hi, i'm sam.
- Hobby Company
- Mar 7
- 4 min read
1995 - 2016: the early days & first failures
born in korea, moved to new zealand when i was five.
like most immigrant kids, life was about adapting.
fitting in.
figuring things out.
but i was always a little different.
at ten, while other kids were drawing sunflowers and unicorns. i handed in a ghost with the word "kill" written on it.
foreshadowing?
maybe.
fast forward to high school.
bang on average student.
no signs of being a future entrepreneur.
after graduating, i applied to the university of auckland for an architecture degree.
rejected.
worked my ass off.
reapplied.
got in the second year.
architecture wasn’t easy.
honestly, i was still just an average student.
then came 4th year.
the year i crashed into a maserati.
no license.
no insurance.
the owner, some guy named thor from china, gave me two choices.
pay $10k or go to court.
so i did what any broke student would do.
worked at a bp gas station as a barista.
also as a petrol guy.
but minimum wage wasn’t cutting it.
i needed a way out.
2017 - 2018: first real success - 21 y.o
that’s when i discovered drop shipping.
built my first website on shopify.
failed.
built my second website.
failed.
built my third one.
this time, selling something that actually solved a problem for architecture students.
success.
within two weeks, i paid off the $10k debt.
fck u, thor.
but that was just the beginning.
one conversation with my mum changed everything.
she told me how hard it was to send and receive gifts between korea and new zealand.
so i decided to fix it.
i came up with gifticon.
an app for sending and redeeming gift coupons globally.
designed the wireframes myself using photoshop.
built a scrappy mvp.
just a barcode with an image of the gift as a pdf.
then i went on a mission to find an investor.
saw a guy in a newspaper.
emailed him.
dm'd him on instagram.
facebook.
linkedin.
even reached out to companies he invested in.
next day, got a response.
set up a meeting.
meeting flopped.
but i asked for his whatsapp.
then, every week, i updated him on my progress.
three to four months later, he gave in.
$300k pre-seed.
$700k follow-up seed. got a acquisition offer from a chinese fintech company.
investor refused.
didn't go through.
2019 - 2021: juggling two startups - 23 y.o
around this time, i got an idea for a dog food startup.
because, why not?
sent my mum to korea for three months to become a certified pet food chef.
when she returned, she was the only certified pet food chef in new zealand.
we started experimenting with making birthday cakes and sushi for dogs.
attended a pet expo to test the idea.
sold out within hours.
pet owners went nuts.
secured $300k pre-seed.
then another $800k follow-up.
scaled the business.
got featured on newspapers and news channels across new zealand.
meanwhile, i was juggling two capital-backed startups.
managing 19 employees.
things were going great.
until they weren’t.
2021 - 2022: the crash - 25 y.o
by december, i had a disagreement with one of my investors.
he decided to wind up both companies.
five years of work.
43830 hours.
gone in 48 hours.
all 19 employees laid off.
2023: the korean bar disaster - 27 y.o
after losing everything, i needed something new.
so i opened a korean bar called hive with two friends.
it wasn't an ordinary bar.
i was aiming for something different.
using my skills i learnt in architecture degree, to create a media projection bar.
using two projectors and tech to design the interior of the place.
trying to reduce the interior cost and keeping the expense low.
sales hit $40k a week.
things were looking up.
then came the betrayal.
the two "friends" caused conspiracy and defamation.
sued me for not paying them for what was originally meant to be voluntary work.
the company went into liquidation within four months.
first court hearing.
i won.
second court hearing.
caught them lying.
won again.
their lawyer sent me an email asking me to drop the case.
wtf?
2024: rebirth with zerobase - 28 y.o
after everything, i had some time to think.
i started helping founders in facebook groups.
by posting a facebook post ended up helping 20 founders.
which ended there.
then got into buildspace.
met tons of makers building cool stuff.
but most of them didn’t know how to turn their ideas into startups.
that’s when i decided to build zerobase.
a startup school for first-time founders.
got romi & nara to help me start.
love u guys.
kicked off season 2 with 117 founders joining.
ran our first demo day.
ran our first in real life event.
2024: a millionaire bullies sam - 28 y.o
zerobase is a startup school.
so was our angel investor’s.
but zerobase was global, his one was for high schoolers in new zealand.
with zerobase blowing up on socials, few of his spies noticed.
and reported it to him.
he probably wasn’t happy.
so i received this email lol.
threatening to sue me for the most ridiculous reason.
i wasn’t the same 21-year-old sam that was sucking his ass and saying yes to everything he said.
so i sent him this.
never heard back from him.
now to come and think of it, what right did he have to shut down both of my companies without my
consent?
interesting..
2025: new season, new record high - 29 y.o
got our third member, karlo to join.
5 months after season 2, kicked off season 3.
700 founders from 33 countries.
zerobase is making progress.
my 20’s just gone like that.
so much shit happened within the last 8 years.
-failing to get into uni -losing $10m valued companies within 48 hours -threatened by a millionaire
-multiple lawsuits.
it feels like a game.
every time i solve bigger issues, i’m enjoying every single bit.
i remember saying to my lawyer nick carter back in 2024’s lawsuit "nick, i’m enjoying this lawsuit. thanks for being my lawyer."
he looked at me like wtf and replied, "well, ur not supposed to enjoy this sam, you’re in a lawsuit" with a puzzled smile.
welcome to the startup world, sam.
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