# "Rising to the Top" podcast interview with Soo Jin Kim - from the Career Design Lab at Columbia ... **Channel:** Columbia SPS **Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc3KYijf1NQ **Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/tc3KYijf1NQ ## Chapters - 0:02 — Sujin Kim's Career Reinvention Story - 4:19 — Finding Purpose Through Creating - 14:16 — Building an Event Business From Scratch - 22:30 — Entrepreneurship, Content, and Growth ## Transcript **[0:02] Speaker A:** Welcome to Rising to the Lessons in Leadership brought to you by Columbia University. This is a podcast where we interview senior industry leaders who share the secrets of their success and reveal pivotal moments that impacted their career path. Come listen as they shed light on obstacles they overcame as well as wins they achieved. Soojin Kim worked at a Wall street firm during 9 11. She worked at a credit card company during the credit crisis. **[0:29] Speaker A:** She was making a living from large indoor gatherings when the COVID 19 pandemic hit her career. Zigzags have taught her that there's only one skill critical to rising to the top. Knowing how to continuously reinvent yourself to evolve. **[0:44] Speaker B:** I realized people say go get your MBA because you know, you end up creating network, network. You know what you do, you end up creating advocates. And at the end of the day, these were my advocates when I launched my own business. They were my first customers and they told me how to do it better and they kept cheering for me. And they weren't just my customers the first time. They kept coming and kept giving me chances. And I mean that. **[1:08] Speaker B:** It's amazing. **[1:09] Speaker A:** Today's guest is Sujin Kim. Sujin, thank you so much for being with us today. **[1:14] Speaker B:** Hello. **[1:15] Speaker A:** She is an alum from the Columbia Business School. **[1:18] Speaker A:** We're going to tap into some of her experience as a student and where she's gone since then. So Sujin, you have an economics degree from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Columbia University. And you started your career in investment banking. Now you're making viral content and work as an entrepreneur. How do you, how do you end up here? **[1:46] Speaker B:** How did business school MBA become a TikToker? That's. That's the question not many people ask. You know, life happened. I think I learned to design my careers to fit my life basically. **[2:02] Speaker B:** And I mean, I have several examples. I don't know if you want me to give them but you know, everything. So I. In my bio, when you asked me to write my bio, it's like I worked in investment bank when. Sorry, I was working in Wall street when 911 happened. **[2:18] Speaker B:** I was working at a credit card company during the credit crisis and I was profiting from large indoor gathering. That sounds more sinister but than what I intended. But I was event planner, an event planning company when COVID 19 struck. So we could do everything and plan everything perfectly. But life is going to happen, you know, in conjunction to that, in conjunction to life happening. You happen and we grow. We evolve as different people. And when you sort of accept who you are becoming and what life is happening around you. I think you end up trying to design the career that fits at that moment. So that's, that's essentially the Tick Tocker part came because during the pandemic I got my feet surgery that I've always needed. **[3:15] Speaker B:** Couldn't walk. I was like, let me go learn something since I'm sitting on a sofa all day long. Thought I download a class on Instagram because I was like, I don't know anything about the social media thing. And when looking for an Instagram class was like 129 on udemy.com and then on the side on, you know, the suggested classes it said 9.99 tick tock. Tick tock was new still 2020. **[3:39] Speaker B:** And I was like, oh, I can't go wrong with 9.99,129, right. You don't even know how good this instructor is and whatever. So I 9.99 best class. One of the best online classes I've ever had. This Danish guy was just giving instructions on how to make TikTok how to succeed on the platform as a short form video creator, which I didn't know existed and I just thought it was such a clever platform. **[4:05] Speaker B:** So. And it just took off from there. But all the skills I had gained in investment banking and working as a marketer and a credit card company, as an event planner, it's all played into content creation. **[4:19] Speaker B:** And now I'm sort of trying to bundle everything I got and take it to the next one too. **[4:24] Speaker A:** And what is it about creating those videos? **[4:26] Speaker A:** It's just the, the ability to, to come up with an idea and see it like to its fruition. Is that what excites you about creating content? **[4:35] Speaker B:** So that's a great question because when I told the