Most college students watch TV in their dorm rooms. Tim Huang watched Shark Tank from a Motel 6 in Silicon Valley—and decided to cold-email Mark Cuban for investment money.
That audacious move paid off spectacularly. Cuban responded in 45 minutes and funded their entire $740,000 seed round. Today, Huang's company FiscalNote is a publicly traded unicorn worth over $1.4 billion, serving clients from the White House to the CDC with AI-powered legal and regulatory intelligence.
In this rare candid interview, the youngest Asian American public company CEO on NASDAQ reveals the raw reality behind building a unicorn: the 16-hour days, the invisible barriers of breaking into America's "exclusive club," and why failure was simply not an option.
Watch the full interview now on EO's YouTube channel! Below is the complete transcription of the interview. Minor edits have been made for clarity and readability.
Key Highlights:
"Building a startup requires the founder to have a very strong sense of mission. Why does this company exist? What purpose does this company serve? That mission is gonna be what draws people to the company."
"Your job as a founder or CEO is to convince that person that this company is gonna be a unicorn and to look them straight in the face and say, you're gonna quit your job, you're gonna take this opportunity because it's a once in a lifetime. Or twice in a lifetime opportunity and you're not gonna regret it because high quality people are drawn to high quality founders."
"If you essentially take capital and you hire a bunch of people or low quality people, then the company is not gonna succeed."
"Your job as a founder or CEO is to convince that person that this company is gonna be a unicorn and to look them straight in the face and say, you're gonna quit your job, you're gonna take this opportunity because it's a once in a lifetime. Or twice in a lifetime opportunity and you're not gonna regret it because high quality people are drawn to high quality founders."
"If you essentially take capital and you hire a bunch of people or low quality people, then the company is not gonna succeed."
From Obama's Campaign Trail to Motel 6 Dreams
You mentioned you never saw yourself as an entrepreneur initially. What changed your perspective?
Tim Huang: For me, I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur, to be honest. Ever since I was in middle school and high school, my dream was to go to law school, become a prosecutor, and then run for political office and become a politician. And to me, business was always a practical way to make an impact.
When I was about 16 or 17, a friend of mine called me and he said, there's this guy, he's running for president, you should check him out. He has a really funny name, but he's a really, really interesting guy. So I went online and I watched his speech and I felt like, even if he doesn't become president, I feel like we should actually try and make him become president.
So I actually ended up working for Senator Obama's presidential campaign back in 2007, 2008. It was such a life changing experience because it was like one big startup. We had to build offices in all 50 states. The campaign had to raise about a billion dollars in capital, and then we had to deploy it to consumers, about 300 million Americans, within about 12 months.
When I was about 16 or 17, a friend of mine called me and he said, there's this guy, he's running for president, you should check him out. He has a really funny name, but he's a really, really interesting guy. So I went online and I watched his speech and I felt like, even if he doesn't become president, I feel like we should actually try and make him become president.
So I actually ended up working for Senator Obama's presidential campaign back in 2007, 2008. It was such a life changing experience because it was like one big startup. We had to build offices in all 50 states. The campaign had to raise about a billion dollars in capital, and then we had to deploy it to consumers, about 300 million Americans, within about 12 months.
How did that campaign experience translate to your startup mindset?
Tim Huang: That idea of basically sleeping in the back of the office with pizza boxes and working till 2 or 3 in the morning and trying to get someone elected, I think that was a very energizing experience.
As I was going into college in 2010, I started getting involved in startups and I felt like this is the place where I want to be because in politics at least, you'd spend years and years and years trying to make change in the political system, but in startups at least, you can essentially very, very quickly build a product, get it to market, and help customers and change their lives.
As I was going into college in 2010, I started getting involved in startups and I felt like this is the place where I want to be because in politics at least, you'd spend years and years and years trying to make change in the political system, but in startups at least, you can essentially very, very quickly build a product, get it to market, and help customers and change their lives.
The Motel 6 Epiphany That Changed Everything
Tell us about the founding moment of FiscalNote and what led to that breakthrough with Mark Cuban.
