3. My Entrepreneur Story

I was exposed to entrepreneurship all my life. My grandmother, who used to run a department mall in Korea, always used to tell me, "Minseok, you may want to study at big schools, work for the big companies, and you may want to develop your abilities and creativity in the big league, which is good. But get out there and explore as soon as you think that the place you are in is limiting your potential."

She was true all the time. Even when she earned a lot of money she never used the money to multiply our family's wealth. Her sole purposes of reinvesting the revenues that she earned from her business was to grow and develop her playing ground. My grandmother started a small supermarket in the 60s that used to sell rice and groceries, and it gave her a fortune since she and her partners were the pioneers and monopoly of the market then. She spent the money to reinvest in the supermarket to develop it to a wholesale distributor for other local businesses around the city. By the 70s, the small supermarket became the biggest department mall in the city. In my high school years, when my grandmother retired from her Chairman position of the business, she guided me to start a business with my friends.

Although it was small, the business helped us grow insights about various aspects of entrepreneurship. We had to get our own Business Registration done by ourselves, get our taxes done by ourselves, and divide profits by ourselves. We did not have any other professional to consult by my grandmother, but we had a valuable time running our computer rental business and could mature and grow along with the business through challenges and multiple failures.

I enrolled in ENT3003 to grow my perspectives of how I can run my future business even more efficiently. I aspire to build an international sports and entertainment agency that connects businesses and individuals from East Asia to the United States and vice versa. Although it would be challenging, I am confident that I will be able to grow with the business with the help of knowledge earned through this course.