“One thing I should caveat is, all of the failures with Atrium are really reflective of my own shortcomings, and they're not on all my co-founders, they're not on the investors.”

all I wanted was to create the biggest possible company. Once, again, my dreams were full of insanely large numbers. A ten-billion-dollar company. A hundred-billion-dollar company!

Capitalizing on the rapid initial burst of momentum, Justin and his team started hiring hurriedly, prioritizing getting customers before figuring out their product.

As a technology startup, product is paramount. Justin and his team did not focus enough on differentiating their product as an effective, efficient enough solution to the current problem.

Hiring too fast was particularly problematic because it didn’t allow adequate time to set a cohesive culture.

Without clearly defined goals between the co-founders, huge frictional costs arose.

the problem was that people didn't feel supported. Like co-founders did not feel particularly supported. And I think in a lot of ways, I didn't set them up for success.

As he lost co-founders, friends, and customers, he realized that the company was turning into a leaky bucket.

Justin himself was barely interested in legal service and legal tech, and the company could not identify who they were building for.

I gained so much personal growth and learning from startups and also obviously success, but they're not for everyone. And they're not for everyone at every time in their lives.

Sometimes things are tough and you will fail spectacularly. But failure itself does not define you. How you deal with the pain and move on to discover what’s important to you is what really matters when it’s all said and done. No matter what ordeal you’re going through, trust that you will emerge a better and stronger person for it. You will discover things about yourself that will exceed your wildest expectations.

Learn to find internal sources of motivation and meaning – there’s nothing out there that will make you happy.

Expressions of love are omni-directional. When you genuinely care about other people, it also demonstrates that you have the capacity to love yourself too.

Extending compassion both ways, and treating yourself like a friend or loved one you care about is important because it creates a feedback loop that affects the people around you.