CK Kim. Recovering from a $510M Exit.

33:25So do you think your cultural background makes your journey somehow different from people from other cultural backgrounds that you talk to? I'm talking about exited founders. I think so. So as a Korean, so like the way I got into the internet industry was by accident almost. So my upbringing, so my father was a college professor, and he would regard anybody who doesn't have a PhD as a failure. So the proverbial, like you have to be either doctor or lawyer, really, really applied to our household. So yeah, when I was in college, I was a pre-med student. I was learning chemistry, biology, physics, without even knowing why I wanted to learn about those.

34:18I wanted to be a doctor, but not even knowing why. I mean, I had absolutely no reason other than, you know, my father wanted me to be a doctor. But I think at some point I was almost like fooling myself. It's like, oh, yeah, like that's something that you want to do. But it wasn't true. And what happened after was because I'm a Korean citizen, I was a Korean citizen back then. Now I'm a U.S. citizen. But I had a Korean passport. And every male, like, you know, men, Korean men, has to go to the Army. Yeah. So after studying in the U.S., I had to go back to Korea to serve in the Army. Okay. And this was during the dot-com boom.

35:06And what the Korean government had was this special program that let you actually work in Internet companies instead of going to the army. So it was a select few people who had a job in those companies, certain companies, you get exempt from the army duty. So I was like, all right, what is that program? I mean, I'd rather work in a big or interesting companies rather than going to the army and spending my next three years. And then one thing led to another, and then I got a position at this internet company. Again, this was.com. you know, boom. So like late 90s. And at that point, I had no idea.

35:49I had anything. I didn't know anything about like startups or like technology, internet, nothing. But somehow I got the opportunity to work in this company. And it was like a real life MBA. I had to learn every single thing because I was one of the few, probably the only non-engineer at the company. the company was doing actually very well and they eventually became a public company and so on so forth but in terms of like writing you know business plan raising money from investors and eventually going to you know public market like a lot of work fell onto me and I remember like at that point I was like grumbling because it's like oh my gosh you know because I'm like doing my army duty.

36:36So I wasn't getting paid a lot of money. But I did a lot of work. And then I knew about nothing. So I had to learn every single thing. But in hindsight, that was a really, really good opportunity for me to learn about technology and how to run a company. And the other thing was, it was a really good experience for me to experience the startup, the company, even though it wasn't my company, of course, I was just, you know, doing my, my army duty there. But I could see the company growing really, really fast. And that was my very first job. So I have this theory where like the first job affects you a lot, like the first, like whatever, like experience you get from your first job affects people more than they think.

37:24So yeah, that was a really, really good experience for me in terms of like startup, experiencing the startup secondhand And so kind of going back to your question about, hey, did the cultural background affect my decisions? Absolutely. And I think that's the case for everybody, right? Everybody has different background. Everybody goes through like different experience. But whatever experience you go through like early in your career, I think that has a lot of impact in people. Yeah. And certainly was case for me as well. How about your post-exit experience? Do you think the way you look at the world, the way you think about what to do next is affected also by your career heritage?

38:07So I think people like me, post-active founders, when they start another thing, I think more people, you can really say that you're really going for meaning and purpose more. And of course, that's what every founder says. They're mission-driven. They're really going for mission and purpose. But the first-time founders, they really want to have the exit under their belt. They really want to have a financial return. There's more strong pull from other motivations. But you're starting the third company. The first couple companies luckily became successful. then you don't necessarily need to prove yourself all the time so you get free from from that pressure so so i think um when you say hey for this time i'm really optimizing for meaning and purpose um you you mean that more than you know when you're starting your first company so yeah that's a difference i i would say um it's really fulfilling uh i mean you're able to say Like when you say you're going for meaning and purpose, you actually do mean it.

39:18I think that's really liberating. You mentioned that you don't need to prove yourself anymore. Yet I meet lots and lots of post-exit founders who are suffering from an imposter syndrome or they basically feel they haven't really proved themselves or they're afraid that they will be seen as one trick pony and they will never be successful again. and there's like this whole collection of self-doubt and insecurities that suddenly jump on these people. Do you have any of that? You know, what everybody has, right? I mean, no one is free from those imposter syndromes or like insecurities. I mean, no one.

39:57I mean, people can say that they don't have it, but then, you know, I don't really believe that. So everybody, you know, has that to a certain degree. But I think it's a conscious choice, right? I mean, Just because you as a human nature, you have the human nature doesn't mean that you have to be trapped inside the human nature all the time. So, I mean, during my sabbatical, when I looked at the people around me, they were advancing in their career super fast. And remember, like 2023, that was a year of generative AI. And, you know, a lot of my connections and friends, they started this awesome companies and immediately get like a super crazy like valuation and they raise big money.

