Ep 496 After the Deal: CK on Selling for $510M, Taking a Sabbatical, and Redefining Success
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Hi there, and welcome back to another edition of Built to Sell Radio, the podcast designed to help you punch above your weight in a negotiation to sell your business. I'm the executive producer, Colin Morgan, and each week we feature a different type of episode to help you prepare for your exit. And this week is part of our After the Deal series, where we explore the opportunities and challenges that come when work becomes a choice, not a

a requirement. But before we dive in, if you're looking to make your business less reliant on you, if you want to create a business that can thrive without you, John Morlow is hosting a free webinar June 5th at 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time, where you're going to discover how to step back without things falling apart and increase the value of your company in the process. To sign up free, head over to builttosell.com forward slash webinar. Again, that is builttosell.com forward slash webinar.

Okay, now today's guest is Chang Kim, and we'll refer to him as CK. Sold his company Tappas for $510 million.

But instead of launching another startup, he took a sabbatical and made the shift from full-time founder to full-time father. And in this episode, you're going to hear CK reflect on how he handled sudden wealth, what he taught his kids about money, and how to design a sabbatical that leaves you fulfilled, not restless. Without further ado, here's John Morlow with CK. CK, welcome to Built to Sell Radio. Thanks for having me, John.

You know, I saw your sabbatical post and first of all, it brought back a lot of memories for me because I took a sabbatical, which we can talk a little bit about as well. And I just love to exchange notes with you.

And it's a topic that I think a lot of our entrepreneurs, the listeners of our show, contemplate, maybe brainstorm around, maybe fantasize a little bit about is the idea of like, when I sell this puppy, I am checking out. I am leaving and I'm going to go for a sabbatical. So I'm hoping we can dig in. And I'm really excited to dig in with you on the topic of sabbaticals. Absolutely. So what I realized after selling my second company was I've never taken more than two weeks off.

in my professional life. And one thing led to another, which is actually pretty fortunate, right? If you think about it, for example, the first company I co-founded, we literally sold the company on Friday and the next Monday I started working for. So we got acquired by Google and I started working at Google literally the next Monday.

So one thing led to another, which I think, again, was really fortunate. But in the meantime, I never really had a chance to really take extended period of time. So this time I was really determined. I was telling my wife all the time, it's like, hey, I'm going to take at least a year off.

And then when I shared the plan with a bunch of people around me, you know, they started sending some articles to me. So it turns out I wasn't the first one, obviously, we're the only one who took some time off. And so I did a little bit of research.

So maybe my number one, I guess, advice that I can share to anyone who's contemplating, you know, taking some time off in the future is do research. Just like, you know, any other thing in life, like the more you learn about it, I think the better equipped you are.

And that's great because that's why folks are listening to this show is to kind of do a little bit of pre-work, see what's around the corner. But it would be important, I think, for our listeners to know, like, how did you get the chance to go on sabbatical? Maybe just talk about the tapas exit briefly, what happened and what gave you the opportunity? Because again, a lot of our listeners...

would be expecting a three, five, seven year earn out or some sort of equity role. They don't get to walk away the day the acquirer kind of shows up with their checkbook. So just walk through the tapas exit briefly and why you were able to take time off.

Absolutely. Yeah. So my most recent exit, the company was called Tapas Media. And what we did was we built a publishing platform for, you know, we call IP creators. So like serialized storytellers, those people who wanted to create their stories in a serialized manner, optimized for mobile consumption. So that's what the company was about. We had, you know, like

about 40,000 content creators. And we had, you know, we were like number two in our category, which were like, you know, because we had a digital comics and digital novels as the main medium, you know, we had the app store, like the subsequent category, and we were number two in the US.

So that's what the company did. But so we ran the company for sure. Let me see if I can just clarify, because I'm a Luddite when it comes to technology. When you say digital storytelling, like I think of, I don't even have Instagram. My wife jokes with me all the time. You're such a Luddite. But when I think of Instagram, she tells me there are this feature called stories feature.

That sounds kind of like the same thing. Are you talking about Instagram stories or is it something similar to that? Like how people understand what it is that you... Yeah, I would say something similar. But then, you know, a company called Wattpad? I don't know if you know. I've heard of it. Don't know what they do. Right. So we were kind of similar to Wattpad and Webtoon, which was another company. So we were kind of in a similar category.

So, um, if you are someone who wants to, let's say like, Hey, I want to write a fantasy novel, uh, that I can like publish or I can like, you know, take it to Netflix and make into like TV drama or movies, then, uh, you would come to our platform and then start publishing your stories in a chapter by chapter manner. So we're all for like serialized storytelling. So, um, because, uh, we were really optimizing the consumption experience for mobile, uh,

we thought that each chapter had to be really like short and bite-sized, but then serialized. So yeah, that's what essentially what we built at the company. But anyway, so we ran the company for nine years. It was a long, long time.

