Jono Lee, Product Designer + Founder
Jono Lee, Product Designer & Founder
In this episode, Jono talks to Katherine about his entrepreneurial work on two separate occasions, once in 2017 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and again in 2019 over Zoom.
We discuss Jono’s work flow in start-up development, from the birth of a compelling idea and existing market research, to the nitty-gritty process of working on pitch decks. Jono talks about his rigorous process for determining if his idea is substantially better and different from existing products:
Can he execute what’s required (founder - market fit)?
Is there a big enough market to be worth it?
Can it make money?
What resources are required to start & execute?
What is the learning potential?
Is it creatively fulfilling?
Is it mission based & fulfilling a purpose?
In the follow-up interview in the last part of the episode, we discuss Jono’s new start-up, Wanderium, an idea that he developed while he was traveling with Remote Year. Jono also discusses how his personal life has evolved in the United States after nearly 1.5 years of full-time international travel.
Jono Lee
Jono is a product designer and engineer who enjoys building products people love. He's currently the founder of Wanderium, a smart all-in-one travel assistant. Previously he was Lead Product Designer at Disqus. In his spare time, he enjoys coastal foraging, traveling, baking, and watching A24 films.
Show Notes
Education
UCLA, 2010
Bachelor’s in Computer Science
Cognitive Science Minor
Career
College internship at Shoe Dazzle, a food review website (early subscription box company)
Founder, TwoSides (2011-2012)
TwoSides was focused on politics during 2012 election — Jono wanted to help people understand complex issues more easily and vote on the things they truly agree with & care about; grew to 15,000 users.
Product Designer, Disqus (2012-2016) for 4.5 years
Disqus is a commenting platform used on many blogs / publications as a plug-in. As more users are involved and comments added, there is a need to have a certain ratio of moderations; otherwise, the value goes down & the discussion area becomes useless & productive.
Traveled with Remote Year’s second group, Battuta (2016)
Jono worked remotely with Disqus for 9 months of the year.
Founder, Wanderium
Started in 2017, Wanderium is a personalized travel system that helps people prepare for trips easily & quickly.
Wanderium
Wanderium.com is a personalized travel system that helps people prepare for trips easily & quickly. It brings resources together in one place – like a Turbo Tax or Stitch Fix for trip preparation. Jono taught himself full-stack development so he could build what he envisioned, he spent 6 months taking online classes to learn JavaScript, react, and Dyno DB. After 1 year of coding, he created the first version of Wanderium.
Jono’s initial idea was Wander Prep, a content curator of the best travel products & services. However, he received feedback from people indicating that they didn’t want to have to do the research to figure out what was relevant to them / their trip. He then decided to make Wanderium, keeping content from Wander Prep but adding more personalized, interactive experience, and information.
Wanderium is currently just a website but will become a mobile app soon as well. Wanderium is not yet monetized, but Jono is working through different funding models, including affiliate links for services & products, paid SaaS subscription model, and venture capital. Jono’s goal is to have a successful business, but also work-life balance and control over his own destiny.
Takeaways
In this episode, Jono spends a lot of time sharing the takeaways that he has gathered from his entrepreneurial work. He is a big proponent of indulging in curiosity and optimizing learning in the creative process. Jono also encourages risk taking when starting new projects, even if it seems scary. He argues that there is a real difference between something being scary and something being legitimately dangerous. Oftentimes, new projects can seem daunting, but it’s important to evaluate whether you’re risking something of real value (life, injury, etc) or just making choices that are intimidating, uncomfortable, unfamiliar, or challenge our perception of ourselves.
Jono encourages people to take advantage of opportunities when their costs and requirements in life are low, as it's easier and safer to take business risks when there is less on the line. However, Jono also notes that it’s often those with financial resources and safety nets that have the opportunity to take risks, so it's just as important to work against the systems that create unfair privilege and disadvantages low income groups.
Terms & References
Computer Science = study of processes that interact with data and that can be represented as data in the form of programs
Cognitive Science = study of thought, learning, and mental organization
Front-end = what a user actually sees and interacts with
Back-end = data, storage, calculations
Full stack development = ability to do both front-end and back-end development
JavaScript = programming language
react = React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces
Udemy = online learning and teaching marketplace
Saas = Software as a service = software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted
Trello = app for organizing projects & tasks
Evernote = app for notes
Google Trends = analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages
The Artist’s Way = book and 12 week self-guided program to embrace creativity [amazon link]
*some links may be referral / affiliate links, which helps support this podcast — thanks!
The Modern Work podcast is produced by Conaway Creative. The team behind this episode:
Hosted & directed by Katherine Conaway
Social media by Kelly Becker
You can support Modern Work financially via Patreon, by spreading the word on social, and by writing a review on your favorite podcasting platform. We appreciate it all — thank you!
