It’s easy to assume that the most successful people grew up knowing what they wanted to do.
Often, that’s not the case.
Brian Liu, a co-founder of do-it-yourself legal documents site LegalZoom, was told by a fortune teller in high school that he would have a career in business. Liu laughed it off at the time, saying there was no way that could be true.
“Being an entrepreneur was one of the last things on my mind,” he says.
Liu ended up going to law school and found upon graduating that many of his friends and family were coming to him with legal questions. Sensing there was an opportunity to make legal documents more accessible to the masses, he and fellow lawyer Brian Lee launched LegalZoom in 2001. (They also famously convinced O.J. Simpson lawyer Robert Shapiro to join as a co-founder by cold-calling him on the phone.)
Related: What America’s Second Richest Entrepreneur Under 40 Wants You to Know
Today, LegalZoom counts more than 3.6 million customers.
As he looks back, Liu says he sees one quality in himself that screams “entrepreneur” — his inability to work for anyone else.
“I hate working for other people,” he says, laughing. “I’m one of the worst employees ever.”
Check out the video above for more.
