[Kyle Kelly]

I don't know if you can hear, but I live next to a train station, and the train may, you know, be a guest appearance.

[Josey Hoff]

I'm not hearing any yet. 

[Kate Bridal]

No, not so far. But it's okay, the ferries like to chime in from Josey’s end.

[Josey Hoff]

I'm not going to do the noise, because that would be, I just can't do it justice, and it'd be very embarrassing. But it is the loudest, like, just echoes everywhere.

[Kate Bridal]

There is a siren that goes off every day at noon in town, and it literally is like Silent Hill, you know, when that noise happens, and then everything changes, and it goes into, like, Pyramid Head comes out. That's what I always think of.

[Kyle Kelly]

Is it more worrisome if you don't hear it?

(Kate laughs)

[Kate Bridal]

I'm Kate Bridal, a former attorney who never cared that much for the law. 

[Josey Hoff]

And I'm Josey Hoff, a former paralegal who loves it. 

[Kate Bridal]

And this is our podcast, where we talk about all the stuff that leads to burnout in the legal industry, try to offer some solutions, and maybe occasionally live up to our title.

Welcome to The Legal Burnouts. 

Honey, honey. 

[Josey Hoff]

Yes, darling?

[Kate Bridal]

You want to do a podcast? 

[Josey Hoff]

I do.

[Kate Bridal]

You thought about it. 

[Josey Hoff]

I did think about it. It's Monday.

[Kate Bridal]

That's fair. 

[Josey Hoff]

I think everybody's just trying to get back into the flow of things on Monday. So it just took my brain a moment to process that.

And then it's ready now, though.

[Kate Bridal]

No, I'm with you, actually, today. It is. It's a Monday.

And it is, like, just feels like a Monday, Monday.

[Josey Hoff]

Yeah, it's a real Monday. Not like one that's like, yes, Monday, you know. But like, this is one where everything hits at once.

[Kate Bridal]

But I am excited to be here with you. And excited for our guest, because this is like the origin story of The Legal Burnouts. Today, we've got Kyle Kelly with us.

One of the important things about Kyle is that he was the person who said you should do a podcast to the two of us. So he's here to apologize slash tell you all you're welcome.

[Kyle Kelly]

A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

[Kate Bridal]

(Laughing) No, Kyle, thank you so much for joining us and for coming on and for coming to talk to us about your journey in the legal industry and maybe some burnout tales and your new exciting enterprise that you're embarking on as well.

[Kyle Kelly]

Kate, Josey, super pleasure to be on here with y'all. And happy to see you took that conversation to fruition.

[Kate Bridal]

Yeah, you've been shouted out, I think, probably on a couple of episodes.

[Kyle Kelly]

Now, here I am in the flesh.

[Kate Bridal]

So we would love to hear, obviously, about what you're doing now. But before we get into that and like your entrepreneurship journey, give us a little bit of background on the wonder that is Kyle Kelly, the origin story, and maybe how you came to legal specifically. And then we can get more into the current.

[Kyle Kelly]

That's a loaded question, but I'll do my best to answer as best as possible.

[Kate Bridal]

Spare no detail, Kyle, just the full bio. Let's go.

[Kyle Kelly]

I'll try to do my best to give the TLDR off the cuff. I grew up sort of just being a big computer nerd, mainly gaming and learning the early days of the internet as terrifying and as wonderful as they were all at once. And I took a forensic science class in high school, which was basically mainly learning about how to get away with murder and watching CSI.

Basically, from there, I just took like, OK, I'm really good at computers. I like this forensic science thing. I used to watch all the crime shows with my mom growing up.

So it all kind of came together where there is this program called Digital Computer Forensics. And I was like, I don't know what that is, but that sounds really interesting. It's up in beautiful Burlington, Vermont, where I went to school and got my bachelor's in digital computer forensics and then found my way across the Atlantic and went to UCD, University College Dublin in Dublin, Ireland, where I found another master's in digital investigation, understanding how crimes are committed on computers and how to prevent them in the future.

Then I came back, worked for a small forensics laboratory, basically providing second opinion on state's evidence in criminal cases. But the content was mainly like murders and CP. I'm not going to call that out on a podcast.

But if you ask your neighborhood forensics person what CP means, then you'll understand why I pivoted to doing corporate discovery. I had six Skype interviews with a small cloud company called Salesforce. You might have heard of them.

And they offered me a job.

[Kate Bridal]

Maybe I've seen their name on a building.

[Kyle Kelly]

Maybe. They might have a tower or two. And at that point in my life, I'd never been more West than Pennsylvania.

So three suitcases in my life, all the way to San Francisco in 2013. And I've been bopping around the Bay Area ever since. Worked on their e-discovery and forensics team.