Tim Huang: At the time I just finished my degree at Princeton and then just started actually my MBA at Harvard. When I had the idea for fiscal note, I was extremely focused on making sure that the company was gonna succeed. We had sort of a vision of where we wanted to be and it was just pure execution at that point and everything else was sort of noise to me at the end of the day.
The way that we make decisions and particularly the first decision when we started the company was what is a real truth that is not going to change in 20 or 30 years? Will the world become more complex or less complex? Will the world become more politically challenging or less politically challenging? To me it was so obvious that the world was heading in a direction where it was gonna become much more complex, where politics was gonna be much more important.
The way that we make decisions and particularly the first decision when we started the company was what is a real truth that is not going to change in 20 or 30 years? Will the world become more complex or less complex? Will the world become more politically challenging or less politically challenging? To me it was so obvious that the world was heading in a direction where it was gonna become much more complex, where politics was gonna be much more important.
What was the specific problem you identified that FiscalNote solves?
Tim Huang: The problem was very clear when you talk to customers, they're just overwhelmed with regulations and the complexity of politics. Maybe 20 years ago, CEOs didn't have to care that much about politics. That's like something else that's going on over there. Today, if there's a political issue, they always bring the microphone and they ask CEO, what is your opinion?
The one unique thing that we got right was we picked a macro trend that was never gonna change. We essentially take laws and regulations from each and every country around the world. We collect it using AI and then we use kind of machine learning, natural language processing to be able to help people to process that information, search information, eventually make decisions based off of that data. You can think it's almost like the Bloomberg terminal.
The one unique thing that we got right was we picked a macro trend that was never gonna change. We essentially take laws and regulations from each and every country around the world. We collect it using AI and then we use kind of machine learning, natural language processing to be able to help people to process that information, search information, eventually make decisions based off of that data. You can think it's almost like the Bloomberg terminal.
Now tell us about that famous Mark Cuban story - how did you go from a motel room to getting his investment?
Tim Huang: Our first round of investment we raised at the end of 2013. To be honest, we had just built a product, it's a tiny little product, and we said, OK, we really need to expand this business because we're working out of a Motel 6 in Silicon Valley.
One night actually I was watching Shark Tank, the TV show, and as my co-founders and I were sleeping in this motel room and we're just looking at the TV, I was like, oh man, wouldn't it be so great if Mark Cuban invested in our company. The next day I actually went on Google and I typed in Google Mark Cuban email address and then I went to the contact page of his TV company and right there was his email address, so I shot him a 3 or 4 sentence email.
Subject line was 'changing government' and then in the email I said, my name's Tim. I just graduated from college. I'm starting this company. Here's what we're gonna do. Here's how we're gonna change the world. And he responded within 45 minutes.
One night actually I was watching Shark Tank, the TV show, and as my co-founders and I were sleeping in this motel room and we're just looking at the TV, I was like, oh man, wouldn't it be so great if Mark Cuban invested in our company. The next day I actually went on Google and I typed in Google Mark Cuban email address and then I went to the contact page of his TV company and right there was his email address, so I shot him a 3 or 4 sentence email.
Subject line was 'changing government' and then in the email I said, my name's Tim. I just graduated from college. I'm starting this company. Here's what we're gonna do. Here's how we're gonna change the world. And he responded within 45 minutes.
The Art of Getting Investment: Pattern Recognition and Hustle
What happened after Mark Cuban responded to your email?
Tim Huang: Mark Cuban and I went back and forth over email for a couple of days and he said, OK, great, I wanna do it. I'm gonna invest. I said, how much are you raising? At the time we were raising $740,000 because we had exactly calculated how much we need for 12 months, and he said, I'll do the whole thing.
Mark was our very, very first investor. That was our first little kind of venture round. It came together very quickly and to be honest, I feel like we're extremely lucky, but that definitely changed our lives for sure.
Mark was our very, very first investor. That was our first little kind of venture round. It came together very quickly and to be honest, I feel like we're extremely lucky, but that definitely changed our lives for sure.
What advice do you have for founders struggling to get investment?
Tim Huang: The reason why a lot of founders struggle to get investment - a lot of founders, particularly first time founders, they don't know what is an investable company, what is a non-investable company. What a lot of founders need to do is they need to educate themselves on the particular interest of this investor.
