Former CEO of Rotten Tomatoes talks about the company’s ‘traumatizing’ past

This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with The Jay Kim Show where we publish the revised transcripts from the show’s podcast interviews with top entrepreneurs. This is heavily revised from the original show transcripts. For the full interview, go here.

Patrick Lee is the co-founder of Hobo Labs, a mobile gaming company. But he’s best known for being one of the founders of Rotten Tomatoes. He’s a very seasoned, serial entrepreneur, who’s on his sixth startup, and he’s been through multiple market bubbles, crashes, and company exits.

Patrick shared with us how it took him nearly 10 years to graduate from college because he was too busy building companies on the side and the traumatizing years of his company.

Can you give us a quick intro of yourself?

“My name is Patrick Lee. [I was] born in the states—born in LA—grew up in Maryland, [and I] went to school out in UC Berkeley. I did a whole number of startups—six at the moment—though the most well-known was a movie review site called Rotten Tomatoes, where I was a co-founder and the former CEO. We sold it to IGN Entertainment back in 2004.

“I went to China and did something there that was similar to Yelp. I went to Hong Kong and worked on a startup there called Alive Not Dead, [it was] a little bit like a Myspace […]. And now, [I’m] in the Bay Area working on a new startup called Hobo Labs, [which makes] mobile games.”

How did you decide to become a startup founder?

“I had some friends I knew from the first two years of college at Berkeley and I guess we were kind of getting bored of school a little bit. We wanted to try doing some different things. And, at the time, one of our friends was really good at using the Usenet and some of these other things to find deals on computer hardware.

“So, we decided to start our own computer retail business, selling computer systems and components. So we made a website, we spread word of mouth, and people [who] had placed orders with us for either parts or systems [paid] us in advance. We put the orders in, drove down to South Bay, and bought the parts. And then we would come back and build the systems and sell it to them.

“I mean, this was super early. I think Ebay and stuff were relatively new at that point, I believe. Yahoo had just started. Yes, back then we probably shouldn’t have jumped into the internet […], but we [just] wanted to do some sort of business. It seemed like the easiest one to kind of get into.

“[…] It was a good experience in terms of just learning to kind of manage inventory, reaching customers, fulfilling orders, etc.”

Was there any pushback from your family when you started?

“Well, I was kind of on and off in school while I was doing the startups. So I basically did two years worth of school, then convinced the other three guys to leave school. In the end, I think only two of us ended up graduating. And it took me basically 10 years to finish the last two years worth of school because I would take classes on and off or take out a year or two if I got busy […]. That was over the course of three different startups.

“The first one [was] selling computer system components, the second one [was] doing web design, and the third one was Rotten Tomatoes. After we sold Rotten Tomatoes, I went back for a semester, finished up, and then I went to Asia.

“When I left school the first time, my mom was like, ‘No, just finish your school first, then do startups.’ And actually, it makes a lot of sense looking back. But I was like, ‘No, I really want to do this.’

“[…] When I did the web design company, I had one other co-founder, Steven, who also ended up co-founding Rotten Tomatoes with me. And for that one, my mom and his uncle ended up loaning us money. So even though she really wanted me to finish school, and I was like, ‘No, I really want to do this,’ she ended up loaning me money.”

How did the idea of Rotten Tomatoes come about?

But there were also difficult times

If you had one piece of advice to give what would it be?