6년간 8번의 실패를 겪은 토스 이승건 대표가 말하는 리얼 창업 현실🔥뼈 때리는 동기부여 영상 @toss_official

Hello, I'm Lee Seung-gun, the leader of the Toss team. Many people are here today. I'm very happy to be able to share my story. Since there are important sessions later, I'll keep it short, within 20 minutes. The theme of today's Jeong Ju-young Startup Competition is 'tenacity.' It's a difficult word, so I looked it up. I was going to call it 'persistence,' but I called it 'reason.' The reason will come up later. Is persistence important? It seems important. I've written down why it's important, because most people give up.

Not that we are like that, but statistically, if you take a random sample here, less than 8% of them are still running their businesses after nine years. Statistically, 92% give up or can't continue their business. You might think it's because they ran out of money, their business idea failed, or they failed at team building, but that's not the case. In most cases, they give up first. That's the overwhelming reason.

So when you actually see success happen, it doesn't seem to be based on personal ability, smartness, or the network a person has. Unfortunately, most of the success I've seen in history, including my own, comes down to luck. 95% is a humble expression, and 99% is due to luck. You succeed because of luck, and you fail because of luck. So what should we do? We want to succeed, grow, and make a meaningful change in the world, but it's all luck. So persistence seems important. The only way to beat luck in life is persistence. This is called 'Fortuna Adiuvat.' So you keep going until luck comes, and then you can beat luck.

When I was doing business with Toss, I failed eight times over six years before I got to my ninth business idea, Toss. I just kept waiting. When I was doing my eighth business idea, which turned out to be a successful financial service like Toss, was there a difference in my smartness, intelligence, and network? Almost none. In the end, it was because I had persistence.

So, what level of persistence is needed? How long do you need to be persistent? I'll share my experience of your future lives. First, your startup will become more important than your family. To prevent a key talent from resigning or to recruit a key talent, you won't be able to take care of your spouse's or children's affairs. You won't be able to go to the hospital or the emergency room with them. You'll have to think deeply together, and even while taking out a lease deposit loan or a mortgage, you'll have to be at the office working. If you have children, give up the idea that you can give them a goodnight kiss. I guarantee it's almost impossible to succeed while giving a goodnight kiss every day. You might say, 'I'll be the person who doesn't do that.' That's possible.

And if you had a previous job with a high salary, you'll have a nice house and a nice car. If I were you, I'd sell them immediately because cash is important. It's not easy to run a business while maintaining that lifestyle. The hardest part is that no one understands the path you're taking and the ecosystem we're building. Still, in Korean society and around the world, you're just a minority, just a handful of people's story. That's why your friends, my friends, and people now don't understand why you're doing this. More importantly, I've stopped people on the street and asked them, 'I'm leaving my dental company to start a business, what do you think?' No one says, 'That's a great choice, a great contribution to the country.' They think you've lost your way, you've been wandering, and this wandering should be short.

And while you're doing this, there will be times when you can't pay salaries, and you'll be in a desperate situation. And in the middle of this journey, someone will definitely sue you. It's very likely that co-founders will sue you, or employees over various issues like salary, stock option fairness, executive issues, or investment fundraising. Investors can also sue. It will definitely happen.

But more importantly, you'll be wrong very often within the company. I am too. The problem is that your team members will see it immediately. 'Ah, he's wrong again.' When this embarrassment becomes too much, you'll start to doubt if you're doing the right thing. You'll think you're not suitable, you should step down, you're a hindrance to the company's growth, you're not the right person for this company. And your team members will keep disappointing you. 'Why aren't they working so hard? Why did I come here? What's the point of having this level of ability?' But you have to keep loving them. You have to keep giving love like Jesus. And there will be colleagues who are harming the company and must be isolated to protect your colleagues. They might already be there. But there will be many moments when you have to smile to look good to them too.

