Tim Chi: CEO of The Knot Worldwide

Episode 352

Tim Chi, CEO of The Knot Worldwide, wanted to fix the wedding industry for all. Make it easier to plan that special day. He saw first hand while planning his wedding in 2005, how difficult it was to find online resources that would help him execute his wedding plans more efficiently. He co-founded WeddingWire in 2007 and ran that company from an internet start-up to a multimillion-dollar leader in the wedding planning industry. He then led the merger of WeddingWire with The Knot which together created The Knot Worldwide and the largest provider of wedding marketplaces, websites, planning tools and registry services in 16 countries across North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. Tim shares all about the wild ride he has experienced plus how wedding planning has changed over the years including post covid. I think you will really enjoy hearing about Tim's entrepreneurial journey, his leadership lessons and his journey of not only building multiple brands, but also an entire industry. You won’t want to miss this episode! On #TheKaraGoldinShow.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be, you just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi, everyone, it’s Kara Goldin from the Kara Goldin show. And I am so excited to have my next guest here. We have Tim chi who is the CEO of the not worldwide. But Tim is a serial entrepreneur, in addition to being a CEO, and I’m super, super thrilled to hear all about his journey and his experience. As I mentioned, he is a serial entrepreneur, not new to the startup world. He had actually co founded another company some years ago called Blackboard, which was early early ad tech days. Really, really incredible. And then he went on in 2005, when he was actually trying to plan his own wedding to co found a company called Wedding Wire. And it’s such a fascinating story. He founded that company in 2007, and then led the company from an internet startup to a multimillion dollar leader in the wedding planning industry, then led the merger of wedding wire with the knot and its collective brands to bring it all under one umbrella. The new company is called the knot worldwide, is now the largest provider of wedding marketplaces in the world, including website planning tools, registry services, all of that in 16 countries, including North America, Europe, Latin America, etc. So a wild ride, for sure. So I’m super excited to have Tim here to talk a little bit more about not only the build of his companies, but also the scaling and what he’s learned about the wedding industry. What are his predictions going forward for all things weddings, as well. So super excited to have you here, Tim?

Timothy Chi 2:37
Here. Thanks so much for having me on the show. It’s real honor.

Kara Goldin 2:40
Super, super excited. So let’s talk a little bit about you first, and and I’d love to hear, you know, Did you always know that you would be an entrepreneur? And that you would be one day leading a the giant of all things weddings?

Timothy Chi 2:59
Definitely not? The answer is no, I did not think any of that. You know, I grew up in Southern California. And I say one that sort of probably contributes a little bit to my laid back, relaxed style. But more importantly, when I think about influences early on in my life, you know, two things jumped to mind. Number one is definitely my mom was a big influence Early on she she was and is still to this day, the ideas person. She’s the one always saying, you know, whenever we see each other, why hasn’t someone figured out something like this, or I have an idea. And they’re, you know, we joke a lot about her crazy ideas, and occasionally not have that, but that sort of spirit and enthusiasm. And so curiosity really, really left a mark on me. And then second, you know, just reflecting back again. My parents were immigrants from Taiwan, they moved here in the 70s. They were dual, you know, we’re a dual working family, both parents, you know, my dad was an architect, my mom was a real estate broker. And, you know, my child has really filled with, you know, watching firsthand how to how to build a small business and actually just how hard it was every day, after school and get picked up by one of them, you know, taken to their small office, I’d sit at my dad’s drafting table until work was over. And then we kind of all go home together, you know, that there wasn’t a lot of afterschool activities and all the stuff, you know, that happens right now. And I really that kind of really shaped my my view, sort of ultimately entrepreneurship and give me some, you know, early influences.

Kara Goldin 4:35
So interesting. So what was your first job out of college?

