Intro Music

Tyler Finn
How do you make the move from building a legal career in the US to one in Europe? Scale one of Europe's hottest scale ups notice. I use the term scale up And transition to launching your own startup Today here in Amsterdam. We are joined by Jordan Hatcher Jordan is a very cool and genuine guy and he's the co-founder Today here in Amsterdam we are joined by Jordan Hatcher. Jordan is a very cool and genuine guy and he's the co-founder, COO, and chief legal officer of The Grid, an open, independent, and auditable reference dataset that powers Web3 directories and platforms. Before launching The Grid, he took a sabbatical and spent time as a legal consultant to Airwallex. Jordan was also the first lawyer and the 80th employee at Staffbase, where he led six financing rounds and helped them grow the team to more than 800. His early career, I think it somewhat defies easy categorization. That's what I think is cool about it. He's worked on IP issues, open source, civil liberties, companies like Optimizely, HP, and Arm, and also at nonprofits like the EFF across the UK, and before that in Austin, Texas. Jordan, thanks so much for joining me today for this episode of The Abstract.

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Jordan Hatcher 

Yeah, thanks for having me on such a beautiful day here in Amsterdam.

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Tyler Finn

Yeah, I'm very lucky to be here, I think. And I'm here for the weekend too. So I'm going to get out on a bike. Hopefully I come home in one piece. 

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, it's the Olympics of city biking for sure.

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Tyler Finn

Why Amsterdam? What was it that brought you here?

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Jordan Hatcher 

Yeah. So I've been here almost 10 years and kind of going back on paper, what brought me here was Optimizely. So they had expanding into Europe, they had already set up and chosen Amsterdam as sort of their European headquarters. So they came from San Francisco, looking at Europe, chose Amsterdam. The team had grown to the point where they needed to hire a lawyer and I was lucky enough to get the job for the first legal counsel in Europe. Why I applied for the job is my son was two years old or so. We were living in Cambridge in England where he was born. And small towns are not for me. I mean Cambridge isn't even that small. It's a hundred and some odd thousand people. But, uh, and it was very lovely, but I wanted to move back to the city and had  already lived in London and London's not very livable and Amsterdam is such a great place. So kind of everything lined up. 

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Tyler Finn

The stars aligned. Yeah. Uh, yeah. I mean, if you look back and reflect on that journey, Texas, then the UK, you were in the UK for a decade or so?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, 11 years.

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Tyler Finn

Okay, and then Amsterdam, I mean, was any of that expected? You certainly look the part of someone who belongs in Amsterdam today.

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Jordan Hatcher 

Thank you. It was not expected, but each step was kind of planned for, if that makes sense. Um, so, you know, I guess if you think about it, plan a plan B plan C, I'm all the way at plan Z, right? Like, or beyond that, uh, in terms of the things that I thought I would do at various points of my life. Um, I came to Europe because I got into an exchange program at the University of Texas with the University of Edinburgh and it was different than some of the other law school exchange programs in that it was the full 3L year and you got to double dip and get an LLM at the end of it. 

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Tyler Finn

That's cool. 

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah and I knew I was at that time I was kind of a bit more, I was always interested in technology and the law, but I was a little bit more focused on potentially being an entertainment lawyer. So I really knew I wanted to do IP related things, but I took every, excuse me, soft IP course that UT had. And Edinburgh had this specialization in innovation technology and law and a really big IP program, including a lot of stuff on soft IP. So I got in and went. 

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Tyler Finn

One of the things that's interesting to me about your career, I think. Yeah, at least as I look at the different issue areas that you've worked on, whether it's sort of like civil liberties work or IP work or some of this open source, open data work, now web three. Those are all areas where I think some sort of like real intellectual engagement with technology is important. It's not to say that's not important with like, you know, sort of like typical commercial work or, but it's, to me it seems like, yeah, like that's sort of like real, like I'm in it, I understand this, I want to go deep, I know I have to go deep to be really good at it is important. I don't know, talk to us a little bit about that. It's just an observation, but it's different than a lot of guests.

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Jordan Hatcher 

Yeah. Well, I think I've been reflecting a bit on this lately. So I've been in the legal profession since before law school. So that's been since 2001 or so. And then really tech law, I would say for about 20 years. And when I started studying technology and the law at Edinburgh, really in depth, and then kind of working on it the year after, I'm today, what I think of as kind of a classical tech lawyer in that I know little bit across lots of different areas, whereas today people really will specialize in, I don't know, online marketplaces and go super deep. And you know, kind of when I was starting out doing technology law, you had to know a bit of the technology. So you just mess around and find out and you experiment and you try things. And you get lucky enough to work with engineers that are patient with you and teach you a bit about semiconductors, which I knew nothing about when I started at ARM, um, and then you kind of just build on that and go from there. And, uh, you see all these patterns that start to emerge and how things get regulated. But at the end of the day, you've got to kind of love the tech side of it and see how everything's interplaying. And part of it might just be the way my brain works for this stuff.

