"I can't just be filled with food generally. It has to be the food from my childhood."
Jane Chen, founder and CEO of Letterly, on why she fills her entire trunk with authentic Chinese food from Flushing and drives it three hours to Saratoga Springs to fuel building her venture-backed AI writing platform.
This conversation gets real about what founders actually eat. Jane went from scholarship kid and elite competitive swimmer crushing 3,000-4,000 calories a day at all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets (Burger King, then Popeyes, then twin lobsters in Flushing for late night), to Wall Street M&A analyst living on $50 Seamless budgets, to startup CEO whose entire cooking method is "boiling things in flavorful broth."
Her morning? Eyes open. Five minutes later, on a Google Meet with her European dev team. No coffee because her Nespresso machine is broken and she doesn't know how to use a drip coffee maker. Her fridge? Potluck leftovers and one sad slice of pizza on a plate. Her freezer? Carp heads with pickled mustard and frozen fish balls from Flushing.
But here's what matters: Jane protects dinner. Not as fuel, but as connection. Everything else is negotiable. Morning routine? Doesn't exist. Breakfast? Skipped. But dinner with friends and family? Non-negotiable. And her one other protected routine? Ninety-minute evening walks with her dog pack.
Jane also shares how Letterly scaled from a brick-and-mortar writing school with 30 students to 4,000 students nationwide, including contracts with Brooklyn Tech and Stuyvesant, and why being a former athlete shaped how she thinks about food as fuel.
CONNECT WITH LETTERLY:
Website: letterly.io
MORE FOUNDERS FRIDGE:
Website: www.foundersfridge.com
Substack: https://substack.com/@foundersfridge
Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2535711/episodes/18048097
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