During the continuous unemployment crisis, start-ups became another choice for university students. CBNU also supports a lot of start-ups, and it even became an important extra-curricular activity as a qualification, like overseas studies or global volunteering. Although the restaurant franchise is the keenest type of business and is already supersaturated, there is one person who proudly succeeded in 10 restaurant franchise brands. This is the story of a successful founder and a representative of the Korea Start-up Economic Research Institute, Jang Jung-yong.-Ed.




About the Korea Start-up Economic Research Institute

  We do two primary tasks. First, we run 10 franchise offices directly. We have ‘Cafe Amo-te’, ‘Gogigoobneun Jjamjang’(Master Chef’s Roasting) and other franchises. Like other franchise head offices, we do menu development, supervising, etc. In the case of Cafe Amo-te, we started out with the concept to sell coffee and brunch together, and we opened 70 stores countrywide.
  Secondly, we do franchise consulting work. If a popular restaurant boss tries to extend a franchise, we make a facility for the franchise’s head office. Since a local boss has selling experience but not franchise-related know-how, we help with the franchise-related work such as designing, making websites or manuals, etc. We also do start-up consulting, business education, franchise agreements and store selection.
  What we are trying to launch now is an app for developing and running start-ups. The app’s name is ‘Jangsaeui Dalin’(Master of Sales), and it introduces various kinds of information related to start-ups and ideas. If a start-up idea is selected, we introduce the local start-up related business, such as store selection, interior design, street peddling, etc., in regional groups. We also formed a start-up community for buying and selling used objects between new and old founders.

Know-How from Experience

  When I was in college, my major was urban engineering. In the 2000, urban engineering students could get a job easily, but I never found any related jobs. In my senior year, I was taking one of my major’s lectures about real estate consultancy, and from then on, I was more interested in real estate than urban engineering. I had no idea about real estate, but I got a job at a brokerage company. The work was investigating real estate for new franchise stores and introducing those to franchise head offices. I made a contract with that company with a monthly compensation of 700,000 won per month. However, I got paid less than what I was contracted every month. That company was a multi-level distributorship. I worked very hard in that company, so I was promoted to team leader in 6 months. The work was not fun though. It was just a simple broker job, and nothing was related to consulting. But, from that experience, I learned how to select a good location for start-ups or businesses. I also had an interest in starting a franchise head office while I was introducing new stores to them. During a year and a half of working there, I always commuted by subway for 3 hours every day, and read lots of start-up related books.
  Meanwhile, Sungkyunkwan University’s Continuing Education advertised the first franchise-specialized course for students. Then, I quit the brokerage company and started to study about franchise in earnest. I met lots of franchise owners and experts. During our conversations, I felt like I knew more than them. I think all of my experience and studying about it was shown at that time. Hence, I gained confidence and started my franchise’s head office consulting department. I did it for a year, but the result was unsuccessful because I had no previous career or capital.
  Later, I had no money, so I worked in my sister’s pub with my friend. While I was working for 2 years, my friend and I did menu development. I also turned my sister’s pub into a franchise. I made the homepage myself and leased a small office for rent. I opened 3 franchise pubs, but it didn’t go well.
  Nevertheless, I challenged myself again with the franchise consulting work using my experience of failure, and I was a success to some degree. I worked without a break for 4 years, but I still had a debt of 30 million won. However, I did learn how to avoid failure again through those years, and when the company that I consulted started to make a profit, my work started to improve. Right now, I have employees in planning, design, business and other areas. But at first, I did all of those myself like photoshopping, selling, cooking, etc., so I could speak the same language when I met someone related to one of those areas.

To students who are interested in start-ups

  I recently heard about the news that start-up experience can be a qualification, like overseas studies. I want to suggest each university’s start-up related major to students who are interested in start-ups. In the case of Chungang University, they made a start-up related major in 2002 and created a doctorate course in it in 2010. Chungang University is the sole university with the doctorate course, but other colleges are establishing majors that focus on the field of start-ups with lots of support these days.
  Using funds from the government is one good way. Unexpectedly, lots of people succeeded in start-ups with the government’s fund. Last year, I participated on a TV show called ‘Cheongnyeon Changeop Runway’(Young Founder Runway) on YTN, and I attended that program’s cast gathering. All the members there were so young. I’m 41 years old now, and when I was in that meeting, I was a pretty old person. There were lots of 20 somethings and 30 somethings who were succeeding in start-ups.
  When I returned to school after being discharged from military service, I opened a street stall with my friend. I went in with my friend with 200,000 won each, which was earned by doing manual labor together for 2 days. I bought an old handcart for 15,000 won from a junk shop, remodeled it and started a street stall for about a year. I made pocket money by working a couple of hours a day, with the material cost of 10,000 won and sales of 50,000 ~ 70,000 won a day. I had no mind about start-ups at that time, but thinking back on it now, that experience also helped me a lot.
  If university students do a start-up in the way that doesn’t have a burden of risk, it will be of help later. There are also many university students who prefer a part-time job instead of a start-up. I hope those students do not just earn money but also think like a boss and consider improvements that could be made for more profit. Furthermore, I hope the students suggest their ideas to the boss, rather than just thinking about it.

By Min Tae-kwan
tk36@cbnu.ac.kr
By Kim Jae-wan
jw37@cbnu.ac.kr