I thought that I would be running the company for like two years. And if things didn't really work out, then I would probably go back to Google or something. But you know how it is, right? It's like what feels like two years had turned out to be nine years. Did you give up a lot of stock options when you left Google? So I was at Google for four years. So I was fully vested.

So, no, I don't think I'd left a lot behind. But I learned a lot. Fully vested, meaning the shares that you had, they were options or they were share units that you could buy in some of the stock market? Both. Yeah. Okay. So you were fully vested. You were able to... There was no kind of economic reason to stay at Google other than the paycheck.

Well, I mean, nice food, but they're pretty hectic areas. On Built to Sell Radio, you hear founders reflect on what made their business truly sellable. That's exactly why John Worrello created the Value Builder Score, a 15-minute assessment that shows how your company performs on the eight factors acquirers care about most. If you're already working with a Value Builder Advisor, ask them for your score.

If not, visit valuebuilder.com slash score and we'll connect you with someone who understands your industry. That's valuebuilder.com slash score. So you, anyways, you left Google, you went to tap, you started Tapas, you're there for nine, you built it for nine years. How big did you get it before you decided to sell?

So we were about to raise Series C funding. So we were raising about, I think, like $30 million. This was our Series C. And we got the term sheet because the company was doing pretty well. We were profitable. We had about $40 million ARR. So the company was doing pretty well by this point.

So, we didn't have any difficulty finding the term sheet for our Series C. So, we were about to sign. So, what happened was, as you raise funding, you have to go back to your existing investors and then get the approval from them, right? And one of the existing shareholders turned out to be Kakao, a Korean company that we eventually sold the company to.

Yeah. So it was like, hey, we're raising this money and can you approve this transaction? And then they were like, hey, why do you raise money from elsewhere? We can put in more money. But I didn't like that idea because they already had a certain position at the cap table. So I didn't want them to have too many shares. So there were some back and forth, back and forth. But

So that eventually turned out to be an acquisition discussion. And long story short, the whole process, I would say, took about three months, which was not bad. I mean, I've seen like some deals taking like years, right? But yeah, three month deal. And then eventually, yeah, we signed. And the closing price, I want to say, was $510 or $508 million. Is that right? Yeah, $510 million value.

Got it. So 12 times ARR, if I'm doing my math right. 11, 12 times something like that. Pretty good exit. Amazing exit. I shouldn't downplay that. Incredible exit. This was 2021. So admittedly, this was the top of the market. So timing-wise, from our point of view, obviously, it was a good exit.

because the market was really good. But then hindsight is 20/20. We didn't know we were at a really good market back then. And I was contemplating a lot about, I still remember taking a long walk with my wife about selling, not selling, because we were going to raise money. We had a term sheet in place.

So, hey, like, you know, and the growth trajectory was really good for us at that point. So like, hey, can we like keep going? And then like maybe like three years later, we can be a unicorn company. I mean, that idea was always in the back of my mind. What'd your wife say?

So my wife wanted me to take things a little easier because she's seen everything from the side where obviously the company was around for many years. And I was like, year nine still felt like year one. So I was the first one to work and I was like, all this, all this working. So just seeing that, she was like, hey, you can maybe sell the company

Of course, that wasn't going to mean like, hey, like taking a break from day one. But like, at least you have less, you know, sense of responsibility that way. My wife was, you know, encouraging me to sell. She was in the pro camp. You were kind of on the fence. Yes. What tipped you over? Well, I mean, I thought about like three to five years later, like what?

what gives me the higher chance of winning? So if I raise money and keep going, and of course, there's a lot of all these uncertainties. So it's like, would we be able to build a bigger company just by keep going or should we just sell? So it really came down to one thought, which was, hey, what is the key winning factor in this market, in this business?

So I'm a technology background, I'm a tech person, I'm not a content person. So as a byproduct of building this platform, the company was becoming more and more IP-driven, storytelling-driven company. So I thought that the key winning factor would not be necessarily technology, but more like IP and content.

And it's pretty much like Netflix. If you think about Netflix now, it's a content company, right? It's a TV movie company. But when they started out, it was a streaming more like tech driven. So I think we were kind of like going through that path. And I thought that, hey, if the key winning factor is content and stories and IP, then it may not be the area that we can dominate. So that was, I think, the tipping point.

And did you also contemplate the differential in terms of valuation multiple between a content company and a software company? So software companies typically traded a multiple of ARR, you were growing very quickly and you commanded at 11, 12 times ARR, which is an unbelievable multiple and incredible outcome, yet a content business

deeply reliant on people, the vagaries of human beings, not necessarily quite as scalable, trades it at usually multiple EBITDA, maybe a tech-enabled content company and multiple of slow multiple of revenue. But were you contemplating like, if we get into the business of being a content company as opposed to technology company, our valuation is going to plummet.

