Min-Kyu Jung, Founder at Accord

Dreams of replacing Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United have not yet eventuated, however in the meantime, Min-Kyu Jung, Founder of Accord has big plans to make working with legal contracts less expensive, painful, and boring.

If you have not heard of Accord, I highly recommend you check them out, particularly if creating legal docs for you business is frustrating. We caught up with Min-Kyu to learn more about his journey into tech, what led him to quit his job at a prominent law firm to start a tech business and his plans for the future. Thanks for sharing your story, Min-Kyu.

How would you explain to a five year old what it is that you do?

Accord makes the process of creating and signing a contract faster and more fun.

And for the adults, what does that translate to in regards to your day-to-day?

The vast majority of my time is spent in front of my computer, either on my code editor or on a zoom call talking to users. The remaining portion of my time is usually spent meeting candidates in person over lunch or dinner.

It’s not very glamorous!

Was building a tech company something you dreamed about doing as a kid? If not, what was?

No, I don’t think this ever registered as a possibility. My dream as a kid was to be a football manager, and replace Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. I’m still waiting to hear back from the folks at Old Trafford.

It wasn’t until university when I started a side-business with my friends that I realised how much fun entrepreneurship was. It was a great feeling to realise that I didn’t need anybody’s permission to sell something that people want.

Tell us a little bit more about your career journey and what inspired you to start Accord?

I was a corporate lawyer at a large NZ law firm. Most of my work involved acting for NZX listed companies on capital raises. I realised that there was a lot of low-hanging fruit in the legal industry that could be explored by technology companies.

Most of my watercooler conversations with colleagues started with me saying some variation of “why doesn’t someone just build…”

I was particularly fascinated with contracts. Contracts touch every aspect of commercial life; they’re probably the most important piece of business technology in human history.

I wanted to live in a world where the process of working with them was less expensive, painful, and boring.

I ended up teaching myself how to code, leaving my career, and building Accord.

Where do you hope Accord will be in five years from now?

I hope that in five years, Accord will have built a great product that many people really love. I also hope that Accord will be a great company that people are proud to be a part of. Beyond that, I’m not sure.

What kind of boss are you, if I was to ask one of your employees?

I’m still in the process of recruiting my first employees, so it’s hard to say.

I take a lot of pride in the product I’m building, and I value execution speed extremely highly; I think I’d expect other people I work with to be the same.

I think I’m pretty relaxed and casual about almost everything else; most of the time I’m working out of my pjs from my laptop in my bedroom, so I expect early office culture at Accord to be very different from what I was used to at a large law firm.

What is the best piece of career advice you have ever received?

This quote from Peter Thiel: “Looking back at my ambition to become a lawyer, it looks less like a plan for the future and more like an alibi for the present.

It was a way to explain to anyone who would ask—to my parents, to my peers, and most of all to myself—that there was no need to worry.

I was perfectly on track. But it turned out in retrospect that my biggest problem was taking the track without thinking really hard about where it was going.”

Lastly, as Accord grows, what are the key traits and characteristics of the people you look for when hiring?

• People who are relently resourceful.
• People who move quickly.
• People who are excited about the adventure of building a company!