The Startup Serial 7: Family
Families have a critical role in the typical startup story. Often times, they are the founders’ first and foremost source of support, whether financial or otherwise.
In fact, that’s why in startup funding rounds, there’s the Friends and Family Round. It’s basically when your friends and family give you the financial resources you need in order to get the startup going. It makes sense. Who else is really going to take a risk on you right off the bat?
For us, it’s been the same. My parents, James’ parents, and even MJ’s parents have been central in our own decisions as well as our decisions as a group.
The first thing is that they let us do it.
The ‘let’ is a bit different than the Western notion of letting action happen.
We’re all Koreans, and despite our Canadian identity, we have Korean tendencies. One big part of that is approval. We say approval, but it’s really more than that.
For example, in marriage, there is something called ‘Sangkyunrye’. This is the meeting of the parents of the groom and the bride. In Korean culture, marriage isn’t just two people getting together. It’s about the union of the families. Ergo, this ritual is to see if the families of the two sides will get along.
Of course, nowadays Korea has changed a bit, and people do get married without such formal approval, but you need to be in a true “I don’t give a fuck about what anyone thinks” mindset, and that’s rare (also, if there’s pregnancy involved, it’s a different story).
Anyways, back to talking about Tabulit. We asked, before we started this business, our respective parents of their approval. Surely, we would’ve done it even without their approval, but the symbolic nature of it is important to us. Their acknowledgment is a huge morale boost. Especially because this is our first big risk in our lives.
In my case personally, I was hesitant from the start.
My parents wanted me to a doctor. When I clearly expressed my distaste and lack of desire for the medical profession, they switched to lawyer.
I’ve always done the dual-path thing. I’ve done something on the outside to appease them, while plotting something else in the background to find my own. That’s how I pushed through my goal of being a writer to them without losing their faith in me (which, I know, sounds very impish. I’m trying to save their faith in me by deceiving them. I did come clean about this to them once however. Surprisingly, they always sort of knew that I was a schemer).
So I did write the LSAT, all the while planning this startup.
When I did present my grand plan, I was even more nervous than that time I asked my parents for the tuition to go study creative writing.
At the end of my explanation to them, they just nodded and asked questions on it. Wanted to know where we could actually make money from it and all. It was quite rigorous and extensive. Considering that they were business owners themselves, they probably were very curious and concerned about this.
The last question was this from my dad: “Do you actually believe in this?”
I said yes.
Then he said, “what do you need?”
That was approval enough for me.
Later, James and MJ also told me their respective stories.
James’ parents are both in finance, and they didn’t understand why James was throwing away a perfectly good career in finance that was also in an upward trajectory at the time.
MJ too. MJ’s father is in tech, and couldn’t really get why MJ was trying to become a CTO without learning the grips in technology the standard way. Climb the ladder first.
They too though, managed to convince their own parents that this was an opportunity that we needed to seize now.
For me, a big reason was that I was still young. If I was going to roll up my sleeve and chase after something, now was the time, not later. MJ did tell me that his parents saw this as a risk that he could reasonably take, because he is also, like me, young, so that failures won’t stack up so high against his life. Same goes for James.
It’s also a great experience. We’re in our 20s, and leaping into the great unknown will give us lessons that will guide us into our 30s and 40s, no matter what the result is.
And then, there’s the more intangible feeling.
So personally, this is what I sense. My dad carried the family over 15 years ago, all for the chance at a better future abroad. It was a huge risk. I was 11, and my sister was 7 at the time. He had a bit of money saved from his former venture. What came after was 15 years of risk-taking. My parents scoped out businesses they could run. First it was a pizza store, then it was a deli shop, and then it was a bagel shop.
6 years ago, they decided to take an even bigger business risk. They decided to buy this medium sized highway rest-stop complex.
Now, years down, they’re wealthy, enough that both my sister and I have no student debt to speak of (I went through a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees so it was quite pricey). Enough that they can retire now, travel the world, and live in comfort for the rest of their lives.
They still ask me when I’m going to finally quit this startup thing and just go to law school, but they never conclusively discouraged me from it. I understand where they are coming from, as all children may sense from parents who care for the wellbeing of their kids. However, whenever we talk about my startup, there’s a glimmer of excitement in their voices (or I hope that’s what I sense. If not it’s probably just resounding horror on my seemingly dim future).
Maybe it is that they inherently sense the value of risk as they had felt it themselves. Perhaps that is why they support my personal expenses when my freelance income is inadequate. Or maybe that is why they lent me some money to contribute to Tabulit’s expenses, such as in design and development.
In a recent episode of a podcast called ‘Open For Business’ by Gimlet Creative and Ebay, it said that children often absorb a lot of invisible skills from their parents, particularly with their professions. In 15 years of my parents’ risk-taking, perhaps I’ve absorbed that as well.
Last week, I was at their business in a remote town called Cache Creek BC, helping out with the BC Day weekend crunch. When I was still in school, I would come back during the summers and help out with the business. They would have me do all sorts of paperwork, accounting, and managerial duties, as well as the menial jobs, like manning the deep fryer for 6 hours at a time making fries, chicken strips and onion rings, or doing the graveyard shift myself from midnight to 8 am because our regular shift called in sick.
I used to resent them for this, because it was gruelling work, but at some point I noticed that my perspective changed. I learned so much by doing all these tasks, by being the ‘firstborn son’ at a family business run by Korean immigrants. So much that my Dad and I now joke about how I got my business education at the Cache Creek School of Business.
My Dad and I did make a deal on it. I would come for the busy weekends to help them out, while he would support me through my startup days. Though I would’ve done it without the deal.
They took a chance on me, coming to Canada. They moved to Canada to provide my sister and I a chance for a better life.
Now it’s my chance to prove them that they were right. I am going to have the better life, in this land of opportunity, chase after my dreams like I could never have done in Korea.
I guess all three of us feel that way. To prove to our families that we can make this happen, one way or another. To make them see that we can fly beyond the cliff.
To them we say, thank you.
Now, it’s time for us to show them we actually are thankful.
