Yong-Soo Chung (@yongsoochung) is a champion of the Personal Holding Company: he owns several businesses, a media company, eCommerce, and a service provider among them. How does one stay sane with that much work in such diverse fields? He shares his survival framework and much more on the show today.
I talked to Yong-Soo about hiring the right people to operate your business once it’s outgrown you if he would ever sell his money-making assets, and just how important it is to have your own distinct voice in a world full of best practices.
Looking to hire an operator for your business? Start a few more companies? Become better at juggling multiple hats? This one is for you!
Arvid Kahl 0:00
Today, I’m talking to Yong-Soo Chung. He’s the host of the First Class Founders podcast. He is a pet influencer, runs a logistics company, an E commerce business, all kinds of things. He is a serial entrepreneur. I talk to Yong-Soo about how to juggle these things, when to hire people, whom to hire, where to hire, and how to deal with giving up your business into the hands of somebody else. This episode is sponsored by acquire.com. More on that later. Now, here’s Yong-Soo.
Welcome to the show. I would really like to know one particular thing, what is a personal holding company? Because I’ve seen you talk about this and it’s in your Twitter bio and all over the place, really. And I’ve never seen that particular phrase used and you seem to have made it a thing. So what is a personal holding company?
Yong-Soo Chung 0:48
Yeah. So you know, this concept is one that’s really taken off recently. And you know, what’s funny, Arvid is, you know, I feel like I’ve been doing it for the past eight years. And I didn’t even know what it was, right? And so really, what its core essence is like you’re turning your hobbies that you have into businesses. And because we live in a time when technologies advanced, there’s AI now and like, literally, you can run multiple projects at the same time. What you can do now is, you know, instead of just focusing on one thing for 10 years, you know, typical VC style startup where you 100 hour weeks one thing, you know, hopefully you win, probably you won’t and then you get really stressed and then you probably don’t make anything and then you’re just like, what did I do that for, right? Instead of doing that you essentially, you just work on your passions and then you work on another passion. And then you have this thing where all of a sudden you have a bunch of projects that you’re working on, that you’re all passionate about because they’re all based on your interests, right. And so that’s kind of turning hobbies into businesses, turning cost centers, personal cost centers into businesses and then having you as the, you know, founder/creator, you know, as the distribution mechanism, where your personal brand is actually you know, what’s kind of the glue between all these projects where you can be like, hey, I love French bulldogs. I have a French Bulldog shop. Hey, I love pocket knives. I have a pocket knife shop, like it all kind of ties together because of who you are and what your audience knows you buy. And so that’s really in a nutshell, what a personal holding company is.
Arvid Kahl 2:37
Yeah, wow, that sounds like it sounds like a lot of fun, obviously. Because all these little things that you already enjoy, you know, get to build something out of that. We should maybe talk about this whole, I’ve heard this a couple of times where people said don’t turn your passions into your job. This is a very reductive way of thinking about this, obviously, because job is something else than a business. And a passion is something else than a hobby. But how do you deal with the fact that this might turn something that you innately enjoy into something that you might go to in the morning, you’re like, I don’t want to spend another day doing this? Like, how can you prevent that in the grand scheme of the personal holding company?
Yong-Soo Chung 3:16
You know, this is a great question. And really, if you dig down into it, for me it never feels like work. So when I’m doing something, if you do things right, nothing you do in your day to day life should feel like work, which I know sounds crazy. But if you really enjoy something and you’re in flow for three, four or five hours a day, you get out of flow and you’re like, wow, did I just spend five hours doing this thing? And like, that’s how I feel, right? And so obviously, there are things where, you know, you got to do your finances, accounting, like things that you don’t necessarily enjoy, like comes with the territory of running a business. But generally, if you really enjoy what you do, then it shouldn’t feel like work. And you should feel like you’re “retired” this entire time. And that’s really what you’re trying to achieve attain, it’s kinda like, you reached Nirvana when you hit this level where work is play and play is work. And at times, I mean that, you know, you’re evolving as a person. So like, my hobbies today may not be the same hobbies I have two years, three years, five years down the line and that’s okay. Because then at that point, you can decide to hey, I’m done with this project or whatever and start something new, you know, or put operator in place there and then you work on something else. So it’s like, it’s not a fixed thing where you’re sticking with one thing and then you get bored of it. You’re like, oh, man, like, what do I do with this thing now? Like, no, it’s flexible, like, you know, it’s your life and you can do whatever you want. So that’s kind of the answer to that question. Yeah
Arvid Kahl 4:56
That’s awesome. Yeah. And since you’ve done this for like eight years, I guess plus, right? There’s probably a version of this that happened before. Have you encountered those moments where you were just like, okay, I’m done with this operator, find somebody else deal with this, like, how have you dealt with those moments in your life?
Yong-Soo Chung 5:13
Yeah, you know, every three, four years, I have one of these moments. And, you know, so 2015 is when I launched my first business. It’s a pocket knife business, selling flashlights, bottle openers. It’s called Urban EDC. And essentially, you know, I was really into that back then. And then, you know, three, four years later, I put an operator into place and you know, it’s running. Obviously, it does come with its challenges. For example, my operator that I had in place for what, three, four years left last year and so I had to train up a new operator. And so, you know, it’s not like I set it and forget it. Like, that is not what I’m saying by any means. But I guess what I am saying is, you know, your interests evolve. And so, you know, three, four years later, you know, we brought home a French bulldog named Humphrey. He has a huge personality. He’s so cute. And like, you know, it just got a lot of followers on Instagram and my wife and I are running the account. And, you know, ultimately, we started an E commerce business selling French Bulldog accessories, toys, treats, harnesses and like, the French Bulldog community is so passionate about French Bulldogs that, you know, we were able to make a business out of it. And the best thing is, we can also travel and like, we get a lot of sponsorship deals from five star hotels and they’ll pay us to come up there. We stay there for free, you know, amazing food and all that stuff. And so like, that’s like, part of my life, too. Like, I have one side, which is like, you know, I love this gear stuff. And then French bulldogs, I love spending time with my dogs. And so they’re all like, part of this business now. And then, yeah and then we actually started a 3PL business also. So 3PL is third party logistics. So we ship out products for other ecommerce brands. And this happened very naturally. Because, you know, we had inventory. We’re shipping out and we had a lot of issues with our fulfillment center. So we started this business. And yeah, so that was a third venture. And then finally, in the most recent one is my podcast and newsletter, which is First Class Founders.