Timothy Chi 4:40
Yeah, so my first job was in entrepreneurial Well, my first job in high school was an entrepreneurial endeavor that failed really badly. My kid growing up in Southern California might, we like clean cars, and so we’d wash our cars a lot and it was sort of a pastime. I’m in one of my buddies. And I felt like we were really good at washing cars. So in high school, we pooled our allowance together and all the money that we’ve earned, and we went out, bought all this professional car washing here, and, you know, we got all the supplies, we knew we could do the job, and we sort of just, you know, figured out how to print some business cards and walk around and, you know, put stuff in, in mail slots. And, and nobody showed up, of course. So that was a real real lesson in the fact that, you know, there’s think of marketing and think of sales. And just because you’re good at doing one thing doesn’t mean the rest of the world cares. And so that was we great graciously, I think our parents really, you know, ended up trying to offset some of the deep investment we made. But that was a real first first foray into entrepreneurship for me.

Kara Goldin 5:51
I love it. And then you went on to launch co found Blackboard. So how did that idea come up?

Timothy Chi 5:59
So yeah, Blackboard was found co founded in 1998. Right before that, I, you know, through just a lot of serendipity, you know, we have a bunch of college buddies and I, we were at university, and at that time, we went to school in upstate New York, at Cornell. And so it gets really cold and snowy there. And as students, sort of this gets to the personal pain point, and goal of a lot of entrepreneurship stories, We dreaded, you know, walking across campus to turn in our homework, we, you know, when there’s eight feet of snow outside, and at that moment in time, sort of mid 90s, in colleges and universities really had invested a lot in infrastructure. And by that, I mean, you know, wiring up campuses for with, you know, with Ethernet ports, etc. But the software they had running on top of that was really simple. You know, it was kind of like maybe add drop, you know, bursts are paying your bills, maybe add drop classes, there wasn’t really any software out there that was facilitating teaching and learning online, both for faculty administration, as well as students. And so we decided that we, you know, give a give a shot at building software that could sit on top of this large infrastructure environment, investment, and do stuff like, you know, that that we’re all familiar with today, you can check your grades online, you can turn in your homework, you can have virtual office hours, and that really became one of the early sort, of course management systems or learning management systems that that, you know, that we’re all familiar with today. So that was kind of the first version of that it was a lot of fun. We, we were able to sell some software to universities, and then you know, graduated college and, you know, sort of formally formed Blackboard, when we found found another group to merge with and, and that that was a really fun experience. It was quite successful. You know, fortunately for us

Kara Goldin 7:54
that wild I mean, that was it was really one of the first ed tech companies even calling it

Timothy Chi 8:01
ed tech. No, that wasn’t even a thing. No, that wasn’t a thing. We were kind of, you know, making the category as we went along. And, you know, timing was is important, always in some of these things, you know, it was well timed, given where we were in the sort of infrastructure cycle at the time, and it cycle.

Kara Goldin 8:20
That’s incredible. So then, jumping forward, you ended up founding co founding Wedding Wire? And can you share a little bit more about that backstory?

Timothy Chi 8:30
Sure. So, you know, mid 2000s, all around. And we had, again, the great fortune of taking Blackboard public company was much bigger at the time, and I wasn’t looking to do anything different. But, you know, as we were aging here, and you know, being in relationships, I’ve met my now wife, Tracy, and 2005 was our was our wedding. And yet again, you know, just going through the wedding planning process, firsthand, sort of scratch that personal pain point, itch. Again, and I sort of just thought to myself, Wow, there’s so many great resources available for helping engaged couples sort of get inspired and in design, to vision and really craft something that is unique and different and really represents, you know, two people coming together. At the same time. Planning, winning is really, really hard and super frustrating and stressful and very expensive. And there’s no one really helping to make that part of wedding planning better, sort of the, the doing part versus the dreaming part. And so that was really the impetus of Wedding Wire, we, you know, set out and really focused on local marketplaces and creating that as the backbone of of Wedding Wire. And really where we routed the value proposition was in consumer reviews. And if you recall, care at that time, that was sort of the that timing was sort of the birth of vertical marketplaces in general. You know, you had Yelp come along, you had TripAdvisor Heiser etc, etc. And so, reviews, you know, and user generated content was sort of a real novelty then and we kind of wedding wire, we really focused on aggregating those really providing value to future engaged couples in terms of helping them select the right. Perfect vendors for the wedding.

