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Kelvin Dongho Kim, a serial entrepreneur, launched his first venture, OpenSurvey, with just $5K in savings and a $20K credit line. He sold it for millions and went on to found Korea Credit Data (한국신용데이터) (KCD) in 2016, which has now achieved unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation. 🏆
KCD is a top fintech company and credit bureau in South Korea, with its flagship product, CashNote, used by over 2.2 million merchants as an indispensable super app.
Social Innovation Park (SIP) and Unicorns For Good (UFG) had the honor of hosting Kelvin at our Giants-in-Conversation (GIC) series, in collaboration with NUS Enterprise . Here's what we learned from this inspiring unicorn founder:
📌 Embrace Failure: The top 10% performers in Kelvin’s companies have one trait in common – they know how to learn from failures. Instead of hiding mistakes or blaming others, they reflect and adapt.
👉 Question for you: What lessons have you learned from your last failure?
📌 Daily Mindfulness: Kelvin starts his day with a quiet ritual of grinding coffee, using this time for reflection, clarity, and finding solutions to challenges.
👉 Tip for you: What could be your daily “me-time” for mindfulness and clarity?
📌 Know Your Customer: Focus on solving a big, critical problem that truly matters to your customers. At KCD, all employees experience customer challenges by acting as “interim CEOs” of the stores they serve.
👉 Question for you: How can you get closer to your customers’ pain points?
📌 Leverage Platforms: Don’t build an app from scratch unless you’ve already achieved market penetration. Instead, leverage existing platforms to scale.
👉 Question for you: What platforms or apps can you tap into for growth?
📌 Focus on Your Killer App: Kelvin’s courage to abandon a revenue-generating product in favor of CashNote paid off. By focusing on the one thing that mattered, CashNote grew to 80% market penetration and became a leading product.
👉 Question for you: What activities are distracting you from your core offering?
Thank you, Kelvin, for sharing your inspiring journey and powerful insights on unicorn-making! 🦄🚀
🔗 Share this post with your network to spread these invaluable tips!
🎯 Follow Social Innovation Park(SIP) and Unicorns For Good (UFG) for more content on mindful leadership, tech for good, and social innovation.
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