From Restaurants to Retail: Arnold Byun’s Journey Building MAUM Markets

Alan Li (00:01)
Arnold, thanks so much for joining the Opening Soon Podcast.

Arnold Byun (00:04)
Yeah, thanks so much. Happy to be here.

Alan Li (00:06)
Awesome,

so I'm really excited to dive into mom, but I'd really love to get a little bit back into your background. I know that you worked at some really cool places. So if you can give the audience a quick overview.

Arnold Byun (00:18)
Yeah, prior to co-founding Mao, I was really knee deep into the restaurant industry. And so I went to school for hostile management at NYU, spent closer to 10 years in New York working at all sorts of places, hotels, boutique hotels for Ian Schrager back in the day to, you know, I interned at the Ritz Carlton Central Park in college and just found myself really deep in love with standalone restaurant operations.

and really got into that and ⁓ I think for me the turning point was when I became a manager at Boulay. Chef David Boulay, unfortunately he passed away a few years ago but I worked for him in Tribeca and I was a manager there when I was like 20 years old and ⁓ after doing that it just opened up so many more doors for me in the restaurant industry and so I opened up Chikoni's Dumbo for Soul House.

And then I also worked at LMS in Park for two years. And the most recent place I worked before I left the industry was at Atomix. And so I was at Atomix for two years as well in New York City. so most... Yeah. Yeah.

Alan Li (01:22)
best restaurants all sort of in the world right now. Atomix, I love Madison, that's

cool.

Arnold Byun (01:27)
Yeah,

it was really cool. Levin Madison was named number one when I was working there. then I obviously I'm not a part of Automix now, but they got number one for North America this year in the 150 best. And so I'm really happy for them, really happy for everybody that I used to work for. And I always tell people like Levin Madison Park was like my graduate school. I learned so much there and Will Guder was still an owner at the time when I worked there. And so I learned tremendously from Will about

Hositality obviously he's he's an author now. He has a really great book called unreasonable hospitality, which is a great read for everybody I highly recommend but yeah, that was kind of my my my background prior to becoming a small business owner. I Worked for other small business owners specifically in the restaurant industry

Alan Li (02:13)
Yeah.

So I know you said you went to school for hospitality management. How did you know that was what you wanted to do back in college?

Arnold Byun (02:21)
Yeah, I've grown up, ⁓ I split time between America and Korea. I was born in Korea, immigrated to Torrance, California, lived in New Jersey for a little bit, and then I went back to Korea for high school. So ⁓ in every sense of the word, I kind of see myself as a Korean American. And when I was back in Korea for high school, my dad got into the restaurant industry. And so he owned restaurants in Korea. And naturally, ⁓

That's all he really did. He's kind of a workaholic. so ⁓ really the only way I could spend time with him was to basically go to the restaurant after school. so.

I just felt like I could be a little bit more useful. And so I started doing these tasks that nobody had asked me to do. And I became more curious about the operation. And so I kind of created my own restaurant internship, if you will, during high school. I got a sense of everything, know, playing cashier one day and I went back to the kitchen to make desserts. I was running, busing. I did all those things before I really knew what they were in high school. And I think at the time, because that's all

I knew, I thought that was my dream. I was going to own and run my own restaurant one day. And so that's what I set out to do at an early age. that's how I found myself at NYU, kind of studying hostel management.

Alan Li (03:41)
I

see. ⁓ Is the restaurant industry how the media portrays it? I think a lot of people have watched The Bear or Red Bourdain or watched some of the shows, especially at the highest levels. Is it that chaotic in the back or do you have any war stories that you're able to share with us?

Arnold Byun (04:01)
Yeah, I think we're actually living in the best time for the restaurant industry because ⁓

No one really understood what I was doing back in the day. Even a few years ago, if I told them I was a made or d or if I was an expediter, I was an expo at 11 Madison Park, no one knew what that was. Now things to just like the bear and other mainstream media, I think a lot of people have an understanding of how the industry works. In terms of the accurate portrayal, to be honest with you, I never watched the bear. I still haven't watched the bear because a lot of my colleagues actually told me that it's too realistic and that I would get

PTSD from watching it. so, ⁓ know, Will Guder was actually a producer on season three or four. So he you could it's really a realistic portrayal of like what happens behind the scenes and especially at that caliber. ⁓ You know, the industry is it's really what you make out of it. You know, I think for me, I kind of went into it in the sense of like, I'm going to open my own restaurant one day, right. And I took it as an opportunity to learn.

Alan Li (04:38)
That's good to know, yeah.