Kara Goldin 10:18
So interesting. Well, you and I were talking before we started recording that, you know, there was somebody else in the wedding space, you know, the knot was one of the big ones, there’s probably a few others that were in the space. So you definitely were not the first. And you know, unlike with Blackboard, you were one of the first so you you weren’t creating a category, but you were obviously doing something different. Did you ever in a million years, imagine that you would be running the knot or merging with the knot, I mean, was that ever something that you thought would, would ultimately happen?

Timothy Chi 10:52
Definitely not in the early days, right with the way we, my co founders and I, Sonny and Jeff, we are sort of mental model for building the businesses really brick by brick, we kind of didn’t pattern, we weren’t patterning ourselves off the knot in other leading wedding brands so much, we were actually following the playbook, more of other vertical local marketplaces like OpenTable, and Yelp, etc, and really focused on you know, building a durable, sort of high liquidity local marketplace, city by city. So we launched in DC, and that we went to Baltimore, and then we went to Philly, and then New York. And so that was actually the the game plan, because we just felt like, you know, local marketplaces, you know, themselves are, are really, they take time to really build and scale up, but once you get some traction going there, they’re harder to break. And so we really, you know, took we did take our time, and really focus on on building it that way, with the, with the hopes, of course of one day, you know, certainly not running everything, but you know, figuring out a way to partner or, you know, whatever, but we were really just focused on, you know, building a sustainable durable company. And that was kind of the, the approach we took.

Kara Goldin 12:03
It’s so interesting that you say that, because I feel like as, as I was working with my team to build him to and, you know, I looked less at the beverage industry. And I looked around more at what other people were doing and what problems I could ultimately solve for the consumer, which I think is exactly what you’re talking about. You’re looking at other people for ideas. While, you know, maybe people are saying, oh, you know, you’re competing against the knot, you never really, I mean, you didn’t focus on that on a daily basis, you were definitely keeping maybe one eye on sort of what was going on over there. But you were really looking at how can I improve this experience for the consumer? That’s exactly

Timothy Chi 12:45
right. And one, one investor once said to me that disruption, or you know, distribution often comes from places you don’t expect it to. And so they really took that to heart in everything, it’s kind of like, it often comes from the you know, you gotta be looking all over the place, because it’s not always obvious where the stuff comes from, you know, and particularly in today’s day and age, when it’s things move so fast. You know, it’s always important to keep that in mind that it might you know, that your largest competitor might not be, right, the place where real changes, real innovation, real change comes from

Kara Goldin 13:22
so true. I think it’s less likely, you know, people said to me for years, you know, look out for Coke and Pepsi. And I, you know, I said, that’s not really where it’s gonna come from, it’s gonna come from somebody who comes from a different industry who’s trying to solve problems, and they’ve got capital, they’ve got ideas, and they’ll, they’ll come in and do things differently, because they’re hungry. Maybe they’ve failed a few times before. I mean, I’m sure you, you understand exactly what I’m talking about. So you continue to build growing Wedding Wire to a success to a huge success, over 1000 employees. How did the merger of your two companies come about?

Timothy Chi 14:05
So there’s two lenses on the merger of the two companies? Number one, is the sort of financial, you know, sort of consolidation lens, right. And so that one is relatively straightforward. If you kind of take a step back and you look and study the pattern of vertical marketplaces in general, what tends to happen is consolidation occurs at certain scale. So, you know, if you think about Zillow and Trulia coming together, you can think about Seamless and Grubhub coming together. You can think about Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor coming together. So just from a pure pattern recognition perspective, there’s there’s that angle so at some point, you know, these things tend tend to happen. And related to that is, you know, hap, what’s the relationship like between the two competitors myself or you know, WeddingWire and XO group and particularly myself in the The CEO at the time of exit group, and, you know, I gotta hand it to Mike. You know, on the other side, we developed a relationship, we kept in touch with each other, we understood that we were competitors, but that, you know, logically, someday, someday, you know, someone might come along and try to put things together. So we maintained a really healthy relationship, we still keep in touch today. And really, it was, you know, that building off that relationship, that we’re all that make the deal work.

