Style Nanda: The Flippening of Korean Entrepreneurship

• Source

No Country for Old Men

---

Despite Korea’s astounding economic growth, startup entrepreneurship is still surprisingly marginal in the country. New ‘companies’ are largely subsidiaries of major corporations from the get-go and there is little infrastructure to support bootstrapped-types of growth. Unfortunately, the stigma is that only wealthy people can venture into starting new businesses, and even then, the vast majority of fairly wealthy youth opt to join established companies. There have been no iconic examples of young people starting from nothing and making it big. As such, it isn’t really even on the radar of most people, even in spirit, as they plan out their professional careers.

• Monopolies galore. Source

Until now.

Korea is currently shell-shocked by the acquisition of online shopping company Style Nanda by international brand L’Oreal for a whopping 3-4million dollars. Begun in 2004 by So Hee Kim, Style Nanda started out as a 1-woman show of reselling market fashion from Dongdaemun, Seoul’s fashion district. Kim, a blasphemous 2-year college grad, gave up on any professional prospects and instead went into 1-on-1 acquisition and sales. Over the course of almost 14 years, that strategy has scaled into a dominating force in the young fashion market of the area, spanning several countries and bringing in millions.

• Source

For L’Oreal, it’s a big move to penetrate the East Asian markets rather than establishing their own network with just their own brand. Nanda has already proven to be massively successful in the area, netting $127 million in 2017 alone and L’Oreal’s full backing is likely to put jetfuel in the chassis.

Greener Pastures

---

Everything about this company’s story goes against the sensibilities of success in the country. “Success” is getting access into the IVY League. Success is leveraging that educational standing to gain access into multi-billion dollar conglomerates. Success is a fat pay check with no dirty hands.

Style Nanda is not and did not stem from any of those things. This literal rags-to-riches story is a humbling one.

• Style Nanda Founder So-Hee Kim Source

So-Hee Kim isn’t ‘well educated’. She isn’t from the upper class. In fact, her mother worked as a single vendor in a ‘street’ market. Even many years into the business, no one would assume that Kim is in any way a prospective entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is still surprisingly low key and definitely not heavily represented by women. This headline has Korea all shook up and is a shining beacon for young dreamers stuck in such a social hierarchy.