[00:00:00 – 00:00:08] Nitin Bajaj

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Industry Show.

I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj. And joining me today is Daniel Kim. Daniel, welcome on the show.

[00:00:08 – 00:00:17] Daniel Kim

Thank you. Nice to be here. Great to have you here. Thank you. We’ve been trying to do this for a long time, and then I’m glad we could do that. Yeah. Here we are.

[00:00:17 – 00:00:19] Nitin Bajaj

So let’s start with who is then?

[00:00:21 – 00:00:40] Daniel Kim

Well, that’s an existential question. I don’t know. Daniel, a boy who came was born in Korea and was raised here and, grew up and and got the benefit of, of an amazing life, you know, and had some ups and downs, faced some, you know, some challenges and was able to emerge, with, I think, some great life lessons. So, professionally, I’m a former investment banker, and it was a lot of fun, but Wall Street is very different now. And I get to do some, amazing things with young people. 

[00:01:11 – 00:01:14] Nitin Bajaj

And we’ll talk about life lessons. So hold on to that for a bit short.

Let’s talk about your work with the foundation. Tell us what the Dragon Kim Foundation is, how it got started, and What is the impact that, you and the team have been able to create today?

[00:01:29 – 00:03:47] Daniel Kim

Sure. So the foundation is called the Dragon Kim Foundation. It was named after my son. And a portion of 9 years ago, we lost Dragon in a camping accident. And through that tragedy, just trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces and move on, we wanted to carry on Dragon’s legacy, his mom, Grace, and I. And so, there were some projects that Dragon wanted to do.

He wanted to do a music program for the kids in and around Santa Ana. And that is what we helped fund in the beginning. But then with, with all the incredible things that were happening with these young kids, we realized we wanted to help other high school students take their ideas for community service and, and help them create something out of a dream, and they’ve come to life. So, that’s what the foundation has become, and we are able to work with some amazing kids.

We’ve graduated 8 cohorts. And I calculated that, out of the 8 cohorts, we have graduated 504 high school students so far. Collectively, the groups, the projects, have impacted more than 50,000 people.

I mean, directly impacted 50,000 people. They logged 1,000 and 1,000 and 1,000 hours of volunteer time. And we have invested, during that time, about 1 and a half $1,000,000 into these projects. We’re not just investing into their projects and which goes into the community, but we’re investing in the leaders as well. So part of that is, from my days in private equity, you’re betting on the jockey more than you’re betting on the horse. Yes. So I don’t mean to put Nitin in those kinds of crass terms, but, you know, when you have amazing young leaders, they can do some amazing projects.

[00:03:48 – 00:04:22] Nitin Bajaj

Right! And I’ve been fortunate to witness both these amazing videos and also some of their projects. And the joy they’re able to bring to the community to these projects, and we should talk more about this, if these are not just any kind of project. These are projects that are helping people in the community, that are helping people that don’t have access, don’t have many different things that they could not otherwise handle. Sure. If it’s you who are not there to help and support them.

[00:04:22 – 00:06:57] Daniel Kim

Yeah. So, you know, community service was always something that was very important in my family. That’s 1 of the values that we wanted to teach Dragon and his sister Hannah. And so in trying to do that as parents, you, you know, you try to encourage that. And what Dragon came up with is wanting to help kids in a music program. There’s lots of kids who wouldn’t get the kind of music enrichment that he was able to get, or that we, as parents, were able to provide. But the way we felt and the way he felt was that no matter what, all kids deserve that.

And, what we realized was, high school students have a passion for something. It doesn’t have to be music. It could be art, STEM, some political awareness. It can be computer coding, lots of different things, but it clicks to what they are passionate about and to create a project that contributes to their community. What we do at the foundation and what we’d like to try to do is we’re not just giving them money or the training.

We want to, in totality, create more entrepreneurial leaders. Right? Young leaders who can adapt, be decisive, have a plan, but be adaptive enough to, I guess, take each step and bust it and adjust, be resilient, and build that repertoire of experiences of winning off of those little wins.

And that big win becomes executing their project. And then they get to go take that into the rest of their life. And, we get to be the witness to that. There’s so many projects, some 300 and more than 300 projects that we funded over these last few years. And we wanna continue to do more because, you know, what we tell everybody is, you know, don’t worry about changing the world by yourself. Change your corner of the world, and if we’re all doing this together at the same time, we really will change the world. And so, in our little way, I think these amazing leaders are going to shape, change, and lead our amazing country.

[00:06:58 – 00:07:10] Nitin Bajaj

And I think I’ll say this, and resonate with a lot of the thinking group that saw that, that this last batch graduated, that our world is in good hands.

