Stan Baek: “I Will Support Youngs Who Are Eager For Challenges In Their Lives.”

Describe yourself in 50 words or less.

Suppose there is a search engine in my mind. You will get the following top results by searching for my name “Stan Baek”: 30 years old, Pennsylvania State University, Republic of Korea Marine Corps, Konkuk University, Statistics Major, International Trading, worked in Korea and Slovakia, working in US, Self-Motivator.

What are you currently working on?

I started my own project called “Stan meets CEOs and Founders of European Startup companies for valuable motivations”. I visited 8 different countries in Europe and interviewed 9 founders and CEOs of startup companies in 14 days. I would like to find out the similarities and differences among those CEOs and founders and shows them to young generations.

How did you come up with the idea for your interview project?

From my point of view, living a happy life is equal to doing what you want. In order to do what you want, you need to choose or decide the best way among a number of options for your life. It sounds like an obvious sentence. However, there are a number of people especially young generations who do not even realize that they have a number of options for their lives. I would like to motivate them with my stories from this project and show them how other people are working hard for their own happiness.

The reason why I chose CEOs or Founders of Startup companies for interviewees is that they are mostly self-motivated and doing what they love. I would like to motivate people to move forward to their dream.

What led you to this?

One of my plans in the future is to run a business which can support young students who are eager to learn and have passions for their dreams. I found out there are a lot of ways to help and support them and tried to think of some project which can help youngsters with my current situation. I would like to tell and show them that a thousand and a hundred of ways to live a life which are considered as a successful life.

In addition, I would also want to be motivated myself for my dream.

What experience with startups do you personally have?

I was one of the co-founders in KITT which is a smartphone application in Korea. This application provides the connecting service between drivers and customers who are not able to drive their cars due to alcohol drinking. KITT has achieved the second investment from venture capital company in Korea and is moving forward to collect more users in the market. I am not physically involved in this project anymore but still communicating with other the co-founders and members. In addition, I am currently in the beginning stage of a new startup which is related to donations.

What’s driving you?

When I remind the time I went through in the past, it motivates me to keep challenging for the future.

As I am from South Korea, I studied abroad in the United States from 2001 to 2006. In 2006, the time I finished the second year of Pennsylvania State University, I went back South Korea in order to complete my duty for military service. There was the time when I could not continue my education in university after military service in Korea because of financial problems. I was very frustrated and complained the situation I faced in. Every time I saw a university student in the streets, I wanted to go back to school. I never gave up on my education even though I had to work all day in those years. I could finally get transferred and graduated from a Korean University after 2 years of working. I started my career in International trading in Korea and then had a chance to work in Slovakia. I am currently working in US as an international business specialist. I am dreaming that, in the future, I will support and help those youngs who have passions and are eager for challenges in their lives.

Who is your hero and why?

This question is one of the interview questions in my interview project. I finally figured out how difficult to choose one significant person for a role model. However, if I really have to choose one person who has motivated me, then he will be Captain Kim Seung-Jin.

Captain Kim is the world’s sixth person who ever successfully completed a solo, non-stop trip around the globe with his yacht. This 52 year old man sailed 41,900 kilometers around the world, passing by Fiji, Cape Horn in Chile, Cape of Good hope in South Africa and Indonesia’s Sunda Strait. He finished the sailing trip by himself in 209 days. He was an unknown sailor who was previously a broadcast producer of environmental programs. He spent all of his money to buy a yacht and planned this long journey for his own challenge and motivating people for new challenges. I am definitely sure that his story has already influenced people and will motivate people in the future.

What did you expect after the end of this journey & project?
What has changed for you?

My first intention for this project was to find out the similarities and differences among those CEOs and founders and shows my journey to young generations. I already know that it will be very hard for me to conclude my project with one or two results.

I had interviewed founders who made their ideas feasible with their bare hands. Starting a business and having a great business idea are not always related each other. I learned all interviewees had the consistency of speech and action. I have had a number of business ideas. There are some ideas that I significantly went into deep stages and also some ideas which were faded out. It is only a hypothesis until I conduct an experiment and prove my theory with evidences.

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