Kevin Kim dropped out of college at the age of 21 to pursue his dream of becoming an entrepreneur.
“My mother cried a little,” Kim, now 33, laughed.
His confidence, however, was not unfound. Kim had just sold his 1st company, which he founded at the age of 18, for “six figures.”
That was no small feat, give that his initial investment was only $2,000, which Kim said he save by working part-time jobs.
According to news Make It, his e-commerce company imported streetwear from South Korea and sold it throughout North America.
“It was easy to decide after I sold my first company,” said Kim, who move to Canada from South Korea when he was 11 years old.
“There was no vision or coordination… I was a civil engineering student who want to create services and products for a variety of audiences.”
Kim then spent nearly ten years developing digital products for other startups and companies before launching Stadium Live, a metaverse app for sports fans, on his own in 2020.
Users can use the app to create their own avatars, purchase digital collectibles, socialise with other fans in virtual rooms, participate in interactive sports livestreams, also play mini games.
It is common for entrepreneurs to attribute their startup’s success to finding a good product-market fit.
But, for Kim, “founder-market fit” is better more important. It indicates that the founder is extremely enthusiastic about what he is creating.
“Achieving product-market fit is extremely difficult and takes years. Do you enjoy what you’re doing? Do I enjoy working in this industry? Can I see myself constructing around this for the next ten years?
“Kim said he always knew he wanted to build products around the four areas that speak to him — sports, gaming, music, and fashion.
“I know founders who, for example, [launched] an SAS startup with accounting but were not even interested in accounting,” Kim explained.