Press

Kim Jung-hun, Founder and CEO of Underdogs, a social enterprise that provides free education to entrepreneurs. Without external investment, the company achieved cumulative sales of 70 billion won last year, 10 years after its founding. After changing its corporate name to UD Impact, it is expanding beyond startup education to become a comprehensive ESG solution company. The company is experimenting with sustainable change through implementation by promoting and executing the Act-preneur program across Japan and throughout Asia. "If I just prepare a bit more, then I'll start." This is something many people say—not just those contemplating entrepreneurship, but those facing new choices. Preparation always seems safer than execution, and postponement feels like the most reliable way to avoid failure. However, the longer one stays in that safe zone, the less one's life actually changes. Change always reveals itself only after execution. For Kim Jung-hun, CEO of Underdogs, entrepreneurship was another name for execution. As a 12-year veteran entrepreneur, he describes entrepreneurship as "establishing a new hypothesis, directly implementing it, and proving it." Ideas remain hypotheses unless executed, and only when execution begins do they face the world. Success and failure also emerge from that point onward. As he puts it, once you actually do anything, the surrounding circumstances change remarkably. You become someone who is 'already doing it,' and from that moment, opportunities and choices shift. This is why CEO Kim Jung-hun created the new term 'Act-preneur.' Adding 'act' (meaning execution) to 'entrepreneur,' it refers not simply to someone who starts a business, but to someone who creates change through execution. The concept embodies the belief that ideas without execution cannot change the world, but execution, however small, inevitably leaves change in its wake. Underdogs committed to becoming a role model of an Act-preneur by entering the startup education market without external investment. It has cultivated people unafraid of execution and jointly designed processes for them to create change throughout society. As a result, Underdogs, founded in 2015, has grown into a company that has worked with approximately 20,000 entrepreneurs over 10 years, achieving cumulative sales of 70 billion won. Underdogs' education always centers on execution. The process involves defining problems, setting small hypotheses and executing quickly, and refining and re-executing upon failure. The core is that entrepreneurs become increasingly resilient through this repetition. In entrepreneurship, 'preparation' is ultimately a mindset issue. Am I prepared to see this through to the end? Am I ready to accept the outcome, whether success or failure? Preparations like whether the business idea is perfect, whether you've gathered smart people, or whether you've secured sufficient funding are only partial. Because entrepreneurship is not something you can try once and then judge. You mentioned 'execution' as the most important quality of an entrepreneur. When did you first experience the power of execution? When I was an office worker, I used to think about entrepreneurship in terms of ideas. 'What about this kind of business idea?' 'Could that kind of business work?' I had plenty of imagination, but it always ended there. There were limitations to being an office worker, and it wasn't easy to leave a company I'd worked hard to enter and try something myself. But on the other hand, I realized that if I didn't try it myself, there was no way to confirm whether this idea could work. So I decided to try it directly. How was it when you actually executed? Anyway, once I executed, I got results. Some things worked well, and some didn't. What mattered was that I 'saw' the results. That was incredibly satisfying. I confirmed how an idea that existed only in my head would be received in reality. The difficult part is executing anything for the first time, but once you get past that first time, the second becomes much easier. From two to ten times becomes even easier. That's probably why Underdogs' startup education particularly emphasizes 'first execution.' After more than 10 years of startup education, I've realized that many people always find the first step the hardest. Regardless of entrepreneurship outcomes, people who have directly executed even once develop the strength to see results through in their subsequent lives. Whether they go on to get jobs or start again later, it doesn't matter. Execution experience creates momentum for another execution. When I was an office worker, whenever I faced a new problem, I always tried to stay within methods I'd already used and familiar solutions. Methods I'd never tried felt burdensome and difficult. But as I repeated execution, now it's not difficult to try this way and that way. The process itself of finding solutions suited to problems has become much more flexible. I think experiencing the process of execution is more important than its results. People who have executed view problems differently. Their attitude toward the world changes too. Before execution, many people say, "If I just prepare a bit more, then I'll start." They take an ambiguous position at the boundary between 'preparation' and 'procrastination.' In entrepreneurship, 'preparation' is ultimately a mindset issue. Am I prepared to see this through to the end? Am I ready to accept the outcome, whether success or failure? Preparations like whether the business idea is perfect, whether you've gathered smart people, or whether you've secured sufficient funding are only partial. In reality, many people say "I prepared a lot" and start their business, but when results don't come quickly after trying for a while, they think "I guess I'm not cut out for this" and give up. But entrepreneurship is not something you can try once and judge. Should we say they weren't prepared to see results through? Particularly among middle-aged and older entrepreneurs, many prepare extensively, saying "I'm an expert in this field" or "I've already analyzed companies and looked at the market." But when facing actual execution, their minds fill with the scenario "What if I fail?" As these accumulate, there become hundreds of reasons blocking execution. There probably isn't a single entrepreneur who considers every possibility before executing. They execute because they're prepared to throw themselves into uncertain situations. I believe that 'readiness to throw oneself in' is what real preparation means. Elements like the business idea, team members, and funding are all part of the execution phase.