Founder and Managing Partner of 541 Ventures | Global Early-stage Investor for Frontier Tech Startups

Seoul & Los Angeles
Joined May 2010
They ask me why I take so little sleep (~4 hours). Say you're an elementary kid and tomorrow is a field day you've been so much waiting for. You won't be able to get much sleep because of the excitement, right? That's exactly why I can't and don't sleep any more than I need.
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#프론티어테크 에 대해 이야기를 하다 보니 많은 분들께서 그럼 너희 #541Ventures 에서는 어떤 스타트업을 찾느냐 하고 물어보셔서 저희 #InvestmentThesis 공개합니다! :) #FrontierTech #VC #Thesis besuccess.com/opinion/%ed%94…
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Counterintuitively, highly competitive people all have fundamental humility and it's because they know that we all are propelled by two forces to become better: great questions and experience of achieving something - be it big or small, in the response to such great questions.
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To truly appreciate such challenging questions and even small successes that can be parlayed on to the next successes takes humility. This is why arrogance is a surefire signal of someone who doesn't know how to grow.
Golden!
All You Need to Know/One Page/No Kidding
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Despite the "tech winter," I'm still super bullish about enterprise solutions and technologies as companies will (have to) continue seeking effective solutions to excel at their core domains and forget the rest - especially in the response to the tough labor market and inflation.
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All You Need to Know/One Page/No Kidding
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Founders: Make sure you invest time before hiring key employees. And here, I'm not only talking about how the founders should learn about the potential employees' skills, capabilities and personalities.
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But you as a founder must know that the young people joining your startup will have so many life events ahead like marriage, having kids, grad schools, etc and it will change their engagement with your startup. This can indeed make your startup unnecessarily more vulnerable.
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Hiring young people isn't a bad thing. It could be a good thing because it could help your startup be more agile and grow rapidly. However, you just must invest time before hiring someone so you know their aspirations and plans for life and future and be prepared and supportive.
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Dear #WeWork, You're too cheap that you don't provide AC on Sundays, especially in the worst summer ever in KOR. I'm all in for sustainability, but the line btw being environmentally conscious & too cheap is pretty clear. I Hope you (or the KOR team) gets it soon. Sincerely, E
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541's a US-based pioneer VC for Asian founders in frontier tech and this is what we mean by frontier tech and the spaces we're super excited about! eun5e.com/2022/07/541-ventur… #FrontierTech #VC for #Asian #Founders
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It's official now! Super excited that #541Ventures is now officially launched! W/ dual offices in LA, CA and Seoul, Korea, and #541 globally invests and aspires to be an iconic investor for #AsianFounders in #FrontierTech. asiatechdaily.com/a-new-los-…
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It's very interesting to watch how people say they all want opportunities but many actually fail to capture it when one finally comes to them. On the flip side of that is my industry where we have just so many optionalities.
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In my world with such so many optionalities, you just got to know exactly what your opportunity should look like so you can build your muscle around it and capture it holding your nose up before everyone else to generate alpha.
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Many are just opportunistic w/ "interesting" optionalities but - intentionally overlooking some outliers incredibly successful with a very thoughtful strategy, so many of them just seem to end up with only a marginal performance (if lucky) as consensus is not what creates champs.
Tom is probably the only reason why I'm still on Twitter.
Tom has 4 top tech degrees. He’s devoted all his firepower to addressuninspired enterprise leadership. His message, 40 years in the making: TAKE CARE OF PEOPLE, CHERISH THEM, HOLD NOTHING BACK IN HELPING THEM GROW AND FLOURISH. (Personal-societal payback will be staggering.)
Founders: One of the two things in your pitch that are perhaps the most important yet left so much untouched and unappreciated is your team. It'll be very hard to wow us with your idea, simply because we get to hear about them all the time.
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Once done these, you'll naturally get to the second most important (yet again HARDLY touched/appreciated) thing in your pitch - excitement! You can't get us excited unless you're excited. You have to get yourself excited first and include that excitement in your pitchdeck!
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Trust me: we don't need to hear your presentation to feel your excitement; we can just feel that in your pitchdeck already. Remember: Your team >> your idea, and show us your excitement!