40:44And then they announced that on LinkedIn and Twitter all the time. I have like a couple other people who joined the public company board, got recruited as a CXO, you know, C-level suite, you know. So, yeah, lots of things happened when I was taking time off. And then you get that feeling of like you feel like you're standing still and then everybody else is like, you know, jumping ahead and then running ahead. So you get that feeling, right? But I think it's really like where you set the site. if you set the site at somebody who is like who you think is better than you like advancing faster then you always feel like you're falling behind right so like i mean you know we're talking about the post-exit founders but then like you know even if you uh sold your company at a at a two billion dollar valuation for example you're still not mark zuckerberg or jeff bezos right so if that that person is setting the site at hey compared to mark zuckerberg or you know uh jeff bezos I'm like nothing then that person will probably be very unhappy but then if they like look inwards and then hey you know we've been very successful and then we've been and you know when when we we look at the people around us like important people like our family friends I can spend more time with them I can provide for them better it's like you know I'm free from like this like small like stresses like you know like you know when you're financially not secure there's always like you know those like small things that bother you and then you don't have to think about those as much that's really really like you know blessing so if you look at those positive aspects and then so it's really matter of like where you set the site at I think tell me how your exit affected it affected your relationships with your wife?

42:40Yeah, my wife. You know, funny thing is like my wife actually helped out the company at the beginning. So she doesn't have like a work experience, a lot of work experience. So like after graduate school, we got married. And, you know, after we got married, we had a first child. So she didn't have like a lot of work experience. But when you're starting a new startup, I mean, it's like an all-hands-on-deck situation. and we actually had a lot of like admin work to do because we were creator platform and we had to like pay out the creators and we were sending like a bunch of PayPal transactions to the creators every month.

43:20So we needed some help. So my wife actually ended up helping out doing a lot of admin stuff. So she was really, really critical at the start of the company. So yeah, after the exit, I remember still, it's like a small episode, but then like, you know, we were traveling somewhere and then we were about to close, but we never knew like what exactly what day, what time the deal would close. uh but then um and you know like one one one day i wake up and then you know the the deal was closed and then you know we looked at the account and then there's this you know number that we didn't see before and then you know uh and then i i woke up my my wife and then i didn't say anything like no word but then i just showed my phone uh to her and she's like what is this and then i i I just like, you know, showed it to her.

44:19And then I remember like us like hugging like for like a little bit. And then we didn't say anything. But and for some weird reason, I, you know, I shook hands with her. I don't know why I did that. But it's like, you know, we accomplished this together kind of thing, I guess. But then we had a little bit of a handshake. and then and then I went back to work actually so no like a funny interesting story there not necessarily but we had a little bit of like the moment where hey that we worked on this project for such a long time we did this together but after that life as usual how many kids do you have I have three kids yeah so we had the first two kids when we were doing the first the second company and then recently we had a newborn baby so we have a huge age gap between the first and second child and the third child are you considering being a full-time parent for a while or you know it's not gonna be something you're fulfilling uh i don't know about like so last year i was pretty much a full-time dad.

45:35I did all the school rides. I did everything. Packed the lunch for the kids, everything. I still try to get involved as much as possible. I still do a ride duty. But then, yeah, the challenge is a newborn. We have a kind of live-in nanny, so she's helping out a lot. But during the weekends, we're on our own. So anytime you have a newborn baby, it's always tough, right? But it's also a blessing too uh yeah when you have a third child after a long while it's it's a very different experience uh you know your expectation level is so low meaning like like you know when you have that first child you're like hey you know you should do this you shouldn't do this right i mean there's a lot of things that you're expecting from the child but then yeah third child you don't want anything from it's like just be healthy i don't care like i don't care what you do just just be healthy.

46:31Exactly, exactly. I have three kids, and my younger one is 10 years younger than the previous one, so I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm so relaxed, but also I'm enjoying motherhood so much more because I'm not stressing out. I was quite a fanatical mom with the first one, and now exactly as you said, I just want to love that child. I want him to feel loved, and I want him to be healthy. That's it. That's the end of my ambition. No helicopter parenting anytime soon. Yeah, that's actually better for the child too, right? Because when you're under the pressure, the kids feel it, right?

47:10It's like the first child always kind of feels that. But the second and third child, they know that there's less pressure, which is better for them psychologically. So do you want your kids to be entrepreneurs when they grow up? Um, that's a good question. I don't know. I mean, my mantra is just like whatever they want to do in life, you know, I want to support them. But so I think that as a parent, what you do is try to give them opportunities so that they can find what they do, what they like, right? So I think that's a parent's role. Like when you try to step more into into that process, and then try to do things for them.