Arvid Kahl 7:22
You won’t stop. Do you? It’s awesome.
Yong-Soo Chung 7:25
It’s a lot, for sure.
Arvid Kahl 7:27
Oh, man. First Class Founders is awesome. And I do want to talk a lot about this, like being a podcaster myself and having been on that wonderful podcast and probably one of the best produced episodes that I was ever in. So still, and again, thank you for that. It’s spectacular. But I want to talk about this later, what I want to get back to is the fact that you just mentioned four very, very distinct and different things. And you’re one person, right? You only have 24 hours in a day, most of us have already trouble assigning their one thing that they do at some point during their day because they’re just busy with, you know, family and jobs, full time employment and they want to get out of it or whatever it may be. What I would like to know is how you segment your time because being a pet freelancer requires a very, very different mindset, probably a much more adorable mindset than an ecommerce owner that sells knives or somebody who regulates logistics. How do you jump from these kind of I would almost say, internal personas that you need to be for each of these businesses?
Yong-Soo Chung 8:32
So I think at my core, I am just who I am. And I don’t want to, you know, I want to come off as being authentic because I don’t want to change that. Because like I said, in a Personal Holdco, you are the distribution channel, the glue, that has all these connected together, right? So I don’t want to compromise that. At the same time, obviously, like, you know and you probably know that too, when you’re on a podcast, you kind of have to bring some energy, right? So like
Arvid Kahl 9:04
For sure
Yong-Soo Chung 9:04
To be honest. Like, you know, when I’m just hanging out with my wife like, you know, I’ll talk a little just more like this, like when I’m pretty chill like this. But then when I’m on a podcast, yeah, okay, that’s exactly like this is how I talk right? But then when I’m on a podcast, like talking to you, I’m like, more energetic. I’m like, more enthusiastic. And so I wouldn’t say that’s, I’m not being you know, I’m not being authentic. It’s just more like, you kind of just have a little bit of know the audience, know what goes behind it and just be prepared for that.
Arvid Kahl 9:36
Yeah, I guess it’s a facet. It’s not a persona. It’s just like, you turn off one knob, like on your mixing station, you just crank up the volume a little bit. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I think that’s how we generally are as people, right? With some people, particularly with family, we have this kind of learned behavior and learned volume, learned kind of intensity that we know works with them. And then with other people with our friends, we may be more open or even more chill and it feels it’s very similar for me too like when I am in public like right now, right? I have more energy. And then when I’m just sitting in front of my computer when I’m coding, I’m very stoic when it comes to that. But I would yell at my screen or at myself during that because I need to, you know, have the brainwaves aligned but in a public setting, very different story. So still myself, like you said, it’s uncompromised itself, just in a from a different side maybe a different angle. That makes sense. And that also is the only explanation that fits here really, right? If you are the person running all these things, you cannot be different to each of these. You have to be like the core of it. And in a way, I guess, as an entrepreneur, these are all businesses in the end, right? They all are, hopefully profitable endeavors. So there is a common ground there. That is really cool. It’s just, it’s bizarre to me that you can be a pet influencer and a logistics operator at the same time. You know, as much as it’s obvious that you do this, I find these are very different things. How do you approach building teams around this? Is your team also the same? Or do you have distinct teams for distinct businesses?
Yong-Soo Chung 11:17
So great point here. So my wife is the one that runs the main petfluencer account. And so obviously, we talk about things and you know, whenever we have brand collaborations, I help out in the background, but like she’s the voice of Humphrey and all that. And so she’s technically the operator behind Spotted by Humphrey, which is the ecommerce store for French bulldogs and all that. And then my logistics business also has an operator that I rely on heavily, like we, you know, we sync up on a daily basis. But it’s not like I’m in the warehouse doing the actual shipping. I mean, I think I would kind of, you know, trying to do everything, including shipping products out myself. I think I would go a little crazy by that. But it’s really about finding the best operators for the job, for the role and really training them and working with them. And I think that the best thing to do when you’re trying to work with operators is to really, you know, you come last in terms of, you know, you put their needs ahead and you really step aside and let them do their work. And of course, they’re gonna make mistakes like, that’s kind of the point is, you know, they’re gonna make mistakes and you have to let them make those mistakes because that’s how they learn, right? It’s like, teaching kids, you know, that they’re gonna fall down, they’re gonna, you know, break a leg. And that’s how they learn. It’s not like you can, oh, don’t do that because you’re going to don’t climb that tree because you’re going to break an arm. Like, I mean, they’re going to want to climb that tree forever, if you’d like, prevent that from happening. So it’s like, it’s one of those things where you just kind of let these operators do their thing, learn these, as long as it’s not like a company like ending mistake
Arvid Kahl 11:17
Yeah, I was gonna say because, you know, if you’re bootstrapping your businesses and that’s what you’ve done, right? Like, that’s your money in there. How do you deal with the fact that that is a substantial amount of money that you own on the line for somebody else to deal with that may not have the same risk profile as you?
