's like, that's what to be, that's what you should be proud of. Not that you were able to grow the headcount as much as possible. He's like, and by the way, over time, the employees who were there all benefited from the fact that it was so profitable. Hmm.
[00:19:31] Jindou: as, as the company has grown, I've been able to like, um. To influence less and less in the organization. So earlier on, right, if a product broke, I could go in, I could fix stuff, blah, blah, blah, you know, support, get on the support call. Like I could do everything I could sell, you know, but as the company gets bigger, like the opportunities for me to dive into everything is very difficult. and the one thing I've learned is like the one way I can really drive outcomes is by setting the [00:20:00] scorecard,
[00:20:01] you know like, so if I wanted to drive. I don't know, like headcount, headcount growth, then I would have a number which I want everyone to hit, which is headcount growth number. But if I wanted to drive that profitability, I would focus on the metric of, you know, revenue per employee and everyone is. compensated or is looking at that one number as an organization. and I think that's actually the hardest thing to do is to think of the one or two, maybe
[00:20:29] three metrics, right?
[00:20:31] Like what are the most important things and then drop hit that drum beat every single day, but lucky I'm getting older and more senile so I can just remember one thing and just keep repeating it. Uh, man, I, you know, when you're young, you're like, I'll do 10 things. Now I'm like, I can just do one. My brain doesn't as big anymore. Yeah.
[00:20:49] David: you know, your first set of customers. Um, cause you know, you kind of, I would say in some ways almost stumbled into [00:21:00] this business. Um, how did you get your first, let's call it five customers, 10 customers
[00:21:06] Jindou: Yeah. So I, so I have a graphic design background. Um, so I studied graphic design at university. And so I was always been like a UI, UX designer, uh, always designing stuff for video games and all that stuff. And so what happened was, um, I had a, uh, a small company that was a web agency. So we're built. Websites for people sold that made a little bit of money, not a lot. And I started investing in real estate. So I was buying properties in Australia at the time. And then in 2010. I was buying in Cleveland and Memphis in the, in the U S
[00:21:43] David: from Australia.
[00:21:44] Jindou: Yeah. From Australia. It was, it's a, yeah, it's hindsight, I'm like, Oh, that's such a dumb move.
[00:21:50] But you know, like at the time, like I'm so smart. Um, fact, those are still the areas I invest in. Today, those two markets because I think it's I really like those markets because it's
[00:21:59] David: [00:22:00] Wow. Yeah.
[00:22:01] Jindou: middle class, working class, middle class, you know, I find like that's the salt of the earth. People like my parents were middle class.
[00:22:08] I grew up like lower middle class and just people that just bust their ass working, you know, and they want to pay rent on time. They're not trying to do anything dodgy and shady. They just want to bring up a family and I love those markets for it. Um, so yeah. I started investing in property. And, uh, one day my property managers said to me, Hey, we, we had the, the tenants skip town. So we need you to, you know, like give us more money to fix your properties. And I was like, wait, why? Like, don't you have the before and after, like, don't you take photos of the property? And they said, Oh, well, well, we should, but we don't, you know, like excuses. I'm like, Oh my God, like, what do you guys use?
[00:22:44] And like, well, we use, know, we use these like older pieces of software, like Yardy at the At that stage. Um, and, and Yadi. At that time, 2010, they had no mobile. They actually had a mobile app, but it wasn't very easy to [00:23:00] use. So I took a look at it and I'm like, oh man, no wonder you can't take photos easily. So I made some screenshots on an iPad one. The iPad one just came out, made some screenshots, and I just rang 20 property management companies and I said, Hey, I've got this idea for a app to do inspections. What do you think? Can I come show it to you? of them
[00:23:20] David: Just cold. I just want to be cold calls. Like
[00:23:22] Jindou: Picked up the yellow pages at that stage.
[00:23:25] David: really?
[00:23:26] Jindou: had yellow
[00:23:26] David: Yeah. Of course.
[00:23:27] Jindou: management. I just rang them. And, um, the 20, I think about two of them were that my property managers in the, in the U S that managed my, my property. So I just spoke to people about it. Everyone said, come in, show it, show me what you've built or a building. So I went in and I demoed screenshots and they look like real, a real app because we designed it to look like a real app. Uh, people,
[00:23:49] David: There's pre pre figma pre anything like, yeah.
[00:23:53] Jindou: a photo and you just bring the photo app. Um, and then that stage, I think people weren't as [00:24:00] knowledgeable about vapor way and screenshots, you know, cause it just wasn't like there wasn't Figma. So. 19 of the people, actually everyone I saw was like, Hey, this is amazing. I'm going to be so happy. My property manager is gonna be happy. My owner is gonna be landlords can be happy. You know, now we've got documentation, blah, blah, blah. And so we thought, huh? And then the next question they asked was like, when can we use it?
