Stephen Turban was two semesters into his Harvard PhD when he got called into a Zoom room and confronted with his own face on the Lumiere website. The ultimatum was simple: PhD or startup. He chose the company. Four years later, Lumiere is 100 people strong and doing eight figures.
We talk about using a startup as an exit strategy from academia, the hidden cost of scattered focus, content tactics that actually work, and why creating belonging matters more than preserving optionality.
Chapters
0:00 Intro 1:10 Derailing his PhD for Lumiere 5:00 Research to Startup Mindset 6:30 Focusing on a Niche 9:00 Ageism, new kid on the block 11:15 Why not raise money 13:20 My Biggest Mistake: The Assistant Company 18:00 Building a Controversial Public Persona 20:59 Moving to a New Country 25:50 Online vs Real Life Persona Transcript Search or select a timestamp to jump ▾ 0:00 Thea Ngo: Imagine getting caught. You're grinding on your startup 16 hours a day. Your Harvard PhD, maybe 2 hours. 0:06 Stephen Turban: The staff head of my department asked me for a Zoom call. She screen shared on the Lumiere website with my face and she's, Steven, is this you? Got ultimatum from the department. You can either do your PhD or you can run your company, but you can't do both. 0:19 Thea Ngo: And went on to build Lumiere Education to an 8-figure run rate with 10,000 students across 105 countries. 0:26 Stephen Turban: I actually started Lumiere because I was thinking, man, I really want to quit my PhD, but I don't know how. And it's gonna be really awkward if I don't have something else to do. Attention's king. So once you have attention, then after attention, you can have everything else. 0:38 Thea Ngo: What was the hardest period in your founder journey? 0:40 Stephen Turban: I think founders are big wimps. Hi, I'm Steven Turban, and this is Founders in Motion. 0:51 Thea Ngo: Quick thing before we get started. We have a huge goal this year of hitting 10,000 subscribers. Yes, it's ambitious. But it lets us help more people build really great companies. So if you enjoy the content, learn something new, the best way to support us is by subscribing. Okay, let's get back to the video. You were on the PhD track at Harvard Business School, about as safe and prestigious as it gets, while building Lumiere on the side. So could you walk me back to the specific moment where you realized that the side project needed to become a main thing? And what was kind of the tipping point or conversation around it? 1:29 Stephen Turban: So I run Lumiere, it's an education company. We're now about 100 people full-time. But when we started, this is back in 2020, I actually started Lumiere because I was thinking, man, I really want to quit my PhD, but I don't know how. And it's going to be really awkward if I don't have something else to do. That was genuinely my thought. So I was like, all right, shit. So what do I need to do? So I thought, if I have a company that's working, that will give me a choice set. I think it's hard for people to take risks. And so, I think one thing I think about is how do I de-risk the other option? So, how could I quit? I could have another option. So anyway, so I started Lumiere, and then to be honest with you, it was really that my PhD was a side thing, and then I was like just grinding on Lumiere, like, you know, 16 hours a day, and then PhD was 2 hours a day. Actually, I was doing fine. Like, my PhD was doing totally fine. I think I could have finished the PhD. 2:16 Thea Ngo: What a subtle flex, you know? 2:18 Stephen Turban: No, no, no, no, no. I was, it was not subtle. I was doing well, okay? 2:21 Thea Ngo: I was doing okay, I was doing okay. 2:23 Stephen Turban: And my co-founder actually did finish his PhD, Dhruva. But I was like about a semester in, about 2 semesters in, I was thinking maybe I should quit, but then I was like, ah, no, actually maybe I should just continue. It's so easy to, I'm totally honest. I think PhDs in like social sciences are like pretty easy. I'm just being so honest. You know, like I don't think they're that hard. So it's not that hard. So, but anyways, I had this and my, the head of the staff head of my department asked me for a Zoom call and I was like, oh, I'd love to catch up with her. She brought me to Zoom room. There was one other person and then she was like, hi. I'm like, hi. And then she started screen sharing and then she screen shared on the Lumiere website with my face. And she said, she said, Steven, is this you? And then the profile was like, hi, I'm Steven Turban. I'm a PhD student at HBS. And I'm like, no. 3:18 Thea Ngo: Yes. 3:18 Stephen Turban: Exactly what he keeps telling my professors to me. And then actually I got an ultimatum from the department. They said, hey, which I think is reasonable. They're