No offense to our Korean readers, but I think we all need to admit that we don't always have the best business sense. Today, I bring you a tragedy of Korean entrapreunership in two acts..Pinkberry, Pinkberry Everywhere, Let's All Have a Drink.
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I think I discovered the super top secret formula Koreans use when creating their own businesses:
1. See a Korean make money off of a business
2. Copy business idea
3. Open a store in the same area
4. Repeat
It happened with PC bangs, and it's happening with plain frozen yogurt stores:
On Thursday, New York City’s first Red Mango is scheduled to open, within a mochi’s throw of a rival Pinkberry on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village (183 Bleecker and 177 Bleecker, respectively), and around the corner from a Yolato.
Another in-your-yogurt face-off will come to a head in Flushing, Queens, where a Red Mango will soon open a mere 40 steps from a Pinkberry on Roosevelt Avenue.
It's like these people don't realize that it's not a good business move to open a store right across the street from a place that already sells the exact same thing. Where is long-term sustainability in that?
I think these Koreans need a history lesson. At one point, in Palisades Park (a single square mile town), there were 4 PC Bangs in operation. Now? Not one is still around.
Shady Samsung
Koreans always feel like they're above the law. Turns out this applies to all levels of Korean entrapreunuers:
Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee was indicted on charges of tax evasion and breach of trust on Thursday.
What makes this story worse? Lee's probably not going to serve any jail time because Korean judges are generally leinient towards corporate leaders.
Way to make us look good, Lee.
4 comments:
Is this an old post? The Flushing Red Mango has been open for months.
There are like four or five Red Mangos open now in NYC.
If I was eqi-distant between a PB and a RM, I would get in my car and drive down to Viniero's for a mini pastry or some tiramisu or strawberry shortcake.
j/k. I'd definitely go to RM as a first choice.
But PB has a catchier jingle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZzsw3VYpWQ
What about the Chicken Wars between Boom Boom Chicken and all those others? I smell a feature article ..
to be fair kanish, PC bangs was the epitome of a fad. these businesses didn't thrive on good business models, rather they thrived on the spike of demands and simply deserted the business once the lease expired. the start up costs of those PC bangs were very little and really, there was nothing else to it.
on the flip side, these unoriginal copycats you mention that flood the same dense area have two things in mind. 1) recycle an idea, then make it better and
2) location, location, location
but isnt all business essentially rooted by those two things?
there are a handful of innovators and infinite amount of creative minds. just because person A invented the wheel doesn't mean person B can't make the wheel more efficient, durable, etc.
What the hell, Lee
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