Yeah, that's a very good point. Something that I don't think I didn't know, but like, you know, that wasn't the key factor. It was more like who can create this IP better? So would it be us or would it be the acquirer? Because the acquiring company was also in a similar business. They had a huge market share in Asia.

So, I guess it's closer to, let's say, like pharmaceutical company in the US, you know, like they're selling to big, you know, big pharma in Asia, for example, right? Thinking that, hey, like what's going to be in the pipeline in the next like five years. And then when it comes to that, they might have a better advantage than us. So, yeah.

Interesting. And how did they lock you in via Acquire? I noticed you went on a sabbatical in, I think, 2023 and you sold in 2021. So I'm guessing you had a kind of a two year, I don't know, what was the transition period? Was it an earn out or was it like just an employment contract?

Yeah. So the surprising thing there is I didn't necessarily have an earn out period. So it was really good deal. It became a competitive deal, actually. So that's why we were able to sign a very favorable term for us. But I did stay with the company for two years-ish because...

Obviously, it was a good exit for everyone involved. There's more responsibility to make sure everything works really well. We also ended up merging my company to another company that the acquiring company acquired to build this combined entity. I ended up running the combined entity for a little bit of time as well. I did stay with the company for a couple of years.

and then decided at some point to take a sabbatical. What was the kind of genesis around deciding to go on a sabbatical? Because I think a lot of tech entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneurs, you already started a couple of companies. The natural inclination would be like, okay, I've done it twice. I'm pretty good at this. Let's go do it a third time. What made you decide to do a sabbatical instead?

Oh, yeah. I've seen those people. I'm sure you have seen a lot of those people too, right? A lot. Jumping directly in, back in. I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of different factors in play here, like your age and your family situation. So I have three now, but back then I had two kids and they were, I think something like 10 and 8.

So, obviously, you know, wanting to spend more time with the kids and family, wanting to travel more. By the way, all of this, I think I did. So, like, you know, sabbatical turned out to be, I'm sure we're going to talk more about that. But it was one of the best experiences in my life. And I'm really, really happy that I, you know, had the chance. But yeah, what led to it? Yes, I guess.

The seed was always there. Even though you're not thinking about it every day, I think the seed was somewhere in the back of your head that it kept growing. And then by the time I left the company, I was like, okay, now is the time.

I think a lot of people are asking themselves as they listen, like how rich is CK and how big was his exit that he is able to go on some giant sabbatical? So, I mean, if you're comfortable sharing what your take was, please share it. If not, we can use some sort of proxy for, you know, like when we talk about wealth at Value Builder, we talk about like,

Do you have enough money to kind of fund your lifestyle in the short term, medium term, long term, or do you have enough money to do whatever you want? Another way to think about it is like, are you net jets wealthy or like G5 wealthy? Do you know what I'm asking? Are you post-economic where effectively you could live comfortably and buy anything you wanted for the rest of your life?

so that it forces you to contemplate like okay well what am i going to do with the rest of my life does that can you answer that question directly sure um i don't know about like dropping the numbers here but like i'll just put it this way so like but you know the company we sold uh i was the only founder single founder company by the way about that topic uh like i you know

the biggest regret that I had in my previous company was that I was a single founder, solo founder. I really wanted to have a co-founder. So I was vowing, hey, whatever the next thing, if I do, I'll definitely make sure to have a co-founder was really my vow.

But yeah, I was a single founder. I was the biggest shareholder of the company. We raised until like series B. So maybe you can do like, and you know, like each round it was pretty typical dilution. So yeah. But in terms of like, you know, how I, you know, we did, I think, yeah, like we're pretty much set for life. And then

We have some trust going. And I think also it's all relative, right? What does the economic freedom mean for different people? It means different people for different people, right? What does it mean to you? That's a good question. I don't really worry about, at least from a financial point of view, I don't really worry about the future. I think I'm pretty good. I'm not like...

investing in high-risk portfolio. By the way, we have private wealth managers that there are... I'm not looking at the stock market every day. I'm not paying attention to those, but hopefully these people look at it every day. So yeah, having a group of people who take care of stuff definitely helps. How does it feel to live off your capital?

For a year, you're literally grinding down your net worth, even though it might have been tiny amounts of it. You know what I mean? I've heard that can be very challenging for a lot of people.

So we do have some fixed income portfolio, but then it's like not really visible, right? Meaning like, hey, maybe, you know, you can see some numbers and oh, yeah, like you made this much from fixed income stuff. And then there's like an investment return. So the numbers do get blended in. One thing that I didn't do, but then I've seen some other people do is to have more tangible, like fixed income stream.

Which I think a lot of exited founders can learn and, you know, they can think about. So it's like, it might be like, you know, real estate portfolio, it might be some other portfolio that gives you a check every single like week or every single month. That's very tangible and visible, right?

