Chapter 264 - Chapter 258
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nJinhon and Angela lived in America all summer thanks to the soaring popularity of their new song I’m Not Lonely, which surpassed Duckling Fly.
nThough they released other hit songs, they were put in the shade by I’m Not Lonely in terms of popularity. It was ranked the top song on the Billboard chart for more than six weeks.
nThanks to the popularity of that song, a campaign was launched to find Angela’s father in America.
nBut her father didn’t appear yet. He didn’t show himself through the fall when the song enjoyed the top ranking in the Billboard chart.
nNonetheless, Angela didn’t feel lonely because Jinhon stood beside her strongly.
nThat song’s ranking fell around September, but Jinhon’s third song was still inside the top five on the chart. It was called Flower Girl. He made it with Angela in mind.
nBecause of his popularity, Jinhon had to delay his return to Korea. Though he was determined to enjoy Korean Thanksgiving Holiday with his family, he could not take time out at all.
nThat’s why his family visited America to spend time with him.
nIt was unthinkable a year ago. He would envy anybody a lot who could spend Korean Thanksgiving holiday with his or her family in America.
nBut Jinhon changed his mind when he made hundreds of billions won through his music activities. He missed his hometown and wanted to have more free time than money.
nHyunwoo felt the same way.
nHe tried to erase the word ‘money’ from his head these days. As early as spring he used to count the monthly revenues, thinking about something like ‘this month I had this much in profits. Let me set the profits higher next month.’
nBut that was meaningless now.
nLast month KOVE’s net profits amounted to 60 billion won mainly because of a reduction in membership fees. If it had maintained its previous fees, the profits would have been 90 billion won.
nThe fee reduction was inevitable to KOVE DREAM. As its member companies rode high, lots of large companies imitated the business model of KOVE and established their own companies.
nAccordingly, there was fierce competition not only in China, India and Indonesia but also in Vietnam where KOVE established itself as the dominant player.
nAs a result, its member companies asked for fee reduction. Hyunwoo felt their demands were legitimate and lowered the sales fee to that of rival companies.
nFee reduction encouraged more companies to join KOVE DREAM. Currently, there was a total of 46 companies that joined KOVE DREAM.
nAmong them were Vietnamese companies that included several top companies.
nIn the past, it took lots of time to test and certify the technical skills of hopeful companies, but KOVE solved the problem completely thanks to Korea Quality Certification Association. They found the test experts and paid 50% of the test costs in subsidies.
nThe sales of the existing members increased drastically. With the bold expansion of facilities, they could process the rush of orders from Korea, America and Japan.
nSome companies received large investments on the condition that they transfer some of their company stakes to Hyunwoo.
nNonetheless, there were not sufficient enough facilities. They could not process orders on time in China, Europe, and Southeast Asia.
nKOVE DREAM Blue also began to grow in size. When the perception spread among the companies that any products under KOVE DREAM Blue would be sold well, many of them hoped to apply for membership when their technical skills met the criteria.
nAs they had to deal with the rush of orders on time, KOVE DREAM had to hire more and more, and its employees now reached more than 900. The office staff of KOVE DREAM headquarters was 50, those assigned to the warehouses numbering over 700 and the truck drivers over 100.
n83 delivery trucks of KOVE DREAM were in full operation any day across the country.
nAs for the warehouses, Hyunwoo secured two more in Incheon and Pusan respectively.
nAni & Funny also continued to make a success in business. In particular, the short animated stories selected through the open contest played a crucial role.
nSales in paper books were pretty big, too, thanks to the foreign language editions of the animated books.
nBut the increase in Hyunwoo’s wealth was not necessarily caused by profits.
nIn fact, it was the return on his investments in many companies like DF Technology and Sungsin Co.
nIn particular, DF Technology enjoyed the fastest growth among Vietnamese companies. Sungjun’s boast of its best technology in the world was far from an exaggeration.
nWhenever Hyunwoo found a high-potential company, he made a bold investment. So far, he made investments in as many as 27 companies, with his investment totaling 200 billion won.
nOn such occasions he acquired the stakes of the companies. Sometimes he acquired 20%, and sometimes over 80%.