[00:24:22] And I'm like, Oh, this is not real. And they're like, but okay. I'm like, how much would you pay for it? They're like, I don't know. So we just said, why 50 bucks a month for unlimited usage? Dumb move, but I know what he was doing. So we had 20 people I visited sign a contract to use the app that we didn't even have yet. So that's how we started the company. My co founder was working in another video gaming company. And I just said to him, he used to work for me in the last company I sold. So I said to him, Hey, can you, um, build this, you know, like. After work,
[00:24:59] David: [00:25:00] Yeah.
[00:25:00] Jindou: guess so. And so he's charging me like 20 bucks an hour just to code this, this app.
[00:25:05] Um, and that's how we basically got started. We,
[00:25:08] David: Wow.
[00:25:09] Jindou: started that way. Yeah.
[00:25:10] David: How many of those customers are still customers today?
[00:25:14] Jindou: Wow. Um, I would say like maybe like four, four of them are still, still today.
[00:25:19] David: did they really build the product with you? You know, you know, were they, um, cause this is an industry like a little different than like if you're selling to dev ops or like to mark, you know, yeah,
[00:25:31] Jindou: build for
[00:25:31] David: yeah, yeah.
[00:25:32] Jindou: Um, the interesting thing is because I had an agency and because I'm a graphic designer. The only way I know how to build stuff is to talk to people and to ask what they do and follow them and do stuff. So in a way, I, I, so I followed the, the inspectors or the property managers in the field.
[00:25:50] And, and this is one of the earliest things I did. So I followed this guy, um, he was a maintenance guy and you know, like
[00:25:58] David: Like physically you were there with him, [00:26:00] I mean physically you were there.
[00:26:01] Jindou: how he's using this like, uh, we, we had a test flight version. So it was just like a prototype that we gave
[00:26:06] David: Mm hmm.
[00:26:06] Jindou: like, Hey, go, go and do some inspections.
[00:26:08] Let us follow you around. So he walked around and then he was just struggling on this screen. And I'm like, Oh God, he doesn't know how to use an iPad. And I kind of look closer and I realized that he had massive sausage fingers. Like his fingers were three times the size of mine. we had made the slider small, the hit state really small.
[00:26:29] So he was trying to like tap on it and slide it. He just couldn't. And I'm like, Oh my God, we need bigger buttons. And, and so we went back to drawing board. Um, what I did was my co founder were like, Hey, can, can you make the hit state bigger? Let's make everything bigger, dopier, simple, easier to use. Um, and then if you look at like. I don't know, 2000, circa 2012, 13, you look at inspection apps, all of them looked a certain way until we came on the scene and we started making these big dopey buttons. And [00:27:00] today, if you look at every inspection, it has the big dopey buttons. Like we, if you, yeah, we kind of started that trend. Um, but it's just one of those things where you're, you know, a lot of times you build software, you don't think about the end user yourself, especially enterprise.
[00:27:14] You're selling to the executive
[00:27:15] David: Yes, yes, yeah.
[00:27:18] Jindou: We were fortunate. We started with the end user and then worked our way up. And I think that was our secret source in the early days. So we did work with our customers on that and then slowly iterated on the
[00:27:29] David: One, one of my biggest breakthroughs probably in my career and companies was exactly how you're describing sitting with IT people watching over their shoulder as they did their job. And to what you just said, I think it's just something that a lot of entrepreneurs don't do. A lot of founders don't do, you know, and, and it's, and actually.
[00:27:53] In one hour watching this one person do their job. I was like, whoa Like [00:28:00] this is crazy. You have a hundred fifty tabs opening Chrome and you're clicking between and then referencing this spreadsheet I'm like, what if I just put it for you in one UI and they're like, oh that would change everything and you're like Okay, you know and it's like the same the same kind of thing where it's like just being with the like actually physically Being with the customer and watching them work
[00:28:23] I mean, you can change an industry, literally. You can change
[00:28:27] Jindou: And I think that's why it's, um, you know, in our industry we're selling typically to like the end users, the maintenance guy. And I think it's like, no, like, no, who wants to sit with a maintenance person? You know,
[00:28:39] David: mm-hmm . Mm-hmm
[00:28:40] Jindou: in marketing, you're sitting with some, you know, in a, in a beautiful corporate
[00:28:44] David: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:45] Jindou: people that are, you know, like all
[00:28:47] David: Mm-hmm
[00:28:47] Jindou: but maintenance is like grimy.