Arnold Byun (05:06)
as much as I could from everybody.

But in terms of your question of it being chaotic, it's definitely chaotic at times. But I think that's part of the charm and part of the romance of working in the industry is if you're kind of an adrenaline junkie, like I am, you're probably going to love it. I used to meet hundreds of people a day for dinner service. When I was managing Hakasan in Times Square, we were doing like 600 covers a day, which means 600 individual people are coming in between

Alan Li (05:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Arnold Byun (05:38)
the hours of like 5 p.m. till 11 p.m. So to have that sort of exposure to so many people, ⁓ it's energetic, know, especially if you're someone that enjoys that kind of energy, which I did. These days, not so much, but ⁓ yeah, back in the day, it was great. I think it was awesome. I don't have any specific ⁓ war stories, but I've had to deal with so many different people that were upset about...

like the most stupid things that you could ever imagine. I've had old grandmas scream at my face because their table wasn't ready. I've had people flip me off because they came in drunk and I decided to turn them away. ⁓ It's all sorts of stuff. I've seen people having affairs. It's a lot. It's really a lot. It teaches you a lot about humanity.

Alan Li (06:26)
⁓ wow.

Arnold Byun (06:34)
You know, I'm a dad now, I have a daughter. And yeah, and I feel like I definitely wanted to work in a restaurant at least once, because I would recommend it. I really recommend that everyone work in a restaurant at least once in their life. I think it's a very eye-opening experience and it teaches you so much about just humanity. And I have no regrets. But yes, it is chaotic. It is chaotic, but also addictive.

Alan Li (06:37)
Congrats.

Yeah,

my first job was at Panda Express back in high school. So quick service restaurants ⁓ were obviously the complete opposite end of the spectrum as where you were working. But I also dealt with all different types of people, let's just say. Yeah. ⁓ Okay, so you were planning to open a restaurant or that was your goal, but you founded Mom. So tell me how we go from.

Arnold Byun (07:04)
See? There you go.

And it great.

Alan Li (07:27)
know, out of mix in the restaurant industry to starting mom.

Arnold Byun (07:31)
Yeah, I it's not completely different. ⁓ I always saw Mama as actually a hospitality company. That's how I've always thought of it personally. you know, ⁓ my goal with the restaurant thing was I wanted to open a restaurant by the age of 27. And that was a number I came up with because that's when Danny Meyer, the legendary, you know, the hospitality... ⁓

figure, he opened his first restaurant Union Square Cafe when he was 27. And then there's another restaurateur that I really like. He's more of a New York restaurateur. name is Gabriel Stolman. And he also opened his first restaurant when was 27. And so I felt like, OK, maybe that's like my barometer, right? Like by 27, I should have my own restaurant. Like you mentioned, I did not open a restaurant at 27, but I did open Mound. And I was 26 at the time. And so I think I still thankfully achieved my goals.

Alan Li (08:27)
Nice.

Arnold Byun (08:27)
⁓ That pivot really happened because of the pandemic.

When the pandemic happened in 2020, ⁓ myself along with basically all of my colleagues in the restaurant industry, we all lost our jobs because people could not dine out anymore. ⁓ We were forced to basically not come to work. so for the first time ever, I really had the chance to sit down and reevaluate my life decisions and ⁓ think about what I wanted to do for the future, for my career. And I decided that this would be a good time to just reassess everything.

like my life. And so I moved out to LA during this time in 2020 and I told myself I would never move to LA. You know, being a New Yorker, I hated LA. It was very publicly known that I had a distaste for Los Angeles but the New York LA beef is very real and I did it anyway.

Alan Li (09:21)
LA is a lot better

in the pandemic though. That's for sure.

Arnold Byun (09:24)
Yeah, yeah, I

did it anyway and I moved to LA during the pandemic and it was tough to be honest. It was really tough. I didn't have a job lined up or anything. I didn't have any friends or I didn't have any opportunities lined up. It's just one of those things where I decided that I was going to uproot and start over. so I had a brother. have a brother. He lives in the SF now, but my younger brother, he lived in LA at the time. And so it was a it was kind of like an excuse to be closer to family.

Alan Li (09:42)
But why, why LA?

I see.

Arnold Byun (09:54)
and that's why I moved, but he wasn't really helpful in the transition process. He had his own life too, right? And so...