[00:07:11 – 00:07:39] Daniel Kim

Yeah. Thanks in many ways to you. Well, no, it’s the young leader. We get to help coach them, cheer them on, and maybe teach them a few things and lay the foundation or the platform for them to launch on. They’re the ones that are doing that.

And you’re right. Absolutely. No matter what craziness is happening in the world, when you watch these Kim, and I and I call them affectionately kids, when you watch these amazing leaders,

[00:07:41 – 00:07:43] Nitin Bajaj

make an impact to the world,

[00:07:44 – 00:07:54] Daniel Kim

it truly gives you a little peace that our world is in good hands. In the future. Because they are our future.

[00:07:55 – 00:08:24] Nitin Bajaj

And I’ve seen that love come out when you coach, mentor them, and give them the tough love that they need. So I’m sure that parents love you for doing that and taking on a lot of that responsibility in shaping these leaders at the same time there was the youth. And there must be that love-hate relationship where they hate you when you say those things and those difficult tasks for them, but they know. They signed up for this.

[00:08:24 – 00:09:13] Daniel Kim

It’s good for them. I I don’t think that they hate me. But, you know, there are situations where we ask them to be more comfortable with being in their discomfort. Because after all, that’s when we really grow. And, and I and I think we all understand that it’s out of, love and out of, true admiration for them that we can do this. But I will never take the cut, you know, the, you know, the responsibility of the parents.

The parents do so much to lay the foundation to help all of their goodness. I get to just push into that next hurdle. Yeah.

[00:09:14 – 00:09:15] Nitin Bajaj

So Which is so important.

[00:09:15 – 00:09:17] Daniel Kim

Yeah. So thank you.

[00:09:18 – 00:09:40] Nitin Bajaj

Let’s talk about in doing all of this, you’re bringing in so many different aspects, a lot of emotion, a lot of passion, and channeling that in the right direction. But then also there are challenges, restrictions, and maybe in some cases, permissions. If you have to call out 1, what’s the 1 big challenge you face?

[00:09:43 – 00:10:44] Daniel Kim

Well, the easy surface level is muddled. Unfortunately, all of this takes money, and we’ve gotta raise it. But really, I think the deeper issue is sustainability. Sustainability is a question I always ask our young leaders when they want to make an impact in the world. Right? But sustainability for us is we do some pretty amazing things, I think. Right? I think.

And we’re also balancing that with growth. Like, how do you manage that growth in a way that the organization can sustain itself and maintain this piece of growth to make a bigger and bigger impact each year. Great young young leaders. And as they get older, they will be making a bigger and bigger impact. Sustainability is a different equation for them. For us, we have essentially running a business, if you will, an organization that has all those economic considerations, the pushy pull pressures. And so here, how really if you push me to 1 word and if there are any, it would be sustainability. How do we continue to grow and make an impact, in a meaningful way, both in the leaders, but in the community as well, and, and keep this growing. Right? So that’s the real issue for us.

[00:11:20 – 00:11:22] Nitin Bajaj

On the flip side of challenges Kim over Jim’s.

[00:11:23 – 00:11:26] Nitin Bajaj

What’s the 1 that you’re most excited about?

[00:11:27 – 00:13:07] Daniel Kim

Oh, you know, when we first started off, people had a misconception about what we, you know, just, you know, youth leadership programs or youth entrepreneurship. And it’s hard to explain what we do in just those words. And then when we started off, we funded 5 projects, right, with 11 young people. And that was an amazing year for us. But at the same time, when you, you know, you’re going to, donors and people who don’t understand are solar. So now we’re at a stage where we have well, this year, we funded 60 projects with 132 high school students. We’re at a scale that I think we’re getting more attention, and people are taking notice.

And so that is opening up a lot more doors for us to have dialogue and partnership with other community organizations, other groups. And so that’s an exciting part. We’re we’re getting, you know, we’re we’re we’re getting a little bit of notoriety, and notice. And so people wanna, you know, other organizations wanna talk to us and wanna work with us. But I think it’s the quality of the work and the quality of the kids and the impact that they make that really kinda speak to that.

[00:13:07 – 00:13:17] Nitin Bajaj

I think this, bringing this back to success with startups, this is yet another classic case of 10 years for that all night success.

[00:13:18 – 00:13:26] Daniel Kim

It’s cool. Yeah. Yeah, overnight success takes 10 years. Yes. I agree. Yeah.

[00:13:26 – 00:13:48] Nitin Bajaj

So as we look forward to what’s to come, I wanna pause and reflect and talk about 2 moments. 1 where things didn’t work out as you would expect it, and there was failure, there were lessons. And another way, things exceeded your expectations and became a success beyond your Foundation.