[00:28:49] It's, it's dirty. Um, it's unsexy. Uh, but, but to me, you know, having grown up middle class, like that was my, that's my dad, hang out with your dad, you know, like that, that's [00:29:00] his world. fingers always dirty, he's always, you know, tinkering with something, um, technology he's not great at, but, and he doesn't, he can't learn by readings, like,
[00:29:10] David: Hmm.
[00:29:11] Jindou: he has to learn by very
[00:29:12] David: Doing.
[00:29:13] Jindou: doing, you know, and so, I don't know, I just think, like, it's very interesting, like, we, yeah, you're right, we don't, Um, we don't go, we need to kind of get on the floor and play about kids.
[00:29:24] If that makes sense, you know, you can't put a standing on place. You have to
[00:29:27] David: I love that. I love that.
[00:29:28] Jindou: throwing them around at that level. So anyway, that, that's something that I think we, we, we did right in the beginning and we've continued to, um, do that as we've grown. Um, the one caveat is, you know, if you have people that hasn't grown up in your organization, they come from other organizations, that's not part of their DNA. So you have to like really drum it into them, like go sit with the customer, talk to the
[00:29:53] David: Yes.
[00:29:53] Jindou: like you're great. You've designed for us. Who cares? Um, but that, that's been a [00:30:00] struggle. You know, when I talk about that, that period of growth, that's what we have. We hired and all these people that didn't have that same product focus, customer focus, that passion. Um, and it's hard to train people. To do that. Like, that's why I
[00:30:14] David: No, you have to want to you have to you have to want you have to have that. I think that is in your dna of When i've hired people who have that it just is something You don't have to ask them. Yeah, you don't you know They're kind of like I get to go on site and watch like I can't wait you're like really I can't you know, and that's just something that I think is If you don't want to do it, we had one person.
[00:30:39] He's like, I just love doing user experience tech. Like I just love going with the customer and watching them do stuff. And that just innate, I think.
[00:30:50] Jindou: Well, I think like, I'm, I'm very envious of companies like Amazon who have a great training program.
[00:30:58] David: Hmm.
[00:30:59] Jindou: Smartest [00:31:00] people with no experience and instill this culture, like, like, you know, they have the raise the bar or
[00:31:07] David: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:31:08] Jindou: thing. They have, they have all these, like, they've codified a lot of the processes to take a diamond in the rough and polish it to become a diamond. Um, I'm so envious of companies like that, and I, to what they do that, but it's, yeah, anyway, one day.
[00:31:25] David: Yeah, yeah. So, let's talk about, um, you know, fundraising, right? Because you have raised quite a bit of money, and, uh, you've raised some pretty, uh, great investors. Was it very easy?
[00:31:40] Jindou: Oh, yeah.
[00:31:41] David: To
[00:31:42] Jindou: super simple. Yeah. I just walked into a room and then like
[00:31:45] David: fundraise?
[00:31:47] Jindou: Oh man, like, um, I I really I don't like fundraising and uh, I'll start by saying like fundraising is a very unfair game for founders, right? Because if you [00:32:00] think of a founder our, in, in, in a company, like we may raise three times, four times, five, maybe, maybe six at best.
[00:32:09] Right. And we're coming up against, we're playing a game against people that invest for a living. So they're doing this, I don't know, five, six, seven, 800 times a year. And so they have a very unfair advantage against us as founders. You know, I, I see a lot of early stage founders and myself included, we got, we got bullied. We just didn't know we got bullied. Right. We're like, Oh my God, he's talking to us that, that, you know, uh, the amazing VC company is talking to us. I'm like. Yeah, that's their job, their KPIs,
[00:32:41] David: Exactly, right?
[00:32:42] Jindou: you know, um, so I just think it's a really unfair game, but having said that my, we've tried to raise out, I, started off doing this company, not knowing that you could raise,
[00:32:54] David: Yeah.
[00:32:55] Jindou: I, I remember one day, um, when I first started some, or someone actually [00:33:00] said to me, Hey, uh, can you build Evernote for me, the note taking app, and I'm like, yeah, for sure.
[00:33:05] Like how hard can it be? It's just noise, you know, when the database and you have a mobile app. then I was researching Evernote and they said they raised, I don't know, 30 million or something crazy. Right. I'm like, what? People give you money. Why do you need so much? Um, so I started with not knowing anything.
[00:33:23] So I had to learn everything from scratch. And, uh, we raised, we tried to raise our first round in 2012. it was like maybe nine, 10 months into the business. I probably had about 80 meetings before I had my first yes. was brutal, like, they, like, it's, it's like walking into a bar and all the girls are lining up on the bar, 80 girls lining up, you go to the first one and she's like, nope, guy is too ugly, you go to the next one, nope, too short, nope, too tall, I'm like, God, and it's just like rejection after rejection, um, so I, don't [00:34:00] like fundraising, um, but, but, but over time I realized that everything, it's a game with rules and you have to understand how to play the game and how to play within the rules of the game.