Kara Goldin 15:29
That’s amazing. So how long from the beginning of the discussions until it actually happened?

Timothy Chi 15:35
It was probably, you know, you know, like, most deals, there’s kind of fits and starts on again, off again, sometimes timing doesn’t work out, things are moving. So, you know, I would say the on again, off again, was probably, you know, horse of the year or so, but, but when when things started clicking, they happen very, very fast. So, you know, once once we knew stars were aligned, you know, we had a deal, you know, everything DUNS, you know, and in probably three or four months, from beginning to end, so it would move really, really quickly. And, you know, having the relationship and having done the dance and kind of gotten to know each other was was a huge part of building to that moment.

Kara Goldin 16:14
That’s amazing. So it wasn’t like a banker was introducing you to you two knew each other, you know, over the years. And you were friendly competitors, in some ways at this point, right? Yeah. So, so interesting. I just had another guest on who was talking about that in a totally different space in the software space, in in podcasts. And he was saying the same thing that it was, his experience was just getting to know, you know, your competitors over the years, because you just never know, when you want to have just learned together. That’s exactly right. Yeah, it’s such an important piece. So you’re at the helm of Wedding Wire for more than 15 years, and then got together with the not to form or Expo, I should say, to form the knot worldwide, you’ve obviously seen huge growth, dramatic challenges across the globe, just dropped in and said, Hi, Tim, here, we’re here, through the pandemic. So love to hear, obviously, events like weddings were put on hold, or definitely changed. For sure. Can you share a little bit about your story during that time and how you managed?

Timothy Chi 17:33
Certainly so? I mean, yeah, that the pandemic was very tough one, not just weddings, but anything that sort of relied on dynamics of people coming together, right. And so, you know, we’d like to characterize it here, though, as COVID in the pandemic, where the largest pause button ever crushed on the wedding industry. And the reason why I think is a good characterization is because we were all very confident that, you know, the fact there was a pandemic running around, didn’t really change how couples felt about each other, they just actually weren’t able to get the event done and be together with friends and family celebrating. So it wasn’t a really question of if weddings are going to be, you know, change a lot, it was just when they would happen again. And that’s largely how things played out, right, the moment restrictions got lifted, you know, there was a surge back, you’ve seen all this media around this wedding boom, and, you know, all this pent up demand that 2022 Last year was probably, and will likely be maybe forever, you know, one of the biggest wedding years, ever on record, because of that pent up demand that that ran through. So during the time, it was a tough one, right. i During the years of the pandemic, it was, it was tough. You know, there’s, there’s no other way to describe it, what we were able to do, and I’m really proud of our team, and really our investor base, as well for the support is, you know, as a, as an industry leader, we really felt strongly that it wasn’t a time to just sit back and watch out for ourselves, we really thought long and hard about how we can support the all the constituents involved in weddings, and namely, a real strong focus on the small businesses that make up this wedding industry. So we’re talking now about, you know, DJs and photographers and venues and folks that you know, are really quite reliant on the cash flow that weddings brings in order to keep their business going. They just, it wasn’t a possibility. During that time, we were able to put out a $10 million vendor assistance program where we were really just helping these small businesses that have supported us for many years through this time, and you know, obviously, helping them navigate government PvP etc to but really, it was a lift to fight another day. And I know our whole group here felt really proud that we were able to do that.

Kara Goldin 19:58
That’s incredible. That’s amazing. Do you know what percent of the businesses that you were dealing with didn’t make it?