[00:13:48 – 00:17:02] Daniel Kim

You know, the obvious things in my life, in our country, I spent many, many years on Wall Street as I think that’s been better. And that was a very different life for me. Being here in California and focusing on the family, you know, my children are my biggest success. But then, you know, losing Dragon was probably my greatest failure as well. It’s completely unexpected. And in the middle of night, we lost Dragon in this camping accident. You know?

I mean, there are many other personal mistakes I have made, but in life, that’s the 1 that just stands up for me every day as a reminder. And so, yeah, I feel like a failure as a father, not being able to protect my child. You know, I am a hail man. He’s right on the verge of becoming And so those are all the moments that I missed out with my son. I was fortunate that I had a Beijing daughter, who had maligned those with her, I had a box. That was the failure that changed the direction of my life. It was completely well, you know, my pastor said it very, pretty well.

He said, a tragedy like that or something so traumatic can give you the gift of perspective. And as much as I hate to think that there’s any gift that comes out of it, that was it. All the things that I thought were so important or it just didn’t matter. It really focused me, since I take it to focus most people on what is really important. And that was, I think, the success that came on. The direction of my life, the direction of Grace’s life. We built the foundation together.

And now, you know, Grace calls herself the mother of Dragon. And I will whisper under my breath that I get to be the father of Dragons. Nitin, not just my son, but all these amazing young people. So, and to think that, the success that came out of that, was very unexpected. I had no idea we would be doing this. At first, it was just funding the music program that he so wanted to do. And then as he grew, the natural direction was working with all these incredible students. And, you know, I was really an unexpected success.

And I get to do that every day now. I get to do that every day. And and they may look to me for coaching and for some guidance, but I really look to them for inspiration

[00:17:08 – 00:17:31] Nitin Bajaj

And you can see that love and passion come true. So changing subjects. If you do, because I don’t believe you do, but I’m still going to ask you the question. What do you do to relax, take a break, and take Bajaj, and enjoy?

[00:17:33 – 00:17:50] Daniel Kim

I mean, just like you, there are very few moments when you feel like you can. There’s so much good work to be done. So, I don’t feel like I need to, But I do a lot of gardening. You know, obviously, in the warmer months, I start my garden in the spring and work it through the summer. And, you know, and I get to eat the few vegetables that I actually do grow.

So I love that. And I love being overjoyous, spending time with my daughter. To see her grow up as a young woman, as a young person, and as an adult now, our relationship is changing. And, and and yeah. So I get to admire her. So Yeah. That’s me. That’s Mitch. Beautiful. Any chance I get. You Yeah.

[00:18:36 – 00:18:43] Nitin Bajaj

Now, 1 of my favorite parts of the show, Would love to ask you to share a few one line life lessons.

[00:18:45 – 00:20:45] Daniel Kim

I’m glad you said a few. I did.

Well, so life lessons. Motivation is very interesting. But the 1 thing that I learned was, the need for the authenticity of their motivation, a sense of purpose. I think, early on in my life, I spent so much time chasing money and success when I realized those are the results. Those are the symptoms of the fruits of, having a real passion, pursuing that authenticity of purpose. Life is all about connection. Connection and love.

And the thing that I would also say, this is the 1 that rings in my mind all the time, and I think this is also kind of a gift of perspective. But these were also words that Dragon left for me, his mom, and his sister, and we share that with the world. Draghi was a poet, and we didn’t know it at the time, but going through his computer, we thought about your poems. And, and, 1 of them was called good life. And it was almost like he was saying, great body. And I wish I had the time to read it, but there’s a stanza in the phrase that has really become a model not only for my life, but also for the foundation and something we repeat for all kids. And I think it’s really the essence of what we do and what we’re trying to teach. And that is what you make it.

So why not? And that’s the thing that, you know, brings in my mind all the time. And, and a lot of times, sometimes I gotta remind myself that you have a mixed smile and cry at the same time. So, you know, life is what you make it. So make it amazing.

[00:21:23 – 00:22:12] Nitin Bajaj

Beautiful. Yep. Manny, thank you so much for making the time to share your journey and history, but more importantly for doing what you do, for having transformed this moment, this experience into something that is changing hundreds of lives and thousands and directly that you’re impacting. So kudos to you and your team for what you’re doing for the Foundation, but also to you individually and to Chris as, taking that moment to where he comes, follow our communities and shape the future of leaders and, making sure that our world has been in good hands.

[00:22:12 – 00:22:15] Daniel Kim

Well, we’re all doing it together. Right?

[00:22:15 – 00:22:17] Nitin Bajaj

Yeah. You’re all doing it together. Thank you.