like, hey, you can either do your PhD or you can run your company, but you can't do both. Which is ironic because actually I was studying entrepreneurship. But anyways, I think that's fair. They give you a stipend. And so it was a great moment. At the time I felt kind of bummed, but it was an amazing forcing function for me. And at that point I realized, I just love doing this startup thing. And yeah, I like, actually really like research. My dad's professor, business school professor. I like it, but it's just not my passion. And so then I, it was actually, at the time I was kind of pissed, but I was so grateful now in retrospect where they gave me that choice. And it was actually a really easy decision. I said, oh, okay, I'll just pause the PhD and I can always go back. 4:01 Thea Ngo: So when you came back to tell your family and friends, and you also moved to Vietnam around the same time? 4:08 Stephen Turban: I was already in Vietnam at that time. Yeah, yeah, I was already in Vietnam at this point. 4:11 Thea Ngo: So what are your What did your parents think of it? Because your dad also was a professor. 4:15 Stephen Turban: Yeah. You know, I have the greatest parents on earth. They are so chill. And my parents are from Hawaii. Everyone in my family is from Hawaii. 4:22 Thea Ngo: Maybe that's why they're so chill. 4:23 Stephen Turban: Dude, they're so chill. And my dad's super smart, super hardworking. So is my mom. But in Hawaii, the coolest thing to do is to be really good at pickleball. That's the coolest thing. 4:33 Thea Ngo: Okay. 4:33 Stephen Turban: Pickleball? 4:34 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 4:34 Stephen Turban: Or like surfing or whatever. Like, that's cool. Whatever you do in your job doesn't matter that much. So I told them and my parents were like, oh, Like, that's great. 4:42 Thea Ngo: That's great, honey. 4:44 Stephen Turban: That's great, honey. Yeah, they were so supportive. They were like, that's whatever you want to do, you know? 4:47 Thea Ngo: I love that. 4:48 Stephen Turban: So for them, I don't think it mattered at all. For— I think for me it mattered a little bit. It was a little bit of identity change, but I did it because I wanted to change the identity. 4:57 Thea Ngo: You spent so much of your life in a very structured academic setting, and then obviously going down the research track, like, it's quite an academic feat. Like, how did you switch from the research scientist brain over to like founder startup braid mindset. 5:11 Stephen Turban: So I think people think of researchers as like kind of like just nerds who are good at school, and some are, and a lot are, to be honest. But they're very similar to entrepreneurs. The 3 groups that are very similar are researchers, entrepreneurs, and artists, because they're all trying to create something new from something that doesn't exist before. Like, they're very— they're creatives. All 3 are creatives. It's very— I used to work at McKinsey. That's very different. than being an entrepreneur. That's very different than being a researcher. But actually the researcher entrepreneur brain, I think super similar. You're creating experiments, you're trying things out, you're learning for a job. So I think of them as almost identical. And I think actually for my dad, who is, when I became a PhD student, I realized, oh my God, my dad is like a prolific researcher. He has like 30,000 citations. He's like top, like he's crushing it. This guy's such a dork. He's such a dorky dude. It's just my dad. But I realized, oh, I think my dad, if he had been an entrepreneur, would've also crushed it. And he was just using the exact same energy, but to be a researcher. So I think of them as extremely compatible. The issue I think is that sometimes PhD students, and this is true for people like consulting or really anything, you get caught up in the system and then you start optimizing for like, oh, how do I get tenure? Or how do I get this publication this year? That's lame. That's a useless skill, I think, outside of that context. But the learning skill, I think that's quite useful. 6:28 Thea Ngo: Okay. So a lot of people have ideas for education startups. probably one of the biggest segments of the market, you decided to focus on PhD-level research for high schoolers, which is a little bit niche. 6:43 Stephen Turban: It's niche, it's nerdy, yeah. 6:45 Thea Ngo: So why start there? 6:46 Stephen Turban: For me, I felt like it was such a good fit. I was a PhD student at HBS. My co-founder was at Oxford, he was doing his PhD. We both studied at Harvard. We like get the— I really get that hustling high school kid. I was that kid. I don't know if you were, you must have been that kid. 6:59 Thea Ngo: You're like, No, I was like the chillest kid, you know. 7:01 Stephen Turban: You were chill. 