Found a really interesting little e-discovery startup that I really liked. So I'd hopped on that adventure for a few years. Ended up trying to sell that to a small little crypto company called Coinbase.

You might have heard of them as well. And eventually got the opportunity to greenlight and build a program from scratch for them. Throughout this entire journey, I've been looking at a lot of technology, implementing a lot of technology, finding new ways to do things more efficiently.

And there were some things I just hadn't seen come to fruition. So I decided to take my own hand at it and try to identify some solutions. So January 23, I left Coinbase.

In March 23, I started on another legal technology adventure. And if we're looking at the EDRM, the e-discovery reference model, because there's too many acronyms already that I didn't explain. But moving forward, I looked at the far right of that pendulum and started to identify some ways to recycle legal work product in a meaningful way.

In that same journey, I identified that there was more problems at the far left of that reference model, and then started working on something that we're referring to as Zubu today. Again, it started off with pre-discovered and translated that to Zubu probably late November. And that's probably too much talking for now.

But yeah, that's the journey.

[Kate Bridal]

No, not too much at all. I didn't realize that when you moved out to San Francisco, you hadn't been off of the East Coast at all. That's a bold thing to do.

What was kind of the driver that made you go, not only are you going to transfer into this different realm of legal, but somewhere completely different?

[Kyle Kelly]

You know, I think that point in my life, I had this opportunity to do something cool. The move was definitely huge. I didn't know anybody out in the Bay Area.

It was just trial by fire. And the journey, even though I've been here, has been bumpy. But through those bumps, you learn along the way, understanding the environment out here and the opportunities.

And the whole different way of thinking about certain things out here is also very interesting to me. So overall, it's been an adventure, one that I'm still enjoying. I'm fortunate to have been remote first since March of 2020, when Coinbase made that decision very, very early on.

Seeing that adjustment from the world shutting down to now what is commonly referred to as this hybrid approach. I think a lot of the decisions that have been made by some companies, I've been rash. And that's understandable.

But I think at the same time, I don't think it's all been figured out yet.

[Kate Bridal]

How do you like to work? Because I do think that COVID was the breaking point for so many people who decided to start working differently, decided to leave companies that were forcing them to go back to the office, who decided to start their own businesses because they were being told to care about things when the world was on fucking fire. And I think we've all sort of figured out like, oh, I really do miss being in the office sometimes, but maybe I don't want to be there all the time.

So what did you kind of discover about yourself and the way you like to work?

[Kyle Kelly]

Yeah, that's a great question. So I felt like I have thrived in the remote space, even though the idea of remote work, like there's a lot of infrastructure and situations that are not easily adaptable to that. So giving the option to be able to do a hybrid model, that's probably going to be the way that the future does operate.

It's going to be hard to fight, because again, I think there are other powers that be that will want it to be going back to what we used to do. And that's fine to some extent. But my preference would be something along the lines of a hybrid option.

If you're looking for a job right now and you see hybrid role, hybrid role is like it's required time in, they may not specify.

[Kate Bridal]

Right. It's not truly like on your schedule. It's not fully flexible.

[Kyle Kelly]

There is a little bit more structure there. And to be fair, there is some good reason for that. But at the same time, hybrid role is always the devil's in the details.

So read them carefully. But I think having that opportunity to meet and confer, and that we're dropping legal language now, with your colleagues, like having that option, whether it's in an office or whether it's more of like a social thing, there's a personal connection that I think is important. There's always going to be that argument on both sides.

But I think at the end of the day, flexibility is going to be the one that's going to make the most impacts.

[Kate Bridal]

So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your decision to start your own business, because obviously you worked for a couple of pretty established companies for so long. What made you kind of go, I'm going to jump off and try something myself?

[Kyle Kelly]

It has to do with two things. One is, you know, that itch. I have been thinking about this idea for five years, the pre-discovered idea.

Oh my gosh. So it's like something that I'm like, okay, I see components of it here. I see some components over there.

Someone's going to just figure out and put it all together, right? That's got to be the obvious way. Five years of just like, someone's going to do this, right?

Like someone, anybody? Bueller? But at the end of the day, I didn't see anybody really moving that direction.

I'd left Coinbase. You know, I had some time to think about what I wanted to do next. But I know the one thing I wanted to do explicitly was to take some time.

And I failed at that. I did not take any time. I took like a month.

And then I started my, I got my hands dirty and started working.

[Kate Bridal]

Was that month like, it was a month, but really you were stewing and secretly writing stuff down for this and actually really just working on this before you were outwardly working on it?

[Kyle Kelly]

Probably a little bit more column B than column A. You know, I had a few months to like, just take a deep breath. I was comfortable.

You know, I didn't have to do anything at the moment. I just was like willing to like sit down and just like take a deep breath. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.