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Tyler Finn

Did you feel like building trust with those sorts of engineers at a company like an HP or like an arm? Was that easy to do? Or, I mean, and an arm, I would just think like the people there must be sort of like so smart and so well educated. And it would be almost intimidating, right? It's not to say that your line software engineer at like a SaaS company in New York isn't intimidating, but that's like a slightly different breed, I think.

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, for sure. I mean, especially, you think 2010, semiconductor is people with a lot of math degrees, many math degrees in one person, and really deep technology, right? And I think as a lawyer, you get access to people, particularly in-house within your company in a way that other people don't, right? So part of it is they know that if you wanna be super practical or kind of look at it in a negative way, they know that if you want to be super practical or, you know, kind of look at it in a negative way, they know they're going to need something from you in the future and they want you to understand the thing that they're going to ask you about. Right. So at the beginning, you know, they're a lot of the time they're very generous with their time in terms of like helping you understand how everything puts together and then when they have a real need, right? So if they have some in-depth question about, is the license going to work this way? Can we do this or can we do that? You just have to sit there and ask questions and be like, I don't know. Be really transparent about that. You have to teach me. And the thing goes both ways, right? Like I think sometimes is in-house counsel, uh, in particular and often just as private practice lawyers, though I've never really been in private practice lawyer, um, is, uh, you can forget that your job is to teach the other person about a bit, at least a bit, as much as they want to know about how the law works and how it's applying to them and the kind of reasons why you came to the conclusion. And I found generally, broadly speaking, working with developers and engineers of all stripes, they want to know the why, right? And they respect that you also want to know the why. 

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Tyler Finn

Earlier in your career, you worked on sort of like open data. How important do you think that things like that and stand, I guess I noticed in your background a lot of standards making too, and a lot of standards making work. How important is a lot of that for how the internet has evolved, do you think? And is that appreciated enough?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, so open source software, free open source software. So the GPL to the MIT license, BSD, et cetera. In terms of a model, if you think back, you know, in the late 90s to the early 2000s, in particular, people were thinking about the war of the operating systems and everything else. Linux and open source software is definitely one in terms of raw numbers of compute powered by open operating systems, right? And the ethos and the structure, if you fast forward, I think really undermines or underpins a lot of the technologies with blockchain and Web3. So it's really kind of been there evolving. I think the attitude sometimes is a bit different for it. You know, I think 20 years of people trying to have open source business models and thinking what they could do around it, it's just kind of settled down a lot. Open data, some that really worked on open data at the beginning, they've kind of backed out of the movement or the impact has been harder to see because it's harder to get that momentum for having the similar pools of open data. But there's been of course some real successes. Two areas that I think of in particular is government information in general is for the people, right? It's funded by the taxpayers so it should be available for the people, right? It's funded by the taxpayers, so it should be available for the people. And, you know, in an American context, everybody thinks about the federal government and that, oh, the federal government doesn't have copyright, but states, cities, counties, they all collect a lot of data and they should be publishing it under open licenses because they have copyright over that information. And then OpenStreetMap, which I love in terms of the Wikipedia of map data. And I'm super happy and proud reflecting back that they've used and gotten some utility out of a license to help write quite a long time ago.

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Tyler Finn

Do you see a through line in retrospect? I guess I mean you mentioned sort of like an evolution to Web3 from some of that early work through the IP work that you've done to what you're doing now around crypto and Web3.

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah. So for me personally the open data element, the open source, after I had a kid, I had maybe like two or three years where I was still active doing that stuff kind of on the side from the day job. And it was part of my day job in terms of lawyering for every tech company I've worked for, but I haven't been the open source lawyer role inside one of these companies. I might have had it as one of my mini hats, but you have to be rather large to have somebody solely focused on that, right? And I kind of had to put it to the side, and then I focused on learning a lot of other things, you know, B2B SaaS business models, commercial contract negotiation. And then when I made it to the GC suite, you then you're across everything. You know, I did more, I was expecting to do corporate law, but I never really saw myself as a corporate lawyer, but you get involved into it, employment law, you know, cross jurisdictional stuff, MNAA, etc. You have to kind of have that broad range of skills. And then kind of since taking a break and then picking up with a startup, I've kind of been able to pick those threads back up and kind of reincorporate them. 