7:01 Thea Ngo: Okay. 7:01 Stephen Turban: You don't seem that chill. 7:03 Thea Ngo: You know, like school is so easy, like you said. 7:06 Stephen Turban: It was so easy. It was so easy. Yeah. Actually, high school's hard, PhD easy. 7:10 Thea Ngo: That's actually true. High school was probably harder than university for me. 7:14 Stephen Turban: Right. So much, right? So I really get that kid. I also got the PhD because I was that, though reluctantly, I was also that PhD student. So it felt like a good fit of both. And then, you know, now Lumiere, I mentioned we, you know, we run you know, 5, 6 brands. We about this year will have about 6,000 students who work with us. We have a team about 100, 110. So now we've expanded a lot, but we started with a very like small niche, which is a really good fit for us. And now we have a lot of other players in that space, and that's great. But for us, it was just a, it was an easy fit because I had no skills, right? I was like a PhD student. 7:49 Thea Ngo: A lot of people are in the space or trying to do something quite similar. Yeah. How do you guys think about like um, standing out? 7:56 Stephen Turban: Education is so easy. Okay, it's so easy. People who start education companies are mainly educators. I'm also— I love education. Like, I really— my dad's— I care so much about it. On average, educators are not like cutthroat private equity dudes, you know? They're not like the top— like, they're not like my college roommate who's like grinding on AI startup, okay? They're just like nice people who care about students, who are like so friendly and happy, you know? Like, that's the vibe of the average educator founder. 8:23 Thea Ngo: Yes. 8:24 Stephen Turban: So I, first of all, be that, like, have that education focus, but then just have some, like, chops in terms of, like, getting stuff done. I think actually it's really not a super competitive, competitive market, but you want to— I think there's 2 mistakes you make. One is you become too much the educator, you don't think about building the business. And the second is that you become too much the private equity dude, and then you're just like, you think of students as just, like, cash signs. And that doesn't work either because family, you can feel that. You can feel when someone's just trying to get a buck from you. Education's all about trust. 8:52 Thea Ngo: So when you guys started Lumiere, you were in your early 20s selling a premium academic product to parents. Did you ever get any pushback because of your age or because of your lack of experience? And then how did you convert them? 9:08 Stephen Turban: Yeah, well, I, I have like kind of a, I'm like super down to, to, to tell truths that are like not like on the surface are true, but actually are true, but they're like kind of like not what someone asked the question. So people would ask me early on, like, I remember my very first 6 months doing Lumiere, we grew a lot the first 6 months. I remember people would be like, oh, hey, how long have you been running Lumiere for? And the answer had been like 84 days. But then I had started like 3 cohorts. We had like launched cohorts. I was like, oh, we're on our 3rd cohort. I would just like reframe it, you know? I'd be like, oh, we're on our 5th cohort or something, you know? I would never answer their question. 9:43 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 9:44 Stephen Turban: You know, or I'd be like, oh, you know, how old are you? 9:45 Thea Ngo: And I'd be like, oh, you know, Oh yeah, graduated a couple years ago. 9:49 Stephen Turban: You know, that's a great question. You know, I've been guiding students for 5 years, whatever. Like, I just reframe it. I think age can be something that, like, first of all, I think it's fair, uh, to— the way I think about it is you, you don't always need to answer the question in front of you. 10:07 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 10:07 Stephen Turban: You should try to figure out what's the story I wanna tell that's gonna be most effective for the other person. But to be honest, at that point it was COVID. Everything had like shut down. And so we seemed like we had something that was actually working during COVID And so we seemed like, oh, these guys actually know what they're doing. And we went to Harvard and we were like PhD students and stuff. We were like, yeah, 20. I think Drew was 24. I was 25, 26. So we weren't like, I think we were reasonable enough for parents for them to accept. So I think that was the key. 10:34 Thea Ngo: Yeah. Yeah. You were at least in your mid, mid-20s, right? 