[00:34:11] David: the last part you just said there, the rules of the game, I think the challenge is, I agree with you. It took me till Fundraise 5 to know the rules of the game. And the thing is, is you kind of now have missed out on all the, you know, you've played the game without knowing the rules. For so long, you know, um, I think that's why multi time founders they have such Multi time venture backed founders have such an advantage the second time because they know the rules of the game and From the beginning because to your point if it's not if the beginning You already get bullied which I think happens to probably a hundred percent of first time founders
[00:34:56] Jindou: yeah,
[00:34:57] David: It sets up everything for future [00:35:00] cap table changes, you know, it's it's kind of
[00:35:03] Jindou: exactly. And so one of the lessons I learned, this is, um, so you're bringing, it's all about bringing on the right people at the right stage, having the right team at the right stage. And we were really fortunate because early, uh, business was two years in. And we had an acquisition offer barely doing, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand dollars in ARR.
[00:35:21] And then we had like a, uh, mid teen million dollar acquisition. We, we only raised like 600, 000
[00:35:30] David: Oh my god
[00:35:31] Jindou: Yeah. Right. And so it, it was, uh, we met this, we, my co founder and I, we rejected the offer. Um, partly because we're like, what do we do with money? Like we, our goal is to learn how to build a business and run it, right?
[00:35:47] Like that's what we want to do is like learn how to build a business. Otherwise, like we'll just go from, you know, come like to fraud
[00:35:54] David: Hmm
[00:35:55] Jindou: and just now have lots of money, but then we're like, I don't know what we do with the money. So we decided to know let's, let's [00:36:00] actually build a good business. Um, at that stage it was so naive.
[00:36:03] Let's take it to a million in ARR or whatever. We stayed with it at that stage. We actually met, um, With an attorney who was introduced by a really good friend of mine, um, you know, Suki Singh is like, Hey, you should use this guy, you know, Steve Lee. And so he was helping us navigate the, the acquisition conversation we passed on it.
[00:36:23] And he's like, Hey, I'm happy to be your attorney. He was, he was good. He's like, super responsive, uh, very affordable, great work. and so anyway, so he was like, Hey, you know what? I, I used to work on the VCP side and. I don't like working on that side. So going to help you guys, you know, like navigate this. So fast forward to our next round of funding. Uh, we had a term sheet and the investor gave us this term sheet he's like, yeah, these are the terms. You have to say yes or no. our attorney took a look at it and said, nope, Redline, redline, [00:37:00] redline, redline went back to the, uh, investor and an investor said, these are standard terms.
[00:37:05] You know, these are standard. These are not industry standard. What you're asking is not industry standard. My attorney goes, there's no such thing as industry standard. I learned a really valuable lesson that the, you know, a contract you can, it can edit contracts. the whole point of them. And what, um, know, so going through the exercise, I just learned like. like standard is standard for them, but not for me. And I like it's just a negotiation. Um, the flip the challenges we had in our series a we were running out of cash. We had one we're raising around. We had the investor that was going to commit 5 million bucks, kept drawing out the process. And so our money was our runways was down from I'll say like five months when we started that we get got the yes down to. Three days. We were three days away from [00:38:00] payroll. We, we, I rang the investor and I'm like, Hey, what's going on here? You know, and he, he actually said to me, Oh man, I remember, I remember exactly what I met him as well. Um, in San Francisco, he's like, uh, the Regis, is it the St. Regis,
[00:38:15] David: Yeah, there were same regions, yeah,
[00:38:17] Jindou: there.
[00:38:17] And he's like, we want to do the deal. But instead of the one board seat, we want two board seats now. And I'm like, But that wasn't agreed on. He goes, yeah, he goes, but you know, you have no choice. You know, and said, I have a choice. And I, you know, he gave him the, the flipping the bird off and I left that.
[00:38:38] And I'm like, crap, we have no choice. What did I just do? Um, told my co founder. We're both like, man, you know, I don't know what we do. We had one, um, another previous investor who was like, Hey, I'll put in half a million bucks in the round as well. Had to ring them. They'll build guys from Belgium. I rang them and I said, Hey, Lauren, Patrice, like, um, It's [00:39:00] over, you know, like we're done.
[00:39:01] We have no money. investor I just told him some really in a nice way this we're not gonna take his money I don't know. So thank you for you know, investing and and Laurent was like, oh you do don't worry about it. We will give you 500, 000 we will wire it and I'm like, how about the paperwork?