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Tyler Finn

I don't want us to pass over your time at Staff Base because I think it's really interesting and I think you probably have a lot of lessons to share. Where was the company at when you joined? That's probably a great place to start.

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, so I interviewed in end of June or July and then started at the beginning of September. And even between that timeframe, I think they'd added 30 people. So I was the 80th employee. They didn't have an office here in Amsterdam and I was lucky enough that when they offered me the job and I said, look, I want to stay, that we came up with a solution to stay here in Amsterdam. And it ended up working out. We had, I think at one point, 40 people or so in the office here in Amsterdam.

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Tyler Finn

Oh, wow.

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Jordan Hatcher

And that's a whole story in itself. Like basically starting the office here as the only exec at the time. And yeah, they were just getting started. It was the typical Wild West that most of the listeners will understand. And that, you know, AEs could effectively make up their own contracts. There wasn't any of the structures in place. I mean, you don't expect it, though. I didn, you don't expect it though. I didn't go in expecting to have a lot of that as the first legal hire in. And also, when you're at the very early stage of a company, which I also see even more now, the focus is keeping the company alive, right? And it's closing sales, getting some momentum. You're not running a compliance organization. You're not trying to tick every box. You're, of course, you're trying to do the right thing. But the structures that you have in place at a 10 million AR business are different than the ones that you have at a 50 or 100 or about to go public. And in the same way, when you're in that sort of one to ten range when you start when usually they hire their first lawyer unless they're regulated, it's just chaos in some ways, right? 

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Tyler Finn

Lessons that you drew from your time there or maybe getting them a little bit away from chaos as they basically 10x'd in size over the course of your tenure?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah. So while I was there, they went from, as you mentioned, from 80 people to 800 people. I think one of the first things that I did in the first two weeks, it was, right, we're opening up a new office in London, do all the incorporation and sort it all out. So, um, one thing is, uh, at the very beginning, if you're joining one of these smaller outfits as the, the first lawyer, it's a moving train and you kind of have to run up and speed alongside of it and join it. Right. In the sense that, um, you can't just jump in and expect to make a lot of change. Right. So, uh, I didn't want to disrupt the quarter. I kept on with their negotiation processes. Um, they had a contract, uh, at the time that wasn't, um, easy to negotiate in the U S um, but we kept at it because it was the one that they't easy to negotiate in the US, but we kept at it because it was the one that they had. And then we looked, listened, I really heard from the team about where the pain points were and then tried to create something that was more global to go on forward, right? At the very beginning, you have to really get stuck in. So, you know, when we opened the first, uh, rented the first office, I found that office here in Amsterdam. I ordered the Ikea furniture. I helped build the Ikea furniture. You know, you kind of have to really dive in and, uh, into anything almost. Um, because again, it is a fast moving train, right? But at the same time, you can't lose focus of what the core of your job is, right? 

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It's very easy to get distracted by a lot of other things and you have to focus on that. Later with growing the team, especially during the COVID crisis and the size that we got to and then my own story with my son who has special needs, I really didn't take care of myself. And I see that after having taken the sabbatical and everything else. Like, I focused a lot on work. It was an escape for me. But it was also really demanding and I should have had better tools to either take care of myself or to kind of handle the work in the right way so that reducing my own personal stress.

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Tyler Finn

Let's talk about that more. I feel like that's the sort of thing that not many people want to talk about even if they're experiencing it. I don't know, in retrospect, what are some of the signs that you should have seen that you were overworking?

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Jordan Hatcher
I'm not gonna say overworking or using yeah, we're using it as you know I mean we all go through struggles in life and like yeah I can lean into exercise or you can lean into work or you can you know I don't know go on vacation and think that's gonna right. There's lots of coping mechanisms that folks have Yeah, what are some of the sign and in retrospect like now are there different things that you do? Do you approach your work in a very different way than you might have at the time? Yeah, so there's definitely a lot of coping mechanisms that I was using at the time and like just really in some ways using work as a distraction or an excuse. Um, but what I've kind of trying to reframe, uh, for how I move forward, I just, I really realized when I need for me personally, I need downtime. Um, so just really being protective of that and not letting it encroach, I need to go and do some exercise regularly. Right. Yeah. Um, and if I don't do that, I've just, my performance is a lot lower anyway, in terms of work. So it's kind of, it's counterproductive not to do it. And it's just really hit me in the face for that. And then all the usual things like sleep, nutrition, those kinds of things definitely help. 