Yong-Soo Chung 13:17
Yeah, I mean, you gotta trust them to a certain point. And a lot of times, I don’t think of it as my money. I think of it as just the business’s money. And so that helps a little bit in terms of the mentality. But yeah, I mean, there is that risk and you’re constantly evaluating the risk reward here with like, you know, obviously, for big things, they’ll check in with me, hey, you know, I want to buy this machinery. It’s like, whatever 1000s of dollars, like why do we need it? You know, I’ll question, I’ll brainstorm with the operator, but ultimately, we come to the right decision. And another thing is like, you never want to be a dictator type leader, where you always want their buy in. So, you know, I’m never gonna say, hey, this is the way it should be done. What I will say, however, is I will say, hey, so these are the scenarios. This is what’s happening. What do you think we should do? And then we’ll talk about it and ultimately, like, we’ll come up to a decision and then now they’re bought in And they’re like, okay, yeah, yeah, this is it. This is a decision that we’ve made. And that approach is way better than trying to force a decision down someone else’s throat, right?
Arvid Kahl 14:21
Yeah, it’s also like building respect with people and giving them the agency to do things on their own. Why did you find those wonderful people? Like we all try to hire the best possible people, but finding an operator that can do what you can do even better. Right? So that you are in the same level. How do you find those people?
Yong-Soo Chung 14:38
Yeah, this is really challenging. And this honestly is probably the hardest part about all this. So there’s a couple of different methods. One is you can try to build them from organically from internal. So for example, you know or Urban EDC, one of the operators that we had. He was a customer support agent, joined us like five years ago. And he continued to work himself up, proved himself to the point where now he knew everything about the business. And now he was running the show. So that’s an internal promotion. For the logistics business, we had an external hire. And there’s pros and cons to both because the internal one is kind of like, you know, everyone on the team sees that this person is doing really well. And this rises above the ranks and they have a lot of respect for this person. So there’s not a lot of like, I mean, I guess there could be like politics involved. But generally, it’s less politics than bringing someone external because the external thing is very threatening to someone who’s been at a company, they’ve worked really hard, they’re hoping to level up. But then this external person comes in and they’re threatening. And so like, I’ve had to deal with a lot of that drama and politics, myself and ultimately, the logistics operator is fantastic. And I had to build around him. So actually, everyone, when I brought him in, like everyone that was on the team, you know, there were a few that stuck around but then ultimately, they all kind of fell off. And then he’s the core now and like, we’re really building around him. And so it’s, you know, it’s not easy to find great operators, but it’s really more of an art than a science when it comes to that. I think I would say though, that building a strong personal brand really does help to get, you know, it’s a numbers game, sometimes where you get a lot of people and then you have to kind of figure out alright, who do I think will be the best for this thing and then you try it out? Sometimes it doesn’t work and then you move on. And like, you know, it’s not easy, but it can be done.
Arvid Kahl 16:46
How many employees into a business do you hire that operator? Because the operator replaces you. Right? So it kind of takes over the team. Did you have like, is that something that you’ve just felt for each business? And then made that choice? Or do you have like, maybe even an order of hiring. I was at MicroConf last year in April and Rob Walling was sharing this wonderful talk about the order of your first hires for software as a service businesses, right? Depending on if the co founders are technical or marketing or whatever. And it tends to be like first you hire another developer and then a customer service agent and then goes on like this, just on average, that’s how software as a service business is do it. Your businesses are more in the E commerce space. So how did you go about that? What order that you hire in? And when did you hire your replacement?
Yong-Soo Chung 17:34
You know, what I’m thinking about this now, I don’t think there is a perfect like a playbook of like, oh, at this point, you hire your operator. I think it’s more of a feeling of like, this person is really talented. I’m going to nurture this person, and really let them grow. And then let’s see how they go or how they do so really for me, I’m always evaluating talent all the time. And that’s what employee, you know, they want that because they want to make sure that there’s a path forward for them, right? And so I’m constantly evaluating them. I’m like, hey, this person is really good. I’m gonna continue to challenge them. Let’s see if they can get to that next level. Like I always do that. And so like, ultimately, you know, you have someone that’s rising up to the ranks. And I mean, you’ll know when the time is right because there’ll be like, hey, like, what else can I do here? Because I’m doing all this. And it’s like, alright, you’re right. Like this is, you know, you’ve kind of taken over here and it just comes naturally. I wouldn’t say it’s like employee number three, employee four whatever it just, you’ll just know because as you develop employees, they will, you know, it does kind of play out naturally.
Arvid Kahl 18:44
Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s also nice to see you caring so much about these employees, right? To already have an eye out for somebody who might be that person in the future. That is really cool. Like, from their perspective, if I were to work for you as your, you know, as a software developer or something, I would wonder what more could I do to get to that point. That is really nice to offer this kind of trajectory. That’s cool. I really, really liked that. And that kind of leads me to a topic that I often discussed on the show, which is acquisition, like, would you ever sell any of these businesses?
Yong-Soo Chung 19:19
I mean, I could. I think that I would. I mean, it depends on obviously, depends on a lot of factors. But I, you know, as I mentioned earlier, you know, hobbies and interests change, life circumstances change. And so that’s definitely you know, I’m not married to every single project that I’m working on. And so I’m not afraid of selling a business or even shutting it down if it doesn’t work out. Like life is a long game and like you have plenty of opportunities and I truly believe that it’s really the lessons that you learn that you can take and carry forward like, you can build something way faster because you’ve compressed that learning time now and so you don’t, you know, it doesn’t mean if you close out a project, if you close down your company, it doesn’t mean that you’ve failed. You just you’re delaying it. Right? And so, you know, yeah, I mean, I would. I’m not against any of those options. And so it’s just a matter of timing. And you know, there’s a lot of variables right in play there.