[00:39:20] Oh, we will figure it out And I was like what just how we were thrown a lifeline And so I
[00:39:27] David: shit
[00:39:28] Jindou: hanging up from the call, my co founder and I were in my junior studio, is that even a thing? A junior studio? A small studio in San Francisco, sitting on our sofa bed couch thing, looking at our monitor and then the bank account ticked over and we had half a million bucks in the bank and we're like, we can live another day.
[00:39:49] David: Wow
[00:39:50] Jindou: was painful.
[00:39:52] David: Wow, what a what a story that you know, I actually what you said there I want to go back to [00:40:00] what you said about the terms because I think that's such an important if if people take actually just one lesson actually if a founder takes one Lesson, there are no real standard terms I mean there are Standard terms, but to your point it is negotiable.
[00:40:15] And and one thing I think founders don't realize is that By the time you've received a term sheet the amount of work that had to happen on the venture side to get approval To give you the term sheet They've had to corral everyone convince everyone give them a whole use business case It's a deal for them.
[00:40:37] Like you said they have their own metrics. They just did all that. They want the conversion rate from From contract out to term sheet out to close. They want that to be high Themselves and so once that you've got the term sheet in your hand it is negotiable You know and and I think that that's the part that people Including [00:41:00] myself.
[00:41:00] You don't really realize you're like, well, those are the terms and they told me those are the terms and that it can't be negotiated. I need the money, so I'm not going to negotiate the terms. When in reality, I'd say most term sheets by multi time founders or who have amazing lawyers, they get negotiated.
[00:41:19] Jindou: Yeah. And yeah, no, I totally agree. I'm going to, uh, share a controversial thought. So you feel free to do what you want with this thought. But, um, you know, Charlie Munger always said, like, show me the incentives. I'll show you the outcome. Right? That's what Charlie Munger used to say. And if you think about the attorney and this whole industry with the attorneys. Customer is the VC is the investor because they get repeat business a lot of repeat the volume repeat Subscription business from the the investor, right? are just the one off transaction to the the the attorney And so what I found [00:42:00] was like a lot of attorneys will tell you it is standard because they don't want to piss off The brand name VCs,
[00:42:06] David: Hmm.
[00:42:08] Jindou: I was fortunate just to work with a guy that just didn't like that world and he saw through it and he's like, I'm going to help you navigate this world. Um, and so I, I understand why it's standard because it's just, you know, a group of them came together.
[00:42:22] David: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:42:23] Jindou: And then with the VCs that backed them and said, Hey, how do we just make this cheaper, easier, like a process and template it? And they came up with things. The VCs got to look at their terms and went, yep, that sounds about right.
[00:42:34] There's enough wiggle room for us to do what we need and give the founders a good deal. Um, so, and, and, but I think as the company gets larger and larger, I think to your point first setting. If you start on the wrong foot, you're in trouble, but as the company gets bigger and bigger, the games get harder and
[00:42:51] David: Yes. Yes. Yes.
[00:42:53] Jindou: and, you know, you move from a VC to a private equity. Oh my God. Like
[00:42:56] David: No more games. No more games.
[00:42:58] Jindou: it's a, it's a, it's [00:43:00] unfair.
[00:43:00] David: Yeah. Um, so, so I think let's, um, uh, let's move kind of the next topic. So the next, the next topic for me is what is the biggest challenge you've ever faced at happy co and, and, and, and, and, yeah, How did you overcome that challenge?
[00:43:22] Jindou: Um, it's always the people for me. Like the people are the hardest, the biggest challenges I always face. And maybe because I err too much on the side of. caring about people. Um, and specifically to me, it's, it's, um, the one, the ones that have just crushed me and hurt me the most in this whole journey. Uh, the that you bring on early in the phase, you know, early in the company's phase, the company grows and we've kind of. And having that really hard conversation, like someone that [00:44:00] you've spent so much blood, sweat and tears in the trenches with and you have to look them in the eye and say, Hey, we have to move on from you. You know, like you, you, you can't help us the next level. Like it's such a blow. It's. You know, and I've had like friendships, relationships that have just been because of that, maybe either not having that conversation early enough, handling it the wrong way, you know, I didn't have that conversation, someone else had the conversation, misinterpretation, or just people that just can't handle the, Hey, you know what, you're actually not supermodel, your model, but you're not supermodel. Oh my God, my looks, I think that's a really hard, um, hardest lesson for me is like just learning how to cope with that, how to have that conversation and just. Yeah, that's been, it's been tough
[00:44:45] David: I think, I think the pain from those conversations, which my sense is in every interview I've done, people have had the same pain. And I think my, my lesson, and I'm sure you as well, after you do it a certain number of times, [00:45:00] you start to realize that having the honest conversation. Um, Earlier or, you know, or, or more often or whatever the case may be, turns out as painful as it feels, ends up paying off so much more down the line where you're saying, Hey, you're amazing.
