Episode 7: Ben Sun | Controlling Your Destiny

This week, Lucia speaks with Ben Sun, a partner at a venture capital firm called Primary Venture Partners based in New York City. Ben focuses his investing activities mainly in consumer facing companies. Some of his most notable investments include Jet.com, Slice, and Coupang. 

In this episode, Ben and Lucia speak about: 

How his early days as a banker influenced his decision to launch his internet business,

How he built the first Asian American and African American online community,

His path to becoming a leading Venture Capitalist,

The traits he looks for when investing in a company,

And his advice to budding entrepreneurs


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Relevant Links Mentioned in the Show:

• Ben’s venture capital fund, Primary Venture Partners: https://www.primary.vc/


• Wikipedia article on Asian Avenue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AsianAve 


• 2008 University of Chicago study measuring the strengths of successful CEOs: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/steven.kaplan/research/kks.pdf


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Ben’s bio: Ben Sun is an entrepreneur and investor. Ben is co-founder and General Partner at Primary Venture Partners which is an early stage venture capital fund based in NYC. He invested in the first rounds of companies such as Jet.com (acquired by Walmart for $3.3 billion) and Coupang (Amazon of Korea). Previously, Mr. Sun founded Community Connect Inc. where he served as President & CEO for 12 years. Mr. Sun co-founded Community Connect Inc. which published a network of social networking sites AsianAvenue.com, BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com (pronounced mee-hen-tay). This network was one of the Top 25 highest trafficked properties on the Internet. Community Connect Inc. was acquired by Radio One, Inc. the fifth largest radio company in the U.S.

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Big thanks to our audio editor, Molly Schulson, who mixed and edited this episode. Check out her personalized audio story collection at tellmystoryaudio.com. 

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If you have suggestions for topics about the Asian American community, or a personal story that you’d like to share, email us at [email protected]. Follow our journey on Instagram and Twitter @rocktheboatnyc, and sign up for monthly newsletter updates on our website gorocktheboat.com 

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