Arvid Kahl 20:28
Oh, for sure. Yeah. And it’s more really just about the general feeling. Because if you love your employees and you love the thing you do, a lot of people would rather keep doing it, right. A lot of acquisitions are monetarily driven, they are done for just the financials because people want to kind of elevate their life to this financial security point of view. If that’s not something that you need anymore or if it’s just too interesting for you to keep running it, I can see why, you know, you just wouldn’t want to sell it. But yeah, I get that. Were you at any point or did you over your last decade, the last decade did you shut down anything? Or did you give anything up?
Yong-Soo Chung 21:03
Let me think about that. Before I had Urban EDC, I had a few different smaller things like, you know, I was developing an iPhone app. This is back in 2009-2010. And I ultimately decided to shut that down because it wasn’t gaining any traction, development costs were high. I was outsourcing everything. And you know, it was my first time entrepreneur and I was just learning things, decided to shut that down because it wasn’t really going anywhere. But I always had this knack for trying new things. And, you know, I’m not afraid of shutting things down. Because I mean, I just feel like it’s just one of those things where you will learn from the experience and you will come back stronger than ever. And it’s, you know, it’s not a failure. It’s just more of a delayed gratification or delayed success, I guess is a better way to put it. I mean, ultimate hopefully, right? I mean, I’m honestly like, if you learn something from each project you build, at some point, chances are the odds are in your favor that you will succeed with one of these, right? So like, yeah, so I think it’s more about like taking as many swings as you can learn from them, but then don’t get so down on yourself if you miss, like, nine of them and you put the new one, right, so.
Arvid Kahl 22:30
Well, it’s just, you know, the old rule of either you win or you learn and kind of, I always think about my projects like that like, there’s no loss in trying to do something really interesting. That furthers my understanding of stuff. And I would assume that over your career, starting something new probably has become a little bit easier every time, right?
Yong-Soo Chung 22:53
It’s definitely easier. And what’s funny, Arvid is that I now see patterns in business where I can recognize things and be like, okay, even though it’s different, like it might be a different market, different vertical, like SaaS versus ecommerce like but I see it’s the same pattern of building and it’s the same pattern of like customer retention, like all that is the same fundamental business is the same, right? And so, once you learn the basics, then I feel like honestly, it’s part of the reason why I like to do so many different types of things is like, I find them interesting, like podcast is very different from E commerce, but like it’s in a way, it’s also the same because there’s obviously listeners and you know, get listeners and sponsors like whatever it is, like, that’s all fundamentally the same. And so I do think that you know, each thing that you each project you learn from, you come back stronger the next time. You keep going, ultimately, you’ll probably succeed in one of these.
Arvid Kahl 23:55
Yes. So what would be like a parallel that you brought with you into the podcast endeavor? What would be one of these patterns that you’ve recognized there that now makes it easier for you to do this?
Yong-Soo Chung 24:07
I think the podcasting medium is quite interesting. I actually think it’s still early in the podcasting world. And I mean, the landscape is changing right now because I think YouTube is really forcing people to have a certain type of show, which is interesting because, you know, I mean, you’ve heard my podcast is a very like, produced high production show. But it’s very difficult to translate that over into YouTube. Whereas more of the conversational types on YouTube, very easy to make clips, distribute them out and then bring them into your podcast. And so I’ve grappled with this idea, like should I just make it more into a simpler conversational style versus should I just make it audio only audio first show and then have, you know, whatever YouTube stuff underneath it? I’ve grappled with these things. But ultimately, you know, it’s like a distribution channel. Right. So podcasting, I think is still early. You know, newsletters, I think is more mature. For example, like, you know, now when you sign up for a newsletter, you get those pop ups like, do you want to sign up for these three other newsletters? Like, for me, that’s a distribution discovery mechanism. And so newsletters I feel like is moving towards that interesting inflection point of it’s becoming more of a discovery platform. Whereas before it was social media was more discovery platform and then you go into newsletter and newsletter was not, it was just, you know, you can’t get discovered. But I think podcasting, there’s still no discovery tool unless you do a direct shout out, hey, listen to my podcast, you know, on a show. And so I mean, in terms of what I’m learning, growing the podcast, you know, it’s just a lot more emphasis and importance on distribution and how to get this and how to, you know, get found, how to get other people to talk about you, earn media. Obviously, the product has to be really good. And the show has to be good. So I’ve really tried to nail that down also with my high production show. But what I’m figuring out, though, is that, you know, obviously product without a great distribution strategy is no one’s gonna really know about it. And so it’s a really interesting dichotomy here because, yeah, I’m learning a lot with this podcast.
Arvid Kahl 26:39
Yeah, I bet. Yeah, me too. On my end, it’s the exact same. And I find like, being a consumer of podcasts, too. I don’t know how many you listen to, but I’m constantly walking the dog. I mean, you have dogs, you walk them, you gotta listen to something, right? Yeah, we listen to shows that we really enjoy. And I have just observed this in my own consumption, the shows that I really like, our audio first, that’s something that I’ve noticed. Like I listen to a Star Trek podcast where people just talk about shows from the 90s, like Flowers. I love that because that’s what I grew up on. But they don’t, they could show them. They could do a video, but I think they consider themselves too ugly for video, or whatever. So they just don’t do it and create a better show that creates better audio quality because people don’t really have to look into a camera. They don’t have to, you know, have a script or whatever. Their focus is purely on the quality of the conversation, which for me that the magic of podcast is that you are in the brain of the person that is listening to you, right? Videos in front of you will probably speak or somewhere off to the side, a podcast is happening inside your head, which is incredible access to somebody’s brain, right. So audio first feels like something that I personally also like more than audio second. And community first is something that I’ve noticed too in podcasts, both the Star Trek show and the Harry Potter show that I listen to let’s just put all the nerd stuff out here. Both of them have been going for many, many years and have accumulated massive communities of people around them. Like I literally am part of discord communities where I talk to the other people that listen to the same podcast as I do. Right? The podcast is a conduit. It’s not just a piece of content. It’s a connector. And that’s what I see with you over as you’re growing as well. They can talk about it in Twitter, people talk about it, people suggest new guests, people tell you how much they learned from this. This is the actual power of the podcast, not just the audio format, but the community, the exploration of it, that comes with the format.