So I've seen people who are taking that approach where, hey, let's say like, you know, there's a hundred percent of your net worth or net wealth. And then maybe like 60% can be like, you know, index or like, you know, something stable and 40% can be like giving you the fixed income stream or something like that. So I've seen people and, you know, that that's more like guilt-free feeling, right? It's like, oh yeah, like I'm not like eating into my life.

My main, you know, basket, but I'm just like, you know, living off of the earnings. So that's something that I do have to a certain degree, but then it's not as visible or tangible as some other people. I think this is brilliant advice. This idea of having some fixed income, just like a dividend income or like some treasuries that are spitting out some sort of regular income.

I've heard from other exited founders just how difficult it is to live off the capital iceberg because every time you sell some chip to fund whatever it is you want to go do, and it can be just your everyday life, your mortgage or your

groceries or whatever, you're having to like sell a share of Google or sell a share of Nike or whatever. It's very psychologically difficult as opposed to what you're describing, which is this sort of nice little steady income. And you're like, yeah, I'm just living off my capital, but it's kind of a steady flow. So-

I mean, it may not affect their net wealth that much, but then I think it's more about psychology and mindset. It's like, you know, you get to like be very defensive. It's like, oh, like I'm eating into my main chunk. So then, you know, people look at it, you know, it kind of puts you in the defensive mode as opposed to like, hey, like this amount of money I can invest, this amount of money I can spend.

Like, yeah, just imagine like owning five gas stations, right? Talk a little bit about the choice of what you did on sabbatical. Like, did you travel? Did you like, what'd you do?

So, yeah, all of the above. So the first thing I really wanted to do was to spend more time with family because like before COVID, I think I was eating dinner at home like maybe once a week because I was working with Asia a lot. Like I would be staying at the office until like, you know, seven or eight regularly and then and then, you know, come home.

So I really want, I really missed, you know, the opportunity, you know, just like a plain old thing, like simple things like, you know, having dinner with the family, right? So I was really missing that. We did a ton of travel and me and my wife, we counted. So in the year of 2023, we were on the airplane 22 times. So we like traveled a lot.

And that was pretty much the last time I thought we could travel as a family because my kids were getting busier. This was when my son was in the ninth grade and my daughter was in middle school. So yeah, ninth grade summer is pretty much the last summer you can travel extensively as a family because in the 10th grade, you have to start thinking about other things.

so on and so forth, like college prep. So yeah, we did a ton of travel. But for me, the most rewarding thing was I intentionally wanted to meet as many people as possible from outside my circle. So I'm in tech. So we moved to LA during the pandemic. So I've been living in LA for the past five years. But one good thing about being in LA is tech is there. LA does have tech, but then it's not the only industry that LA has.

So you get to meet a lot of different people from different walks of life. So yeah, for me, that was the most rewarding part. I just met a lot of people who are not in tech and then try to learn their life from them. What was your relationship like with your kids before the sabbatical? Because 10 and 8, you said 10 and 8 was when you...

How old they were? When I sold the company, they were probably... Actually, I miscalculated. So my son was in the seventh grade. Okay. So maybe 12. Yeah, something like that, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And then by the time you went on sabbatical, he was in ninth grade, so maybe 13, 14. Right. Yeah. Those are interesting ages because at that stage, they're...

They're on their way. They're not adults yet, of course, but they've certainly, a lot of their personality has changed. How would you describe your relationship with them pre-sabbatical? Mm-hmm.

I mean, I was, you know, it wasn't like, you know, I was like, you know, not friendly with them or anything like that. I think we had a pretty good family. Like a lot of credit goes to my wife. She's been a full-time mom and, you know, she's the one who really like brought the entire family together. But so what I wanted to, what I did was I, so because during the weekdays I was really, really busy.

So I wanted to be like a one day good father. So like Saturdays, I would like, you know, take the kids some places, so on and so forth. You were like super dad on Saturdays. Or at least I try to spend some time with them, you know, just like taking them to like museums and stuff like that.

So I would say like one thing about sabbatical was they saw me more, much more, right? So like I became the primary, you know, driver, shopper. And then like, you know, like they would see me more often and just more time and travel again, you know, it was really, really helpful. So we spent the entire summer in Europe. So that was like two and a half months and

you know, kind of like designing the itinerary together. So I started like asking my son, my daughter was too young, but hey, you know, go make a reservation at this place. And then he would like, you know, do that. So yeah, like almost like a co-pilot navigating together. I think that was a really good experience for us. Yeah. Got so many questions about that. When it comes to that time,

How was it to be just around? And I guess I'm asking...

Because sometimes if you're the hero, conquering hero that walks in from a busy day at eight o'clock at night and you're running this big company, you're kind of on this mythical level to your kids, right? Especially at age 12 and 14, like there's dad, he's taking on the world. He's coming home and he's spending a little bit of time with us. Isn't that precious time? But it's not that just the everyday farting around, just kind of going to get the groceries and dropping them off at valet or whatever. It's like all of a sudden,

I think some people feel kind of demoted in the minds of their kids. Like, oh, dad's a regular dude. He kind of puts his pants on one leg at a time. You know, like, was there a, what was that like for them and for you to sort of kind of be in that sort of like everyday guy as opposed to hero mode? Yeah. So did you feel, first of all, am I putting words in your mouth? Did you feel that way? And if so, kind of maybe expand. Yeah.