47:55I mean, it just doesn't work, right? So you got to know when to step out, when to step in. And for me, it's always been like, you know, giving them the opportunity, at least like, you know, have them experience so that they can know what they like or not like. So, yeah, that's part of the reason why we so we did a lot of traveling together as a family, especially last year, because I took the time off. But even before that, we traveled a lot reading books. You know, I like to read books, by the way. So like, you know, when you as a parent likes to read, then kids tend to like, because, you know, it's wanting to tell the kids, hey, you have to read all the time, right?

48:36But then you're never reading, then it really doesn't work. As opposed to like, you know, you're like reading and the kids can see that and then they're kind of reading together with you. So, yeah, so my mantra is always like, hey, let's try to give them as much opportunity to experience different things and then kind of let them figure out what they like and not like. Fantastic. Is your wife also Korean? Last time I checked, yes. So if you had to rate your level of fulfillment today, fulfillment, not just happiness, between zero and ten, where are you? I would say nine. Oh, wow. Okay, that's the highest I've ever heard.

49:20Amazing. Really? What do you think feeds into your fulfillment so well? I have found what I want to do in life. Again, that was after a lot of thought, a lot of soul searching, a lot of mission finding. so I think I did put in a lot of work to discover myself and what I want to do for the rest of my life if you had the same question to me last year let's say like May or June last year the the answer would have been different I would probably have said like four or five because I was still like searching yeah yes and like I said I mean the the simple question of like what do you want to do in life is the most like difficult question and the potentially stressful question.

50:11So I think I did go through some of those periods where I was feeling a little anxious. It's like, hey, I wanted to find what I want to do. Like I was giving myself certain amount of time. It's like, hey, I knew that I wanted to take a year off. But then like, I was hoping that by the end of the year, I knew very clearly what I wanted to do. And then as the clock was ticking, I had this like a psychological pressure of, oh, yeah, like, I better know what to do next, because I was giving myself like a year, even though nobody told me, like, I could potentially take like three years off or four years off.

50:46I mean, no one told me you have to take exactly one year off. But then because that was sort of the amount of time that I was giving myself, I was kind of getting anxious towards like the later part of the year. But two things happened. One is, again, the child, the newborn baby. So we had a baby in December last year or so, like our my sabbatical kind of became like a paternity leave. There was no like a dividing line, it just became paternity leave. So I had to like take more time off. And then the other thing is finally, you know, a lot of soul searching, a lot of mission finding, I was able to find the clarity.

51:29So now I feel like, hey, it's such a blessing because I know exactly what I want to do for the next like whatever years. And then the family is happy. You know, we have a newborn baby. Baby is healthy and growing. So yeah, there's absolutely no complaint. Everything is thankful. Like I'm just like, you know, super grateful for everything. So you said you know exactly what you want to do and yet before you said you're still thinking about three different options. So for your peace of mind it's sufficient to have a choice of three or you actually know exactly what you want to do and just don't want to tell me.

52:11No I'm getting back into the game. I'm building another company again this will be my third company. So it's funny because this year I'm doing two you know zero to one project like one is the baby literally zero to one zero years to one years old and I'm doing a company new company but yeah it's super early so there's not much I can tell right now so we're still like under stealth mode but generally in the space of like helping people so So I want to stay in my background and experience, which is to build content publishing tools for creators. That's been my thing the whole life and I want to kind of do it again, but in a different way.

53:00So more again, optimized for meaning and purpose. So I want to build content creation tool for people to share their professional wisdom and experience better. uh what is it what does it actually mean that's something that we have to figure out so i don't really have like a lot of details yet but just generally speaking on a very high level i want to help people you know people like me actually like i like to share my experience my unique experience is my experience like the best ever in the world like no but but is my experience very unique yes so and everybody has had their unique experience and you know learning and wisdom captured but a lot of those wisdom and experience and knowledge is still like trapped in people's head so what if we can kind of like unlock you know more knowledge and wisdom and experience from people's head especially for people like you and me who had the the experience right so that's generally the space that i want to be in and i want to create like a content creation tool for those people but but again in terms of what it looks like what does it actually mean there's a lot of planning to do right now so it's content creation not necessarily a platform for for those people to share experiences it'll be a platform yeah it will be a platform and it will have tools yes yeah so you can you can be our user i i would love that I think it's so valuable.