life coach, I can do anything, I just want to sell something, I think what I meant was I just want to create and I think that's what drove me to start my own business before too and be when I was in corporate America. By the way, if you're being corporate America is great because you learn a lot of skills that apply to everything you do by the way. So don't feel like being corporate, you're wasting your time. **[5:09] Speaker B:** But I wanted to really start my own business. I wanted to create and now with short form videos you feel there is no limit to what you can create. Having said that, you can also put yourself in prison with as a social media content creator because you get hooked onto views, onto engagement percentage, onto, you know, what your, the brand wants you to make as a Sponsorship. So you're constantly on this, like, hedonistic treadmill, right? You're seeking, why didn't you like the next. **[5:48] Speaker B:** When a content goes viral, like, it's addictive. So I then have decided I want to take it to another level because I do enjoy skit creation. And even within the content creation, I went from stage one, imitating somebody that was going viral, to stage two, doing something of my own stories, and then to stage three, creating skits. And now I want to take that skit creation to a next level of filmmaking. And now I'm realizing something that I don't think I could do in social media. **[6:27] Speaker B:** And it's. I just listened to a Judd Apatow masterclass, and he calls it excavating neuroses. **[6:35] Speaker B:** You excavate your own neurosis because to be able to tell a story, it's going to be something from your own life, but to be able to be funny or impactful, you need to go just be very honest with your own thoughts and emotions. So it's interesting. It is. I feel like I've unlocked the whole limitless universe, and it's very freeing. So that's my very long winded answer of why I have. **[7:10] Speaker B:** Not just why I was drawn to creating, but also why I want to stay in creating. **[7:15] Speaker A:** Is it what you're saying? Like, you have a new idea or something that you want to pursue, and then you. And then you try and figure out, which of these skills do I already have in my toolkit and what else do I need? And then you figure out how to receive that type of training. **[7:29] Speaker A:** Is that. Is that how your process works? **[7:32] Speaker B:** To simplify? Yes. But there is a one component, I think, and I'm sorry if you mentioned it, but I didn't hear it loudly, was what do you want to do? **[7:45] Speaker B:** That's something I had to learn to admit to myself from that life coach. He kept asking me, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? What do you want to do? He kept saying that. **[7:56] Speaker B:** And I really did want to learn about social media. It fascinated me as a. As a viewer, but I didn't like. I think I don't like being intimidated by it. And I didn't understand how it worked. **[8:13] Speaker B:** So, ergo, curiosity, 9.99 is not gonna hurt the bank so much. Right? But on a. On a grander scale, the business school. So I went to the business school, and I knew I really want to start something. **[8:33] Speaker B:** And what I really wanted to, and I didn't really know what that was I kind of knew I wanted to start a yoga studio back then. And I remember telling all my classmates I was like during orientation week I was like I wanted a yoga studio. And that's because I used to love yoga. And I went to a studio which I could see so much improvement being done and drove me nuts that the improvements weren't being done. And But I also knew I'm gonna go to this, I'm gonna go to school and I'm sure it will help me figure out what to do with this urge. Like I called it. Like, you know, people have a biological clock that ticks and you really want to have a baby, start a family. I never had that that clock tick. But I can that to my desperate desire to want to start a business to to to create something right. **[9:24] Speaker B:** And so and I and business school really helped me figure that I can't even Columbia Business School I owe so much to it. Like I can. We can spend like hours talking about how I cultivated the resources that I had at the school to help me get from one and I wasn't shy about it. So first like I think just don't be shy about it. Shy about what you want to learn and what you want to do. I went to professors and I took a class which is relatively rare in back in 202009 and 2010 which is as hard to start your own business. **[10:03] Speaker B:** We're talking about the time when Yelp was like the unicorn that everyone talks about. This is like way back. Open table was a phenomenon. Right. Like we're going way back. **[10:13] Speaker B:** And I had these great professors. I was very honest about that that I really wanted to do something. I bounced ideas off the amount of times they told me don't quit