10:37 Stephen Turban: Yeah. 10:38 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 10:38 Stephen Turban: Yeah. Plus I'm like some like white guy. I feel like, you know, you get a lot of, uh, a white guy from the US. I feel like you get a lot of like, It depends actually on the clientele, by the way. Like, for, like, let's say like, we have a big operation in India. In India, I think like, oh, just being like a random white dude, that was actually pretty helpful. Whereas in the US, for my co-founder, who's like, he's an Indian man actually, and like a really like high EQ, like lovely human, he really kills with like the middle-aged white women. So you have to know your audience. Oh my God. Yeah, he crushes. He slays with like the moms. The Midwestern moms. 11:11 Thea Ngo: So what clientele do you crush with? 11:13 Stephen Turban: The Asian moms. For sure. 11:16 Thea Ngo: So in the early days, did you ever get pressured to like productize or scale differently? And why did you decide against it? 11:24 Stephen Turban: For me, I thought it was tempting, but I really know myself. And one thing, or I don't know, I think I know myself. And at least one thing I think that's true about me is I really like to have autonomy. I like to be able to call the shots. I don't like, I actually don't perform well when someone tells me what to do. And I felt like having an investor or someone buying me, I would suddenly have a boss and I really don't like having a boss. I think I'm an A-minus entrepreneur, but I'm like a C-minus employee. I like so bad. When I was at McKinsey, I was not good. It's like genuinely not good. I'm sure you're like way better than me. 12:04 Thea Ngo: So So, it's like, it's like I don't do well with authority, right? 12:07 Stephen Turban: I don't do well with authority. I genuinely don't. I just, I bristle, I bristle, I bristle. So, for me, being a bootstrap founder allowed me to, to kind of control my own destiny. But also, it's, I think, for the type of company I run, for some companies, like really pure-play tech companies, you have this economic model where you put a lot of investment up front, and then a lot of the returns come year 4, year 5. But if you're running a company that has good margins, that makes money, it doesn't have the upfront cost, I just don't think you need to raise money and you actually build a better company as a result. So I think that's the outcome. 12:40 Thea Ngo: I also do think like, yes, different type of businesses, like some are not the best for fundraising. 12:48 Stephen Turban: For sure. 12:49 Thea Ngo: Or you also just don't need the fundraising 'cause you have the service fees upfront anyways. And then I think the other thing too is like depending on the market you play in, that also plays a factor because I spoke to some— so I used to work at a VC fund out of Southeast Asia, and their kind of like thesis is very different from like how we looked at it in Australia in the sense that like, just like you're capped by market size, you're capped by like supply demand, you're capped by like certain things that doesn't quite exist for like a pure play AI B2B productized thing that can sell into basically the entire world. So somewhere along the line you had Leverage Assistant pairing EAs with founders, which you eventually sold to focus on Lumiere. 13:34 Stephen Turban: Yeah. 13:34 Thea Ngo: So here's what I'm really curious about. If you're a good founder, you see opportunities everywhere. 13:40 Stephen Turban: Okay. 13:40 Thea Ngo: Yeah. How do you maintain discipline and focus for the long run? 13:44 Stephen Turban: When I was like 25 or a few years ago, I would look at someone who said, oh, I have like 5 companies, and I'd be like, you are a fucking god. How do you do? You fuck it. Like, I bow at your feet, sir, you know? And now I look at that person, I'm like, you are a fucking idiot. 14:01 Thea Ngo: Yep. 14:02 Stephen Turban: You're so dumb. Why are you doing that? You know, because what I learned— so what happened, just a quick story, is that I ran Lumera for 3 years. We grew a lot. I think we were like 50 people at that point. And I saw this opportunity. We hire globally, like mainly in APAC. And I thought, oh my God, I'm so good at hiring. I just, I crushed it. I'm so, I'm so talented. And I saw other people doing it. This is literally what I thought. 