And that was okay. But sort of timing aligned with some conversations of some people else that I trusted in the space. Kind of walking through like what I would want to do.

And they said, wow, this seems like a really cool idea. Like, you know, what are you going to do with it? And I had some options on the table that were, hey, yeah, come in to this, you know, established business.

And like, we can get you help to build it out for us. And I thought that was a cool idea. But at the same time, I was like, I think there's still a lot that's undefined by this.

I don't want to like set myself and people who support me for failure. You know, through these conversations, I was like, maybe it's time. Like, maybe I need to like go out there and see if I can make this happen.

Because I feel like 2023, like there's got to be a better way to do this. And so I started to like build out prototypes. And probably like mid-March is when I like started to like sit down and dial this in.

And if we talk about industry conferences, like Clock, which happens in May, I was able to scramble up something to do like a soft launch event. Both of you were in attendance. Thank you for being there for that.

And you know, that was great. Big party at a penthouse suite at the Bellagio with potential customers, investors, and even competition. It was just a really special moment.

That also solidified that we're moving in the right direction. But at the end of the day, one of my biggest fears, if we're talking about like, you know, the burnout, the fear, was that like, if I did this and I failed, like, what would I do? How would I be perceived?

And so what I realized in talking to some, just people who've like been through startups, and have kind of gone down this path is like, at the end of the day, those really amazing opportunities that you're literally not considering right now will be available when you're done with this. Like they're going to be around. And so will you.

So I was like, fuck it, why not? The way that I originally explained it is that it's like jumping out of a plane with the blueprints of a parachute and building along the way down. Sounds stressful.

[Josey Hoff]

Yeah, I respect it. But I shan't be doing it. I'm a very risk averse person.

[Kate Bridal]

Yeah, I'm a little more of the, I was the one who was like, yeah, let's actually start a podcast, right? Like, but that is not the same thing as really starting your own business, because you're betting on yourself, not only to, you know, be able to establish something, but to make money off of it at some point, and like grow something long term. It's really intimidating.

And I admire anybody who has the guts to do it. And it's interesting to me that you said, you know, you were kind of presented with the opportunity to do it in conjunction with some places that you had worked with before, and like, have maybe a little more support in developing it, but you decided you didn't want to risk like letting other people down. I just find that interesting.

And I would love you to dive into that a little more, because I would have jumped at that, because I would have been like, anybody who can help me do any of this, please, because I would be so intimidated.

[Kyle Kelly]

I think those opportunities that I could have had, like assistance along the way, there would have been devil in the details, not that I would have minded them, I think you would have been well supported. But at the same time, I didn't feel comfortable that was a fully fleshed out enough idea. And I don't regret it.

Really, at the end of the day, I just want to be able to provide value. And that kind of puts me in that position of like, what if I went in and was well supported, and then was like a flightless bird, you know, and not to shout out penguins, but you know what I'm saying? Like, it's not, you know, to the point where you're expected to soar.

For me, just wanted to make sure I fully understood what I wanted to do first. And then, you know, kind of take it on my own adventure. And I think through that, I mean, I learned a ton.

It was a lot of understanding what the pain points are, the product would be, how it's going to shift, how you're going to support it, how you're going to find yourself in the go-to-market strategy. If I hadn't learned that before I started Zubu in November, like I would be running into the same pain problems, right? The task itself was really helpful to just kind of like look in and see like, are we able to provide value?

At the end of the day, it was also something that has never been done before.

[Josey Hoff]

So with your switches though, because you've had a couple of different transitions, and it seems like every time you just kind of bet on yourself. I don't want to put words in your mouth so that you know that you're going to succeed, but you have a confidence, I think, in your skills and your ability to, I think, work hard enough to make something really impactful. How do you maintain that as you kind of go through these different switches and, you know, run into the roadblocks and maybe some of those burnout situations?

[Kyle Kelly]

It's a great question. You know, every day is its own challenge, right? It's its own adventure.

You could call me Captain Optimism because I'm always going to find a way to like spin it in a positive way, even if it's, you know, a dumpster day, you know? So like you just got to make sure that the dumpster's not on fire and floating down the river, and then you're going to be okay.

[Kate Bridal]

It's fine if it's one or the other, just not both.

[Kyle Kelly]

Yeah, float down the river, hopefully the direction you want to go, but hopefully it's not on fire. I think it really comes down to just taking one day at a time, right? But you also, at the same time, need to plan, so.

[Kate Bridal]

I was going to say, like, how do you balance staying on top of planning and long-term things while breaking things down for yourself in a way that feels manageable one day at a time?

[Kyle Kelly]

Yes, that's a good question. Let me know when you find the answer. It really breaks down to your personal style.

I will admit, you know, through this process, and especially this last sprint from November to now, and just in case this hasn't been said, this is April 15th, 2024.

