<What Is Entrepreneurship?>: A Guest Lecture Recap

[IP407 Law for Entrepreneurs], KAIST Fall 2023, Week 3

created: 2023.09.26. 00:11 · modified: 2023.09.30. 12:23 ·  · license

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Two weeks ago, I gave my first-ever lecture—and, as luck would have it, in a class at my alma mater with nearly 90 students. I was barely keeping my wits about me, but Changhyun, who takes the class, filmed it, so I have a record of this precious experience! Thank you so much.

Lately, I’ve been jotting down a line or two in my notes app whenever I have a thought about entrepreneurship. This was a great opportunity, partly by choice and partly by circumstance, to organize those thoughts and share them. I simply used the guest lecture topic listed in the syllabus as my title. It’s an impossibly broad question, but I hope this presentation—an overview of what I’ve experienced and thought about during my year of trying to start a business—offers a good answer.

It’s been ages since I watched a video of myself presenting. Sigh. I should practice now and then, even when I don’t have a presentation coming up. I said “now” 65 times in a talk that was barely 20 minutes long lol. Even for an unscripted, freestyle talk, that was too much. If I ever gave a presidential inaugural address, my vision for South Korea would probably just be “now.”

The beginning of the video is cut off, and the slides aren’t all fully visible, so I suggest listening to the audio and referring to the transcript below for the full content. Transcription software has gotten really good: even though the audio is quiet, it got almost every word right. I think it cut the time it took me to write this post by several times. Clova Note is the best.

This is a lecture you couldn’t hear anywhere else, even if you paid hundreds of millions of won. Obviously—I’m never doing it again.

Keywords

BuyBusAPInetworkingentrepreneurshiptrial and errorbus schedulesKLMSclassKAISTrefundbusiness ideabusinesspaymentcomplaintschatbotclimbinglaunchbookingservicecode

AI Summary

Guest lecture on entrepreneurship (00:00)

• As someone trying to start a business, I sent the professor a long text asking whether I could at least get the course materials.
• The professor unexpectedly called to ask more about the business. Since the class was discussion-based, he suggested I come talk about it, and that’s how the guest lecture was arranged.

KLMS redesign for remote classes (01:24)

• KLMS underwent a major redesign in March 2021.
• The university redesigned it with good intentions, to make remote classes easier for students, but the first version had many inconveniences.
• I made and released a Chrome extension to improve it. The response was better than expected, and its user base grew to around 1,700 people on campus at its peak.
• Developing Nupjuk! was probably the biggest reason I decided to try starting a business.

A service for international tourists (04:16)

• There’s a world of difference between making a free program people appreciate and use, and making something they’re willing to pay for.
• I saw a news report about the difficulties international tourists face in Korea and spotted a business opportunity.
• I thought that if I integrated a payment method international visitors could use, bought tickets on their behalf, and charged a fee, I could turn a profit as soon as I made a sale.

The pitfalls of automation (07:28)

• I wanted to talk about the thoughts—or, to put it generously, the philosophy—I’ve developed through all the trial and error of trying to start a business.
• I wanted to explain why you can’t limit yourself to glamorous businesses, and why automation isn’t always the answer.

The downsides of automation (12:21)

• When the automated process was given a slight delay, people were more likely to use Samjjeomsam than when it finished immediately. It’s an interesting example of how too much automation can backfire.
• I tried to apply this perspective on automation while building BuyBus.
• The phrase “separate consultation” gave me pause. With Google APIs, you can apply and use them right away at a set rate. Here, I expected that after clicking “Apply,” I’d have to describe my intended use and expected usage, wait for someone to review it, and then be told how much to pay.

The fragility of scraping code (14:55)

• I wrote scraping code using a fragile approach that could break as soon as the page structure changed, even slightly.
• I think it helps to gather as much information as you can scrape.
• I realized how important connections are when trying to run a business.

Silicon Valley entrepreneurship course (17:51)

• After taking a Silicon Valley entrepreneurship course and starting a business, I decided to make the most of my connections.
• There are many things to consider when running a business, but I think the most important is whether it’s legal.