14:24 Thea Ngo: Oh gosh. 14:24 Stephen Turban: This is, I'm just gonna be honest with you, this is what I thought. I was like, and these other guys running these like assisting companies, those are idiots. They're based in the US, they don't get it. I got it. 14:32 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 14:32 Stephen Turban: And so I was like, I'm gonna go start this company. And I started it and it was okay. It worked okay, but I was doing nothing well. I was like, that company was doing okay. And then Lumiere didn't have my attention, so it was doing fine, but it wasn't, it wasn't doing as well as it could, to be honest. And it took me about a year to realize how stupid I was. And I was just being arrogant. I just thought, oh, 'cause I, you know, 'cause I did one thing well, my shit smelled like gold, so I could do anything well. But actually, no, it heads out. I just spent a lot of time on that first thing and now I just had split attention. So I eventually sold that company. In fact, for not much, by the way. It's not like some amazing sell. I just sold it. So there's two things. I think one for me is actually I do like new stuff, so I have to focus that energy around new things towards an existing product. So like, for example, for me with Lumiere, we're an education company. I'll let myself start education companies because they fit inside the Lumiere umbrella. We have— that can provide returns for us. 15:25 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 15:26 Stephen Turban: Or I can innovate within a product, but I can't go outside the educate. Once I go outside education, I'm an idiot. You know, I, that's what I tell myself. 15:32 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 15:32 Stephen Turban: So I think if you're someone who's like kind of ADHD like me and you love to start new stuff, I think that's okay, but you have to scope yourself down. And what I did with the assistant company was, was dumb 'cause I went from like, I had this great education company, And I started an assistant company. That was stupid. So that, that's, that was such a rookie mistake. And I hope I don't make, I probably will make that mistake again in some other, other form, but I scoped it down a little bit. So you just wanna know like, what's the competence, what's the area you wanna, you wanna build in? 15:57 Thea Ngo: So Lumiere has grown a ton over the last few years. Looking back, what was the hardest period in your founder journey? 16:04 Stephen Turban: I think founders are big wimps. They're big complainers who love to say that their life is so hard. for me, in my experience, is that starting a company can be difficult. It can be ambiguous. Mm-hmm. But especially if you don't raise money, the only person who's judging you is yourself. 'Cause no one really gives a shit about you. 16:25 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 16:25 Stephen Turban: You know, no one cares. Like, I mean, I run my company now. I think it's a cool size, whatever, but no one cares. Like, no one's ever thinking, oh, I wonder how Lumiere's doing. Like, no one ever thinks that about, right? So I've had some hard moments, Uh, certainly the hardest are always around people. In my mind, it's actually a journey of like joy and discovery and like learning. And so if you like learning, I think it's really, really fun. So I, I'm not really answering your question, but I'm just kind of ranting because I think that a lot of the times the framing around being a founder is like, my life is so hard. Look at this like incredible sacrifice I'm doing. 17:00 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 17:01 Stephen Turban: But founders, people who make the most money are people who own a lot of equity in companies. So I— that's kind of like, woe is me, you know? I don't know. I don't think all founders should have like their cake and eat it too when it comes to, yeah, their difficult life. So there's hard parts, yeah, but it's, it's not— I had a way harder time working at McKinsey, you know what I'm saying? That sucked. That was terri— that's terrible. 17:22 Thea Ngo: It's like choosing your poison, you know? 17:24 Stephen Turban: Oh my God, but that's a terrible poison. 17:25 Thea Ngo: Really? 17:26 Stephen Turban: I think it's so hard. I found that so hard. 17:28 Thea Ngo: Were you bad at McKinsey? 17:29 Stephen Turban: I was— I think I was— I think I was not good. I wasn't terrible. I don't think I would have been fired, but I wasn't amazing. Yeah. And I just think I just, there's just, I found that really like when someone's yelling at me and being like, dude, you suck. That, that sucks. But like when I like, I don't know, when I fuck up something in my company, I don't, yeah, I think that's not a big deal. Um, okay. 17:48 Thea Ngo: So you also do standup comedy. 17:51 Stephen Turban: Yes. 17:51 Thea Ngo: In Vietnamese, a language that you're still in the midst of learning. Yes. You post controversial takes on, on LinkedIn. Um, so you've kind of leaned into this public persona of being the kind of controversial founder pretty deliberately. Is there something strategic about this framing of being the funny, unconventional founder? 