[Kate Bridal]

For posterity. For posterity.

[Kyle Kelly]

I have had sleepless nights, and like just some people like to be in the zone at like eight in the morning, 10 shots of coffee, and like that's like their MO. Some people are like the night busy bee workers, between eight and six in the morning. You got to find what schedule works for you.

Don't be afraid to step outside of the norm. Also, you just got to be honest with yourself. I would say that's maybe the harder part.

We all like to say, hey, you know, I could just look at this another hour. I think the more honest with yourself you can be about what you have to give and when you can give it, you know, that also helps you take on the other hidden aspects that are not talked about, like your personal life balance. You want to make sure that, you know, you are not completely alienating yourself because that easily can happen.

But some people may go the opposite direction. They're like, well, I need more friend time. I need more, you know, personal relationship time because this whole other aspect is stressful.

[Josey Hoff]

Yeah. When we talk about burnout and kind of balancing schedules, we talk about balancing personal and work often. But if I am taking a lunch break or if I am taking a walk, am I able to come back and communicate better with my clients?

Am I able to be more effective at my job just by having those breaks? And I think that's something that I still struggle with, but it's so key. And I feel like it's hard in the legal industry and other industries as well to remember to take those breaks.

And so I don't know how you've done it. Have you done it? That's my question.

[Kate Bridal]

There you go. Do you feel like you did it? I mean, you're still in the middle of it, right?

Yes. You've got this new venture now with Zubu. And I am just curious, like, are you starting to feel it?

And if so, what are you starting to do to kind of keep yourself from hitting a wall about it?

[Kyle Kelly]

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a little bit that you experience every day. Being mainly a solo show, like the amount of stuff that I have to do never gets smaller. The way I'm looking at this is like, I'm currently in a very large, fast sprint.

Once I'm able to deliver, you know, MVP retail, I wouldn't say I take a breather, but at least like I know that I've, that's like a goal that I accomplished and I can like sort of just like, okay, cool. Let's look back at that. And I'm not just like sprinting to get something out the door.

Celebrate the small things, right? And like, I'm not saying launching a product in, you know, the amount of time that I am is a small thing, but it's like, there's gotta be another thing to, you know, focus on, find the balance between making sure that you're available, making sure that you're being productive and making sure you're not like burning the candle from both ends, which I will admit, I'm currently am doing that.

[Kate Bridal]

I was going to ask, how do you do that? And like, have you set boundaries for yourself in your working hours or have you done that at any point? I know right now you're in a sprint and you are keeping your head down.

I've kind of been in a little bit of that zone too, as we're like reaching the end of this season where I am starting to feel it. I've been doing the same thing where I'm telling myself, it's a sprint, it's a sprint, it's a sprint. But then every week I'm like, is it a sprint?

Because I'm going to get out the other end and there's going to be more stuff. So have you had previous boundaries that you have let go right now? Do you still have any boundaries?

What are you, how are you operating?

[Kyle Kelly]

I probably should have set those boundaries before I hit go because I didn't.

[Kate Bridal]

But that's a lesson that you have to learn because I used to not know that, that boundaries are essential to think through before you start jumping into something. And the first time I've actually done that was with my Hannibal content. That was the first time where I went, this is going to get away from you if you don't think about it now, so you have to.

And then I violated a lot of them right away. But at least I thought about it.

[Kyle Kelly]

I think milestoneing actually really helps because there's always going to be the next thing. There's always going to be the next things that you're going to need to be able to handle and take care of. But milestone them out.

And as far as the barriers that I've put up for myself and make sure I'm getting sleep sometimes because the brain joke is, I've been working 25 eights, things are great. That obviously is not sustainable. And I admit that it's not sustainable.

As I move from delivering products and getting something out there in the market, the lessons learned is how to prevent this from happening in the future. And again, once I have more people that are on this journey with me internally, my lesson learned would be how do I delegate appropriately and also not allow them to run into the same traps that I did. So being very mindful of that.

And I'm not going to get right every time. But I also want to have a real open conversation policy where if something's not working, I don't want to find out about it at the end of the quarter. I think if you sort of lead by example, and I will say right now, I'm not leading by example that I would want someone to be following.

One of the things I do want to be able to adjust to going forward is like, what am I getting done today? And then not be completely marred by the fact that you will not get everything that you had said you would get done today. So that's like the hard part.

Because again, you can be as harsh as you can on yourself. But find your outlets that will help you sort of reset, refocus, and then come back to it. And then again, not be tied to a specific time frame.

Now that's an advantage that I have because some people like, they don't have a lot more familiar responsibilities and other things that they need to have a more rigid structure. And so they have to figure out a different way.

