jia-ming-huang-lenavix

# S01E09 · Jia Ming Huang — Co-Founder of Lenavix <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClEVkyrTxy4" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="uv-poster" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ClEVkyrTxy4/maxresdefault.jpg" alt="Jia Ming Huang on The Useful Podcast Episode 9" loading="lazy" /></a> Jia Ming Huang is the co-founder of [Lenavix](https://lenavix.com), an AI regulatory operating system that helps legal and compliance teams run due diligence on AI vendors and portfolio companies faster, so companies stop absorbing fines they could have avoided. He is also a Cursor Ambassador for Calgary and Toronto, co-writer of the Just Do Things newsletter, and one of the hosts behind Cafe Cursors, the community events that have become his highest-leverage go-to-market channel — he once ran three back-to-back events in China in eleven days and met around 550 people. In this founder-to-founder conversation, Gokul and Jia Ming get into why he treats community building as a moat rather than marketing, the breakup with his first startup's co-founder that led him to join Lenavix, why he thinks lawyers end up making more money because of AI rather than less, the wedge he's chasing with Chinese companies spinning up North American subsidiaries, and the philosophy behind Just Do Things: if you never push on the wall, it never pushes back. ## Listen <ul class="uv-linkrow"> <li>Watch<a class="uv-ico uv-yt" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClEVkyrTxy4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">YouTube</a></li> <li>Show<a class="uv-ico uv-sp" href="https://open.spotify.com/show/033DRed1adLXd1bg8honOl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Useful Podcast on Spotify</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-x" href="https://x.com/theusefulpod" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@theusefulpod on X</a></li> </ul> <a class="uv-btn" href="https://useful.ventures/podcast/jia-ming-huang-lenavix/transcript">Read the full transcript</a> ## Key facts <ul class="uv-facts"> <li>EpisodeThe Useful Podcast, Season 1, Episode 9</li> <li>GuestJia Ming Huang, Co-Founder of Lenavix</li> <li>HostGokul Bala, co-founder of Useful Ventures</li> <li>Company<a href="https://lenavix.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lenavix</a>, an AI regulatory operating system for legal and compliance teams</li> <li>TopicsCommunity-led go-to-market, in-person events as distribution, the Just Do Things newsletter, AI and legal due diligence, expanding into China</li> <li>LengthAbout 41 minutes · Published August 2026</li> </ul> ## Guest <ul class="uv-linkrow"> <li>Jia Ming<a class="uv-ico uv-li" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/j-huang/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-x" href="https://x.com/jiaminghuang99" target="_blank" rel="noopener">X (@jiaminghuang99)</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-ig" href="https://www.instagram.com/jiamingtravels/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram (@jiamingtravels)</a></li> <li>Lenavix<a class="uv-ico uv-play" href="https://lenavix.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lenavix.com</a></li> <li>Host<a class="uv-ico uv-x" href="https://x.com/GokulsVision" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gokul Bala on X (@GokulsVision)</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-ig" href="https://www.instagram.com/gokuls.vision/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram (@gokuls.vision)</a></li> </ul> ## Key insights **Community is a moat, not a marketing channel.** Attend an event and you might meet ten people; host it and you meet everyone in the room, and they all remember who ran it. Jia Ming and his co-organizer rebuilt Toronto's Cursor meetup from scratch after a months-long gap, and it grew past 250 people within weeks of the first sign-up page going live. **Push on the wall.** Jia Ming's operating philosophy, and the idea behind his Just Do Things newsletter: if you never push on the wall, it never pushes back. Take the thirty-minute swing at an idea instead of talking yourself out of it — a failed push just tells you where not to push next, which is more valuable than leaving the wall untouched. **Distribution compounds faster than almost anything else available to an early founder.** Eleven days in China, three back-to-back Cafe Cursors events, and roughly 550 people met — the after-parties at a restaurant and a rooftop bar mattered as much as the events themselves, because that's where the real connections formed. **AI should make lawyers earn more, not less.** Lenavix's pitch to legal teams isn't "replace yourself," it's "charge more per hour and finish faster, or take on more clients at the same rate." Selling job-replacement to the people you need to adopt your product is a losing pitch, so Lenavix is built to make legal work faster without threatening the person doing it. **The wedge is Chinese companies expanding into North America.