18:13 Stephen Turban: Yeah, totally. People are so bored. Don't you think so? There's this amazing study. I'm probably gonna make up this study. I think it's a real study where I think it was Dan Gilbert, where the study is that, it's so funny, you put people in a room and then there's a buzzer and then the researcher says, hey, This is for another experiment. This is an electric shock. It won't kill you. I'm gonna come back, but just, hey, just hang out here. And then they leave and they leave them there for an hour. And the experiment is how many people electrocute themselves intentionally? You know what the answer is? 18:49 Thea Ngo: A lot. A lot. 18:51 Stephen Turban: It's like crazy. I, to me, I always think of that experiment because I think life, people are so bored. The way I think about it is that attention's king. So once you have attention, then after attention, you're gonna have everything else. Like, someone has— you have their attention. 19:04 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 19:05 Stephen Turban: Then they can take a call. Hey, do I like this guy? Do I not like him? Do I like their company? Do I not? But the most common thing is no one knows who you are. No, I mean, I am like shouting into the world with my comedy, my LinkedIn, whatever. Almost no— I'm sure most people watching don't know who I am, right? They don't know who I am. So I'm just like out there, and then people can hit like whatever I'm doing and then make a call. But I think that's a much more effective process. I think the alternative people take is that they think, oh, I'm just going to work hard and then people will find me via my hard work. And I don't think people usually do. 19:37 Thea Ngo: I agree. 19:38 Stephen Turban: So yeah, that's, I think, do you agree with that though? Do you think maybe you should like, how, where do you, do you embrace that? Are you a controversial? 19:45 Thea Ngo: So I, so, okay. I have to say one thing is like, I'm not as controversial, but I think one of the main things is like, I think what a when a woman is controversial, it sometimes is taken in a bad way. Like, I feel like as a woman, you have to balance the line a little bit. Um, but yeah, I think like most content is really boring, so I try to be different, you know? Like, people ping me, they're like, oh, like, you're actually interesting. And I'm like, thanks, this is not even my best content. Like, you should speak to me. Like, I think I'm pretty fucking funny. 20:15 Stephen Turban: All right, you know, sort of, you know, I had this amazing experience where I, I had this post on Prevo and I got super canceled on Reddit for it where I said or something along the lines of like, hey, if you're not going to Bali this summer, go fuck yourself. It went super viral. And then, and then I had so many people message me, and I kid you not, so many people asked me, they're like, this post really spoke to me. And I was like, dude, how could it possibly speak to you? I said, go fuck yourself. And they're like, I loved it. And I was like, oh my God, is he crazy? Am I like in like, like Black Mirror? This is insane, you know? But I think it's because people just want something interesting, something authentic, and that kind of pushes them. And then they feel like, oh, actually, I would want to hang out with this person even though they're like crazy or whatever. So I think that's true. 20:58 Thea Ngo: And you also moved to Vietnam in your early 20s as an expat. So what were those first few months like when you are still figuring out the country, the language, and the culture? 21:09 Stephen Turban: Yeah, so I moved to Vietnam. So what happened is that I had this, and I highly recommend this for everyone, it's like Amazing, not really a life hack, but like amazing, I think, life approach. I had the job offer at McKinsey and then I pushed it out as far as possible. They gave me like 3 start dates. I picked the farthest one. I asked if I could like extend it 2 months later. So I had this like 4 or 5 month period before, after college when I had the job where I could do whatever I wanted. I just wanted to do something new. 21:34 Thea Ngo: Hmm. 21:35 Stephen Turban: So I thought, oh, it'd be fun. I really like language learning. I spoke Chinese. I thought, oh, I'd come to Vietnam. Maybe I can learn Vietnamese. And I came and I just loved it. Like, I just, I realized I came to Vietnam, I meant this place is changing so quickly. There's so many opportunities and there's really something to be done here. And of course, I'm not Vietnamese. I'm like some random white dude, but I felt like there was a big opportunity even for me. And so those first few months were really just joyful. To be honest, I was spending 6 hours a day in Vietnamese class, just grinding. I was just grinding every day. It was so cute. Me and my, my, my goal, my teacher. She's still my teacher, by the way, 8 years later. Yeah, she's incredible. And I just loved it. And so Vietnam is a crazy place, but it's— I think it's really warm and opening to new people. 