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Tyler Finn

Do you feel like an exec team needs to set the right sort of culture around that or needs to create the space for employees to take care of themselves?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, you have to have that culture and I hope that I built that in the team. So the legal team, I had 10 people in the team, uh, when I left. And, uh, I hope they felt that I, uh, really tried to have that for them. Um, in the GC role, it's difficult because you're an umbrella for the team, for the rest of the organization, right? And there's stuff that your team simply can't pick up, right? It's either because it's very sensitive or it's just not their skill set, or it would divert them from some other important initiative that you have. And so you can really be this collection point for a lot, both from the top and the bottom. Uh, and, uh, that doesn't mean that you can't rely on the team, but you shouldn't push it down to them in an unhealthy way either. Here in Europe, you know, the balance is very different in a lot of ways, right? So the salaries are lower than they are typically in the US. But the expectations on work are also different. So you're not generally, you know, broadly speaking, even in legal though here it is more overworked than most jobs. Like you still you get you start out with 25 days holiday plus public holiday year. You're expected to take the holiday. People do take the holiday, you know, you can really time box it. Um, and, and all that stuff can help, uh, as a manager. The key thing is to really look out for the signs within your team, making sure that they take a break, make sure they appreciate the rhythm of the business as well. So if you, for commercial counsel teams that they realize they're going to be very busy at the end of a quarter, there is no changing the hockey stick, right? But that at the beginning of a quarter, right? When everything is kind of dropped off again, that's a really good time to really take it easy at work, right? And you have to build in that rhythm and not just pile on all the other things that didn't get done, right? Into that space, right?

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Tyler Finn

Yes. And not feel bad about maybe, you know, going from 80 hours a week down to 35 or, right? 

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Jordan Hatcher

Exactly. 

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Tyler Finn

Or, right? Yeah. Um, you do have that sort of, uh, dual perspective, I think, on what work culture, uh, culture around sort of a regulatory environment, business culture is in the US and, and in Europe. And I'm curious to hear sort of like both perspectives here, which is, you know, I talked to a lot of folks who are thinking about expanding into Europe. Anything that you think that American companies should know if they're going to come here? And then I'm also kind of curious for the vice versa, right? Like things that you feel like European businesses don't really understand about doing business in the US.

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah. So, in a way, my entire career, my entire career has been in Europe, really, after I got my law license. And most of it has been translating American into European and vice versa, right? And, you know, for American companies, broadly North America, trying to expand into Europe, for continental Europe, you know, the civil law system, the way that it works, just a broad sort of legal cultural perspective is different for, at least for the legal frameworks, right? Then It's a patchwork, right? Like there is and I think the other side is true and that European companies don't necessarily realize how much a patchwork Depending on what they're doing, the United States can be. 

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Tyler Finn

Sure, state laws. Yeah.

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah. Or even just like, you know, the different approach to work that might happen between different parts of the US, right? Or to business, or how much people in one part might appreciate in-person conversations versus, you know versus just doing things over the phone.

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Tyler Finn

Totally.

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Jordan Hatcher

But yeah, the classic things that trip up American companies in Europe of course are civil law notaries, so it's a legal profession on par with just being a lawyer. Similar to in the UK you have solicitors and barristers and legal executives, etc. And they're the gatekeepers for a lot of corporate stuff. And in some countries like Germany, there's a lot of formalities when you have to go to these civil law notaries. And it can be expensive, it can be time-consuming, it can involve a lot of in-person stuff. So that's definitely something that's new. And then employment law, right? Like employment law is very different in Europe because the whole structure is different. And that's usually something that American companies and even very experienced managers, people managers, when they're managing teams in Europe, they can really trip themselves up over both the law and the culture, right?

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Tyler Finn

I think it was on your blog that I was looking at. I thought there was sort of an interesting post about not just thinking about growing a business internationally or growing a business into Europe, but also sort about growing a business internationally or growing a business into Europe but also sort of growing a business within Europe being a real challenge. Yes. Yeah, I mean, and I think when most American companies think about coming to Europe, they say, we're going to Europe. Or maybe they pick one country, they're like, we're going to, you know, London and also Germany or something. But they're not necessarily thinking about that sort of patchwork across Europe. Would you agree with that? And what have you drawn from your experience actually sort of successfully building up staff base across Europe? 