** Chinese firms spinning up wholly owned subsidiaries abroad face regulatory friction their own legal teams, based overseas, aren't equipped to navigate manually. Jia Ming's near-native Mandarin and the relationships he built on a recent trip make this an unusually well-matched opportunity for Lenavix. ## About Lenavix [Lenavix](https://lenavix.com) is an AI regulatory operating system built for legal teams and the private equity firms that back them. It gives corporate counsel a structured, citable, audit-ready file for reviewing AI vendors and portfolio companies in a fraction of the time manual due diligence takes, with coverage mapped across frameworks including the EU AI Act, NYC Local Law 144, Colorado's AI law, NIST's AI Risk Management Framework, ISO 42001, GDPR, CCPA, and the FTC Act. The premise: companies lose a meaningful share of revenue to regulatory fines that proper vendor due diligence would have avoided, and that due diligence has historically been too slow and expensive for legal teams to do consistently. Lenavix is built by Michael Brockli and Jia Ming Huang. Learn more at [lenavix.com](https://lenavix.com). ## FAQ <div class="uv-faq"> ### Who is Jia Ming Huang? Jia Ming Huang is the co-founder of Lenavix, an AI regulatory operating system for legal and compliance teams. Before Lenavix he built a startup out of the Antler accelerator in Dubai that ended when he and his co-founder parted ways; he joined Lenavix at the invitation of co-founder Michael Brockli, whom he had met while doing user research for that earlier venture. He is also a Cursor Ambassador for Calgary and Toronto and co-writes the Just Do Things newsletter. ### What is Lenavix? Lenavix is an AI regulatory operating system that helps legal teams and the private equity firms backing them run due diligence on AI vendors and portfolio companies faster and more cheaply than manual review. It produces a structured, citable, audit-ready diligence file mapped to frameworks including the EU AI Act, NYC Local Law 144, Colorado's AI law, NIST's AI Risk Management Framework, ISO 42001, GDPR, CCPA, and the FTC Act, so companies can catch compliance risk before it turns into a fine. ### Why does Jia Ming Huang think in-person events are the best go-to-market channel? Because hosting scales connection in a way attending never can. Going to an event might get you ten meaningful contacts, but hosting one puts you in front of everyone in the room — and they remember who ran it. He tested this by running three back-to-back Cafe Cursors events in China in eleven days and meeting around 550 people, then using follow-up dinners and after-parties to turn introductions into real relationships. ### What is Just Do Things? Just Do Things is a newsletter Jia Ming Huang co-writes with fellow community organizer Sukhpal, built on the belief that "if you never push on the wall, it never pushes back" — that imperfect action beats endless deliberation. It grew out of the same principle behind his Cafe Cursors events: give people thirty minutes and an idea, and modern AI tools let almost anyone build something real enough to take home and show people. ### How does Jia Ming Huang think AI will change what lawyers charge? He sees two paths: lawyers who bill hourly can charge more per hour while finishing work in far less time, or firms can shift to per-case pricing and take on more clients using AI-assisted due diligence to compress the work. Either way, he argues AI raises what a lawyer's time is worth rather than replacing the lawyer — which is also why Lenavix avoids pitching legal teams on replacing their own jobs. ### What is Lenavix's strategy for expanding into China? Jia Ming Huang is targeting Chinese companies spinning up wholly owned subsidiaries in North America, whose legal teams — based overseas and unfamiliar with local regulation — are often doing compliance work manually. Fluent in Mandarin at a near-native level, he is building relationships with legal teams in China directly, including a planned return trip to deepen the connections made during his eleven-day, 550-person swing through the country. ### What is The Useful Podcast? The Useful Podcast is a series of founder-to-founder conversations from Useful Ventures, hosted by Gokul Bala. Each episode digs past the highlight reel into the actual work of building a company. This is Season 1, Episode 9. </div> ## Related * [[podcast]] is the full Useful Podcast index. * [[manifesto]] is how we see the world and how we work. * [[notes]] is where we write about the world we see coming. * [Lenavix](https://lenavix.com) · [The Useful Podcast on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/033DRed1adLXd1bg8honOl) · [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@TheUsefulPodcast) · [@theusefulpod on X](https://x.com/theusefulpod) Back to [[podcast]].