All of this will take at least three years. At least three years. And in most cases, considering the average listing period in our country, it will take 10 to 13 years. You should think of it as 10 years. I've been doing it for 12 years now, and believe me, it will really take 10 years. The more successful you are, the longer it takes. You might think, 'Isn't this resolved later?' No, it's not. The problem gets bigger. You should prepare yourself for this 10-year weight. If you think, 'I'm not doing this for 10 years,' then it might be better to stop now. I'm sorry, I shouldn't say this at a startup competition. But for social benefit, you should wrap it up quickly. But where does this level of persistence come from? You need a reason to do this kind of work. That reason makes a person like that. It doesn't seem to be something you're born with. There's a moment when you have a reason that you must do it. A moment when you don't want to back down even though you don't have to do it. A moment when you want to challenge yourself, express yourself to society, and not back down. These reasons keep coming up. That reason creates persistence, and persistence is just a result. It's not a matter of attitude. If you have a good reason, persistence comes out.

So I've listed the reasons for persistence that I personally have. It might not be all of them, but there seem to be good reasons and bad reasons. I've written down some good reasons that come to mind. It could be a life mission. 'I want to make the world a better place. I want to contribute to the next stage of our civilization's evolution.' Smartphones, travel to Mars, solving solar energy and environmental pollution problems, solving Earth's resource problems, even North-South reunification. 'I want to contribute to this world.' There can be problems that you can't sleep at night if you don't solve them. 'Why is this like this? When will this end?' These painful problems. When you become obsessed with them, you don't back down. And personally, this is a big one for me. There are people who have ignored or denied you in the past or will do so in the future. If you don't prove yourself to them, you can't sleep at night. 'Ah, I'm so angry, I can't stand it.' There will be people like that. But if you want to prove it, show that you're right, it will last a long time. Even if you go bankrupt, you don't want to disappoint your colleagues. You might have this feeling. You are more beautiful than you think. 'Ah, I want to satisfy my colleagues somehow. I want to make it happen somehow.' You might hear this. And the work you're doing is so fun that you don't really know about success or failure, you just want to keep doing this work. That would be great. That alone will last a long time. And there's this conclusion too: 'I've done a lot in my life, but honestly, the only thing I'm interested in is this. I have nothing else to do in my life.' There are situations like this. I'm like that too. And making products, building organizations, and creating social change is so fun that you'd be willing to give up the happiness that ordinary people require, like family, a certain level of money, and stability. You wouldn't regret it much until you die. If you have these reasons, persistence will last for 10 years.

But there are some reasons that I'm personally concerned about and have seen around me that don't last. Things like this, which are surprisingly common. 'Cool disease.' 'Becoming an entrepreneur seems so cool, I should do it too.' This exists. It's natural to have some of this. I thought so too. But if this is the main reason, it's hard to last. The second problem is, you might not agree, but 'I have such good technology, I have such a good technical solution, and it seems like it could be helpful.' Even if it's not solving a social problem, you might think, 'Let's do business with this.' But it's not a good reason. The third is wanting to make a lot of money, hundreds of billions. In my experience, this persistence doesn't last more than a year and a half. The fourth is, 'I'm currently working at a company, and I hate working there, so I want to create my own company.' This is also a very bad reason. Because whatever company you start, it won't be as good as the one you're currently working at. There's no money, no one knows you, employees can't get real estate loans because the company's credit rating is poor, and you'll experience more problems and worse things. So there's no good reason for this. The fifth is also a bad reason: 'My idea is so great, this is it, I have to do this.' You don't even want to talk about it. 'I told my mom, and she didn't really understand, but I know the greatness of my idea.' This is a very bad reason. It doesn't last long.

