Today's Entrepreneur: Ian Chen

Entrepreneur

Winner of LA TechWeek Pycon pitch contest in 2014

I want to invent something cool.

Venmo, Uber

Being in control of your own destiny and taking pride in what you have built/created is extremely rewarding. On the flip side, any shortcomings or failures are yours to own as well.

Not controlling their burn rate

1. Nothing is more important than the team. 
2. Doing a start up is a roller coaster of emotions. 
3. Its a marathon, not a sprint

Ian Chen was born and raised in the suburbs of Potomac, Maryland.  Growing up, Ian was always a bit of a geek.  He always had an affinity for the sciences, and was actively involved in his High School’s different science teams and math competitions.  He feels partially redeemed by the fact that he also played sports as a kid, and was able to start on his high school’s tennis team, which won the county title all 4 years he was on board.  After high school, Ian moved to California to attend UC Berkeley where he would earn degrees in Business and Industrial Engineering. 

Upon graduating in 2008, he started his professional career as a management consultant at Bain & Company’s San Francisco office.  While at Bain, Ian spent half his time working on corporate strategy cases for large Fortune 500 Tech companies, and the other half working in Bain’s Private Equity Group.  Upon finishing two years at Bain, Ian moved down to Los Angeles to join The Gores Group, a $4B AUM Private Equity Firm focused on leveraged buyouts and operational turnarounds.  While at Gores, Ian looked at over 100 different business opportunities across a wide sector of industries, and also beefed up his financial modeling skills.  After performing due diligence for a year and a half, Gores deployed him to work as an Operator at two of the Fund’s most struggling portfolio companies.  While at National Envelope and Scoville Fasteners, Ian would gain first hand operational experience working directly under each company’s CEO to turn around their business. 

It was during Ian’s stint working in Private Equity that he became exposed to the world of bottle service and nightlife.  While going out with his co-workers, Ian would ask himself why it was so difficult to make a reservation for bottle service at different clubs in LA.  Despite the fact that customers were trying to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars, they still had to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort to get pricing information and to submit a reservation request.  When he realized that no one in the space was doing a good job of solving this problem, he decided to team up with two of his close friends from UC Berkeley to start Discotech.  He currently lives and works out of an apartment in Hollywood with his Co-Founders.  Together, they are disrupting the antiquated nightlife market and bringing transparency and efficiency to the space.