[Kate Bridal]

What I've been doing is kind of what you said, where you're like, I have all of these things to do every day I wake up and I'm just going to do what I can do until I am ready to drop and then I'll see what I have done and then I'll do it again, right? Which is not a sustainable way of working. And today I just finally got out a notepad and wrote down a list that is what has to be done this week and then what could potentially happen this week and then long-term stuff.

Because I was like, I was starting to put pressure on things that I didn't need to put pressure about. And I was not blocking out my time, which I'm just not. I think we're kind of similar in that I am naturally a little more like, oh, I'll just go with the flow of the day and how I feel depending on my energy level.

But I have found that I need to be more scheduled to prevent myself from overworking because then what happens is I will do that until sometimes 1 a.m and on the weekends and all sorts of stuff. So Kyle, how have you been doing with the go with the flow work style?

[Kyle Kelly]

I'd say pretty decent so far, but I also recognize again that it's not sustainable, right? Using like a JIRA style, linear style ability to just rank what is needed to be important or if it's just as simple as a notebook. And also I'm going to say if you really want this to stick the way you want it to, Kate, is don't let that apply to just you professionally.

Add your personal stuff in there too. Because I think if you make it synonymous with your lifestyle, then it will stick more and you will find ways to make it work best for you. Based upon what you've just said, I think you'll have a lot more success applying that across your life.

That's a good suggestion.

[Josey Hoff]

I think it's a pendulum. I think we, you know, burnout and then we go to another side and we're like, OK, we're not going to over plan. We're not going to put too much, you know, and that's natural.

But I've found myself starting to kind of come into this middle section where I'm realizing because I am a planner and I like to have every single thing marked and ready to go. I can't function like that because life is not planned and that's the reality is that life is not planned. Therefore, work will not always be planned.

Having the expectation that you're going to do it the same every day or you're going to hit every single goal is not going to set you up for success because I start to stress when I'm not hitting those goals and then I shut down completely and I don't get anything done. Some days I lay out that plan and it doesn't happen and I'm trying to become more like, it's OK. That's the hard part.

I think the week, like a list of things that I would like to accomplish this week or I need to accomplish this week.

[Kate Bridal]

It's better than the day by day. Yeah, because then you get overly scheduled and then like you said, yeah, there's the risk of shaming yourself if you don't do something you said you would do. And I love, Kyle, what you said about you're not going to do everything perfectly and that's OK.

Like that is a hard attitude to maintain in your brain and to remind yourself of, but it's so vital. Like just forgiving yourself for the days when maybe you don't get the thing done that you said you were going to do and realizing like the world isn't going to end. And that's harder in certain positions, right?

Sometimes you have a job and you're like, if I don't get this thing done today, the world might end and I might be fired and like things might come crashing down. I want to acknowledge that. But if you have flexibility and if a lot of what you're doing is like perceived pressure that you're putting on yourself, which is my circumstance, then you have to realize like, yes, be accountable to yourself, but also be kind to yourself.

[Kyle Kelly]

Always be kind to yourself. Yeah, it didn't happen today. Okay, we'll get it done tomorrow.

And then I think another point as well is like this perceived pressure. Maybe if you have it in you, if you don't, it's also okay. But here's like a bonus point if you can.

It's like, look at that, whatever you asked yourself to do or whatever you're going to do. It's like, do I actually really need to do that?

[Kate Bridal]

Yes.

[Kyle Kelly]

And you may ask yourself all week, like, do I really need to do this? Or is this that important? And then you move this next day or you move it to the end of the week and you ask yourself the same thing.

Did it get done then? Okay, no. You may have added this perceived value to some kind of task that didn't give you anything.

[Josey Hoff]

Yeah. And I think that goes back in both ways because what's interesting is like now that I've started this anti-burnout journey, it's trying to make sure that I don't get to that point again. But I think it can go the other way.

I can shame myself for not taking enough breaks or not having enough napkins or not only working the set eight hours. That's something that I'm also coming to terms with now is some days, some weeks are going to be really, really long and I may not have all the self-care things done that I want to do, but it's okay because sometimes that's how it works. And I think it's just so important that we don't go so far any which direction that us trying not to burn out becomes another moment for us to shame ourselves.

[Kate Bridal]

Especially for high achievers. Like Ria said on her first guest episode with us on the first season is like, she works with high achievers and they really struggle with her just giving them baby steps because they want to go all the way and be like, well, I want to fix my burnout faster than anyone ever has. And be like, if I'm going to not burn out, I'm going to not burn out to the best of my ability.

And I definitely catch myself doing the same thing Josie the other day. So I've talked about this a couple of times, but law school essentially killed my love of reading. It just made me so brain dead and tired all the time that I lost my desire to read.

And I have been missing it and trying to get it back. So I bought The Shining because I was like, I want a book that I know was a real page turner the first time I read it, but I haven't read in a long enough time that like I'll still be intrigued and won't remember everything to jumpstart my love of reading. So I bought The Shining.