my day job. I was. I really asked them for their personal office hours. I went and talked to them after class. **[10:30] Speaker B:** You know, corporate being corporate experience in corporate teaches you how to do it respectfully by the way and professionally. You know people appreciate it and I'm sure professors do appreciate it if you approach them with the angle of I I don't want to be overbearing of your time but please help me and I prepared for my meetings and one on ones with the with the professors back then I didn't really I don't think like you guys run a career design lab. I wish I known of something like that before because I would have been in your doorsteps. It's amazing what what school could do for you. And I've taken so based on and plus Columbia Business School is just continue to give me opportunities. And not just the business school, the university as a whole has allowed me to speak about my business, my experience, give me chances as an event planner. **[11:33] Speaker B:** It's just been phenomenal. And if you're a Columbia graduate or Columbia student right now and you're not knocking on the doors of people who could help you, even if you think you're bothering them, then you are really not going to get your roi. Like getting in the door is step one. Knock on those doors too. There's several doors to knock on. Ask for help and you will be surprised how many people really want to help you. So that I've taken the ethos and I took an extension class at Harvard about filmmaking. The best instructor professor I could have ever hoped coming across, she's so open to one on one and support and help and so open to different ideas. I just kept knocking. Now I'm at UCLA taking screenwriting classes, still trying to find my way around the professors and the classmate ambiance. But I'm going to knock on people's door. **[12:25] Speaker B:** I'm going to just be like, hey, I want to write these scripts. Can you help me? Even if it's dumb, Just tell me if you think it's dumb, but you gotta tell me why and how to fix it. **[12:35] Speaker B:** Sorry, that's, that's my long window saying. Like, if you're in school, knock on the doors. If you're not in school, just take a class with School of Professional studies, extension classes, executive education. Like you literally can just take one class now at the fraction of the cost. So if I die tomorrow, am I going to regret that I didn't do it? And I think a lot of is shaped by. My mom passed away when I was 10 years old and I've always thought this has been a huge driver of my life. I'm like, she died so young and without having tried a lot of the things that I know she wanted to try. And that's actually been my fomo. My FOMO does drive me to get to the next level. **[13:18] Speaker B:** And so you have to sort of admit to yourself, is this a priority? Just ask the question, am I gonna, in my deathbed, am I gonna really regret I didn't do it? I actually do ask myself that all the time. If I don't learn to write a screen screen screenplay. See, I don't even know what the correct term is. **[13:37] Speaker B:** I would regret it. I knew if I, I knew for a fact. I remember when I was working at Amex, this one girl said hey, no one ever said in their deathbed, I wish I had worked harder. It was referencing how her husband was taking a day off from work and how he should take a day off from work to rest up because he was sick. And I remember thinking when she said that in my head I was like I'm actually going to regret it that I didn't get to start my own business. **[14:06] Speaker B:** I remember it was like a Friday afternoon at 2pm and ever since then I've started asking myself am I going to regret if I hadn't done this? **[14:16] Speaker A:** Sujin, can you, can you talk about, you mentioned starting your own business and so can we talk about that a little bit? And is that the business that, is that business still up and running and what is it? **[14:28] Speaker B:** It is on a very boutique level and I am realistic with the fact that in order for me to make a living as a creative it's going to take another five years. That's something I'm coming to terms with. **[14:45] Speaker B:** So I still have to monetize from the business which I have significantly scaled down. I used to do 150 to 200 events. Now I maybe do 10. But in order to sustain that sort of lifestyle we have downgraded our living and moved to Florida and so I'm not but I go to New York, you know one week a month so and it's worked out. **[15:11] Speaker A:** Can you talk about the, the business? So is it event planning? **[15:14] Speaker B:** It's called include. It's a play on the name clued in I N C L U ed and we were an open table for corporate events. We source venues and menus for free and menus is catering. And I came up with this idea because when I was so desperate to start a business and I want, I knew I wanted something around restaurants. Who doesn't have a