Timothy Chi 20:06
I don’t have a clean stat on that, you know, the the way that we typically think about attrition within SMB in general, I think the united us staff is something like, you know, what 18 to 20% of small businesses typically go out of business every single year. The interesting thing with our industry is that, you know, for a lot of these really wonderful wedding professionals, these creative professionals, they can do other things, right. So, you know, if you’re a photographer, and you’re shooting a lot of weddings, there are other types of events or other things that you may have to shoot to get to get by. So it’s, so I think a lot of people just pivoted to doing different types of things during that time, and then came back. Right, right, right, when weddings were available again, so it’s a tough, it’s a bit of a tough stat to get it cleanly for us. But I can tell you right now, you know, the particular 2020 to use in terms of the number of businesses that are serving weddings, you know, it’s all back. And, you know, people are more more so than ever, you know, looking for, in 2022, they were looking for dates to get married, they were really challenged with as an industry with supply constraints overall, you know, probably, if you had attended any human if you’ve intended on Monday wedding, Thursday wedding, yeah, just simply enough dates, to fill all the pent up demand,

Kara Goldin 21:29
I was going to say my niece could not get married and 2022. And now she’s getting, she finally decided that she would go to a different day. So she’s getting married on a Sunday. She wants to get married on a Saturday, Saturday. And but I can only imagine that, you know, there’s a lot of other people that are doing the same thing.

Timothy Chi 21:50
That’s exactly right. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think 2023 We still have, you know, a lot of that flowing through. But you know, it’s a, it’s a little bit easier to find dates, and well, it was a little bit easier find dates and 2023. But the calendars are really robust and full right now.

Kara Goldin 22:07
Have you seen that people are, are getting married older, I guess, since the beginning of Wedding Wire, I mean, that that is, you know, a trend and more people are getting older.

Timothy Chi 22:22
You know, it has shifted a little bit, right, I think average age average ages, I don’t have this set up on my heads. But, you know, over time, over the past decade, certainly things have trended a little bit older, as well.

Kara Goldin 22:35
So I feel like you obviously started Wedding Wire during that other beautiful time in our world, 2000, you know, eighth 2009. And now you’ve got another badge having been through that. So, you know, you’re you are a seasoned, you know, scary time leader, for sure. What has been kind of the hardest lessons that you’ve learned as an entrepreneur? I mean, you’ve I think you seem very zen about it. And and I always know that the leaders that have been through both of these, which I certainly have as well are, that allows you to just know that, you know, the sunrises again, the next day, and you know, you just do the best you can, but any other lessons that you would, you know, sort of say, here’s what you have to do, you’re running a company, I don’t know, have enough cash in the bank for you any day or, you know, any of those things?

Timothy Chi 23:39
Well, I mean, certainly there’s the financial consideration and sort of, you know, tried to build a healthy company, those are the obvious ones. You know, I would, my advice would be just to recall, just to like, remember, right that in, in times of in tough times, and times of crisis, all eyes are on you, you know, as the CEO as your senior leadership team. And, and it’s important how you behave and act during, during that time really to try to make it through. One of the things that we talk a lot about here at TK WW and and sort of speaks to that is, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this care. It’s called the Stockdale paradox.

Kara Goldin 24:24
I’ve heard it but I don’t know that much about it. But so

Timothy Chi 24:27
there was a It’s named after you know, he was a Naval Officer James Stockdale, you can you can look it up. He was a Vietnam pow. But but the So the upshot is, he survived a really harrowing time because he sort of credited it to this paradox where you, were you internally and externally to others can strike a balance between realism and for him it was I am probably not going to get out of here with optimism at the same time of no but I will get out of here and in finding that sort of pragmatic, optimistic, but realistic tone is really, really important during that time, because you can’t sugarcoat anything when the world is, you know, blowing up around you and you, and you can see it. At the same time, you can’t be without hope. Right? And so we’ve sort of always think I’ve sort of thought about that, and just terms of how we’re communicating with our team members, how we’re competing externally Dota constituents of Yes, it is tough, but we will get through it. That’s kind of the the underlying principle there and the words that you use and sort of how we say it, and then how we behave really do matter during that time. So that’s kind of like the one thing that I always come back to during times of adversity or challenge.