There's many, many, many different types of investors, B2C investors, B2B investors. If you are starting a consumer company, B2C company, you definitely should not email a B2B investor because they're not gonna be interested and a lot of the venture investing mindset is very pattern recognition oriented. They're very, very interested in trying to invest like this other company.
It's like 'we should invest in B,' which is why a lot of startup founders say it's Uber for this or Airbnb for that. These investors are looking for individual things in an investable business. They're looking at the business model, the future profitability. If you're gonna be the CEO of a company, you need to know all of those things.
There's many, many, many different types of investors, B2C investors, B2B investors. If you are starting a consumer company, B2C company, you definitely should not email a B2B investor because they're not gonna be interested and a lot of the venture investing mindset is very pattern recognition oriented. They're very, very interested in trying to invest like this other company.
It's like 'we should invest in B,' which is why a lot of startup founders say it's Uber for this or Airbnb for that. These investors are looking for individual things in an investable business. They're looking at the business model, the future profitability. If you're gonna be the CEO of a company, you need to know all of those things.
How did you build your network starting from zero connections?
Tim Huang: We started this company when we were 21 years old. We were straight out of college. We had zero network. We have zero connection to Wall Street, zero connection to Silicon Valley, zero connection to kind of major American companies.
We built that network ourselves, literally going on LinkedIn and then one person at a time reaching out to them, getting a warm intro, literally going to cocktail parties, forcing our way in the back door and then shaking people's hands and taking their business cards. We hustled really hard. It was a very, very effort-driven mechanism to essentially build that network.
We built that network ourselves, literally going on LinkedIn and then one person at a time reaching out to them, getting a warm intro, literally going to cocktail parties, forcing our way in the back door and then shaking people's hands and taking their business cards. We hustled really hard. It was a very, very effort-driven mechanism to essentially build that network.
The Unsexy Truth: 2000 Cold Calls and Pure Hustle
What was your customer validation process like in those early days?
Tim Huang: We definitely didn't have an aha moment and it was actually very unsexy. It was really just pure hard work and effort, just trying to get to the right answers as quickly as possible.
We had a Google spreadsheet and on this Google spreadsheet we listed out 2000 company names and we literally bought a phone from 7-Eleven and we called hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of companies and we asked them, do you have this problem? Do you have this problem? Can you spend 5 minutes with us? Can you take 10 minutes with us?
When we built the product, it was after maybe 100 to 200 conversations with people who had this particular problem and needed this particular issue solved.
We had a Google spreadsheet and on this Google spreadsheet we listed out 2000 company names and we literally bought a phone from 7-Eleven and we called hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of companies and we asked them, do you have this problem? Do you have this problem? Can you spend 5 minutes with us? Can you take 10 minutes with us?
When we built the product, it was after maybe 100 to 200 conversations with people who had this particular problem and needed this particular issue solved.
Tell us about your first customer and that pivotal moment of validation.
Tim Huang: Our first customer was a defense contractor, so I think that from that perspective we got validation very quickly. They came in, they paid $20,000. We knew - I mean, we actually still in our office have the contract framed because if we could get one customer, we could definitely get 10 customers and if we get 100 customers, we can definitely get 1000 customers. 1000 customers, you essentially become a unicorn.
I think that we have a competitive advantage in technology. The investments that we made in AI essentially prove that collectively we can build a company and a product that our customers want. Let's say you're a pharma company. Pharma companies, they're trying to understand what their competitors are thinking about, what the government is thinking about, and so for us who's sitting actually at the center of everything, we have the FDA as a customer, we have the CDC as a customer, I can tell you from our perspective, oh by the way, the FDA is gonna pass this regulation, you should probably look at this. So you essentially become experts in that particular policy arena.
I think that we have a competitive advantage in technology. The investments that we made in AI essentially prove that collectively we can build a company and a product that our customers want. Let's say you're a pharma company. Pharma companies, they're trying to understand what their competitors are thinking about, what the government is thinking about, and so for us who's sitting actually at the center of everything, we have the FDA as a customer, we have the CDC as a customer, I can tell you from our perspective, oh by the way, the FDA is gonna pass this regulation, you should probably look at this. So you essentially become experts in that particular policy arena.
