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Why Did The Founders of PayPal And HOTorNOT Help A Dropout Start WeGame? – With Jared Kim

Posted on Oct 21, 2009 - 7:56 AM PST

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Imagine if you wanted to start a business and you were able to brainstorm ideas and put together your plan with some of the top internet entrepreneurs, like Max Levchin (PayPal), James Hong (HOTorNOT), and Albert Lai (Kontagent).

That's what happened to college-dropout Jared Kim, the founder of WeGame.com. Why did they spend so much time with him?

If you listen to our conversation, you'll see that part of it has to do with the failure of his first big startup. Entrepreneurs who start companies think differently than college grads who've never tried. The experience he got from running his first company came through when he talked about ideas for the future. Another thing that helped him is that he built relationships before he needed them.

To see what else made Jared an entrepreneur that others want to support--and learn from his experiences--listen to the full program.

The FULL program

Audio VersionPrefer audio? Great! "Right click" here for the MP3 format.

(Can't see video? Go to Mixergy.com)

About Jared Kim

Jared Kim photo wegame_logo

Jared Kim is the founder of WeGame.com, a media sharing platform for gamers. Previously, he founded Xinjun Software Limited, where he developed an online gaming platform that connected gamers across mainland China. The company created and operated China's first fully-online internet gaming league (IGL) which had gamers from 15 cities. Partnered with SOHU, Netease, Sina, ESPNStar, TOM.com, Tencent QQ and Aomei.

Transcript

See an error in this transcript? You can edit it here. (Go for it. I trust you.)

Full program includes

- Discussion of how to steady your mind so worry and doubt don't get in the way.

- What Jared learned about building a company from some of the internet's top entrepreneurs.

- How to create the one business relationship that will help easily win over others.

Suggested comments

- I've been suggesting that you send my guests a thank you email or find some other way of contacting them. Have you done it? I'd love to hear your story.

- What's your biggest takeaway from this interview?

- How could I have improved this interview or the way that I presented it?

  • I think the best advice from this interview came from both of you; which was to just start working on something especially if you are still in school. That was an incredible story about his upbringing as well as how he started his companies. I'm going to send an email right now. As far as the interview goes just keep asking direct questions. For instance, when Jared said how he had a whole bunch of thoughts on what to do and not to do in starting a company the second time around and you stopped him to ask specifically what was on that list. That is what I love about these interviews.
  • Isn't that something, I guess it is true that there is something to say about relationships. This makes us kick our selves in the butt and get back out to events and begin expanding our network. We have been in doors developing and sketching out ideas.

    Andrew this is a great interview and thanks for sharing it.
  • Thanks. That keeps coming up as the best way to meet investors, partners, etc.
  • Jared seems very down to earth, passionate and knowledgeable entrepreneur. I like how Andrew, as usual, tries to find the valuable hidden jewels of his guests' stories.

    We can see a great trait in Andrew and Jared with their use of "I don't know" which reminded me of the With Honors movie "... but they were also great men. Because they knew one thing that all great men should know: that they didn't know everything."

    Thank you Andrew and Jared for your time, it's really great to absorb valuable information and to continue identifying patterns of success and failures.
  • And he's done so much quickly.
  • I think you failed to mention that his uncle is Jason Calacanis.... how strange.
  • l3db3tt3r
    type A personally, if you can't see it in Jared Kim, with his rocking...idk, his successes is from his "china" days. although he does have some GREAT quotes.
  • devmentor
    What I got out of this interview and was reminded, most of us spend our time making things harder than they are. Thus we fail to act when we got a good idea worth exploring and floating.
  • P. Kim Vu-Pariser
    I love that you've added transcripts to the interviews. They are really helpful to me. I'm not one to "rewind" video or audio, so having written word makes it easy to read and re-read concepts I want to internalize. It also brings your info-product "full circle", providing multiple ways for people to learn--whether they are visual, auditory, or readers--like me.

    BUT, something is wrong with the transcript for this particular interview. The text box allows the text to scroll infinitely to the right, instead of wrapping down to the next line. A bit inconveneint. so inconvenient I actually watched the video instead.
  • Thanks Kim! I keep wondering what's the best way to show these interviews.
    Right now, it seems that a transcript is the easiest solution for me and
    it's the one readers prefer. I'll look around for a service that can create
    transcripts for me quickly and cheaply.

    And thanks for the note on the text box. I can't reproduce it here. Maybe
    another reader can help me out. I'll ask.

    Looking forward to seeing you and Craig on Sunday.
  • Clark
    Hey Andrew, really enjoyed the interview and appreciate what you're doing with the site. It seems like most of the interviews follow a fairly straightforward chronological path. I think sprinkling in a few topical questions might allow the interviewees to synthesize their experiences and boil things down to some key nuggets of wisdom. I realize you're trying to do that in the normal flow of the conversation via follow-up questions, and you do a good job with those. Just thought a small set of pre-defined questions would allow you to make sure the topic gets covered if it hasn't come up yet already in the conversation.
  • Hey Andrew,

    As always, another great interview. In my opinion, young entrepreneurs such as Jared always seem to give the most down-to-earth advice because they've only recently gone through their experiences so it's fresh in their minds. Keep doing the "young person" interviews!

    -Kevin
  • loumindar
    Great interview! Jared is typical of a guy who is brilliant, but doesn't completely understand that not everyone is like him (as I read what I just wrote, it sounds like an insult, but I mean it as a compliment).

    Jared's story demonstrates the importance of introductions and cultivating relationships. The thing that really stuck with me was Jared's willingness to accept that he has a narrow expertise and that he needs to surround himself with people who know what he doesn't know. Too often, entrepreneurs try to do everything and have trouble accepting that they are not the best person for every job.
  • Definitely this is my favorite interview I believe. Really inspiring and motivational. Jared was awesome, his parents sounds kick-ass with their methods of thinking.

    The audio and video were great as well. Great job Andrew thanks a bunch
  • @Andrew, thank you very much for doing these interviews. I really like how you don't just let the answers fly by, but follow up on them. Sometimes you just inject the question; and sometimes you write it down and follow up later when it fits better with the context.

    The thing I liked best about this interview was how Jared viewed his apparent disadvantage of age as an advantage (because people are more willing to help a kid). I also liked how you focused on his first failed attempt and how that played a role in success down the road.

    Great stuff.
  • newworldorder
    Hmmm. Cool Interview. However, at the end, I think Jared gave overly vague examples of startups folks could do (e.g., facebook apps, apps for business). That wasn't really helpful.
  • I am not even all the way done with this interview but my mind is already blown. It almost sounds unreal how fast the connections came for James. Must be a great guy!
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