That's a really interesting point. And now that I think about it, I think the change was more gradual and particularly because we were working from home. So to me, honestly, I think pandemic was a bigger change from the perspective of what you just described than exit necessarily, in my opinion, because

uh yeah pandemic like you know we were all like at home and then we spent a lot of time together at home uh that was and again before uh covet uh i was always out but you know like after covet i was almost like forced to be in uh so the kids were already seeing me a lot a lot of me uh you know back then and um yeah like i it wasn't so for me like the exit was

I think in hindsight, it was a good thing. Meaning, it didn't really happen abruptly, like before and after, and even the sabbatical. So it was more like a gradual change. Sometimes I see some exited founders who sold the company to something like private equity, and then they're out from day two, right?

For them, you know, there's, you know, all kinds of bad things like identity crisis and you don't even access your email anymore. So it's a very like cliff, you know, off the cliff kind of experience. For me, it wasn't. It was pretty gradual experience. Even after I left the company, I had access to my email to a certain period of time, so on and so forth. So, yeah, it was pretty gradual for me.

So the actual sabbatical itself, you traveled a ton. You were kind of everyday dad. What was the most surprising thing about being, like, as you look and reflect back on it, what sort of took you by surprise? That's a good question.

What took people by surprise? Because you've already admitted that you did a ton of research and you strike me as the kind of guy that doesn't make impetuous decisions. Like you think things through deeply. So I'm guessing there was a lot of thought that went into it. So tell me what surprised you, even despite all the research.

So one surprise was the amount of people who were trying to get into my calendar. Like even though I told them, hey, I'll be on sabbatical, I'll be and you know, some people actually took that as a sign that, you know, they could just like take up the space in my calendar. So, yeah, the lesson I think there is you got to be very intentional about like taking the time off.

So you kept your public calendar link live so people could literally just kind of schedule? No, no, no, no, no, no, not at all. But people would ping me all the time. It's like Facebook Messenger or text me, all kinds of different channels. They would reach out to me and then they were like, oh yeah, now that you have more time, I saw that you left the company. So

Probably, they were thinking I have a ton of time in my hand. So finally, that's... So no bad intention or anything in a lot of cases. How did you handle those requests? I said no to a lot of things, but there were things... Gracefully, you have a go-to stock line that you use? How did you say no to all these friends, connections?

Yeah. So first of all, I wasn't able to say no to everyone. There were people that I had to meet. So even during my sabbatical, it wasn't a completely empty schedule. A lot of times I still had to do some calls. I still had to take those coffee meetings because these are the people that I couldn't say no to.

For example, you can imagine people who believed in my company, our company early on, and then they were cheering from the sidelines or sometimes investing in my company. I mean, these are the people that I owe a lot to. So I had to catch up with them when they're in town. Obviously, I was trying to meet them.

But there are other, many other cases that I had to say no to. And then my go-to line was just being honest. It's like, hey, I'm trying to take some time off. And then if I say yes to everybody, then there's physically no way that I can take any time off. So hope you understand. But yeah, and most people were like very understanding. Yeah.

At some point, did you contemplate leaving L.A.? A lot of founders physically go permanently move and they go to Spain or they go to New Zealand or whatever. Was that part of your calculus? Did you consider that?

Well, with the kids in school, you know, it's very difficult. So we already moved once from the Bay Area. So we were in the Bay Area for 10 years and we moved here during the pandemic. So like kids were already sort of new to school. So yeah, like leaving to another, like moving to another place wasn't really part of the plan. Yeah. But like one day, hopefully. Yeah. It's funny. I've heard...

A buddy of mine did a sabbatical, moved to the UK and his kids struggled a little bit. And he was sharing that it's really easy to move kids up until about 13 or 14. But in particular girls for some reason, but I'm sure it happens to boys as well. But once you pass 13 or 14, it becomes really difficult to move them. It becomes majorly impactful, like negatively for them. I

I guess social connections, friendships mature to a point where just leaving them is very destabilizing for a 13 or 14 year old. So I think from that perspective, you made a wise choice. I agree. That's my experience for sure. I agree. What about the monotony of it? Like,

I shared in the opening remarks that I have done a sabbatical. I did three years in Europe when our kids were younger than yours. They were three and five at the time. And if I'm honest with you, I mean, I have very fond memories of the experience and wouldn't have changed it for the world. There were, however, times where I kind of missed it.

I miss the adrenaline of building something. You know, the monotony of like another day at the park where another day at the swing set. Although the first five times we went to the swing set was great. But by the sixth time, I'm like, oh my God, I can't go to the swing set again. Like worse. I mean, as founders, startup folks, there is a little bit of an adrenaline addiction. Did you feel any of that? Oh, 100%.