Breaking Into America's Invisible Club
You've spoken about the challenges of being an Asian American founder. Can you elaborate on those experiences?
Tim Huang: To be totally honest, I don't come from an extremely wealthy family. Parents grew up pretty modestly. They came to the US speaking almost no English. I grew up in the US. I went to school in the US. I went to college in the US. I work in the US, but there's sort of the sense of not being American.
It's a challenge because there exists in the business culture, a kind of invisible club. Imagine it's a very, very exclusive club. Trying to break into this club has been something I've been trying to do for the last 10 or 15 years. You definitely get ignored a lot. People assume that you're not gonna be a great executive or a great communicator. They probably think that you're some engineer, and I think it's also very lonely.
It's a challenge because there exists in the business culture, a kind of invisible club. Imagine it's a very, very exclusive club. Trying to break into this club has been something I've been trying to do for the last 10 or 15 years. You definitely get ignored a lot. People assume that you're not gonna be a great executive or a great communicator. They probably think that you're some engineer, and I think it's also very lonely.
Can you share a specific example of feeling excluded from these business circles?
Tim Huang: I was at a dinner, this is a dinner of all of the CEOs in the DC area and I was looking around the room and I was the only Asian person in the entire room. I texted my co-founder. I was like, dude, this is so messed up. How am I the only Asian in this room?
And there's sort of circles of like 5 or 6 CEOs, typically Caucasian men, and they're all like sort of drinking in there. You're trying to like walk into a little circle and like make conversation and they sort of look at you and they ignore you, even though to be honest, I think our company is probably one of the biggest companies in that room.
And there's sort of circles of like 5 or 6 CEOs, typically Caucasian men, and they're all like sort of drinking in there. You're trying to like walk into a little circle and like make conversation and they sort of look at you and they ignore you, even though to be honest, I think our company is probably one of the biggest companies in that room.
How did you turn these disadvantages into advantages?
Tim Huang: When we were starting fiscal note, we knew that we are disadvantaged, that we're gonna have to work much harder and try much harder. If you want to get covered by the press, you're gonna have to contact 10 times more reporters. If you wanna get investment, you're gonna have to contact 10 times more VCs because you're probably gonna get ignored.
I think that that probably gave us a little bit more of a drive to want to put in more effort. To me, startups are the purest form of opportunity. If you have an idea and you work hard at it and you constantly, constantly put effort in and you put in the hours and passion and everything, the company should succeed. That is what makes startups so exciting.
I think that that probably gave us a little bit more of a drive to want to put in more effort. To me, startups are the purest form of opportunity. If you have an idea and you work hard at it and you constantly, constantly put effort in and you put in the hours and passion and everything, the company should succeed. That is what makes startups so exciting.
Building a Mission-Driven Team: The 16-Hour Days
How do you convince talented people to leave their comfortable jobs and join a risky startup?
Tim Huang: Building a startup requires the founder to have a very strong sense of mission. Why does this company exist? What purpose does this company serve? That mission is gonna be what draws people to the company, and the people that are attracted to that mission are gonna find your company very, very compelling because life is extremely short. In that short amount of time, do you want to go to a 9 to 5 job making somebody else wealthy, or do you want to come and change the world?
Now imagine this, you're a software engineer making a decent amount of money, 6 figures, and you get a cold email from a startup founder. 'I have this company. The product is not built. We just raised a small amount of money. Do you wanna quit your job and come work for us? I'm gonna take a huge pay cut and maybe a little bit of stock.' 90%, 95% of people would say no. I mean, why would I do that? I have such a comfortable life.
Your job as a founder or CEO is to convince that person that this company is gonna be a unicorn and to look them straight in the face and say, you're gonna quit your job, you're gonna take this opportunity because it's a once in a lifetime or twice in a lifetime opportunity, and you're not gonna regret it because high quality people are drawn to high quality founders.