Kara Goldin 25:45
Yeah, and I think that speaks to what people are looking for, in their leaders of companies that they join, because they want to, they want to know who Tim is. Right? They might not, you know, need to know, what kind of socks he wears. But, you know, it’s like, I mean, they just want to know who he is. And, and, you know, and what he believes and how he leads, I think that that is, is absolutely, so key, whether you’re running a public company, or a private company, I think it’s, it’s super, super important. So you’ve met a lot of entrepreneurs, you obviously are one, you’re also a very incredible leader, to all, I’ll say that, thank you. But what are like the two to three traits that you really see coming out of successful entrepreneurs in any industry that you’ve seen,

Timothy Chi 26:38
I mean, certainly the ones that I admire. And someone gave me this advice, a long, long time ago. I think good entrepreneurs, good leaders they look for, and I was taking the star to look for opportunities to build trust, whenever you can. In every interaction, you have build a little bit more trust with the person you just talked to, because that ultimately, I find that, that has so much goodness, that comes in ways that you wouldn’t imagine over time. And it’s something that everybody sort of wants and desires. And so the way that the way you can do those things, right? Even just you know, just making sure what you say and how you behave, match. being thoughtful about others and caring, you mean just when you meet someone for the second time, you know, remembering their name and something about their family or what they talk to you about. I mean, just there’s a bit of a be a good human, but also just building trust, I think is really one of the things that I admire most about, you know, other leaders, and it’s something that, you know, I always think about a lot. And then the second, Caridad is just around, being a good listener and being empathetic as well. And really, you genuinely authentically letting that come through. I think in today’s day and age, there’s so much stuff floating around all the time. And, you know, as a leader, it’s your job to drive, you know, drive the vision and ambition and purpose and all of that, but you can do so in a way that’s respectful and, and empathetic and being a good listener. And, you know, if you can, for me, the, those were the qualities that I really aspire to, and try to get better at because ultimately, I think those translate into a lot of good entrepreneurship. So the foundational qualities that other people just will gravitate towards over time.

Kara Goldin 28:35
So interesting. So is it tougher to start a company or scale and lead a company? So you’ve done it? You’ve done it all? And what would you say is is tougher?

Timothy Chi 28:51
Whoa, geez, that’s a tough question. It might be one of the toughest course i It’s all hard. Right? It’s hard for different for different reasons. I would answer that question. I mean, it kind of depends on who you are, you know, for me, I really really enjoyed although I would say the toughness level was very difficult that earlier stage just because of the volatility and the rope emotional roller coaster ups and downs like you got to have a lot of resilience and resilience and kind of rose colored glasses to get through that. At the same time. You know, scaling up is is is a real challenge it’s just I think it just requires a real different skill set right and the types of people you surround yourself with and when to use process when did not use process and you know for us now within our worldwide you know, we have employees and countries all over the world in managing different time zones a different cultures and all of that it’s it’s it’s it’s definitely has his own set of challenges. In all of those things, though, I would take care of that. Um, the one thing that I’ve always appreciated is every single stage, every single, you know, what stage of growth every single counted chapter we’re opening and closing, man, what a learning opportunity. Yeah, it has been every step of the way. That’s really why I feel so fortunate lucky to get to do what I do, because it’s really, really neat to be able to learn and experience all these things all the way through, you know, from startup to where we are today.

