(¾) “Both of us quit our jobs. It was nerve-wracking. I...

(¾) “Both of us quit our jobs. It was nerve-wracking. I remember on the first day I wore a suit. We were meeting in a coffee shop, but I wore a suit. Because I wanted to feel like we were doing something real. There was a lot of vision boarding. And sticky notes of different colors. We only had the vaguest idea of what we were going to build. Was it a business? Or a non-profit? Maybe it could be a hybrid. If we could make ‘pro bono’ easier, then law firms would pay for the service. We could use those profits to scale. And the bigger we grew, the more free legal services we’d generate for low-income communities. It really would be a justice machine. We chose the company name out of a thesaurus at 2 AM. ‘Paladin’ is an old word, meaning ‘knight of the round table’ And that’s how we wanted lawyers to see themselves: as guardians of justice. In the beginning Kristen and I were trying so hard to impress each other. I did my best to act confident, but secretly I’d be Googling: ‘How to start a company. How to be a CEO.’ We told everyone that we had ‘discovered a better way to do pro-bono matching.’ But the first version of Paladin was a janky Google survey. We sent it to all our lawyer friends, and did the matching by hand. Over time it got more and more refined. We hired some talented programmers to automate things. But even after Paladin was working perfectly, it was hard to get law firms to try something new. It’s not like we were selling cloud storage. We were selling justice, and impact. But we still had to sell. And it was hard. We’d go to these legal conferences and make our pitch, but everyone told us: ‘Not now.’ Or ‘come back later.’ After a few months the initial excitement had worn off. We were in that middle zone— when you’ve already sunk in so much time, but nothing seems to be working. Most people lose focus in the middle zone. But that’s when Kristen comes alive. She goes into turbo mode. She becomes KBad. When KBad hears a ‘no,’ she’s energized by it. KBad is like that person who cuts down trees. What’s that called? A lumberjack. I’m more of a carpenter. I polish things, and refine them. But KBad hacks through things. KBad is a lumberjack.”