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Jordan Hatcher 

Yeah, so, well, one thing like the new generation of PEOs or EORs or things like that, I haven't had a lot of experience with them at scale myself, but I think in general that's pretty exciting for being able, in terms of just people, like if you need to employ people in different jurisdictions. The other loyally answer is, of course, it depends, right? Because if you're shipping physical products, it may make a real difference. You know, do you want to be where you are importing? What your corporate structure is in terms of looking at taxes and which one is the best fit for you. If you're in Europe and you have a strategy get a, uh, entity stood up, right? Like it's a lot of formalities that a lot of people will be really surprised with. Um, it can take a lot of time, um, to do things and there are a lot of, uh, trip ups there. Um, and then, you know, kind of one of the things with this EU Inc petition that's going around about trying to simplify a lot of that side of startups in Europe. This is definitely the American in me looking at the system here, like ESOP plans, you know, they're different in every country. And so there's some countries where you may be taxed at the time of grant. And so then it just doesn't make sense to grant employees ESOP. Right.Cause it's a tax penalty for them right away.

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Tyler Finn

Yeah.

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Jordan Hatcher

They'll feel. So it's just some consistency there. Like if you really want it, if we really want an employee ownership culture and ESOP culture in Europe, then you have to build that out in some way and not have it just specific to one country because they're not going to have employees, especially in the tech sector, just in one country in Europe.

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Tyler Finn

Right. As you reflect on your sort of time at Staff Base, things that you were most proud of having accomplished?

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Jordan Hatcher 

Yeah, the financing rounds. So we, in terms of professional accomplishment, there was one year where we did the, basically completed an acquisition and a financing round at the same time. And it was an extremely busy month, but we got it all done and it was very, very exciting in terms of both relatively new things for me. I had done some financing and some smaller M&A, but it was a sizable acquisition. And, uh, yeah. Sort of mixed professionally. And then personally at that same time, um, the team that I had really stepped up to take care of everything so that I could devote all my time to it. And that was really nice to see as well. I'm like super thankful for them. Yeah. Um, yeah, on a personal level, uh, I did make some great friends. Um, and just that seeing that journey, uh, is incredible. Like from, you know, a small startup in Chemnitz, which, uh, most everybody won't have heard of in East Germany, becoming, I think, the 22nd or 23rd German unicorn or something like that. Yeah. That journey through the growth and everything and seeing the company change is really fantastic to see. 

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Tyler Finn

You left before, like relatively close to before they were getting ready to go public and do an IPO. Curious how like that experience of stepping back at that moment, like what that taught you about yourself and what stages of a company lifecycle you like working during. Also you know I think leaving a place gracefully is not always the easiest thing to do because we don't always get tons of practice at it. So things you tried to do to make sure that that like handoff was really smooth. 

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Jordan Hatcher 

Yeah. So a lot of people would be familiar with that conversation around the board or an exec saying, we want a GC that's taken a company public before.

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Tyler Finn

Totally.

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Jordan Hatcher

Right? To be the GC. And that was essentially the conversation that started to happen after the Series E. And I actually had told one of the co-founders who was my boss that I reported into the whole time when they hired me that this might happen. And I said, look, it's a personal relationship, really, at the end of the day, being the general counsel. If you don't think I'm a fit anymore, just come and talk to me and we'll figure out a way forward. It's part of, I think, really at the end of the day, the professional ethics and responsibility as being a lawyer, like if your client doesn't want you anymore, then you figure out a way forward. Um, and, uh, yeah, he, at the time when I told him that, he said, it's never going to happen. Uh, and then it happened. Uh, and then we just kind of came up with a plan. At that same time, I had already booked to go to, as it then was TechGC, now the L-suite, their IPO conference. So I did go to that, and that same autumn while we were discussing about me leaving and doing the transition plan. And I realized that somewhere in the back of my mind, I was really wanting to do IPO because I thought that's the next feather in the cap of typical lawyer, you know, type A, achiever sort of behavior. And I went to the conference and it was a great conference. I learned that I don't ever want to do an IPO, mainly because I don't want to be a public company GC. It's not, it's just not for me. It just, I like the earlier stages. I like the scaling, the growing. Um, I like private companies, uh, the kind of, as I see it, the more politics involved, the reporting, that kind of environment is just not my environment and it's really, I think at the end of the day, a lot of public company GCs, it's more corporate law. And that's not my background and expertise. Like I'm a, I'm a tech lawyer, right? It would have to be pretty unique company to want to have a tech lawyer as their GC after going public. So yeah, and then through that process, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity and the time to really try to transition things. So I made sure that everything was documented as much as possible. So I'm always very big on trying to document things, but I really went back through, I made sure all the files were organized. I even did a handover note for my successor, those kinds of things.

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Tyler Finn

Why did you decide to take a sabbatical after you stepped away from the role?