romantic idea of starting a bar, starting a restaurant? Right. And hospitality has a low barrier to entry because it's something every one of us have tried. We've all gone out to eat and so I told my business school friends, I emailed them and I said and I was like I want to do something around restaurants. Restaurants take me seriously. If I'm going to bring them business is there a business I can bring to them? Right? And so one of my classmates, her name is Carla Jung, she and her twin sister all is a business school advocates and graduates. **[16:11] Speaker B:** She said listen I, you know I need an event space for 100 of my salespeople. She's in pharmaceutical sales and farmers, pharmaceutical sales reps. They need to Keep to a budget due to some federal regulation and per person, all inclusive. And you know that she was like, the style of the dinner is networking. This is the location we're staying, blah, blah, blah. So can you go help me find a space? Then you can use my event to. To negotiate and to see what kind of business you can work with. So I start trying to help her find a space. And Paul, I don't. Have you ever tried to find like an event space for. **[16:46] Speaker A:** For anything. **[16:48] Speaker B:** And how is it? **[16:50] Speaker A:** It's terrible. **[16:51] Speaker B:** Yeah. I mean, how do you go about doing it? You just Google or. **[16:57] Speaker A:** Yeah. Maybe you can get a referral. If you know someone who's had a. An event that you enjoyed, maybe you get a referral or you know someone who had a special occasion. **[17:06] Speaker B:** And what's **[17:07] Speaker A:** the probably. It would probably be Googling or. Yeah, **[17:10] Speaker B:** Googling. And what's the most terrible part? **[17:13] Speaker B:** Like **[17:15] Speaker A:** probably having to go and like actually see the different locations, talk to them, see if they can do and negotiate what you want them to be able to provide. **[17:24] Speaker B:** Right. Even if it's with the venues that can fit your budget and can fit your size and fits the location, you still have to go see them. It's still a lot of freaking work that you have to do. **[17:35] Speaker B:** And that's just to the point of contract. Then you got to do the whole event thing. Right. So it's. I realized there is a place for this in the marketplace. **[17:48] Speaker B:** There's a demand for such services in the marketplace. But the added bonus to it was that it would be free for users like yourself. I'm charging the restaurant. The restaurant will pay me commission. Luckily, this was a business model that already existed in New York City. **[18:07] Speaker B:** It's now hard to break into that because venues don't like to work with event. Well, I don't work as a. Is a strong word. Especially since the pandemic. There's only so many large venues available too. **[18:20] Speaker B:** And you know, they don't feel like they need to pay event planners. So. But in back in the day, it was still. They appreciate event planners bringing the business to the venue. So the venues will work, pay the event planners a commission. **[18:34] Speaker B:** So I thought, that's great. So. And I remember, I remember figuring, realizing there's a business model to this. Went to a venue for my friend who had asked a question and I remember charging, quoting my fee to the restaurant. I just blurted it out and the restaurant was like, okay. **[18:50] Speaker B:** And I remember thinking, oh, crap, that was too low, wasn't it? I could go up higher and so it was interesting that I had to go see the venue because like a coat check lines created by a small elevator like there were so many things and I. I'm the kind of person my friends never wanted to depend on me for an event like I would be. They'll hire me as an usher for their wedding and I forget to go to the wedding. That's kind of person I was. I'm a terrible event planner till this day. I am so in that whole process thanks to my friend I got to go through it and I realized I'm just going to put up a website that shows all the private event spaces in New York City and people are just booked in my website. I'm just going to get cut. **[19:36] Speaker B:** The commission is going to be the easiest thing ever. I legit thought I'm just going to have to put up photos of it. Now I'm making it sound easier than it is because I did decide to learn how to code pro. **[19:48] Speaker B:** Learn learn programming. And this was before it was offered in the business school. So I had to learn them on my own reading php. SQL books. PHP is not even used as a language anywhere. It's like anybody can build a website now, but back then you did have to code and come up with a website. Launch the beta. And I'm working at American Express this whole time. So I would come and I think I was actually going to business school too. Basically I work from. **[20:15] Speaker B:** I learned to program from 9pm to midnight every