So, um, I think it, it didn't really hit me during like normal times. Like, you know, like normally I was doing fine, but then when you're taking time off, usually a lot of times, uh, like your, your friends or your connections, they're still working and making advancements, right? It's like, you know, do you see your close buddy, like raising like huge amount of money and then like publishing it on LinkedIn and, um,

you know you see some other people who are like oh yeah like i'm hanging out with especially being in la uh you know it there's you know a lot of like glamorous connections like you know people hang out with like movie actors and actresses and cocktail parties so like and you know like so like you have to like stop looking at the feed social media feed because you know being bombarded by like those announcements right uh humble breakfast so yeah i i was trying to uh

move away from the comparison mindset as much as possible. But we're all humans, right? So it's always difficult. I was reading your sabbatical PowerPoint. And again, we'll link up to it in the show notes because I think everybody should read it. It's a really well thoughtful document. One of the kind of big findings, I think it's the third one, happiness equals not comparing yourself with others. Absolutely. I think that's really tough for founders.

I think if I think a lot of people, I think there's a competitive element of starting a company, right? You want to achieve a certain threshold of sales, growth, value, whatever. It's for better or worse how we define ourselves. And so to switch that button off and all of a sudden say, oh, I'm not going to compare myself with anybody. It's hard. It is.

Yeah. It's a basic human instinct, right? It's like you get to compare. So yeah, turning off social media helps a lot. Did you literally turn it off? I mean, people talk about that. Did you actually unsubscribe or delete the apps from your phone?

No, I didn't go that extreme, but I was trying to like use this multi-device tactic, meaning like, you know, like certain things you can only do on certain device. So like on my phone, you know, I have certain apps and on my computer, I have certain apps and so on and so forth. I think that helps.

Yeah. What other tips? You also talked about in the document, this idea of expanding your social kind of footprints. And so not sticking with your inner circle of other tech entrepreneur founders who are by nature going to kind of subtly compare one another. Whereas you were, I think, fairly intentional about broadening the kind of people you surround yourself with.

maybe walk through a little bit of how that impacted your ability to not compare yourself with others. Absolutely. So, um, some of the idea actually came from a book called hangry. Um, so it was, yes. Uh, so that's the book title, uh, and, uh, as written by this guy, it was the founder of Grubhub. Um, and it's really interesting book. Uh, so like,

It's almost like two books in one. So he's talking about his company exit journey, but then after selling the company, he did a cross-country bike trip from the East Coast to the West Coast. And then he's talking about how that 70-day trip is really a healing journey for him. And a big part of that is just talking to a random stranger in a gas station or something like that. So yeah.

So that book was part of the inspiration. So what I did was just like, you know, there's no like magic formula or anything like that. It wasn't anything fancy, just like, don't talk to people, right? It's like, sometimes it might be like other parents, because again, out in LA, I'm probably the only tech person in my like daughter's friends, you know, circle, you know, their parents, you know, they do a lot of different things. You know, sometimes you hang out with other parents, right?

Or sometimes you just get to talk to, we were remodeling our house and then there were people who were doing the remodeling. And then I got pretty close to people who are working on the project. And then it's like, hey, what is your life story? And then just hang out with them. The sabbatical is behind you now. And I'd be curious to know if you could do it over again.

And if you imagine you're talking to a group of owners who are listening to the show who are about to have the option of going on sabbatical, right? They're going to sell their company. They're going to have the ability to potentially take some time off. What might you do differently if you could just kind of rewind the clock?

So one thing I didn't end up doing was doing at least like one crazy thing. Like, you know, something that you can talk about, like, you know, years later, right? Like this is something you can point to. It's not that you have to do it, but in my opinion, you know, like now that I think about it, it's like, hey, that could have been one thing that I could have done. Like what? Like, I don't know, like.

Himalaya tracking or like one thing that I really wanted to do was the solo walk Camino de Santiago. Camino, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like two week solo walk basically, right? Or it can be like 10 days. You can design the journey, but yeah,

yeah, I know like three of my friends, four of my friends who did that. And then, you know, they're university. They can't like, you know, stop thinking, talking about that. So must be something there. So, you know, it can be that thing, or it can be like, I don't know, like Patagonia or like North Pole, like whatever it might be. It's just like a one crazy thing that you do. It doesn't have to be physical travel. It can be, I don't know, like

you know, some other stuff, learning new skills. Like one wacky thing, one kind of wildcard kind of thing. I didn't get to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

One of the other questions that I want to come back to is this idea of sort of wealth in particular of how you've dealt with it with your kids. Your kids are now at an age where they can Google, they can Google dad and mom and they can figure out everything they need to know about you. And I think the paranoia of most founders who have sold, the worst case scenario is bringing up

kind of lazy, entitled kids who feel like, well, I'm just going to inherit all this money, so why do I need to have to do anything anyways? How have you decided or not to talk to your kids about the money stuff? Yeah, so we didn't really talk about money stuff until fairly recently. So I think it was around end of last year that topic came up. Until then, we didn't really talk about the wealth stuff with our kids.