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Jordan Hatcher

Well, I was like, here's an opportunity to take a little bit of a break, right? The break ended up being a year, and I was like, it's been a long time since I've had this kind of break. I just had realized that I went straight from one job to the other. I think maybe one time I took a one week break between jobs in like 20 years or something. And I was like, it's time. And then it took me about six weeks to realize that it really was a good idea that I took the break. And it took me about six months to really feel like a human again, to really feel, I think, like myself. So I'm very thankful that I was able to do that. 

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Tyler Finn

What motivated you to start to learn about Web3? Or how did that come up? Because I talk to people who seem to go deep really, like they go down a rabbit hole and they go deep really fast. Is that what happened to you? Did this happen just somewhat organically?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, it's been organic for me. So I've followed it a bit. I always have loved researching things, but particularly being in GC and then my roles before that, I just didn't feel like I had the time to dive deep into it.Right.

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Tyler Finn

Sure.

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Jordan Hatcher 

And then with taking the break, my co-founder for the startup is actually my neighbor, that's how we met. And he's had a, he had a business in the web three space. He had exited it. It was more in the sort of about data of course, and then around analytics of a web three in terms of what's happening, report building and things like that. And he found out about my past work with Open Data Commons and on Open Data. And he was like, Hey, there's might be something here. So we started talking and it was a thing. And then I was like, okay, that's cool. I got really interested in it. So then I started going deeper and deeper into it. Yeah. And I definitely have a lot to learn in this space, but I'm catching up. And there's a lot of it is, I don't know, my current thinking is Web3 is kind of just the open source stuff. In terms of the culture, it's a lot of the open source conferences and the vibes from a while ago that's just kind of been evolving since.

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Tyler Finn

And can you explain, I mean I tried in the outset to use some of your language around what the grid does, but you'll explain it better than me, what the product is and what you're hoping to build?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, so we're live with our data right now. We're in essentially like a beta testing phase. But in broadly speaking within blockchain and web3, there's a lot of companies that will give you pricing data. So how much a thing costs. And there's transactional data and analytics because it's a public permissionless blockchain. So you can see where it went. But there's nobody really answering the question, what is this thing? So if you think about all the DApps, the decentralized applications that are in Web3 and things like that, there's not any structured data provider that gives you answers to that kind of metadata question. Like, what is the thing that, what is it they're doing? Who are they as a company? So not personal data, but rather company data. And there's a lot of interesting possibilities with that.

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Tyler Finn

Interesting. Has the entrepreneurial journey been what you expected, harder than you expected?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah. I knew I was going to have fun, but I guess I didn't expect to have this much fun. Yeah, it's been really interesting. So way back at the beginning of my career, I knew I wanted to stay in Scotland after I did this exchange program, there wasn't a lot of jobs for a freshly qualified US, Texas attorney. And so I had the good fortune to work for the university. And then one of those clients at the university or one of the projects that we were on needed some extra work. And so I formed a consultancy. So I had been doing some consulting kind of on my own and then with another group of consultants like early in my career. But that's fundamentally different than building a tech business, right? But the parts about trying to figure out what you're going to work on every day, plan ahead so that you have money coming in the door, that kind of stuff, were all skills that you see other people doing in-house and that I had done a little bit like a while ago, but to really kind of get going on it, yeah, it's challenging for me. I did a lot of research, read a lot of books, you know, all the startup books.

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Tyler Finn

Zero to one. 

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, the lean startup, like all this stuff. 

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Tyler Finn

Hard thing about hard things. 

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Jordan Hatcher

So yeah, read those or I do these Blinkist. I'm a big Blinkist user, which is like 10 to 20 minute summaries of books. I find it particularly good. It's like a mini podcast, but it's a book summarized into 10 or 20 minutes. And let's face it, a lot of business books have a lot of fluff, and you can boil it down to an idea within 10 or 20 minutes. And I use it for a lot of business books. So I listen to one every morning when I get ready, because it's like 10 minutes.

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Tyler Finn

So that's great. I might have to try that. I like that a lot. And now I'm thinking, I've heard of these AI podcasts, which I hope won't replace something like this. I don't think it can replace something like this. But that seems like a perfect application for that. Yeah.

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, I think they have started using AI to do the voiceover because you can read the summary or you can listen to it.

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Tyler Finn

You talked about building Ikea furniture earlier in your career, opening an office, but your role just isn't legal within the grid. You're doing ops. I'm sure that you're in market talking to customers as well. Is this something that you presumably were really excited about and you said, hey, I really want this as a part of this role and this business that we're going to build together with your co-founder? 