22:21 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 22:22 Stephen Turban: And I felt that. And then I just invested a lot in the language and trying to be a part of the place instead of being— I just, I don't want to be on the outside of a society, you know? I don't— I mean, I'm an expat, but I don't want to— 22:35 Thea Ngo: You want to be included. 22:37 Stephen Turban: I just want to be loved. I want to be one of the guys, you know? 22:41 Thea Ngo: What happened? 22:43 Stephen Turban: Exactly. 22:43 Thea Ngo: What do you think helped you a lot during that period? 22:46 Stephen Turban: So one thing I do is that I have a lot of habits in my life to keep the most important people in my life a part of my life. So an example of that was my best friend, my college roommate. We have a, we have a workout call over Zoom 3 times a week where we both go for a run. He's in New York, I'm in Vietnam. So every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for me it's 7 PM, for her it's 7 AM, we go for a run together and we talk on the phone. I think these patterns make it so that I always have the core people in my life are always a part of my life. And then that gives me a lot of space to, to feel safe. 23:21 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 23:21 Stephen Turban: Emotionally at least. And then I can go explore and, and not seek. 23:25 Thea Ngo: For someone kind of contemplating a similar move, like uprooting their whole life for a new country, a new adventure, and I think I, I know what your answer would be, but like, what would you tell them? 23:34 Stephen Turban: No, why? What would I tell in terms of like, should they do it or? 23:39 Thea Ngo: Like, should they do it and like, what should they consider? 23:43 Stephen Turban: Well, it's a two-way door. I think it's the first one. You can always go, not like it, and go back. Usually. I mean, unless like you're like facing some visa stuff, so I get that. But like usually it's a two-way door. 23:52 Thea Ngo: No, no, it's really helpful to be American, right? 23:55 Stephen Turban: No, no, it's super helpful. I just, I'm saying I recognize it, but even then it usually is a two-way door. Like let's say you're in the US, you go back to Vietnam. Okay, apply to MBA, whatever. Like there's usually another way. to, to do it if you want to? I would say you should trust your intuition early on. I think within a few months you can usually get a sense of your trajectory in the city. That's my experience. I moved to maybe like 5 cities, 6 cities in my life, 4 of them outside of the US. And then I felt like within a, maybe, maybe 4 months I could have a sense of like, okay, is this gonna be a really easy fit or is this gonna be a more difficult fit? I think you should just trust your intuition there. And then sometimes like, It's not perfect, but that's okay because you have to do other stuff in your life. That's totally fine. That's a big one to trust your intuition. And then I would say finally, it's like one thing you should consider is throwing parties. 24:41 Thea Ngo: Yes. 24:43 Stephen Turban: Don't wait for other people to invite. I never get invited to parties. Is that a personality thing, you think? I rarely get invited to parties, but I throw a lot of parties. And so if you are the one proactively creating something, especially when you're new, be the one to create stuff. Don't wait for other people to invite you in because you're just going to wait and it's going to be lonely. And I think if you force yourself, yeah, I'm just going to have a little dinner of 6 people, you'll find some random, like maybe they're like C-list people, you know, maybe they're not like the perfect person. 25:12 Thea Ngo: C-list people? 25:13 Stephen Turban: You know what I'm saying? 25:14 Thea Ngo: A little elitist. 25:14 Stephen Turban: No, I'm not saying like they're a bad person. I'm saying like they're like a C-list friend for you. Like they're like not, you're not like, oh, you're my boy. But you're like, okay, you're fine. Like you're what? You're gonna invite, and you might realize, actually, I really like them because you gave them the chance, you hung out with them, as opposed to like, you know, your just perception of them for 20 minutes when you met them at the gym or wherever you meet people. 25:33 Thea Ngo: So yeah, do you still throw parties? 25:34 Stephen Turban: I still throw parties. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 25:37 Thea Ngo: So guys, everyone ping Steven to get invited to the party. 