54:36I want to be a guinea pig. Let me know when you need one. No, you're right. I mean, social media, today, that's the role of social media. But as you know, social media, we need better social media tools, like, you know, in general, especially for young generation. Yeah, we need just better social networking, social media tool, more meaningful, you know, tools. and even though there's a lot of tools out there, we're still kind of like, you know, in terms of content creation, it's not always easy for everybody. Like you have your podcast and YouTube channels. Yeah, absolutely. There's no shortage of tools out there.

55:19There's newsletter, there's medium, there's a podcast, there's YouTube. But for a lot of people, you know, starting a new podcast channel or YouTube channel is kind of daunting. You know, it's not easy all the time. It's still not easy. For everyone? Yeah, it's still not easy. There is still a lot of simplification that could be done. Combining all these different things, the podcast and newsletter, the ultimate dream of any creator would be like, you know, push two buttons and it's there, right? And we are very far from that, I think. Yeah, so there's the tools and also there's motivation too or knowledge, right?

56:06So a lot of people don't know how to create content, even though there are many tools available. So they just don't know where to start. So yeah, if we can make the content creation process much, much easier, where maybe they can be prompted, you know maybe there can be like easier to use tools uh whatever it means uh if we can you know make the barrier lower so that more people can share more knowledge and wisdom i think can be very meaningful thing and that's what motivates you yes i love it and part of that came from my own experience uh so last year uh during my sabbatical i was trying to like you know share my experience to other people I invested in about 55 companies and funds mostly the founders that I that I knew from before so I did a ton of angel investing and and of course I try to like mentor and help other founders as much as possible which was a really fulfilling experience for me of course it's like tiring and like you know it's a sometimes like big time commitment so I couldn't like help everybody of course but all the ones that I was trying to help I was you know trying to really like help them kind of you know by sharing my own experience and the other thing was during my sabbatical like in terms of like finding what to work next like the number one question that really helped me was hey if I had like five years to live five years to live like what would I do?

57:43So I thought about the question a lot. And like, I was imagining visualizing myself, he's like, hey, like, I go to the doctor's office, and the doctor gives me the unfortunate news, like, hey, you only have like five years, then what would I do? I like the first thing I was thinking was maybe I would try to like, dump everything in my brain, like whatever I learned from my professional experience, whatever I experienced, and, you know, wisdom and learning, I would try to like get them out of my brain and then kind of try to capture in some ways it can be books or it can be like blog posts it can be newsletter it can be whatever but um I didn't want to kind of die with all these things trapped in my head unshared um so yeah based on those you know those findings so my my desire to share and then the fulfillment of that I that I felt when I was actually sharing with other founders.

58:41These were kind of like motivation and inspiration for me to think about this platform where, hey, what if not just me sharing my experience and knowledge, but allowing other people to share their experience and knowledge better. So yeah, that was kind of the beginning. Fantastic. Best of luck with that one. Yeah, thank you. But we don't have anything. We don't have product. We don't have like nothing. So yeah, we'll see. You have all the experience and you are actually driven by the mission, as you said before, genuinely driven by the mission as opposed to just getting more money, which means that you will be focusing on what people actually need as opposed to some artificial metrics in attempt to raise money.

59:27Talking about that, by the way, do you think you would go and raise money for this company? Not for the beginning. I think we'll bootstrap the company at the beginning. But at some point, yes, I mean, going out and raising money is great, because that's the only time when you get the honest feedback, right? You need to go out there and raise money from VCs. yeah because yeah like a lot of people around me because you know i was again luckily successful in my previous companies whatever i say you know a lot of times people say oh yeah that's that's a brilliant idea but i know that it's not brilliant it's like stupid sometimes so i i need like a very honest opinion and by the way i have like friends who give me like super honest feedback and i'm like forever you know grateful for them um i think as you get older you need those friends who can say anything and i'm i feel like i'm lucky because i do have those friends uh but like weaker connections uh like you know like the people that i meet in a professional setting a lot of them say like oh yeah like you must know what you're what you're doing because you have the previous previous experience uh but uh you know not necessarily right like i know like a lot of my ideas are stupid.

1:00:45So I need like an unvarnished, you know, opinion and feedback. And oftentimes, you know, that comes from the investors who need to deploy the capital. And, you know, their capital is on the line. And they can be like super, you know, honest in that moment. If you talk to somebody who just sold a company and were at that level of four, five where you were a year ago of fulfillment what would you suggest they do or what lessons you would share my first advice would uh again like slow things down uh because you know like a lot of successful people they they have the tendency to kind of bring their momentum like previous you know muscle memory into this in other words they try to like treat this like soul searching process as another project but this is different uh you have to unwind you have to kind of wait until the voice comes to you not the other way around so you have to kind of like still put in the work you have to read books you have to talk to a lot of people and so on so forth you have to do like those walks and like talk you know talks with yourself so put in the work but then don't like try to rush things or try to put a deadline to this but rather um you know be patient and be very sensitive to your small inner voice.