Yong-Soo Chung 28:35
I love that. I love everything you just said. I think that’s spot on. And I do believe that. I mean, the video influence right now is really powerful. And I think that a lot of the artistic part of audio only is actually being washed away because everyone wants to grow, grow, grow and they’re going to video because or the conversational style is easier to just, you know, the shorts and reels and all that stuff. But you know, I’m actually curious about how they take this audio first experience and make a video out of it. Like like that’s actually the question that I’m always asking is make an amazing audio products. And then video will come second. And let’s see what happens. But yeah, that’s so I’m grappling with this issue like all the time, by the way, like, yeah.
Arvid Kahl 29:26
You know what that reminds me off is The Ricky Gervais Show. Have you ever watched this or listened to it? Because I think it was an audio first format where he and Stephen Merchant and I think Karl Pilkington were just three dudes sitting and both Ricky and Stephen were making fun of Karl. That was the idea of the show. And Ricky Gervais is a very funny guy. Stephen Merchant is a hilariously funny guy. And Karl Pilkington is just oblivious to stuff. It is very funny to watch, but to watch because it was an audio first format. They were just sitting doing radio effectively and then the animated over the show. They animated the people as they were talking in a studio. It was just an animated radio conversation in front of microphones with little cutscenes to where they are in the street telling a story or something. That is what this reminds me off like audio first and then video as kind of an accessory but not the core of the format.
Yong-Soo Chung 30:22
There’s another show on Netflix called Midnight Gospel. And this one also does that where it’s more of a spiritual conversations about like Buddhism and spirituality.
Arvid Kahl 30:34
Yes. It gets pretty weird, right?
Yong-Soo Chung 30:38
Oh, you’ve seen it? Yeah, it gets really weird. It gets really weird. And but it’s these cut up podcasts, clips, I guess audio clips and they made them into, you know, TV series or whatever on Netflix. And it’s really well done. It gets really weird, but I think that’s the point of it.
Arvid Kahl 31:00
Yeah, I think it is because it allows you to just explore things that you couldn’t with video, right? In my Star Trek podcast, let’s just go into this, like they were talking about, I think I’m in the backlog somewhere in 2018. It’s I’m listening to shows that are like five years old at this point because just because I liked them so much. And they were talking about what was then announced to be a new Star Trek show. And it was supposed to be an animated show. And they were just because both of the guys in there are videographers. They work in video and audio as well. They were saying, oh, this is awesome. Because if you have an animated budget, you could do whatever you want, right? If you have to make a real life movie, you need to build like the sets and you need to get the actors and whatever. But an animated show, you can show whatever you would like, it doesn’t matter what you draw. It’s gonna cost the same amount of money, right? And even if it’s like CGI, that all is manageable in terms to having like real people do real stuff. So I always feel that is actually more interesting to have a non real life thing where I don’t need to watch the people. I can watch something that is put on top of it that explores things that a real live show could never ever explore. So maybe we’re onto something here, maybe audio first plus video on top, it’s just a way more deep way of exploring topics, if Midnight, that show is any suggestion, right?
Yong-Soo Chung 32:22
I agree. I mean, I think that this is the underserved, you know, I actually had this, I want to make First Class Founders audio first and then video show. But it’s, but you know, it’s very costly to do. That’s the only that’s the downside to it. But I do think that that’s an interesting, you know, format of a show for a video format too, you know, because it’s audio first then video. And so that’s definitely like, I’m looking for more things like that. But I haven’t really found any other shows like that. Yeah.
Arvid Kahl 32:59
I guess you start by doing a really, really good audio show.
Yong-Soo Chung 33:02
Right, right.
Arvid Kahl 33:03
I think that already is to setting the bar fairly high for anybody competing with you in that space, because most people don’t, right? Most people make a good show. But a really good show that is expensive and it’s hard to do, it’s hard to stick with. Maybe it’s talk about this a little bit like because I remember when you had me on the show, you were talking about the editor that you hired for that and it’s just how expensive it was. How much did you pay for that? And do you still do this on every single episode? Like how expensive is it? If you want to divulge numbers, obviously, if you can, it’s perfectly fine, if you won’t but I would like to learn it. How much do you have to pay to make a show that sounds great?
Yong-Soo Chung 33:43
Yeah, so right now, each episode’s roughly probably between $800 to maybe 1000, maybe a little higher than that, depending on the level of editing. And so, you know, it’s a lot of work. For example, you know, right after this interview, my producer, he has literally went through and cut out sound bites from an interview that I had with someone a guest that I had previously. And he’s written me a script of narration that I have to do on top of this, just like I did with your episode, Arvid.