It worked like a charm. First night read 80 pages, like stayed up way too late. That love of reading like was coming back.

But then the next night I was tired and I was like, you know, I should really read because if I don't read again tonight, I'm going to lose the habit. And then I just heard Ria's voice in my head actually go, I really love that you're prioritizing, keeping a good, healthy habit, but we are not shaming ourselves over prioritizing sleep. It's a journey.

Like when you say you're going to do something, you want to do it and you want to do it right. And that includes resting and not burning out, but you're never going to be perfect at everything and you just got to let that shit go.

[Kyle Kelly]

A hundred percent. You can't weaponize that against yourself. I know that's easier said than done, but at the end of the day, you need to, this is again, I think this goes back to the idea of I just got to be honest with yourself.

If you're not honest with yourself, then everything else that you kind of put in there to kind of like keep you in check or in the lane that you want to be in, you're on a false narrative, but it's all about the small victories. When you walk in, you look at your list, you immediately start to look at all the shit you didn't get done. Like, no, don't do that.

Start with what went well and then maybe address what didn't go well.

[Kate Bridal]

Yeah, and I'm a big fan of breaking your to-do list down, breaking it into as small an element as possible. Like break every task down into subtasks because then you get to check off your subtask boxes. Because if you have just one task that actually involves several steps and you don't get through all of those steps, you're going to not check that box and you're going to look at it and go, well, I didn't do that today.

But think about all of the steps that you took toward getting it done and how many you have left. It kind of depends on how your brain works, right? Because I think I can see how for some people, breaking it down further would be almost more intimidating because your to-do list gets really, really long.

But if you're thinking about trying to really mark off those smaller steps to remind yourself that you are doing things, even when the big thing isn't done, that's something that I really recommend to help with that. And in the vein of what really needs to be done, I actually, when I was writing my needs to be done this week list, I was like, I'm going to look at this again tomorrow and reassess if I still feel that this is a need, quote unquote. When you run up against a wall of something and you were really feeling just like, I do not have the time.

Like I just don't. I'm not going to have the time. It physically cannot happen without me driving myself into the ground.

Take those opportunities to see how you can turn that to your advantage. Because sometimes there's a secret good thing hiding in something like that. And you can say, okay, actually I'm going to take more time on that thing.

And I'm going to take more time to think about how I can do it differently. And maybe you'll come up with a way better way to do something. And usually you come up with those things in the moments that you're letting yourself rest.

So you have to make sure that you are building that time in.

[Josey Hoff]

In the same vein, but also transitioning slightly, I do want to get to kind of networking and moving from behind the computer, very much technical in the legal position type of role to more of a business development. Because Kyle, you have an incredible network and you've been very involved in so many things. And I have both of you, I have no idea how you balance networking to the level that you do with all of the things that you take on, Kyle.

I don't know how you do it. So how are you making time for that? And kind of how are you shifting your approach to your network now that you are in a business development?

[Kyle Kelly]

Yeah, so it's definitely a shift. And when someone goes from in-house to not in-house, I have been quoted as vendor scum at one point in time and left my way into owning that as opposed to letting that be the scar, the mark, right?

[Kate Bridal]

Is there a Star Wars parody t-shirt somewhere that says vendor scum? Because you should get one.

[Kyle Kelly]

I haven't seen one yet. And don't give me terrible good ideas because I will usually run with those before I run with a good, good idea, if you know what I mean.

[Kate Bridal]

Yeah, I'm going to distract Kyle completely. He's going to be like, I don't have a product at clock, but I do have these t-shirts that I made that say vendor scum on them.

[Kyle Kelly]

Yeah, that's for sure going to be notated. But like you said earlier, Josie, how are you finding the time to keep being enriched with your network? And I think at this stage, it's really hard, right?

I think that there was a point in time where I was like, you know what? I'm going to give it the good old college try and see if I can get more involved out there. And then I realized that that was a good idea in theory, but I just don't have the time.

And so prioritization is like not spending nearly as much time on LinkedIn. I was a pretty limited user to begin with, and that has shrunk. And I even told myself, I even challenged myself that I would do it more.

And wow, did I not do that? And that's okay.

[Kate Bridal]

And that's okay. That's exactly right.

[Kyle Kelly]

Yeah. I apologize to anybody who's ever messaged me on LinkedIn, because I might be like the worst at that in general for some reason. But that I am promising myself I will be better at.

I just, that one's hard for me, just because like I want to follow up. I want to be available. I want to continue to curate these conversations, but I think I also do better at that and in person.

And again, those opportunities are more limited now. So how to embrace your network, looking at your network holistically, going back to the same idea of like, if you're providing value, the value could actually come back to you. Was it valuable for you to interact with something on LinkedIn?