So one thing that we told our kids was, um,

we're going to support you until probably college or some sort of like, if they go to graduate school and then they need some money, that's fine. So we can help them until they're ready to go out to the society, go out to find their jobs. And that's the support that we can make. But after that, you're on your own is pretty much what we told them.

And, you know, if they need more resources, you know, after that, maybe we can lend them money. Right. It's like, you know, yeah.

And they were like, oh yeah, but it's like from the bank of dad, isn't that? No, I mean, you're going to be dealing with third-party people because we do have money managers. So you're not going to be like talking to us, you're going to be talking to them. So it'd be like interest-free loan or something like that, but we'll probably lend you money. So we gave them like a very basic idea. It wasn't like, hey, you know,

I think it came up pretty casually. And then we just told them, hey, these are some of the principles that we have now. So it was a pretty casual conversation, but I think the kids got the idea. Yeah, yeah. I think it's smart. I mean, you know, everyone has their own approach to this. Buffett, of course, said, you know,

give them enough to do anything and not enough to do nothing, I think was his line. But I think that's sort of an interesting way to frame things, meaning like they're not going to starve, they're going to get an education, but you know, they're not going to be able to sit around. And my daughter was like, hey, like I have a question. So like if I become a homeless person, are you going to help me or not? And then we told her...

First of all, hopefully you're not, you know, become a homeless person. And second of all, like if you, so like, you know, that's the, that's the other important thing, like, you know, that we were passing on. It's not just money that we're passing on, hopefully enough motivation, hopefully enough knowledge and, you know, just kind of readiness that you don't, you don't ever become a failure. Not ever, like, you know, cause you never know. Right. But hopefully that doesn't happen to you.

And money is not the only factor, only thing that we can pass along in order to make sure that you don't become that. I was doing a little bit of homework before our conversation, and I understand your father is or was a professor, an academic.

And I remember one line in the interview you did, which was something to the effect of, you know, anything less than a doctorate is a failure in my father's eyes. Because as an academic, that's his sort of lens through. I'd just be curious to know what his thoughts were about your career choices and ultimately your choice to take a sabbatical. Did you ever talk to him about that?

Yeah, so he was a professor, university professor, and we had a very academic kind of atmosphere. But then he also at some point tried business and failed. So maybe that had become even more motivation for him to like, you know, make sure, hey, you stick to academics. He's also very old. Like I'm the last child of my family. So like he's obviously very old. So he has an old school thinking as well.

But I think overall, you know, the business worked out and then he likes that. He appreciates that. But then, yeah, even when I was running the startup, he had like his viewpoint was, hey, like, you know, why do you do that? I mean, he didn't say out loud as much, but it's like I could sort of like see.

You know, him like, you know, like academic. So it's like different value system, right? It's like for him, like, you know, getting the PhD and then, you know, becoming something like professor was probably a better like journey than, you know, like toiling in the uncertainties. And then you're like always stressed out about like, you know, getting the company up and running. So yeah, different value system, I guess. How did you talk to him about the idea of taking a sabbatical?

I'm not sure if I told him specifically about sabbatical. But yeah, I mean, we also visited him back in Korea. So like he probably knew

that we were taking time off with the kids. So yeah, like for him, any chance. I mean, that's another thing that I feel a little bit like bad about because like we've been living here in California, but both me and my wife, you know, we come from Korea and then we have extended family back in Korea. So like, you know, not showing the kids grow as much, you know, we always kind of feel bad about it. Yeah. But you've had a chance to go back more recently. Yeah. In this debacle and so forth. Yeah. Yeah.

What are you up to now? Tell me about the new company. And I'd obviously be curious to know how you got there and what made you decide to get it back into the game.

Yeah. So one approach that I took was I'm not going to start anything until like one day I wake up in the morning and then I feel very compelled to, it's like, Hey, you know, like I'm really excited about it. I mean, kind of going back to earlier discussion that conversation we had, right. Like I've seen like people who are jumping right back in and, you know, it's like, I don't know, like,

you can't just like go go go right you have to like you know sometimes take a step back and then like think about so for me i really thought about so one book i really recommend to a lot of people is uh called ikigai uh it's a japanese book um yeah ikigai uh is uh

sort of like broadly means like your mission of life, like your reason to be, something like that in Japanese. And the concept is really simple. It's like you have to find this like a Venn diagram of what you are good at and what you really like to do, what the world is and where the economic opportunities are. So it's like a four different circles and finding the Venn diagram. So very simple concept. But so...