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah. So my co-founder? Yeah, so my co-founder is amazing. And he's a real visionary. So if I really look at the core of what my job is, my job is to get as much off his plate right now as possible so that he can be amazing. Because if you think about for us like him being out in the market or driving the product and things like that. So what that means for me is I don't do the bookkeeping myself. We have a bookkeeper, but I'm like that head of finance role in that I make sure people's salaries are paid. I do all the invoicing in terms of making sure that the invoices come in and that they're sorted, all the planning and the budgeting. So it's nice to be on the other side of the table setting the legal budget. And then kind of beyond that for the operations for the business, I'd sat in on a lot of sales calls and I'd learned a lot from sales over the years for supporting sales teams, which I'm really thankful for. And yeah, trying to put it to use myself, you know, of course gives me a new perspective on all the sales humans out there and why they were chasing me so much one of those years, yeah.

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Tyler Finn

It sounds like it's fun. Yeah. Do you feel a different sense of responsibility though with it being your business, investors who have come and invested in something that you're building? I mean, you even talk about paying the salaries. I mean, I've never run a business myself that I've started, but paying people's salaries on time is actually really important for them, even if it's just one of those things that you think should happen in the background. So I'm curious about that sort of mindset change too.

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting question. I think...

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Tyler Finn

I'm not trying to put pressure on you, by the way, and say, you should feel the weight of it. 

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah. No, I feel the weight of it because I very much understand the importance of people getting paid on time, and for some of them getting paid even a little bit early, right? In terms of the, I don't know, the exact invoice due date. 

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Tyler Finn

Yeah.

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Jordan Hatcher
Yeah. And I'm happy to work with him on that. Yeah, I definitely feel the responsibility. I mean, and I'm aware of those things, but in terms of the stress for me, because you get so many stressful moments as a lawyer, particularly if you end up, as I'm sure any GC that's listening, will have done with employment law issues, right? Like, when you're in the middle of serious employment law issues, it has serious consequences, right? Potentially for lots of different people. And I take the responsibility for sure for towards the investors and everything else but and to the employees of course, but the weight is different, right?

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Tyler Finn

Yeah. Okay. A different sort of question or area to explore. You've also stood up a nonprofit called A Different Story. Why don't you just tell us about that? Tell us about why you started it, what it does.

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah. So I can't take too much credit for it because it is my ex-partners and the mother of my son. It's really her vision and initiative. I'm very proud to have helped along the way and still be part of the board. So I have a son that has an ultra rare genetic condition. It's a mutation on the TRP12 gene. And we went through, as parents, many ups and downs along the journey, but particularly around the diagnostic pathway for getting a genetic condition like this diagnosed, because it's so rare. There's not an immediate test. You have to get to the point of essentially full genome sequencing. And being expats, being foreigners, essentially in Amsterdam and navigating that process as well. The real challenge is navigating the system. But one of the things that we really discovered in navigating that system in terms of looking for schools, benefits, the rights for us as parents of a disabled, a child with a disability, and our child, it's hard for the locals to navigate. It's not an easy system. And so what we wanted to do is form something that can help other parents go through this process and access the resources that they need. So there was a real gap in terms of there are a lot of great foundations and charities in the Netherlands doing tons of great work. A lot of them are really focused on either a particular disease or condition or solving a particular problem. And kind of where we're hoping to sit is like a glue to show people what's possible and connect them into it. So it's sort of like the intake part of getting the help that you need. 

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Tyler Finn

What does the condition, like what does it mean on like a day-to-day sort of basis or how does the disability manifest? Because I also want to ask you a little bit about, you know, balancing like family life, balancing life with a partner, and then your work is hard enough, and then you add children in, like that's also very challenging. And then you add a child with a disability, and that's, I would imagine, I don't know from any experience, right? Like even more challenging, yeah.

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, you know, I get that question sometimes, and I used to answer it with like kind of listing the things on the the medical condition page but really my son his name's Iggy. Iggy is not his disease he's like and really just take meeting him for about 10 or 15 minutes and you'd see how amazing he is as a person. Yeah. And but of course it's had its own challenges for him and for us as his parents. Balancing it, as I said earlier, I did not do a very good job. So I put, uh, him first, which sounds great. But at the end of the day, you really have to take care of yourself enough to be able to take care of other people, right? And it's the same between trying to balance that between work and home life. It does get very busy. One of the things that both being a parent and being a parent of Iggy in particular, it has forced me on many occasions just to put the phone down, shut the laptop away and just really be present and be outside of work. And that part is really great in terms of just thinking of that work-life balance. Like, there's no multitasking and all the rest some of the time. Like you just you have to really be in the moment at that time.

