On Daily Routines, we profile successful leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, executives and athletes to explore their routines, schedules, habits and day in the life.
At 23-years old, Kim Perell was on top of the world. Fresh out of college, she joined a rapidly growing start-up called Xdrive Technologies as employee number seven. After raising over $120 million in funding, the company quickly scaled to over 300 employees in under two years.
For a young Perell, who was working as the company’s director of marketing, she was living the dream. But things quickly went left. According to a CNN article, Xdrive’s core business focused on data storage wasn’t generating enough revenue and the company went bankrupt.
“I suddenly found myself laid off, broke and devastated,” Perell recalled in an interview with Thrive Global. “It was the hardest time of my life. It was like someone pushed delete on my career.”
From that point on, Perell realised she had to take things into her own hands. “I called my 80-year-old grandmother for a $10,000 loan and I started my own company from my kitchen table,” she recalled. “I was certainly scared and had doubts. What I learned is you have to feel the fear and do it anyway. My belief in myself had to be greater than anyone’s doubt.”
The bet on herself paid off. Frontline Direct, the company she started with her grandmother’s $10,000 loan grew to over $100 million in annual revenue and was acquired by Adconion Media Group a few years later. “I went from being broke at 23, I was a multimillionaire by the time I was 30,” she proudly recalled.
During her time as CEO of Amobee, a wholly owned subsidiary of Singaporean telecommunications conglomerate Singtel, Perell revealed her daily routine in an interview.
When I am home, I typically start my day riding my Peloton bike around 6am. I am a huge fan and since I don’t need to leave my house, I can be there when my 4 year old twins wake up around 7am. After my twins go to preschool, I head to the office for the day. I try to take a break around lunch time to have lunch with people who have reached out to me for help or advice, whether it’s someone from my team or an aspiring entrepreneur. At night, I always make a point to put work away when I first get home in the evening so that I can be with the family for dinner and spend time with them. After the twins go to bed, I’ll typically go back to work for a couple hours because evening in California is morning in Singapore, where my parent company is located.
“Ultimately, good parenting is about raising happy, healthy individuals”, with Kim Perell and Dr. Ely Weinschneider | Thrive Global
Currently, Perell is the founder and CEO of 100.co, an AI-powered consumer brand group, as well as the founder of Perell Ventures, where she has invested in over 100 companies. She has also written two books based on her experiences as an entrepreneur: The Execution Factor: The One Skill that Drives Success and Jump: Dare to Do What Scares You in Business and Life.
In a more recent interview with The Cut, Perell talked about her updated daily routine in 2021.
We get up at seven and we’re off and running. During the week, my main goal is to get everyone out of the house without three meltdowns. Once [the kids] are on the bus, then I exercise. I’m obsessed with Peloton. I usually have a protein power shake on the way from the kitchen to my desk — my commute is very short.
Kim Perell Wants to Bet on Your Dreams | The Cut
As a start-up mentor and investor, Perell spends most of her time talking to founders. “I usually talk to the three companies that were incubated under 100.Co,” she revealed. “I try to talk to at least one entrepreneur a day from a pitch perspective, because I get energy from it and I love hearing the ideas.”
To unwind from her day, Perell’s go-to relaxation method is having a cup of tea or listening to ’80s and ’90s music (“it takes me back to a really good time when I had no worries in my life and was carefree”). She also loves watching Ted Lasso and spends most of her free time with her family.
Before you go…
Check out more daily routines from Barack Obama, Joe Rogan, Jeff Bezos, Michelle Obama, Sheryl Sandberg, Richard Branson, Warren Buffet and plenty others.