So what I want to say is that character doesn't seem to be something you're born with. It's not that there are innately outstanding people. Entrepreneurs are forged. Like being forged in a furnace, anyone can have it if they have a reason. We've talked about individuals, so how can we build a team with high persistence and patience? How can we build a team with indomitable will? I've thought about this too. This part is already famous in the Korean startup scene. Instructor Lee Seung-gun has posted it on YouTube. The title is 'Winning Strategy.' The instructor, who has gained some weight, says this: 'Success begins when you are no longer truly afraid of the defeat that failure brings.' At Toss, we operate with about 100 small starters, like squads or silos. This is a phenomenon I've been observing for eight years after Toss. When you've failed so much that you no longer have an optimistic view of the future, you start to succeed. It's a paradox of the world. Failure becomes nothing. 'I'll fail tomorrow, I'll fail next week, I'll fail next semester, I'll fail next year, but let's do what we have to do now.' Success comes to people like this. This is actually the Stockdale Paradox. Admiral Stockdale, who was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, observed in his diary in a tiny cell who would be the first to give up and lose their precious life: the unnecessarily optimistic people. 'I'll get out tomorrow, I'll be free next Christmas, I'll get out next year.' Those people were the first to give up. When we have indomitable will, the most important thing is not to assume that this difficult, constantly failing, unpleasant, and hard situation will end tomorrow. So I tell my team, 'We're all doomed. You guys made a big mistake joining this company.' At first, they might think, 'Is this how we're going to work together?' But in the long run, it gives them the insight not to give up. I tell my team members that. This is not good for short-term motivation because it doesn't seem like you'll succeed, and you'll fail, so what can I expect from this? The reward and motivation collapse. But for long-term motivation, it creates the persistence to endure the market. But long-term motivation for a group is, as written here, belief. 'We can do this.' Like what Elon Musk said, 'Optimism, pessimism, we don't need that. We're definitely going to do it.' The team's spirit, diligence, principles, habits. Coming in every morning. No matter how hard it is, you come. No matter how hard it is at night, you go to sleep. You wake up, eat, and do that. An exciting atmosphere. 'There are people like me here.' This feeling creates motivation. In the end, when you start, you say, 'We're not going to make it. We don't know when, but let's keep trying.' This helped with persistence.

And when I look back on my past regarding persistence, it's regrettable. When I think about why I failed eight times in six years, I think it was because I thought I was right. I didn't know how to listen. I listened, but I didn't really listen. This often sounds like it contradicts persistence. Having persistence means going your own way, with your own convictions. How do you listen to others' opinions and when do you push forward with your own? I've thought about this too. We need to think carefully about what we're trying to do. What we're trying to do is growth. A startup has many definitions, but I think a startup is an organization that intentionally distorts itself for rapid growth. Startups often begin without a finance team, a compliance team, or a legal team. It depends on the business, but why? Because creating rapid growth is more important than making money and being stable, right? So if you're stubborn about an idea or a business, you need to listen. But for growth, 7% weekly growth, as Paul Graham says, 7% weekly, 32% monthly, 164% annually. You need to find something that grows 16 times in a year. So your idea and business don't have to grow 16 times. It just needs to grow 16 times. If there's something that's growing, that should be your idea and business. If you fixate on an idea and focus solely on the one metric of growth, I think you can have persistence. So if you fixate on an idea and focus on growth, you can judge if this idea is causing more growth. If so, you listen. If not, you don't have to listen. It's not in the domain of persistence. And another thing I did wrong, I wasn't very smart or agile. It might be the same thing, but persistence often looks like you have to endure until something happens. Of course, there are many sections where you have to endure your convictions, but the important thing is growth. It's about creating success and growth, and it's hard to create success and growth, so you endure. To avoid putting the cart before the horse, instead of being too obsessed with a specific business idea, you should have an open mind and not be too obsessed with the original plan. You should make these transformations as you find the answer. In the end, we're trying to win, not just endure. The game's name is growth. So I want to emphasize this because it was something I was so bad at. I just endured for six years and didn't think about succeeding. That's why I kept failing. I asked to draw this. They drew it exactly like this. This is a drawing of a startup as an MMORPG game. The name of the game is growth. So I hope the participants in this competition will keep this in mind.

So, in the end, persistence means having a good reason. A good reason might look like a very persistent life to others, but for yourself, the reason itself becomes the reward. Because you're not enduring, you like it so much, you have nothing else you want to do, and you love this life so much that you're doing it regardless of success, failure, or fame. Because walking that path itself makes you so happy, or you're praised for being persistent, but for yourself, there's happiness unrelated to success. I hope everyone has a good reason like that.

Thank you.