[00:45:22] You're, you know, we are planning to scale and as we do, and we go to this next level, is this something you really wanted? Is this where you think your skills are the best? And having that conversation earlier, it doesn't necessarily make it. Easier, but I think you can at least avoid The broken French, you know, you could you can avoid some of the level of pain if if if it's like done together I at least that's what what I found Mm hmm
[00:45:54] Jindou: conversation earlier, more frank, more candid, uh, like I could have repaired it. Like I would have [00:46:00] prevented a lot of stuff. We could have moved on quickly. Cause the, the kicker is, um, like there's a guy that was very early with us, probably employee one or number two, maybe, had that tough conversation.
[00:46:12] We didn't speak for four or five years. Then after four or five, he just hated me. And then after four or five years, you know, progressing his career, joined a couple of startups, like had some good exits and other things. And he came back and he said, Hey, you were right. You know, like I was out of my depth.
[00:46:30] You know, I was like, it was just too much of my ego, blah, blah. and you know, like I've have people come out and thank me like for helping them to find the next thing. Um, and so I'm like, Oh, it actually works out well to our earlier conversation about like, Hey, people find like another organization that's more appropriate, the right fit for them. So they end up finding that, but it's really just like how, you know, I wish I had those conversations earlier, but when I was early, especially even now, I still. No, these days, I had that conversation [00:47:00] much earlier now, um, and more, more candid and frank, but earlier on, I just didn't know I was worried to hurt someone, but I ended up hurting them more
[00:47:07] David: Right, right
[00:47:08] Jindou: bringing it on them too late.
[00:47:10] Um, yeah, so that's the most painful thing I
[00:47:13] David: Yeah. Um,
[00:47:17] one of the, so, so, um, I, I want to transition to your background, um, and, and your story in a second, but, um, when you look out three years from today, 2028, um, and you think about happy co, what does it look like three years from today? What is a dream? I,
[00:47:40] Jindou: to, like the, the, the whole thing for me is like, how do we build, um, how do we really change the landscape of our industry? Right. We have, we have the biggest property management companies in the world and lots of medium, small size ones as well. With a lot of, we have four and a half million units that use our, our products today. I [00:48:00] just think like, I love real estate. That's why I'm still doing this and I love technology. I just want to continue to be a great partner to our customers. I want to solve more problems for them. I look, I wanna look back and go, you know, oh my gosh, wow. The, the, the 10 things, 10 problems that we know the customer has, we've solved it, we've thought about a very different way, a much better way to run properties so that the, operating companies are more efficient. staff is happier. The residents are happier. Like ranging today is a really, really crappy exercise for everyone, So inefficient. Um, so I would love to be able to kind of just keep solving, streamlining the whole process. I, the, the, one of the goals I have for, uh, for happy co and the industry is I want other SAS companies to look at happy co. And go, Oh my God, that's the gold standard of like software, you know, like how a company can partner with customers and enterprise or whatever it is. [00:49:00] Um, today we're like the really ugly, ugly, the stepchild of the stepchild. Cause the software industry is horrible. Um, you know, like how the, how we treat customers, it's just, nothing's integrated properly.
[00:49:15] David: yep.
[00:49:16] Jindou: I hope to kind of see a world where the software is easy to use. pushing the boundaries with automation, whether it's AI or just something like a Zapier zap or whatever it is. But, um, I think there's an opportunity to kind of really streamline the industry and, and I want people to go, wow, they've built a vertically integrated, like. Uh, ecosystem where it partners with other new software providers. It doesn't happen in our industry today. So that's in three years. I think that's what I think we can achieve.
[00:49:42] David: That's awesome. All right. So let's let's transition to your, um, to your story, your background. So you're from Australia and You mentioned your parents a couple times. Can you maybe share a little bit more about your upbringing their [00:50:00] backgrounds?
[00:50:00] Jindou: So they were born in Singapore and I was born in Singapore as well. I don't know why I said they, we were all born in Singapore. Um, you know, like they had really large families, I think seven or eight kids in each household. Um, back then when they, as they were growing up, Singapore wasn't a very rich country, it was kind of like. You know, Lee Kuan Yew came in and started to change Singapore to be a but it was in the works. so they grew up really poor. My mom and dad never, I think my, they didn't even go to high school. They just did primary school education. you know, my dad. Took a job as a printer in Australia.
