Elizabeth Yin | Co--founder @ Hustle Fund

About this video

Elizabeth Yen, a startup founder turned investor, shares her philosophy for navigating a career: rather than searching for passion, she recommends pursuing fascinating adventures and working with amazing people. Through three stories—co-founding LaunchBit with a childhood friend, an unexpected detour into marketing in Tokyo, and eventually starting a VC fund to democratize early-stage startup investing—she illustrates how this approach led to unexpected growth and opportunity.

Key takeaways

• Instead of chasing passion, focus on working with amazing people and jumping into fascinating adventures—this approach often leads to greater personal growth and career fulfillment.
• Failure and success are often coupled together in unpredictable ways; taking risks on opportunities you’re not entirely qualified for can lead to unexpected positive outcomes.
• Elizabeth observed firsthand at 500 Startups that founder pedigree, appearance, and communication style heavily influence fundraising success regardless of execution quality, which motivated her to co-found a VC fund focused on meritocracy in early-stage investing.

Episode details: published November 1, 2017 · 1.7K views · 10:56 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The business ideas, figures and results discussed are the hosts’ and guests’ own claims, shared as brainstorming and entertainment — not verified facts and not investment advice.

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