Kas, originally from Lithuania, is a Principal and co-Founder at Whatnot Innovation Studio. Whatnot is a Startup Studio that provides corporate venturing tools to organizations across Southeast Asia to enable innovation. Together with these large organizations, Whatnot invests in and builds the next generation of startups.
Kas has always been an entrepreneur and venture builder. He tried ‘corporate life’ for a very short period of time, but realized when he was 19 years old that he just had to build something for himself. Frankly, he was not even sure at first what that was going to be, but he knew he wanted to build his own businesses. So he and a friend started a business called ‘My Drink Beverages’ which they ran for 6 years. It was an incredible learning experience across the board, including learning how to manage teams and how to get an idea to reality.
Kastytis Kemezys
This was venture building for the food space. When I asked Kas if he had any experience in the food business prior to starting this he said, “Well, I used to eat…”. Clearly a guy with a great sense of humor. You have to listen to Kas tell his story about importing a drink into Lithuania from Las Vegas called ‘Cocaine Energy Drink‘. You can only begin to imagine the hilarity of trying to import this and get it through customs…
We had a very interesting conversation about the culture of innovation and the stress that surrounds it. Kas was never good at dealing with authority. He always wanted to do things his way first and then learn. Operating this way made it really necessary to get used to the stress of failure, which more often than not is the outcome of trying to build something from scratch. We both agreed that you have to be a bit weird and crazy to enter the world of innovation because you are constantly submitting yourself to failure.
Click here to listen to the full conversation via Asia Tech Podcast.
Posted on Feb 6, 2020
About the Author: Michael I. Waitze
Michael worked in Global Finance for more than 20 years, employed by firms like Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, primarily in Tokyo. He is a leader in the digital media space and his flagship website reaches listeners in over 140 countries.
Website: michaelwaitzepresents.com