1:02:12Yeah, you got to stay sensitive because these findings oftentimes start from a very small voice inside you. But if you're not sensitive enough, you can't listen to that. You might just miss it, right? So you got to stay very sensitive. yeah so my number one tip would be hey take things slowly don't don't approach this as another project with a clear deadline so that's number one number two like I said I mean for me talking to a bunch of other people especially the ones who are not necessarily like very close to you or do the same things that you do wasn't really helpful. So go out there, talk to a lot of people.

1:03:02And reading is actually, my opinion is reading, of course, it depends on what type of books you're reading, but reading is almost like a similar experience as talking to people because you get to learn about other people's life and then you get to see you know you know how other people dealt with the experience circumstances so it's almost equivalent to like talking to a bunch of people so yeah either like talk to actual people or try to read books where you can learn about other people's life by far that was the biggest or the best experience in terms of like seeing my being able to see myself being being able to kind of like use other people's stories as a way to reflect you try to see your own reflection in there yeah so those two would be my my tips for them any particular books or biographies that you would recommend there's too many so i have this like tendency to buy a lot of books when i go to like barnes and noble i i just like buy books a lot and then i never read them because i i never you know i didn't have a you know time but finally i was able to like tackle you know read all these books last year and uh the kind of books that i really liked or again you know where i could i could see other people's life uh so like i really enjoyed uh warren buffett book the snowball um i really enjoyed some other books where i could like you know literally it's like you know it feels like i'm walking with that person kind of kind of books i'm not saying like that's the best book ever but like in terms of like talking to random strangers.

1:04:43One book that I read is called Hangry. Hangry. So that's a book written by the Grubh Pup founder. And it's an interesting book because this guy after selling the company, so he's talking about his like company like lessons learned and everything. But then also, he's going on this bike trip from the East Coast of the US to the West Coast. So it's a cross continental uh bike trip and then the book is like you know kind of like juxtaposing the learnings from the company with uh the bike trip road trip and then um he's talking about how like talking to the people that he met you know during the bike trip uh kind of helped transform you know his thoughts uh so that was really fascinating uh i didn't set out to like do the road trip like bike trip across the country.

1:05:33But I did want to kind of get out of my comfort zone. I have, you know, these people that I always talk with, and I continue talking with them. I mean, there are people that I could just like pick up the phone and then call anytime. So it's important for you to have those people as well. But sometimes you have to kind of get out of your comfort zone and then talk to people who are walking different, you know, paths, then compared to you. So for me, again like it's you know kind of going outside of the tech bubble was really interesting and helpful experience so this gets me to my last question uh how do you want to be remembered i mean there's two different levels right be remembered in general like wikipedia entry of some sort or be remembered by the people close to you and as i get older i think that i am more interested in the latter not the former uh so yeah i get to think a lot about how would you know my children remember me so uh or you know whoever is like close to me uh will remember me so i i get to like think a lot more of those aspects than like how would i be remembered in general all so yeah i want to be remembered as caring person who were always trying to make time for the important people i want to be remembered as somebody who is generally busy but when it comes to like one-on-one conversations um you know i don't i don't rush you know i'm there for them um and uh so that's like a relationship piece again the second bucket of like how do i want to be remembered by the people around me um people or like the first bucket like how do i want to be remembered in general um i don't know i mean yeah i i always care about the startups uh i i build startups i help other startups so i guess the tagline for me would be somebody who really like you know cared about like solving the world's problem through either like starting his own company or helping other entrepreneurs um yeah so i i would be remembered as i guess my work you know for the first bucket so hopefully this new company or in the future i might start other you know, things will kind of define, you know, help define my legacy or, you know, how I will be remembered in general.

1:08:11But like I said, I mean, as I get older, I care a lot more about the second bucket, which is how, you know, other people would be other people around me will remember me. And I don't know, I don't have like a really good answer there. I guess it's a really good question uh i need to kind of think about it a little more but uh yeah so far uh that that's that's what i'm thinking but i i love how how human and raw and genuine your answer is yeah yeah thank you so much ck i really enjoyed the interview i could go on for hours but i'm being mindful of your time. Maybe we can do it another time. Yeah, I really enjoyed the conversation.

1:08:59Thank you so much. Thank you.