[00:50:39] He thought he was going to go to like the land of opportunity. It turns out he went to Darwin, which is like, I don't know. It's like someone going, Hey, let's go to the U S let's go to the best place. Where Wyoming. Like, Oh, okay. You know, fun. Um, but he, he kind of went there. My mom never really, she's had.
[00:50:55] odd jobs all her life. Like, you know, we call a checkout chick a cashier. She's [00:51:00] like working at restaurants. She, um, yeah, like not like there's no right real career that they had. So they didn't really grow up wealthy, but it was interesting. Like looking back, I never felt like I was poor. I didn't feel I was poor growing up because I think as an only child, they gave me everything I needed. Um, yeah, I just, some weird reason I never felt poor. And it was only, I think in my, when I was 15. Yeah, I was 15 was when I realized, Oh, we are poor. You know, okay, I, I, I get the, I get clothes, but it's like not the, you know, the Louis Vuitton. It's just, uh, not, not, not LV it's a VL or something. Um, so they, they didn't grow up rich.
[00:51:46] Um, we migrated to Australia when I was two years old. Uh, and then. yeah, my, my dad, you know, I'm, I'm just had a lot of great memories in, I grew up in Darwin, [00:52:00] so it was just a really fun place. It's like very backwards, rural. I, I grew up with a, um, Greek family for about six, seven years. My, uh, the lady who looked after me because my mom and dad would work, you know, two shifts the lady who looked after me happened, we live in the, uh, A caravan, a trailer, essentially, when we first got there, day I kind of ran across the fence is the trailer was, let me, let me clarify this. The trailer parked in the gravel parking lot of my dad's workplace. So it's like, it wasn't even legal. I don't know how, how we, we had to shower in his offices, um, next door to his. Office was a house that was attached to the Greek Orthodox church. So I, one day that I was playing with the ball, ran across the fence and I disappeared for like an hour.
[00:52:55] My mom freaked out. This lady, [00:53:00] beautiful golden hair, old lady comes across the other fence. It's like, Hey, Ella, Ella, baby, baby. She couldn't speak English. Yeah, she was Greek. And that was, um, that was, I call her Yaya. So Yaya looked after me. for six years. She couldn't speak English. Um, Papu was my grandpa was the priest of the Orthodox Church.
[00:53:22] David: Wow.
[00:53:23] Jindou: Yeah. So it was a wild story. Like, learn how to speak greek. Um,
[00:53:27] David: Yeah, you speak more Greek than me. You know, we were talking the other day.
[00:53:30] Jindou: it was, it was, yeah, it was such a great, it was such a great time. And, um, So that's how I kind of grew up. Like, yeah.
[00:53:39] David: then you went to, uh, Adelaide, right? Because
[00:53:43] Jindou: So I went to Adelaide to, I didn't know what I want to study. Um, I, I did a graphic design subject in my last year of high school and I got full marks for it. I didn't have to try at all. Like it was fun. I was using Photoshop, [00:54:00] making logos, business cards. I'm like, this is a thing. Easy. So I met a girl in Adelaide at that stage and the, the, the opportunity was like, Hey, what do you want to study?
[00:54:14] And I'm like, I don't know, graphic design, I guess. So I applied for it, got in, um, you only needed like 50 out of a hundred to get in. Like it was like, and I already had 50 from doing two subjects earlier, like two year 12 subjects earlier than others. basically on the two subjects, I was at 50. Um, So I got in, I moved to Adelaide, studying graphic design.
[00:54:38] That's, that's, that's essentially what I did.
[00:54:39] David: now you have an office there, right?
[00:54:41] Jindou: Yeah, we have an office there. So after I graduated, I worked for a video gaming company called Midway Games. Midway, uh, were the guys who built Mortal Kombat. Um, you know, NBA Ballers, Jukes are Hazard. We, NBA Ballers, Blitz the League. So I was running [00:55:00] the UIUX team on, uh, the company. Um, really enjoyed it. It was, you know, I got to work on. Like games were my passion. I grew up playing
[00:55:08] David: Hmm.
[00:55:09] Jindou: so that that's essentially what I what I did. So I started working in a video gaming company so I kind of got really bored and this is kind of a theme in my early career. I work at a place I just got really bored because I felt like I wasn't giving my all Yeah, and that's why I kind of started a lot of side hustles or side
[00:55:31] David: Hmm. Hmm.
[00:55:34] Jindou: yeah, I had probably about 14 or 15 small businesses. One of us, a jewelry and fashion handbag import export business. I realized we actually had, uh, distribute distributors across Australia that was selling our products. would get them manufactured in China and Thailand. Um, but I realized that I just am not good at selling. fashion. I'm too honest. If you [00:56:00] ask me, do you think I look good in this handbag? I went, Nope, it's too small for you. No sale. Uh, so I just learned that I wasn't passionate
[00:56:08] David: That's fun.