night. I learned that I really like to drink Prosecco and eat fun yums while doing it. That was one thing I remember. I don't know why. **[20:28] Speaker B:** And I had a very demanding job at Amex and launched the beta. By the time I launched the beta, I did resign from Amex and it just took off from there with the advocates I have from American Express. People want to use my service, but it's easier than I sound like I started. I tried it and I realized putting up a website is not enough because people have to go see the venue. People need consultation. They're not just gonna press $6,000 and pay for it on a website. They need consultation. They want to speak to someone at the other end. So I realized it's high touch. Yeah. **[21:05] Speaker B:** And then I realized also there's cancellations during lunch because people can't make time to go to the venue to have lunch in the middle of the day. So in order to help the customer avoid just a cancellation fee, I said, well, would you rather have the restaurant just bring the food to you. And this is for like 10, 15 people event. They're like yeah sure. So they can at least enjoy it in the office. **[21:26] Speaker B:** And then that sort of began my catering. So I had three services. I had sourcing venues, sourcing caterers and then full on event planning which came about five years in. People really liked the venues. I proposed the caterers we proposed. **[21:43] Speaker B:** And then they're like can you just take care of the whole thing? Is the event planning fee. That's the three different ways I make money. And again I'm making some much simpler than it was hiring. There's hiring employees. **[21:55] Speaker B:** The catering portion. I learned so much because I ended up executing the catering on my own. We sourced the food from anywhere in Manhattan and then I hired bartenders and servers. We got food handlers license, we got liquor permits at the venues, we got all the insurance the venues asked for and we went in and executed the event. And that was probably the most popular product we offered until the other two parts of the business could scale up and I could sort of take a step back from catering. **[22:30] Speaker A:** So you, you went to business school, you started your own business. What was it about? Is there something in particular about entrepreneurship that that gets you going that, that you're passionate about? **[22:44] Speaker B:** It really is everything that you don't like about being in corporate that you don't have to do entrepreneurship. But here's the real dirty is that you have to do it even more. So people and I just said you don't have to do it. You have to do even more. Kind of contradictory, but here's an example. **[23:05] Speaker B:** You don't have a boss, but everyone is your boss in running your own company. Your customers, your boss, your employees, your boss. Like everything, your vendor is your boss. And it's very different kissing ass in corporate world. I was not good at it. **[23:25] Speaker B:** I had to respect my boss. I had to really like them. I was born with an rbf. In a meeting that could have been an email I had trouble showing like what the hell are we talking about? Are we really here talking about something that is yielding nothing? **[23:42] Speaker B:** But when you run your own business and the salaries of your employees depend on your face, you step up and you really do have to be the best version of yourself when you run your own company. And there's something. **[24:02] Speaker B:** And. And on top of that I realized I Learned this like 6 years in 7 years in that it is my choice to wake up every day and do this work as opposed to in corporate. I have to get into work because my boss watches if I get into work by 9. So where when your business you get to decide what time you wake up, whether or not you want to do what the customer asks you or not. And there's something very empowering and very freeing to know that it's your choice to do this and in that and there's tremendous personal growth in that. You really do have to be the best version of yourself. There's also the dark side is that there's burnout as a result of having to always be on. And one of the skills I never learned to do and master is delegate. **[25:01] Speaker B:** So I wish I and if I were to do it all over again, would I do it better? I don't think so. I just don't think I'm good at delegating and letting go of control. So but for those who can delegate quickly and be comfortable with these failures that are inevitably going to come because you're not overseeing quality every minute in the beginning they, they, they're the ones who go and get series around, around series B funding, you know, become pre ipo. I am not that is is what I've learned and that's okay. And I've learned from because you know back in the day when you go to business school, everyone's like oh, you know, you have to learn to scale, you have to