Arvid Kahl 34:20
Yup
Yong-Soo Chung 34:21
And I have to record that afterwards. But essentially, like, that’s all him. I mean, obviously, I’m going to read through the script, make sure that it sounds like me and you know, I’m not saying anything that I wouldn’t normally say. But he and I have worked together now. He knows what I say and you know, and so it’s all there and so I literally go in there and record this thing for 30 minutes. I upload it and he takes it and then he’ll do all his work on it and then he’ll come back to me and say actually, you know you pronounced this word in a way where I can’t hear you that very well. Can you redo this please? And so he gives me pickups so I have like pickups to do. They’ll take me like 5-10 minutes And then he’ll upload that file. And then he works his magic, puts in sound effects, sound design, whatever he wants, edits it all together, and then we’re good. So it’s like very minimal for me. I’m almost like an actor in his show, where he tells me what to do. And then I just do it.
Arvid Kahl 35:16
Oh, that’s wonderful. And it just shows you how much trust you have for the people that you’re working with. Like, again, this kind of reminds me so strongly off your operators because effectively, that’s kind of what he is for you right? In the podcasting world, right? That is so fun. And it is also nice because it allows you to just be really present in the moment with that person. And you know that if there is ever a need to do anything further, you will have the time and the capacity to do it afterwards. Right? That’s the problem with conversational shows, just as this one. Like, if you don’t get to the point that you want to make, you can, right? It’s supposed to be a conversation. I could just like act like you’re saying something or have some AI act like you and say the thing that I want you to say that’s now how it works. So you have to kind of force those points if you want to make them. But with a production like this, this is really cool. I really admire this. And I admire the fact that you spend money on that. Lots of people wouldn’t. This is really cool.
Yong-Soo Chung 36:11
I mean, I think that it’s kind of you know, I’m kind of doubling down on the podcast and then newsletter. And now I want to make sure it’s a good product, right? It’s something that stands out from the crowd and to be honest, Arvid, I feel like your style interviewing like you’re an amazing interviewer. Like you get into these topics really well. To be honest, like I’m not at that level, like I’m still learning to be a better interviewer. And so to be honest, like, my producer helps me mask a lot of my like, mess ups and all that. And so it’s nice to have someone that’s oh, you know, we’ll cut that part out. Don’t worry. And then we’ll yeah, so.
Arvid Kahl 36:49
It’s definitely nice to have an editor, shout out to Nick who’s editing this right now, probably and probably cutting this out. But yeah, that’s really how that works. I agree with you. It’s nice to have people that kind of have your back. And something that is so front and center you, right? Because this is kind of a personal brand effort. And so is the newsletter where you write, right? It’s you as the person the personal brand. I want to want to ask you about this kind of connection between the podcast and the newsletter because I myself run a newsletter, too and the podcast and they’re kind of synergistic. I try to drive people from one to the other. How do you approach this? Like, what is your flywheel looking like when it comes to these content media?
Yong-Soo Chung 37:28
So this is a fantastic question. And something that I also think about all the time, which is first of all, how do I get listeners? Because ultimately, my podcast is my, what I call grail content. And what I mean by that is, that’s where I want the final destination for my audience to go. That’s where it is now. I mean, it may change in the future. Maybe I start a YouTube and it’s like the YouTube is the growth content. But right now, it’s the podcast. And so how do I get people to listen to the podcast, but then ultimately like for someone that’s discovering my work for the first time for me to ask them, hey, can you sit down and listen to 30 minutes of an episode? Like that is a big ask and that is not something that people will do. And so the middle way, the middle ground here, almost like middleware for this is kind of like the newsletter. The newsletter functions as like this like middle, you know, operational thing where it gets people to listen to my podcast. And so I treat so I have my social platforms where I’m writing stuff on X, you know, social platforms and then I have newsletters so I get people to sign up for the newsletter. And then from the newsletter, I promote the podcast episode. And so that’s kind of a funnel that I’m using right now. What’s interesting is that, you know, newsletters are very vague in terms of like, you know, what is a newsletter? It’s just literally just an email you send out, right? Whatever you want.
Arvid Kahl 39:01
Content email marketing. Yeah, really.
Yong-Soo Chung 39:03
So some people when they think of a newsletter these days, they think of it as like, a long form of texts, where you’re reading everything there. And so, but my newsletter is just a short snippet. It’s got, you know, points and they say, hey, listen to the episode because I want people to listen to the episode. And then I also have a visual summary of the episode which they can click on and download. But then it’s really like, I know that, you know, we, I think we’ve talked about this before where you have, like your podcast like almost like typed up on a newsletter and that is the newsletter. And so you’re optimizing for the experience of a newsletter reader where they can read through the podcast episode versus having to click and then listen or watch. Right? So that’s, I mean, this is a constant struggle that I have which is do I want to have a better experience? Or I don’t know, it’s like a
Arvid Kahl 40:05
Better for whom too, right? Like I got so many replies when I tried what you were doing with my existing audience of newsletter readers, right? For the longest time, I had 2000-3000 words of an essay every single Friday. And then I just cut it to a couple paragraphs of the essay. And then if you want to read the whole thing, click here. Or if you want to listen to this as a newsletter or as a podcast, click here. And people were yelling at me like, man, I really liked it. But it was the thing and I could read it in my email and I have to click once, right? People, you know, people will always complain about things changing. So picking one thing and sticking with it feels like the right way to do it. But I kind of split it up, like for the interview shows that I do like this one, I’m sending out a really, really short email just introducing the guest and saying why they are awesome. Click here, video link. And that’s it. I sent that on Wednesdays. And my full length newsletter still goes out every Friday where I just talk about whatever I want to talk about. I kind of just tried to the best of both worlds approach here, which is taxing, I guess because now they have two emails to read. And one maybe for one group in the audience and one for the other. But hey, if it makes everybody happy, I’m happy. You know, how do we approach this? Do you have like a kind of audience that you want? Or are you happy with serving everybody in their specific way?