Read that book and did a whole exited founder, I guess, journey. It's like, hey, what should I do now? And one thing I was really certain about was, so I had this thought experiment. It's like, okay, so in order to find out the answer,

Can I just imagine like walking into a doctor's office one day and then God forbid, but then like what if the doctor says, hey, unfortunately, you have three years to live? What would I do at that point? So that was really like one question that was really, really helpful for me to put things in perspective.

And so I really try to visualize that experience, imagine that experience. And then I had like a million different ideas, but one thing, one of the first idea that popped up was, okay, so if I have three years to live, then I'll probably start writing something. Like, because, you know, I took a lot of learnings over my professional life and I didn't want to like, you know, go with all of that knowledge in my head and not being shared more.

So I started publishing, I started writing more on LinkedIn and some other places. And then, you know, people really, really liked that. So I was like, okay, well, you know, this is really rewarding. But the problem of writing is, you know, it becomes pretty tedious.

Like you have to write every single word and you have to, you know, think about the topics all the time. So I was like, Hey, what if like someone just interviewed me? You know, just like the conversation that we're having right now. What if like somebody was just like asking me the questions and I just answered them using my voice? That could be really convenient. And, you know, now that I think about it, it's like podcasting, right?

So, so long story short, so that's the platform that, you know, we set out to build. The new company, we're in the podcasting space, but using AI. So instead of human host, we will have AI host asking questions and interviewing people. And of course, finally, someone putting me out of business. No, no, no, no, no, not at all. Not at all. Because the human to human connection will always be there. We're not trying to replace that.

But even the humans in the future, they can have like co-pilots or assistants. And it'll be a different product. Like the AI-driven podcast will be a different product because AI still cannot replace humans. It'll probably ask similar questions to a bunch of different people, but it won't be like a back and forth, back and forth, just like humans do.

But anyway, yeah. So that's a new business that we're developing right now. And then the inspiration was for me to share, more effectively share what I learned over the years. And I also talked to a bunch of other people about this. And a lot of people were saying the same thing, which was like, hey, I want to share more. I want to pay forward. But then for me, writing or starting a new...

I guess like, you know, channel or newsletter is kind of daunting. So can there be like a lower barrier, you know, platform that allows me to share my stories more easily? So that's what we're building. Amazing. And what would the purpose for those stories be? Is it end of life kind of stuff where people want to pass on their insights before dying? Or are there other sort of applications for that?

Yeah, so we're focusing more on much earlier, you know, kind of life stage than that. So like another thing that we also discovered while talking to a bunch of people was for people who are starting out.

you know, the human to human connection. People want to learn from other people, you know, especially the people who walk through like similar path, but before them. So yeah, we're really focusing on career and professional kind of like knowledge and advice sharing right now. And yeah,

It turns out, in the past, you can imagine everyone was working in person, side by side. So then you have other people to learn from, tap on the shoulder and then, "Hey, how do you do this?" But with remote work, with AI, it's becoming more and more difficult to find people who can be your... It's like a Jedi relationship, right? Jedi-Master relationship. It's becoming harder to find those figures.

So we're trying to connect people who have, you can imagine something like, hey, I'm like a finance student at UCLA and I'm about to graduate. I wanna maybe like going to like investment banking and like who can I talk to? And then a lot of times they don't know the right people and they're kind of at a loss. And if you get matched with, let's say a,

you know, somebody who was a Goldman Sachs for like five years and then, you know, they have learned about this profession, right? And hopefully they can share, you know, pros and cons about their job, things to watch out for, things like that. So, yeah, we're trying to build this storytelling platform for people who have that experience so that other people who are interested in getting the field, you know, they can kind of like, you know,

get the life wisdom from the people who have bought the same pad before. I'd love to learn more. Where can people find out about the new company? Yeah, the company's name is Saywise. Saywise. And you can go to saywise.com.

Awesome. CK, we will put that and the two books that you referenced, the hangry one I want to go out and get right now. And all of the kind of references and also the LinkedIn post, the PowerPoint that you put together about your sabbatical in the show notes at builttosouth.com. Thanks for doing this. Thank you so much, John. It was my pleasure talking to you. No, it was my pleasure. Thanks, CK. Thank you.

And there you have it for today's interview between John and CK. If you enjoyed today's podcast, be sure to hit that subscribe button wherever you're listening to today's show. And as a reminder, if you want to watch this full video interview, head over to our YouTube channel at Built to Sell Radio. If you know of someone who'd be a great fit to be a guest right here on the podcast, you can actually nominate them. Head over to builttosell.com slash nominate where there you're going to have a chance to nominate yourself or someone else to be a guest right here on the show with John. Special thanks to John and CK for joining us today.

Special thanks to Dennis Labategla for handling today's audio engineering. And thank you to our community of certified value builders who help us bring our message to you. Our advisors are experts in helping you build the value of your company. To get in touch with an advisor or learn how to become one yourself, head over to valuebuilder.com. I'm Colin Morgan, and I look forward to talking to you again next week.