Was it valuable to scroll through whatever network you have? Relationships, no matter whether they're personal or professional, they take work. And if I'm looking at how I am interpreting my network today, now that I have all these other things going on, you know, I'm trying to be more intentional about how I'm interacting.

I think LinkedIn as a network is a tool. It's like, it's how you use it. You know, there are a lot of people who have really found a niche and has really worked well for them.

I commend their good fight against the, you know, the algorithm, how you utilize your network. That was one thing that I struggled with. Having the ability to communicate and find ways to solve a problem or just air it out in a safe space.

And then one thing that I know people like to do, and I'm terrible at, but I eventually will maybe get better at it, is like, okay, I'm looking for an intro. Even the message to say, hey, how do you know this person? What's your relationship with them?

Even that feels like, at least to me, sort of like a first date, just even asking that question. And it feels kind of silly.

[Kate Bridal]

This is what I was going to ask too, is like, in the vein of using your network, when you're starting your own business, it's important to reach out to people who you feel like might be able to help you out. But for me, the thought of that is really uncomfortable. And I'm sure it is for a lot of people because you do, you feel like you're asking for favors and you're asking, you know, will you look at this thing?

How did you kind of get past that? And if you did and rely on other people, because I imagine you had to, to a degree.

[Kyle Kelly]

I mean, again, I feel very confident that my network is strong and that I've been able to have very fruitful and meaningful conversations. Sometimes when you get into like a demo situation or like, hey, let me show you this, can I get your feedback? I always lean on the feedback piece because people who I'm usually talking to have seen a lot of technology and have like really cool feedback or just questions to ask.

So if you kind of like lay it out in this scenario where you're not like, hey, like will you sign the dotted line at the end of the call? Like, you know, I'm not looking for that. You know, it's gotta come from like, I'm valuing your opinion.

I'm valuing your expertise. And then, yeah, if it feels like obvious to me that there's an opportunity for them to like maybe look at this a little closer. Yeah, I'll ask the like, the question of, hey, like what's your appetite for a tool like this, right?

It's about how you frame the opportunity. Getting that user feedback, get, you know, getting that like rapport. I think that helps.

But then again, what happens is, is like I had shown this to someone in my network and, you know, without even me saying anything to them or like asking them for anything else, you know, one of their other providers had reached out and said, hey, this person has been talking about your Nozibu, like love to see it. And I was like, I didn't ask for them to talk about it, but they, it kind of came up in conversation. And so like, it's really about how you sort of approach that.

Just because you have a strong network, you know, it's gotta be a scalpel and not a hammer.

[Josey Hoff]

Yeah. You're going from this almost like a colleague or, you know, idea sharing thing to then trying to learn about what their needs are and see if your product or whatever it is that you're working with is going to fit. It's an awkward thing to bring into a comfortable conversation.

[Kate Bridal]

I feel like that's the harder one. Like I can, I'm almost more comfortable just doing a cold outreach to someone I don't know than the concept of soliciting help from someone that I know.

[Josey Hoff]

Yeah.

[Kate Bridal]

And turning a like formerly more colleague or friend relationship into a business relationship, that would feel much more awkward to me. But I like what you, how you phrased it Kyle of like having that initial thing where it's just looking for their feedback because you do value their feedback. And so it makes sense.

And I'm also curious, you did pivot away from Prediscovered, right? So something about it, you did decide like, this is not the product I'm going to pivot. Pivot into Zubu with Legal Holds.

So what was that decision like for you? And was there any kind of pain with that of letting go of something that you had been working on and throwing so much of yourself into for that long?

[Kyle Kelly]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, hardest part about that was going from this thing that I had thought about for five years basically and getting to a point where like, okay, this is how it's going to be built. Here's like the infrastructure.

Here's how it's going to work. You know, taking the like necessary step back and looking at like, well, what do I need to do to get this, you know, into people's like, not only their like businesses, but all their hearts and minds. Like, where are we going with this?

You know, looking back and seeing like what the landscape was. There was a shift in the market and there became a very obvious opportunity that there wasn't like an independent Legal Hold tool on the market. I realized like the end goal for Prediscovered, the bigger players were much closer with like a hundred extra my resources and, you know, influence.

And I was like, okay, this is going to be a really tough battle to get here. And then realizing that like, okay, I found a need in the market and then realizing that this was a bigger gap than I had originally anticipated. I realized I need to shake things up and like, yeah, that was really hard.

And I'll be honest, I haven't completely given it up. You know, implementing some of the core features that I had thought about with Prediscovered, just translated in a different way.

[Kate Bridal]

Yeah, that is nice. You were kind of able to translate Prediscovered to a degree into what you're doing now. And as you said, you learned a lot of really important lessons that you're taking forward in the new project with Zubu as well.