Yong-Soo Chung 41:20
One thing that I think about a lot is is training my newsletter readers. And so I want them to click because that helps with click through rates and then possibly sponsorships and all that. So I have a lot of links in my newsletter where they can click opportunities. And so you know if I’m talking about episode, I will say, oh, like I did this episode with Arvid.
Arvid Kahl 41:46
Yeah, interesting.
Yong-Soo Chung 41:47
I’ll highlight that this episode is clickable. But I’ll highlight it again later being like, oh, we talked about this and then I’ll highlight that and then that will be clickable. So I try to get as many clicks as I can. I want the newsletter to be clickable so that it drives higher click throughs. And that’s really attractive for sponsors. And so behavioral wise that is what I’m trying to optimize for. And what I found is that if it’s a newsletter, that’s all it’s a text, it’s great. But it’s harder to figure out engagement from that because it’s like, okay, someone read it, but then someone could open it, close it. And it’s the same metric, which is an open, right? And so I’m always trying to measure something about the reader. And I feel like having the clicks, it being clickable a lot is something that I’m trying to do convey and behavior wise, right?
Arvid Kahl 42:42
Yep, that makes sense to me. That’s unfortunately, I guess, the only metric that advertisers care about or sponsors because that’s where they can build a certain expectation. I’ve been doing more of this as well like, just put more links in for the sake of offering people something to, you know, click on mostly also because it’s an interesting metric and I get to see engagement. But also, if I have a newsletter, it would be nice for the newsletter to expose them to new things that they haven’t visited yet, right? That they haven’t seen yet. So having something to click on and explore and go into this, you know, the rabbit hole of exploring a topic, that’s something I really enjoy. And I want my audience to enjoy that too. You mentioned that personal brand is at the core of all of this. And I kind of want to close with this because I feel that we explored the outer rims, all the different projects and all the different stages and the different ways of doing this to different people that are helping you with that. But it all kind of boils down to the central personal brand. And that is you. What is more important to you building up a personal brand from which these projects spring or is it building these projects that require a personal brand?
Yong-Soo Chung 43:53
I love this question. So I mean, I guess the cheating answer here is that you need both right?
Arvid Kahl 44:05
Sure
Yong-Soo Chung 44:06
The short answer here
Arvid Kahl 44:08
The answer is yes
Yong-Soo Chung 44:09
Yeah. The answer is always yes to everything. I think the way I look at this is you know, I do think there’s something to be said about an operator who is just really good at building a company and but don’t care to be scrutinized by the public. And they are just building something quietly, but it’s killing it because they know all the growth channels to hit and they’re getting customers. They don’t need to be that big. And, you know, it’s a path that a lot of entrepreneurs and founders take which is they’re not public. They’re not online but they’re crushing it. I know a lot of founders like this, right? So I mean, I can’t fault them if they can do that. But I don’t know, at the same time, I do feel like it’s almost like with this new age social media, you know, being a part of everyone’s lives, I do think there’s a missed opportunity if you are okay with being public online, which a lot of people have opinions on that then I do think that it will help you attract talent. It’ll help you find investors. If you want them, it’ll help you find customers. So there is a lot of things that could help. But then at the same time, there’s also negatives. So actually, you know, let me I’ll talk about this year. I feel like social media inherently brings out these negative factors for like for example, like you’re building a personal brand and like, you get so caught up in like follower count, you get caught up in engagement, how many people responded to my latest posts, like I should be responding back to them because it helps with the algorithm, like, it like really messes up with you sometimes because like you know, it’s almost like I’m doing actions that hey, this is gonna sound really weird. But when I’m doing something, I’m already thinking about the hook for a post on X. So I’ll be like, oh, I’m going to do this thing right now. This is going to be amazing story. I can’t wait to write about it. I already have the hook in my head.
Arvid Kahl 46:30
Doing it for the gram, right? Isn’t that what they call it?
Yong-Soo Chung 46:32
Yeah. So it almost like harmful because inherently social media is very self centered and self driven because you have to. Yeah and so it’s, you know, I’m grappling with this idea of like, okay, like, I wasn’t online. I wasn’t a public person two years ago. And I was coming from a very self like I don’t care about any of this. But then, you know, my wife the other day was like, questioning me like, hey, like, why do you? Like, I was like, I got the perfect tagline for this thing that’s happening. Like, she’s like, why does that matter? Like, what can’t you just like, think from a, you know, like just decide based on how you feel and what you think is the best instead of thinking about the audience and how they would react to your story. I was like, oh, my God, you’re right. Like, I’m changing, like I’m changing in a way, maybe I don’t want to change. And so that’s a recent thing that I discovered about myself where I’m like, alright, maybe I should tone down the social media thing because I’m too much in my head about that.
Arvid Kahl 47:36
Thank you for sharing this. It resonates with me quite a bit like, particularly now as I’m building a new software business and I have every opportunity to share every little thing. I often catch myself already like you said, coming up with a tweet about something that I’m in the middle of and should really pay most of my attention to, you know, like it derails you in a way that might be useful because it does give you more attention and it does give puts more eyes on the business that you’re building, in my case, that is more potential customers, right? That is interesting or even more founders giving me that insight if they felt something similar, but it kind of yeah, it defiles the authentic thing itself, in a way, right? It destroys the authenticity there. And I guess that’s kind of what we started with when I asked you about personas and fragments of your own self, like if you want to be your authentic self, well then you should protect that from being drawn too much into a public space. So very interesting observation. So what I hear you say, is this is not for everybody. Am I getting this right?
