Kenny Eliason shares funny career and life stories and what led him to start his company, Record. From being kicked out of Southwestern Law School, getting hired for his Spanish speaking skills at a law firm, to owning multiple businesses and now a startup, teaching as an adjunct Professor at UNLV, Kenny gets to the crux of entrepreneurship.
Learn more about The Client App That Legal Teams Love at https://www.recordclient.com
Throughout my conversation with Kenny we covered the reality that startup owners face which is scaling a company. A chord we struck was the notion of after raising an initial pre-seed round, how would you manage that capital appropriately to increase the existence the company could be around?
Startups are different from traditional businesses in that they are technology heavy and product centered. Moreover, there are high operational costs associated with those two things meaning that despite revenue, the burn rate might be capital intensive. This means that in order to continue operating, money needs to be spent and gives good reason to raise capital from venture capitalists. Moreover, one needs to pay oneself to maintain mental sanity for the time being. Most startups raise more than the revenue they produce for a long time.
Video Time Stamps
7:00 Business conferences in Vegas and what it’s like working/living there.
18:00 Product demo, how Record saves law firms money.
24:00 Creating the tech/product
30:15 How hard is it to run your own company?
31:00 Contrasting a small business marketing development agency with a saas company. (Be humble enough to learn something then execute on it)
33:00 Going to law school
38:00 Protecting capital raised vs spending it the best way possible. Running out of money is what they paid you to do. Buy things important to the business, buy it get it and then move on to the next thing. Hopefully it will help us sell more things.
40:26 Separate yourself from the company in a perspective on costs. Not using the business account for personal expenses. Figuring out how much to pay yourself, struggling personally to support the company.
42:00 Getting a degree in Spanish and figuring what to do with it.
50:00 Learning engineering and software development approach. Is coding more art or science?
60:00 Getting kicked out of law school for being the bottom 1/3rd
63:22 Teaching a class at UNLV about starting a business.
64:00 “I’d never trade anything I’ve learned on the streets for a classroom education.”
My Startup Mindset is _____ doing the hard things for a little while so you can do the things the rest of your life that most people can’t do.
Collaborate with us as a brand partner: https://www.passionfroot.me/startup-mindsets
Our debut book, Startup Mindsets, is set to be published this November. Read all about it https://www.penguin.sg/book/startup-mindsets
Kenny Eliason | Personal Injury Tech for Lawyers/Clients