Texarkana → Austin → Seattle

KORYKELLY

Farm kid from Texarkana, raised on video games and fantasy novels. Brother, uncle, and a builder at heart — happiest making the thing, not talking about it.

CO-FOUNDER & CEO — LEGAL KARMA

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01ORIGIN STORYthe long version

I grew up doing farm work in Texarkana, where Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana meet. Farm work is simple in a useful way: you show up early and you finish what you start.

I was also a serious fantasy nerd — the kid who disappeared into video games and fantasy novels for whole weekends. That never really wore off, and it's where the story with my co-founder begins.

In my twenties I taught at a university for a while. I liked it, but I kept wanting to build the thing instead of just explaining it.

I'm also a brother and an uncle — family taught me most of what I know about patience and showing up.

Mauricio Cano and I met as teenagers playing World of Warcraft. We were friends online for seven years before we met in person. In 2020 we started a company together: Legal Karma, built to make estate planning something normal families can actually afford.

The through-line from the farm to now is pretty simple — figure out what people actually need, then find an honest way to give it to them.

02THE MAIN QUESTa chapter — the company

Legal Karma is the estate-planning layer for the institutions Americans already trust.

Kory and co-founder Mauricio Cano in Times Square under the Legal Karma billboard
WITH MAO — TIMES SQUARE
$25M+
VALUATION
100+
INSTITUTIONS
LIVE
$6.5M
RAISED TO
DATE
2020
FOUNDED

Two-thirds of Americans don't have an estate plan — not because they don't want one, but because the options are too expensive (a $3,000 attorney) or too cold (a website with no one behind it). Credit unions are hunting for the next generation of non-interest income, and wealth management is staring down a multi-trillion-dollar generational transfer it isn't built to absorb.

Legal Karma sits in the middle. We give institutions an attorney-reviewed, white-labeled estate-planning experience they offer members under their own brand, at a price ordinary families can afford. They keep the relationship and the data. We handle the legal infrastructure — documents across 50 states, SOC 2 Type II, member support, and the unglamorous engineering that makes "fast" feel obvious.

03ANCIENT SCROLLSthings i've come to believe
01

PERSUASION IS INCREMENTAL

It doesn't happen with one big message. It happens with repetition and simplicity, over time. The ones who win the long game stay on a message long enough for the market to catch up.

02

DON'T TAKE YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY

Take the work seriously; don't take yourself seriously — they're not the same thing. Nobody asked you to start this. You chose it. If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong: the energy you bring is the product.

03

DON'T FEEL THE HIGHS OR THE LOWS

The day you close a huge deal and the day you lose one feel almost identical by the next morning. Ride the highs and the lows will break you. The ones who survive aren't the most optimistic — they're the most even.

04

STARTUPS ARE FAILING MACHINES

A startup isn't a growth machine, it's a failing machine. You try things, most fail, you rebuild — and the cycle just gets slower over time. You don't stop failing; you learn to begin again less often.

05

WHEN NOTHING FEELS RISKY, THAT'S THE RISK

A company can be stable and quietly drifting at the same time. Comfort is a slow leak. The job is to keep putting something real back on the table — a new bet, a harder problem — before steady turns into stuck.

04SIDE QUESTSoff the clock

Most of my best thinking happens off the grid.

▸ IN THE WILD
Backpacking & bikepackingLong routes — everything on my back or my bike.
▸ CLIMBING
Dangerous alpine peaksHigh, exposed, and very much on purpose.
▸ OFF GRID
Sleeping out in the wildernessNo signal, by choice — that's the point.
▸ TRAINING FOR
My first IRONMAN 70.3Long course, longer humility.
▸ CURRENTLY
Moving Austin → SeattleNew chapter, same coffee habit.
▸ OFF HOURS
A present friend to my communityThe role I least want to outsource.
05CHRONICLEStalks & press
06HAIL MEsay hello

Building something — or just want to talk shop? Let's talk.