Now imagine this, you're a software engineer making a decent amount of money, 6 figures, and you get a cold email from a startup founder. 'I have this company. The product is not built. We just raised a small amount of money. Do you wanna quit your job and come work for us? I'm gonna take a huge pay cut and maybe a little bit of stock.' 90%, 95% of people would say no. I mean, why would I do that? I have such a comfortable life.
Your job as a founder or CEO is to convince that person that this company is gonna be a unicorn and to look them straight in the face and say, you're gonna quit your job, you're gonna take this opportunity because it's a once in a lifetime or twice in a lifetime opportunity, and you're not gonna regret it because high quality people are drawn to high quality founders.
What was the work culture like in those early days at FiscalNote?
Tim Huang: I don't know what it is, but I think when we were very, very young and we had a very, very, very good team, we had computer science PhDs quit their jobs. We had people who had come from the military. We had this very strong sense of mission even though we had a small amount of time.
I think that very quickly we built a team that was gonna stick together for good times and bad. At fiscal note, we were probably working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week for almost 2 years. I told my employees actually, I'm usually in the office somewhere between 9:30 and 10, 7 days a week, every single day.
Right now at a Series A stage company where you have 18 months to basically hit a particular milestone, you need to be in the office 7 days a week. I think that in those types of cases, having a founder or CEO that's able to draw and attract a team that has the same mindset and the same mentality, I think is extremely important.
I think that very quickly we built a team that was gonna stick together for good times and bad. At fiscal note, we were probably working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week for almost 2 years. I told my employees actually, I'm usually in the office somewhere between 9:30 and 10, 7 days a week, every single day.
Right now at a Series A stage company where you have 18 months to basically hit a particular milestone, you need to be in the office 7 days a week. I think that in those types of cases, having a founder or CEO that's able to draw and attract a team that has the same mindset and the same mentality, I think is extremely important.
The Most Important Question: Why Now?
You mentioned that timing might be the most important factor for startups. Can you expand on that?
Tim Huang: Just because you receive investment doesn't mean that you're gonna succeed. It's actually higher likelihood that you're gonna fail because at this point, you've taken the money from the investors and you now have to spend it, and you have to spend it very quickly because the market is changing, the landscape is changing, competitors popping up, investors expect you to generate a return in a particular amount of time.
The timing is probably the most important thing in my opinion, and it depends on the sector. In technology, the good thing about technology is that these timing trends happen all the time. 2007, Steve Jobs gets up and he introduces the iPhone that launches a whole next 10 years of mobile investing, mobile companies, mobile startups. That trend, you have to be able to jump on it immediately.
The timing is probably the most important thing in my opinion, and it depends on the sector. In technology, the good thing about technology is that these timing trends happen all the time. 2007, Steve Jobs gets up and he introduces the iPhone that launches a whole next 10 years of mobile investing, mobile companies, mobile startups. That trend, you have to be able to jump on it immediately.
What's the key question founders should ask themselves about timing?
Tim Huang: From a startup perspective, when you pick the idea, you have to understand not just why does this company exist, but why now? Why is this timing right now the perfect timing for the company. In my opinion, actually, having done startups now for almost 10 years, I think that's probably one of the most important questions that founders have to ask themselves: why is the timing for this exactly right now?
Why wasn't it 5 years ago or 10 years ago? Why isn't it 5 years from now? And I think that if you can get that timing exactly correct, then the startup should be able to ride the tailwinds of some general market trend.
Why wasn't it 5 years ago or 10 years ago? Why isn't it 5 years from now? And I think that if you can get that timing exactly correct, then the startup should be able to ride the tailwinds of some general market trend.
The Brutal Self-Reflection of Leadership
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced as the company scaled?
Tim Huang: The biggest decisions that we made were always about people. People problems are what really, really break down companies, particularly for Series A or Series B companies. Those companies have significant management issues.
If you watch the movie, The Social Network, it's really interesting. They go from like their dorm room at Harvard and then literally 10 minutes later they're like in this massive office with hundreds of employees, right? I was just thinking in my head like what happens in the middle, because in the middle there's so many problems and there's so many people problems.