So, but that can be hard to remember in the moment that like the experience itself did provide some value for you.

[Kyle Kelly]

Yeah, and like in the moment, you know, I was still like, do I do this? Like, or do I just say, hey, I had a good try at this. Let me go get like another in-house job somewhere.

And do you, like that was the other like option, right? Like there's all these options on the line. And again, these, I saw many really, really awesome opportunities just kind of go to the wayside.

I'm like, okay, that would have been fun. That would have been cool. Yeah, just again, like you said earlier, like, you know, just betting on yourself.

Maybe the Prediscovered dream isn't over yet, but you know, maybe it actually starts somewhere else.

[Josey Hoff]

This is such a great episode to do, I think at this point in our podcast, because it's taking our push to, you know, have boundaries and all of that stuff. So we don't end up burning out again and making it much more cumulative. Sometimes you are pushing really hard.

Sometimes the ideas that you have don't work out. Sometimes you have to say no to opportunities that maybe would have been great. You know, you'll find the next thing and there's always options and it always comes back around.

Such a healthy mindset, Kyle.

[Kate Bridal]

And it's a hard one to cultivate. It really is. And I know we're bumping up against time, but I do want to get to, obviously when you're building a business, you're pitching people, right?

You have to. As vendor scum, one must pitch. Exactly.

You know, you've got to handle rejection. It's one thing when you're working for another company and you're pitching their product and you get rejected and maybe, I mean, I would probably still take that personally and like find a way to internalize it and shame myself. But when it's your product, like your baby, kind of, that you put all of this time and effort and maybe borderline burned yourself out for, how do you navigate that and keep yourself motivated through those moments?

I get the feeling you maybe struggle with this less than some of us would, because you do seem like you've got a very healthy, positive mindset. But just give us your insight into your brain, Kyle. How do you maintain the positive self-talk when you're getting rejected?

[Kyle Kelly]

I will do my best. No promises. But I think it starts with you level setting your expectation.

If going in like your success criteria is that you weren't booed off a call, it could be whatever you set as your success criteria. You know, I have on occasion had two of my demos that have had technical errors where I had to flail internally, in my mind flailing. Again, I think it's about controlling what you can be responsible for, right?

Yeah, you might have a bad demo and then what you gotta do is say, okay, well, what was that thing that I didn't really know? Like, did I not get enough sleep? Was I not prepared for that kind of question?

Don't let that like one hiccup reflect how you are perceived. Like I've had people who are, again, trusted in my network who, you know, were just really honest about their feedback, you know, like, and things that were totally valid. I would rather be told no, and here's why.

I think maybe the easiest way to also take control of it is like, how would you tell yourself no? And if you can understand that, then like, maybe you can see it from their lens.

[Josey Hoff]

Oh, I like that.

[Kate Bridal]

Not letting something derail you, but rather using it as a push to- I would struggle with like, if I put all my work into developing a product and someone told me it sucked, I would not handle that well.

[Kyle Kelly]

Yeah, or just maybe that's not a business part and you want to be a part of. And then it's like, okay, cool.

[Kate Bridal]

I hope that you're miserable, whatever else you- The trash took itself right out.

[Kyle Kelly]

Exactly.

[Kate Bridal]

Well, this has been awesome, Kyle. We really appreciate you joining us.

[Kyle Kelly]

Kate, Josey, this has been an honor and a pleasure. Thank you for having me. If you want to learn anything else additional, Zubu related, zubu.ai. Also, if you want, kyle.zubu.ai is the best way to reach out to me personally. Feel free to add me on LinkedIn. I apologize in advance if I don't get back to you. So the other two options will probably be your best.

But thank you again for the time.

[Kate Bridal]

And I will say, Josey and I have had the pleasure of taking a peek at Zubu and it was very cool.

[Josey Hoff]

We were both like- From a paralegal perspective, it blew my mind. I was very excited about it.

[Kate Bridal]

So- So plug. Kyle is not paying us to show that we liked it, but we did.

[Josey Hoff]

Kyle, it has been so fun to have you on. And especially as I get ready to phase out, I'm just glad that we were able to do this before then.

[Kate Bridal]

Full circle.

[Kyle Kelly]

Yes, full circle moment.

[Kate Bridal]

Thank you for inspiring this journey.

[Kyle Kelly]

Yeah, this was great. I'm glad that we were able to make this happen. I know the future for you, Josey, is very bright.

This is not a goodbye, but a see you later or to be continued.

[Kate Bridal]

Absolutely.

[Kyle Kelly]

I'm just happy to have been involved. Glad that from one conversation, you were able to make this happen.

[Kate Bridal]

The Legal Burnouts is produced by me, Kate Bridal. Our music is by Keegan Stotsenberg. Our art is by growlforce. Thanks for listening.