nBut he kept two principles in doing so. First, he promised he would never intervene in the management and its authority on human resources. Secondly, he promised to transfer his stakes to the company management when the president stood on his own feet confidently.
nIn fact, money didn’t matter that much to Hyunwoo. Even if he made 10 trillion won, his life would be still the same. For he would put on the same clothes, live in the same house and eat the same food.
nWhat was more important to him was who he would spend time with now.
nWhenever he thought about that, he kept recalling Yu Zuung’s face.
nShe was still as busy as ever because she participated in the next song Girlfriend as a dance.
nShe even participated as a vocal this time. Though she could not make a high-pitched tone, she rapped on the song with her misty voice.
nHyunwoo was opposed to her continued participation. Basically, he wished she stopped entertainment activities.
nHe wanted to keep her beside him, above all. For he couldn’t see her often as she was busier every day.
nBut she wanted to continue her entertainment activities so much. Obviously, she seemed happy when she got people’s attention. He could not force her to stop it just for his own selfish desire.
nGirlfriend was as popular as Temptation. Though it didn’t make a hit in the US market, it hit gold in the Asian market, with the rush of requests from many countries for their appearances on TV shows.
nThanks to that explosive popularity, Yu Zuung was now in Japan. After she was done in Japan, she was supposed to go to Vietnam, and then Hong Kong and China before returning to Korea in about two months.
nThe fact that he couldn’t meet her at least two months made Hyunwoo sad.
nOf course, when he could find free time, he flew to the country she was performing, and stayed three days to spend time with her.
nBut it was only two or three times per month that he visited overseas to see her.
nDamn it. Can I be her manager, forgetting about all my work here?
nHe really wanted to do so if he could have his way.
nBut there were too many business projects that he had initiated. The most urgent one now was that Ani & Funny’s preparing to meet a new goal.
nOriginally, Ani & Funny was to open a second office near its headquarters in Bonodong in Ansan.
nBut they couldn’t find a good office no matter how long they searched. So, they felt it would be much better to find one in a totally different place.
nWhat they found was in the vicinity of Seoul. Fortunately, there was a three-story building on sale. Though it was expensive, it was in a good location with a lot of space. Hyunwoo purchased it without hesitation.
nAnd he hired 40 new staff members.
nMost of the new hires were from the members of the internet cafe run by Ani & Funny.
nAnother goal of Ani & Funny was to open the Animoon website, which Hyunwoo wanted to grow as the Story Mecca of animation. The opening of the website was timed with Seoul Broadcasting’s airing the special program about Ani & Funny.
nIn fact, Animoon should have opened eight months ago but kept delaying for various reasons.
nIn the meantime, there were many changes in Ani & Funny.
nInitially, the main target of Ani & Funny was children and kids, but over time they felt they didn’t need to avoid teens and adults.
nSo, the website created a separate space for them. They also prepared animation learning based on the ages of the consumers.
nThe results were a tremendous success. As the works of Ani & Funny were popular around the world, most of the fans became Animoon’s fans, too.
nThose studying animation had their heyday like a fish in water. Not only Ani & Funny students but also lots of students in the world tried their best to make the best animations.
nLastly, Ani & Funny’s goal of producing an animated movie was also achieved.
nThe title of the movie was Super Kenny. It was the favorite of the students when all the entries of the story contest were submitted. Yenam Noh reacted to it enthusiastically.
nOf course, it was made for TV, not a movie theater. Thanks to that, Hyunwoo only spent 2.1 billion won in producing the movie despite its 80-minute running time.
nThe animated movie ‘Super Kenny’ was released through Animoon. Ani & Funny inserted a 30-second ad in it and aggressively promoted it on YouTube.
nIn fact, it didn’t generate good of a response as Hyunwoo expected.
nThe main culprit of that seemed to be the viewing fee of 1,000 won. For 1,000 won, they could not download it. The fee was only for a week-long viewing right. After one week, they had to pay another 1,000 won to get access to it.
nIt was natural that the public could not easily watch the movie.
nBut in about two weeks the situation began to change a bit as those who watched it spread good reviews of it.
n“Very interesting. It’s the best movie I’ve seen recently.”
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