Episode 79
November 9, 2021

Doing it All with June

with Matt Van Horn, Co-Founder and CEO of June

About this episode

Joining the show today is Matt Van Horn, Co-Founder and CEO of June, a do it all smart oven that is 12 appliances in one, dedicated to bringing intelligence and ease to the tools you use in the kitchen. Tune in to hear his entrepreneurial journey, the value of equity, how to hire for A-players, and why he almost missed payroll and was on the brink of losing it all.

This episode is sponsored by

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In This Episode You’ll Hear About:

  • His entrepreneurial journey from growing up in the Pacific Palisades and what it was like growing up with parents working within the entertainment industry 
  • How his mentorship with Keith Ferazzi began and how he continues to learn from him today 
  • What June’s hiring process is like and why it’s important for Matt and his co-founder to stay involved in the process
  • What the process of June being acquired was like as a business and as the Co-Founder
  • The challenges he experienced in the early stages of building June, the fight to get investors believing in their product with no model in front of them, and how he continued to fight for his business. 

To Find Out More:

https://juneoven.com/ 

Want the Inside Scoop?:

  • Text me at 310-510-6044

Quotes:

“A lot of it is not so much the luck, but surviving long enough to get your timing right.”

“To this day, Nikhil and I, even though June is part of Weber now, we still interview every single person that enters the June world or the connected devices world at Weber, Nikhil and I have to meet every single person.”

“On the tactical side, we do a lot of very technical screening. We sometimes have challenges, quizzes, things like that before people even make it beyond just a phone screen, but by the time you make it to Nikhil and I, we're usually just kind of the culture check, not diving into too deep of tactical or deep questions, but we'd like to make ourselves available and answer questions and be there to be supportive.

“For us, as soon as we kind of delved into this kitchen space, we couldn't unsee it.”

“A lot of this is just not dying and not running out of money before your moment can happen. And timing is everything.”

“Lasting long enough and executing is really, really important.”

“As you learn, as you evolve, as you learn your market, as you learn your value, your company grows with it.”

“You have to have the right amount of blinders on to be able to execute, cause there's hundreds and thousands of reasons why you shouldn't pursue them. So you need to have enough blinders on, to look to the side and gut check yourself and make sure only like mostly insane, not like a hundred percent insane.”

Read the transcript

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