Founder and former CEO of Red Mango Daniel J. Kim spoke to students Thursday night at the Kaufman Management Education Center about entrepreneurship and how he got involved in the frozen yogurt business.
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Kim, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business, initially intended to specialize in investment banking, but after dedicating endless hours to working in the financial sector, he knew his true passion lay elsewhere.
"There comes a point in your college career where you have to go with what you think is the best option you have in terms of career, salary or job," Kim said. "For me, that was investment banking."
He added, "I hated my job not because of the hours, but because why I worked didn't make sense. The rewards weren't in my direction."
Kim decided to quit the banking field after just two years, and prior to founding Red Mango, he worked for several startup companies, including Stamps.com, a company that dealt with Internet postage, which he helped take public. Then in 2002, seeing a market opportunity for a healthy frozen treat, Kim said he decided to open Red Mango.
"For me, it's about being able to express creativity, my interest in business and my interest in economics in a way that I think will make me happy in the longer term," he said. "That's how I got into Red Mango."
Kim then offered a few words of advice to students aspiring to start their own businesses.
"In order to be successful in what you do, you truly have to believe in what you're doing because if you don't, you're going to get burned out," he said. "You have to be able to stand the drain — the emotional drain, the physical drain [jobs] have on you."
He also stressed the importance of establishing your goals early on.
"What is it that you want?" he asked. "If you're going to look into money, fame or whatever, it will be really hard to hold on to that when your ride to becoming successful becomes tough. You have to be able to answer the question of what will make you happy when you become successful."
Stern freshman Jinna Wang said the event allowed her to "add a face to the [Red Mango] brand."
"I thought [Kim's talk] was a speech from the heart," Wang said. "He didn't only talk about the good sides but the bad, too. We saw both sides of business."
Min Kim, a graphic designer, said her interest in attending the event stemmed from her desire to some day start her own company.
"I was impressed [and] really connected to what he said," she said. "I'm kind of afraid to start a company, but I saw and realized that if you have passion [and] values, you can be successful.