I remember when I was a Series A founder, Series B founder, every time an executive would quit, I'd have to jump in there and I have to manage the entire team myself and so suddenly I go from managing maybe like 4 or 5 people to managing like 20 people overnight. I have to do damage control and all these different things.
If you watch the movie, The Social Network, it's really interesting. They go from like their dorm room at Harvard and then literally 10 minutes later they're like in this massive office with hundreds of employees, right? I was just thinking in my head like what happens in the middle, because in the middle there's so many problems and there's so many people problems.
I remember when I was a Series A founder, Series B founder, every time an executive would quit, I'd have to jump in there and I have to manage the entire team myself and so suddenly I go from managing maybe like 4 or 5 people to managing like 20 people overnight. I have to do damage control and all these different things.
How do you develop self-awareness as a founder?
Tim Huang: Startups are a very, very, very analytical job. It's very self-reflective. It's almost like swimming. You have to constantly know what your limits are, what your energy level is, all these different things. I think startup is the same thing. Everything stops and starts with you. You founded the company, it was your idea, you take responsibility at that level.
You have to know what are my strengths, what are my weaknesses, where am I gonna fail, where are my blind spots? And if you don't know what those fundamental kind of personality traits or flaws are for you, then it's gonna be very hard to do your job. And if you can really hone in on what that is, that kind of mentality is constant because when you make a mistake, you put that into your framework.
For instance, for me, I have a bias when I'm hiring executives. I look very heavily at the resume and I don't interview enough for particular skill sets and so I've definitely made that mistake almost one too many times where you over-hire on the resume and you under-hire on the personality traits. I had to train myself to remove that bias from my head to make better decisions.
You have to know what are my strengths, what are my weaknesses, where am I gonna fail, where are my blind spots? And if you don't know what those fundamental kind of personality traits or flaws are for you, then it's gonna be very hard to do your job. And if you can really hone in on what that is, that kind of mentality is constant because when you make a mistake, you put that into your framework.
For instance, for me, I have a bias when I'm hiring executives. I look very heavily at the resume and I don't interview enough for particular skill sets and so I've definitely made that mistake almost one too many times where you over-hire on the resume and you under-hire on the personality traits. I had to train myself to remove that bias from my head to make better decisions.
America's Startup Advantage and the Future
Why do you think America excels at producing successful startups?
Tim Huang: People ask me like why do you think America is so great at startups? I think it's because the startup culture has always been in America. America has built some of the most celebrated businesses like Starbucks, Apple, Amazon. These companies are gigantic, but they always start from one singular person having an idea and putting in the effort.
The emerging generation, sort of 20s and 30s right now, I think has a sense of disillusionment. They feel like there's not enough hope or not enough economic opportunity. I think that startups are the answer. They are the economic torchlight that can guide the future of economies and how do you connect the dot between the hope and disillusionment of 20s and 30s and the future of kind of economic opportunity comes down to starting businesses, building startups that solve problems that go out there and essentially are able to scale.
The emerging generation, sort of 20s and 30s right now, I think has a sense of disillusionment. They feel like there's not enough hope or not enough economic opportunity. I think that startups are the answer. They are the economic torchlight that can guide the future of economies and how do you connect the dot between the hope and disillusionment of 20s and 30s and the future of kind of economic opportunity comes down to starting businesses, building startups that solve problems that go out there and essentially are able to scale.
Looking back on your journey from a 21-year-old founder to becoming the youngest Asian American public company CEO, what's next?
Tim Huang: When you succeed, it's an unbelievable feeling. I'm lucky to be the youngest Asian American publicly traded CEO on the NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange. I feel like this is the beginning of my career, to be honest, even though for the last 7 or 8 years we've been building this company.
Jeff Bezos was 30, 31 years old when he founded Amazon. I still have a very, very long career that I'd like for me to sort of embark upon, and I think it starts, of course, with making sure that FiscalNote is successful and has the pathway to become an even greater company than it is today.
Jeff Bezos was 30, 31 years old when he founded Amazon. I still have a very, very long career that I'd like for me to sort of embark upon, and I think it starts, of course, with making sure that FiscalNote is successful and has the pathway to become an even greater company than it is today.
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