Yong-Soo Chung 48:47
It’s not for everybody. And I really thought that. I mean, I didn’t know that I would slowly evolve into that kind of mentality. But I did because I’m like, looking for content ideas all the time. And I’m like, I see something and I’m like, oh, that’s a great content. I’m gonna, I need to write it down. So I can have a good look. And like all this but like, I don’t know, like sometimes I feel like I’m living in a world where I’m always looking for great content, ideas or great hooks. And I don’t know if that’s a healthy way of doing things because like, sometimes I’m literally like, deciding what to do. I have two decisions. And I decide because I’m like, wait, this is going to make for a better story. I’m gonna get this, this is gonna go viral. I’m gonna choose this path instead of this. Right? And so that’s why I think it’s a dangerous game because
Arvid Kahl 49:43
Yes
Yong-Soo Chung 49:44
You want to pick the path that from an unbiased like for yourself like, pick the path that feels right and good for you instead of picking the path that you think will cause controversy or whatever, like go viral or whatever it is like because I feel like a lot of our behavior now online is determined by what others think of you.
Arvid Kahl 50:07
Yeah
Yong-Soo Chung 50:07
And that’s not good
Arvid Kahl 50:08
Not even bad, right? What the algorithm thinks others might think of you. Right? There’s an abstraction in between that as well. What’s even worse? Yeah, I think, just judging from your most recent tweets and your behavior on on X and Twitter and all that, I think you’re on a pretty good path. Like I always really enjoy your work both the work that has kind of more the aesthetic artifacts to podcasts that you put out there and your social media presence. I don’t see you as somebody who’s just throwing hooks off their hooks at people. I think, even and this is just, I think the nature of the game of being online being on a social media platform, you have to make it interesting. Everybody wants to be and make something interesting. But you don’t cheat. Like you literally say something meaningful and interesting. You just put a nice little, you know, bonnet on top that people get or attracted to. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But there is a risk. There’s a risk of overdoing it. And I’m glad that you’re reflecting on this because I don’t think everybody does. Many people don’t. Right? So a lot of stuff.
Yong-Soo Chung 51:06
I think people get carried away with it. And you see people doing crazy stunts trying to get like attention, right? And I think that’s not the way to live.
Arvid Kahl 51:15
Yup, I don’t think so either. And I’m glad you’re not chasing virality this much. So if somebody would like to see you not go viral, where would they go?
Yong-Soo Chung 51:27
If you want to see my really boring content, First Class Founders is the podcast, firstclassfounders.com. There’s a newsletter there also and I’m pretty active on X/Twitter @YongSooChung, so you can find me there as well.
Arvid Kahl 51:45
That is a good order of things. Your newsletter and your podcasts are things that I consume. And I really, really enjoy them. And the podcast is spectacular. I also every single week I get like a little notification email from podchaser or something that you released a new episode and I’m all excited. I guess it’s always really really cool to see your content and the guests you have on. You have wonderful people telling wonderful stories showing very interesting observations and really helpful things. So let me do some advertising for your podcast here. It’s really really cool. Yong-Soo, thank you so much for being on the show. That was a spectacular conversation. Thanks for sharing everything that you have shared. And thanks for just sharing it as you do it online. I really appreciate that.
Yong-Soo Chung 52:30
Arvid, this has been an awesome conversation. Honestly, I feel like I learned new things about myself during this conversation.
Arvid Kahl 52:38
Awesome!
Yong-Soo Chung 52:38
And I feel like that’s, you know, that’s always a plus. So
Arvid Kahl 52:41
Well worth it.
Yong-Soo Chung 52:43
Yeah, exactly.
Arvid Kahl 52:44
Thank you so much.
Yong-Soo Chung 52:46
Thanks, Arvid.
Arvid Kahl 52:47
And that’s it for today. I will now briefly thank my sponsor acquire.com. Imagine this, you’re a founder who’s built a really solid SaaS product, you acquired all those customers and everything is generating really consistent monthly recurring revenue. That’s the dream of every SaaS founder, right? The problem is, you’re not growing for whatever reason, maybe it’s lack of skill or lack of focus or play in lack of interest, you don’t know. You just feel stuck in your business with your business. What should you do? Well, the story that I would like to hear is that you buckled down, you reignited the fire and you started working on the business, not just in the business and all those things you did, like audience building and marketing and sales and outreach. They really helped you to go down this road, six months down the road, making all that money. You tripled your revenue and you have this hyper successful business. That is the dream. The reality, unfortunately, is not as simple as this. And the situation that you might find yourself in is looking different for every single founder who’s facing this crossroad. This problem is common, but it looks different every time. But what doesn’t look different every time is a story that here just ends up being one of inaction and stagnation. Because the business becomes less and less valuable over time and then eventually completely worthless if you don’t do anything. So if you find yourself here, already at this point or you think your story is likely headed down a similar road, I would consider a third option. And that is selling your business on acquire.com. Because you capitalizing on the value of your time today is a pretty smart move. It’s certainly better than not doing anything. And acquire.com is free to list. They’ve helped hundreds of founders already, just go check it out at try.acquire.com/arvid, it’s me and see for yourself if this is the right option for you, your business at this time. You might just want to wait a bit and see if it works out half a year from now or a year from now. Just check it out. It’s always good to be in the know.
Thank you for listening to the Bootstrapped Founder today. I really appreciate that. You can find me on Twitter @arvidkahl. And you’ll find my books and my Twitter course there too. If you want to support me and the show, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and get the podcast in your podcast player of choice, whatever that might be. Do let me know. It’d be interesting to see and leave a rating and a review by going to (http://ratethispodcast.com/founder). It really makes a big difference if you show up there because then this podcast shows up in other people’s feeds. And that’s, I think where we all would like it to be just helping other people learn and see and understand new things. Any of this will help the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful day and bye bye.