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Tyler Finn

Maybe one last question on that. I mean, you can tell me if this is a good question or a good way to put it. Having experienced this for however many a decade or however many years, you said, if you were a boss to someone else who had a child with a disability, what are some things that you would do or what are some ways that you would try to support them?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah. So I focus on personally for people that I care about or that I manage. Um, I tried to focus on like doing things and trying to find solutions, which is not always what everybody else wants.

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Tyler Finn

Yeah.

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Jordan Hatcher

Um, but really, you know, at the end of the day, just take the time that you need to take care of yourself and for, if I rewind to just being in a B2B suss business, right? It's not criminal law that we're doing. Like nobody's going to die at the end of the day. It's not, we're not doctors. We're not surgeons in the sense. Like if you are having a bad day and you need to take the afternoon off or, you know, you can take that little bit of extra space, then do it. Right. you can take that little bit of extra space, then do it. Right? Like, and I, for anybody through any life situation, you know, particularly in the team, like if they're having a really bad day, just take the rest of the day off or take the break, take the time that you need.

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Tyler Finn

Yeah.

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Jordan Hatcher

You know, some people prefer to work through trying times, right? Because it gives them a sense of stability and normalcy. And that's okay too, right?

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Tyler Finn

Actually, second, well, that was the second to last question. Because the last question really should be if people want to learn more about a different story, how should they find out or how should they get involved?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yes. about a different story? How should they find out or how should they get involved? Yes, so for a different story, it's a differentstory.nl is our site. I mean, we're focused here on the Netherlands. It's very community driven, particularly in Amsterdam, but we have online support groups that even people throughout the rest of Europe are joining. And yeah.  Cool. people throughout the rest of Europe are joining.

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Tyler Finn

Yeah. I've got some traditional closing questions that I like to ask my guests that I want to ask you. The first one would be your favorite part of your day to day.

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah. So the favorite part of my day to day in terms of work, I usually try to carve out quiet time, meeting free time in the morning. And it's just like, it's also the time I'm the most productive, which is like just getting stuck in and actually doing something. Not sorting email or catching up on Slack messages, but solving a real problem.

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Tyler Finn

Do you have a professional pet peeve?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yes, I do. And if any of my former team listening or former colleagues will know exactly what it is, it's legalese. I cannot stand overly complicated legal drafting. Shall, being the number one word that I dislike.

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Tyler Finn

That's a good answer. I like that answer.

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Jordan Hatcher

I've instituted a legal style guide at every place I've ever worked.

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Tyler Finn

Do you take it with you from place to place?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yes.

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Tyler Finn

Can people write you if they want to have you open source that?

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Jordan Hatcher

I don't know if I've put it up, but I will after the show. For sure.

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Tyler Finn

Check out the blog. Do you have a book that you would recommend? This does not have to be a business book, but a book that you would recommend to folks who are listening that you've enjoyed?

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah, well, the most recent book that I've finished, I have a lot of books that I've kind of half started. 

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Tyler Finn

Oh, you and me both. 

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Jordan Hatcher

Yeah. A History of Cruising by Alex Espinoza. I picked it up at the City Lights bookshop in San Francisco and I really enjoyed it. 

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Tyler Finn

That's a good bookstore. I've been there. Interesting. Okay, last question for you. Traditional closing question for my guests. It's if you could look back on your days as a young lawyer just getting started, maybe in Austin. Something that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then. 

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Jordan Hatcher 

Yeah, um, this kind of stumps me a little bit, um, because, uh, I reflect on like where I was then.  And I probably was way too sure of myself for sure. Uh, and, uh, probably a little too pushy on things. Um, but you know, in the end, uh, it's kind of all worked out. Uh, the thing that probably took me a while to realize about being a practicing lawyer is, uh, particularly for in-house and the kind of work I do in-house. It's about connecting the dots between things and, uh, you know, making sure the left hand knows what the right hand's doing within an organization and just really listening and understanding the people. It's that part of it that I think makes you a better and more sympathetic lawyer. It's not, of course, you have to have the legal skills, you have to know how to write without legalese, those kinds of things. But just really understanding the people side of it is really key to, I think, being what I would call at least a good lawyer.

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Tyler Finn

Don't seem stumped at all. Jordan, thank you so much for coming with me and doing this episode here in Amsterdam.Really fun. 

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Jordan Hatcher

Thanks. 

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Tyler Finn

And to all of our listeners, thanks so much for tuning into this episode of The Abstract, and we hope to see you next time.

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