The DeBaun Auditorium was packed. Students, faculty, and parents filled the seats awaiting the next entry in the Thomas H. Scholl Lecture by Visiting Entrepreneurs. The lecture, titled, “What I’ve Learned From the Entrepreneurial Journey” was a collection of Jeong H. Kim’s takeaways from his experience founding two startups, Yurie Systems and Kiswe Mobile Inc. From humble beginnings in his poor family home in South Korea, Dr. Kim found opportunity in each phase of his life.
While attending high school, he worked the midnight shift at Seven Eleven to save up money for college. Moving to the US a few years later, Dr. Kim founded Yurie Systems, a consulting-based service company which provided security assessments for government firms. Yurie Systems soon was the #1 hottest growth company, listed by Business Week magazine. After five years of operations, the company went public and was acquired by Lucent Technologies for $1 billion.
Dr. Kim attributes his success to the vast opportunities afforded to him in the US. Throughout the lecture, he discussed the qualities needed to thrive as an entrepreneur. First, and most important was a determination to succeed, no matter what. When Dr. Kim noticed that his company was reaching a cash-flow issue, he moved his company’s focus from a service based model to a product based model. Since the government market was limited, he switched to the commercial market in order to increase revenue. This ability to remain agile was a key factor in his company’s continued growth.
As Dr. Kim recounted his time transitioning from Yurie Systems to Kiswe Mobile Inc, he spoke about the importance of choosing the right people for a team. Out of the first ten members, most should be generalists, who are skilled in multiple areas. The next topics he delved into were startup culture, employee motivation, early market validation, and competing with big companies. For startup culture, Dr. Kim said “there is no thing as good or bad startup culture.” Generally successful startups experience rapid growth in the early phases and must transition from small office spaces to large office spaces. As long as startups are able to think on their feet and minimize the risk of failure, they’ll continue to survive. Risk avoidance involves verifying that the product actually fills the needs of a particular group of consumers. To test customer validation their flagship product, Kiswe Mobile Inc launched an interactive video application for live sports games on the Google Play. The app tracked player data and allowed users to follow players of their team throughout the match. After gathering enough customer input, Kiswe proceeded to construct the final iteration of their product. Dr. Kim emphasized that no matter what the industry, big corporations will always try to starve out their younger, smaller competitors. “In a starvation contest, the fat boys always win.” Small companies can’t compete on price, and by learning to leverage their strengths and collaborate with larger companies around them, Kiswe Mobile Inc was able to continue its growth trend and eventually buyout Qamira for a non-disclosed sum of money.
At the end of the lecture, Dr. Kim was presented with an award for his contribution with the Thomas H School visiting lecture series. He stayed for a Q&A session where he was asked, among other questions, why his company would raise money when they didn’t need it. To which, Dr. Kim responded, “Having people who can open the door for you can be a big help!”
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