CUK Alumna Park Sae-yeon operated a social venture called Halmichan with the business item of selling side dishes made by elderlies living alone, receiving support from leading domestic companies and institutions. Let's meet Park Sae-yeon, who left behind the valuable experiences and lessons learned through the startup and has found a new path of working for a leading domestic company.

A warm, passionate entrepreneur

When I was a student, I was very interested in social ventures. A social venture is a social enterprise established by individuals or small companies based on creativity and a can-do spirit to solve social problems. I wondered how my work could create a better society. And I came to plan Halmichan. There are a lot of elderly women who live alone. And they are great at cooking. Halmichan's key business item was to connect the side dishes made by elderly women with the “idle space” in the local area to create a revenue-generating infrastructure. This business item was realized as it made it to the finals in the corporate support program called ""2019 Samsung Tomorrow Solution."" At the time, only 20 out of 1,356 ideas made it to the finals. So it was a record-breaking competition rate of 68 to 1.

Valuable experiences from the business startup and new challenges

From ""Samsung Tomorrow Solution,"" I won the Excellence Award in the idea category. And I received a business support fund of 13 million won, including the prize of 3 million won. At the 1-year follow-up evaluation of the award-winning teams, I won the grand prize in the IMPACT category. The big prize money seemed overwhelming, but as soon I started the business, I realized that creating a space for cooking costs a lot. Ever since then, I've lived with worries and anxieties. From then on, I applied to many support programs, received funds and positive responses, and led the business, which was rewarding. However, I barely slept enough during that time. It was hectic, and I was surrounded by things I had to take care of. Nevertheless, looking back now, it was a very valuable experience. Having to run the business with a small number of people, I had no choice but to handle all areas of work, which means I tried and learned various work skills from A to Z. To run Halmichan, it was essential to interact with the elderly women. So building rapport (finding common ground, building a bond and trust) with them was a big lesson learned in life. When I heard them saying that coming to the store is a great joy as they cooked side dishes in the store I made, I was moved and felt proud. As the B2B (business to business) part of the business grew, the revenue grew as well. However, Halmichan was a business project that was to be operated until October 2020. Luckily, it was operated until the end of the year with the help of Jongno-gu’s business support program. As of December 31, 2020, the Halmichan project ended, and the team members went their own ways.

 Currently, I am working at Idus, a large company with an organized system, trying a new area of work called management support. I was attracted to the well-developed corporate culture in which everyone strives for a common goal. Above all, I was drawn to the fact that the company had the attributes of a social venture as it extended favor to creators.

To those planning to start a business

I would like to say, “Don't stop in the planning stage. Go further.” Even though starting a business is like walking down a thorny way, giving it a go is a totally different story. To everyone who is planning to start a business, I'd like to say what I want to say to me in the past when I was doing the same: Things will be tough, but everything will be okay. Cheer up!