25:41 Stephen Turban: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's B minus, but he will rank you. 25:44 Thea Ngo: I will rank you. So you have quite a public persona. When people meet you for the first time after following you online, what's something that would shock them about the real version of Steven versus the social media one? 25:57 Stephen Turban: I mean, I think on LinkedIn I cuss a lot, and in real life I think I cuss like a little bit, but I, it's not like a huge part of, uh, I'm not that aggressive. I'm actually not that aggressive of a, of a person, um, when hanging out. I actually usually, this is obviously interview settings, so I'm talking a lot. I usually ask more questions than I speak. I usually don't talk that much. 26:17 Thea Ngo: Yeah, you do ask a lot of questions, I have to admit. 26:19 Stephen Turban: Oh, okay, okay, okay, let's go. No, but I think, I think that's a big, a big difference. I think on social media, you're like— social media is, you end up like optimizing for that algorithm. 26:30 Thea Ngo: Yep. 26:30 Stephen Turban: And so that means you choose the things that are gonna be most relevant for the algorithm, but that's a very spiky part of who you are. 26:37 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 26:37 Stephen Turban: And I think in real life, I'm not that spiky, not as spiky. 26:42 Thea Ngo: Okay. And then if you had to give one sentence of wisdom to the Steven of 5 years ago, when you were so young and naive, what would it be? 26:50 Stephen Turban: I think the big thing I would say is you should lean into the things that create a sense of belonging in the place you are. That took me a couple of years in Saigon. So I live in Saigon, I've been there in Saigon about 6 years. My first 3, 4 years, I was running this kind of global company. And I wasn't too connected to the city, even though I really like— I had lots of friends and whatnot, but my life wasn't too connected. 27:15 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 27:15 Stephen Turban: And then the big change for me was when I started doing stand-up comedy in Vietnamese, and that made me join a group that is rooted to Vietnam. And that really changed my life, I would say. And it made me just feel like a lot more connected to this place because I knew that I could move, but I could never move that part of my life with me. And it created a cost. And I think when I was a bit younger, I was afraid of those costs. I didn't want to reduce my optionality. But now, you know, I think actually when you force yourself to be in a place or to be in a position or with a person, whatever, you usually create more meaning in your life. So that took me a few years to realize. I wish I had learned a bit earlier, honestly. 27:54 Thea Ngo: So like, how would you recommend other people to create that sense of belonging that is like in their own settings? 28:03 Stephen Turban: to not think of yourself as being temporary, because I don't think it's that helpful. You might be temporary. We're all, we're all temporary, right? We're all going to die. We're like, we're all going to end up— something's going to change our life. 28:14 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 28:14 Stephen Turban: But I think the mindset is not super useful because you end up not investing in things that then accumulate over time. 28:22 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 28:23 Stephen Turban: Relationships, in my case, language. I think a really clear example of this is in Vietnam. most foreigners don't really speak Vietnamese. 28:31 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 28:31 Stephen Turban: A lot of them have been there for 10, 15, 20 years. And I think, man, that has to be from a short-term mindset. And I get it. If like every moment you're thinking, should I learn Vietnamese? At every moment, it's not the right moment to learn it, but it's a really short-term outlook. And then I think they end up having a less rich life because of it. So I think that's, that's a, that's the suggestion I would make. It's more about the mindset of, of thinking about the long term. Yeah. 28:55 Thea Ngo: Cool. Cool. Um, well, thank you, Steven, for coming on the show. I had a great, great conversation and so many good hot takes. 29:04 Stephen Turban: Yeah. What would you say out of 10? 29:05 Thea Ngo: Rate you? You're like 100. Like off the freaking charts, right? 29:10 Stephen Turban: That was so genuine. I so appreciate that. I think it was so fun. I really enjoyed it. And I hope, um, I hope it was useful. 29:18 Thea Ngo: That's a wrap. If you like this episode, please hit the like and subscribe button. It helps us bring on more awesome guests, level up production, and bring on new series you'll want to watch. And if you want to hear more early-stage builder stories, check out our other episodes. Okay, see you next time. No transcript lines match that phrase. Try fewer words.
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