Kara Goldin 30:27
Yeah, so, so cool. So you mentioned this, that starting companies you’ve got, you’ve obviously done that you’ve had a lot of knows along the way. You know, people don’t want to fund your company, or they don’t think it’s a great idea. You know, there’s a lot of highs and lows that go along with those days. How do you deal with those highs and lows? And the those knows, I mean, do you think it takes a special person to be able to, you know, kind of brush that stuff off? And maybe it is compartmentalizing as you mentioned before? Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s a great. That’s, that’s a great example that you gave earlier. But how do you deal with that? I mean, it for people who are Sarah sitting here really struggling with? Like, this is nobody wants my stuff for selling. I mean, it’s just for, you know, they can’t figure out why they’re not able to raise the money that they want or Yeah, you know, what do you do? Okay, I

Timothy Chi 31:34
think Yeah. Resilience, resiliency is is a thing I if your question reminds me of a book in the author, I’m a big fan of it, which one of his books but I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dan Pink? Yeah. Soft Dan. And I think he lives in Bethesda. Here too. So Dan, if you’re listening to this, please give me a call it I’d love to be. But I’m Dan talks about. I think it’s in one of his sales related books, this notion of buoyancy. And he was tracking sales reps right in I remember the story very well of one one person he featured who was like a door to door vacuum sales, cleaner, vacuum cleaner salesman, and who just never lost optimism and was able to compartmentalize, rationalize, or whatever you want to call it, why people were saying NO to NO to him, and that just let this person keep going and keep going. You keep going. And so I always thought this notion of buoyancy is an important one for me how that shows up is finding outlets, right to just really take my mind off things and not dwell, my personal outlet. And I have four young kids and the two younger ones I’ve gotten totally hooked to my wife’s chagrin on video games, because I’ve a huge video gamer, and I love doing and it is my outlet. And now I get to share that experience. My kids on the weekends, and we just kind of sit around and play video games have a lot of fun together and sort of the world melts away and you find you find a way to reset and and get back on Monday with a fresh, fresh perspective.

Kara Goldin 33:18
I love it. Well, you would be my son’s favorite person, because that’s always looking for new victims to come in. He’s a senior in high school. And he’s, you know, got games going on all over the world. And he’s, he’s definitely I feel sorry for people when they walk in and they walk in. Yeah. But they’re like, oh, you know, and then they leave my house until they win the game. Yeah, it’s, it’s a lot. So super fun.

Timothy Chi 33:49
Unfortunately, too familiar with being on the losing side of that one. Yeah, but it’s still a lot of fun. Well,

Kara Goldin 33:54
he, and he teaches me a lot about that. Yeah, cuz he’s got that, you know, now games have changed so dramatically. And it’s, it’s amazing what can be done. So, last question, best advice you’ve ever received.

Timothy Chi 34:11
Best advice I’ve received, I touched on this a little earlier. But I would end with build a little more trust in every interaction you add. It’s really one that I think a lot about, for us here at the company and just kind of the way that I try to live my life, you know, one good, small, you know, small things, thoughtful things, stand out. You know, so just try to do that little extra special, unexpected thing, in whatever that is. And that matters, particularly in this in this day and age. And so, you know, sort of, again, getting back to being a good human but like, try to build a little more trust. Just think about ways you can build a little more trust in every interaction you’ve had. I think that that would be my advice to anyone.

Kara Goldin 35:00
I love that. Well, thank you, Tim. This has been incredible. So thank you so much.

Timothy Chi 35:06
Thanks so much for having me.

Kara Goldin 35:08
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my book undaunted, which I share my journey, including founding and building hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And thanks everyone for listening. Have a great rest of the week, and 2023 and goodbye for now. Before we sign off, I want to talk to you about fear. People like to talk about fearless leaders. But achieving big goals isn’t about fearlessness. Successful leaders recognize their fears and decide to deal with them head on in order to move forward. This is where my new book undaunted comes in. This book is designed for anyone who wants to succeed in the face of fear, overcome doubts and live a little undaunted. Order your copy today at undaunted, the book.com and learn how to look your doubts and doubters in the eye and achieve your dreams. For a limited time. You’ll also receive a free case of hint water. Do you have a question for me or want to nominate an innovator to spotlight send me a tweet at Kara Goldin and let me know. And if you liked what you heard, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts. You can also follow along with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn at Kara Goldin. Thanks for listening

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