[00:56:09] Jindou: I, we, we broke even.
[00:56:10] And I remember when I closed that business down, I just have a whole garage full of jewelry and handbags. And so every birthday, is going to give you jewelry, your handbags from three seasons
[00:56:22] David: That's great. What, um, how do your parents feel about what you're doing?
[00:56:30] Jindou: You know, I think that they're proud and, and like, Hey, they don't really know what I do. Right. They, they, they, they, I go visit my dad, he's just like, Hey, can you fix my internet? you know, technology, uh, you know, computers. Um, but I think that they're proud of me. Like, you know, it's Asian culture.
[00:56:46] You don't really say it that much. You don't be like, Hey, good job. It's like, do better. Um, but I think they're proud of me. And. Yeah. You know, I think I look back at my career and I look at what I've done. and I think I mentioned to you, [00:57:00] like, Oh, I wanted to do is get to a million dollars in revenue.
[00:57:02] David: Yeah.
[00:57:03] Jindou: You know, and, and, and this is how dumb I thought a million dollars in revenue, I could sell the company and make a million bucks.
[00:57:09] That's, that's how silly I was. Right. And even today I'm like, I don't need more money than what we, we could easily sell the company. We could exit, we could walk away, but you know, I'm just proud that I've achieved more than what I set out to do. sure my parents feel the same way. I, they, you know, they don't, we don't even talk about. They don't care,
[00:57:29] David: Interesting.
[00:57:30] Jindou: you know, it's such a weird thing. Like, um, they weren't business people. So I didn't really have like a, is my role model, you know, like
[00:57:37] David: But the work ethic probably comes from
[00:57:40] Jindou: Oh,
[00:57:40] David: watching them.
[00:57:41] Jindou: So, um, I'll share a quick story about the, the, the work ethic. So, um, I mentioned I was investing in real estate. The reason why I did that was because I wanted to build passive income because my dad was working, you know, like crazy shifts, worked all his life and I wanted to let him retire or at least have some [00:58:00] money so he can kind of like stop working. So I busted my ass for like six, seven years. Every single dollar I put in real estate, I did flips, renovations, kept working, working two jobs, uh, freelancing on the side just to buy property. Got to a stage where I could help him to retire. So enough passive income. So I go to my dad, dad, you can retire now.
[00:58:21] You know, I've got, I've got enough money. You can relax. He looks at me. He goes like, and then what do I, what would I do? So the first thing I did wrong was I never asked the customer what they wanted. And then the second one, I'm like, wow, like my dad loves working. He's in his seventies and he still works today.
[00:58:39] David: What a good story, that's such a good
[00:58:41] Jindou: me, I'm like, maybe that work ethic is instilled in me. And I think like, what else would I do? And I see, you know, my rich friends and they're just bored and suicidal.
[00:58:50] David: Oh, I'm, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm, I'm Um, if you could go, knowing everything you know today, if you could go back to the very beginning of your career, [00:59:00] what is one piece of advice you would give yourself? Yeah.
[00:59:06] Jindou: Um, let me think, uh, one piece of advice I would like tell myself to move to Silicon Valley. From day one and just start a business or something, start something because I was never happy when I was working as a,
[00:59:23] David: Hmm.
[00:59:23] Jindou: straight graphic designer or web designer, because I felt like I was being creative, but I missed out on the, the other challenges that, you know, the, the sale is trying to find a product market fit, but how do you get success?
[00:59:34] How do you, I really enjoyed that designing and building off it. Companies and systems. and I just wish I did it earlier than, you know, yeah. And I probably would have a much better time in my early twenties.
[00:59:48] David: Um, this was, this was great. Um, if people, I think, uh, people are probably gonna listen to this and want to reach out, like is the best way email, [01:00:00] LinkedIn. So some other
[01:00:01] Jindou: ping me on LinkedIn. I'm the only Jindo Lee on LinkedIn. I think maybe there's one other fraudulent guy, but I'm the only one on LinkedIn. Um, yeah, that's the best way to get in touch.
[01:00:11] David: awesome. Thank you. This was really, um, this is amazing. I really appreciate you being so transparent, um, and open. Cause I think that is how we. Kind of help the next generation and and um, and so I really I I learned a lot from this also And so thank you very much
[01:00:29] Jindou: Welcome. Thank you.
[01:00:30] David: Awesome. Well for everyone who's listening.
[01:00:32] I hope you enjoyed if you did, please share this with your networks Um, and and we'll see you for the next episode of not another ceo podcast
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