learn valuations, you have to learn all this and it's everything's to be that unicorn. Everything. **[25:58] Speaker B:** Then one day I sat down with a business school friend who inherited a light bulb business by his father who passed away unexpectedly. He was working in McKinsey or whatever, one of those consulting firms ended up taking a light bulb company multi million dollar business. And he makes it sound like it's not, but I know it's a lot of work and he's been very successful. But he goes it's okay to just do your own thing. Don't feel like you have to fit into that mold of being a unicorn and someone else telling you you should run a certain way, you know how to run this and run this successfully. Just focus on that. And I remember he told me that over a drink and I felt so free and coupled with that and a lot of other like self reflection that's when my business really took off. **[26:40] Speaker B:** That really was, was when I let go of oh, it has to be this way, it has to be this way. I'm behind, I'm behind. **[26:48] Speaker B:** And when you let go, you realize there's a lot of opportunities that I have been ignoring because I have only been looking at the Ones that are not happening. And so yes there is a ton of self growth and you learn to keep having that self growth. And I don't, I really, really think the, one of the most effective way to do it is when you do your own thing. Whether there's entrepreneurship, whether that's, you know, as a screenwriter, actor, chef, you know, a freelancer. If you call yourself a freelancer, to me that's an entrepreneur. **[27:29] Speaker A:** When you're creating these TikToks, what are your goals? Do you set a goal before you? And not necessarily like I want to have this many likes or this many views, maybe that's one of the things that you do. But like from, from start to finish, when you're thinking of like okay, this is going to be my next TikTok, do you set like parameters for yourself that you hope to hit? **[27:49] Speaker B:** Parameters change very often, too often confuses the algorithm. I believe the, the likes and engagement is a wish, not a goal. You will drive yourself crazy. It's a, if it's a goal because the platform algorithm changes without telling you and it's it you don't it becomes you can get into that prison of that he don't miss the treadmill like so you have to sort of discipline yourself and not care about the views. The the goal I have is, and I tell this to every client is a wrong word but like every corporation who wants me to help them bring upskill or upskill their social media is, it comes down to volume. It's very much similar to if you ask any like comedians or writers, they discipline themselves to write one hour a day. You have to discipline yourself to make content put out content x number of days otherwise the platform does drop you. **[28:53] Speaker B:** And I'm learning the power of having your own distribution channel. It's not something to ignore. So right now it's hard for me to put out the content volume. So for instance in TikTok if you want to grow steadily, you do have to put out I guess three videos a day. **[29:17] Speaker B:** It helps. That's a lot of work and I did that for two years and then I got burnt out and now I only do one content a week and I try to make sure it's quality content. So that's number one goal is, is volume and quantity and number two is, you know, I hope it gives somebody relief if whenever somebody says it made them laugh. I love it that that's all I, that's all I'll try to do. And I'm sure there's another goal. I just have to. I mean hopefully I'll get to a point where I'm like I'm making X dollars of money. I just can't get there yet. Maybe five years I will **[29:57] Speaker A:** like the focus right now isn't on, on trying to figure out how to make money with the content that you're creating, but just to con to continue to make it so that you can continue to, to build your brand, so to speak. Or so that people know that, that you're out there. **[30:10] Speaker B:** Luck favors to prepared. That's something my, my partner, he, he's told me that and it really stuck with me. So you know when I'm learning to negotiate brand sponsorship deals or like just producing content. But you know what virality, I mean there's thrill of when something goes viral too. **[30:33] Speaker B:** Yeah. It's fun. I'm not gonna downplay it. It's cool. Does it bring money? **[30:38] Speaker B:** No. Am I still poor? Yes. But you know, for that five minutes of fame is fantastic. Yeah. **[30:47] Speaker A:** Thank you for listening to Rising to the Top Lessons in Leadership. For more episodes, subscribe on Spotify, SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts. To get more information and tips on how you can advance your career, visit Columbia University's Career Design Lab at Career Design Lab sps. **[31:07] Speaker A:** Thank you to Peter Shea for sound editing this episode.