Alan Li (09:58)
He

Arnold Byun (10:02)
I kind of had to figure it out and so for a good year or so I was really lost and I actually did a podcast and I started to podcast and interview other like restaurant owners and chefs in the LA area and so that's how I kind of rebuilt my network out there in LA and you know naturally I realized that I enjoyed the interviewing process and talking to these folks but then now I realized that I couldn't picture myself becoming a restaurant owner it just seems um

It seemed really stressful talking to them. It seemed like the margins were so small and I started to have like second thoughts about that dream that I had.

Alan Li (10:38)
Mm-mm.

Arnold Byun (10:40)
⁓ And throughout this process, another thing that really happened that was a catharsis moment for me was people around me, right? Those same exact people that I told you that got laid off. ⁓ They found a hobby. They started baking. They started doing ceramics. They started doing art. know, people suddenly all the time in the world that they didn't used to have because of the pandemic to like I was going to really reevaluate what they want to do with their life. Right. And so I made that observation and I had a

Alan Li (10:57)
Yes.

Arnold Byun (11:10)
handful of people around me that I felt like were creative enough and that were trying to do their own thing, their own passion project or what have you, ⁓ that I felt ⁓ once I met my co-founder, Keo, we decided to put together some, we didn't know what it was. For like six months, we'd go on like endless coffee chats and lunch dates and we're like, okay, we know all these people, but what could we do with these people? And along the way,

Alan Li (11:36)
Is Kio someone

that you had interviewed or is just someone that you met in LA through friends of friends?

Arnold Byun (12:02)
delve into those creative sides that they have, right? Whether it's baking or making ceramics and pottery. so that was kind of how Ma Market was born. On January 22nd, 2022, we gathered 22 of our friends that were all Korean American. And I'm really proud to say a great majority of them are still thriving, right? One of them is a traveling ceramicist that has work in galleries across the world. One opened up

Modu Cafe in Los Angeles in Highland Park. One's opening up another cafe in Gardena. One person now has two studios in LA and New York and she's also a model. I mean, you know, everyone's turned out really, really awesome. I'm really happy and I'm really pride, prideful about that. And I think at the time we didn't know how it would come to this, but it just started with, with me, Kiyo, a thousand dollars. We both pitched it like 500 bucks each.

We went to Home Depot, right, and we got 10 folding tables and we put our friends on those folding tables. They brought their wares and they sold and, you know, we all just had a good time. We didn't think too much of it. But then, you know, one month after another, we kept doing these markets in different parts of LA. It was like a traveling pop-up and we start to gain some really serious momentum and traction. around April or May, we decided that this was going to be a legitimate company. And so that's when we really formed ⁓ the company.

Alan Li (13:31)
⁓ That's really interesting. How did you market the event? ⁓ How did you do the rest of the logistics? Or was it as simple as, know all these cool people making really interesting things. Let's like host a market to sell it. Like walk me through the logistics of it.

Arnold Byun (13:46)
Yeah, I mean it's as easy as that to be honest with you. I think a lot of people get caught up ⁓ especially with business. Business is actually really simple. At the end of the day, ⁓ there's a seller and then there's a buyer. There's transactions being made, right? And so ⁓ in the simplest form, it was exactly how you described it. It was creating some sort of a marketplace where people can sell their stuff to people that would appreciate it. Is that the core essence of this? ⁓ But then also for me, I can just

being Asian American growing up in the States, ⁓ I mean, I'm sure a lot of listeners that have multi-hyphenate identities can relate, like, whether it's microaggressions or some sort of form of racism, I dealt with that firsthand. ⁓

it hurts, know, it really hurts to feel like you thought you belonged but you don't and all those kind of like ⁓ emotions and and so for me, ⁓ like representation was really a big part of the reason why we started Ma market and Ma market is specifically for Asian American makers and small businesses. So, ⁓ you know, that's kind the mission of what we do. But the logistics end of it.

and how we got people out is really in the beauty of the individuals that participate in our market. And so, I'm a huge believer in ⁓ collaboration and aggregation of individuals. Like once people come together and different talents come together, it's such a beautiful thing to witness, right? Because if you think about it, we have 22 makers. If each of those 22 makers can bring like 10 friends, that's already 220 people that are gonna come to this event. So that in itself,

Alan Li (15:03)
you

Arnold Byun (15:27)
was really the marketing tool was really the summation of those talented individuals that we had gathered. And then the second part of the marketing strategy was the venue. We picked actually a really beautiful venue in Hollywood. It's a gallery. It's called Helen J Gallery and is actually a Korean American owned gallery. And I think we were really intentional about the rollout. So it was a Korean American owned gallery. It was 22 Korean American ⁓ artists and makers and creatives. And then ⁓ we did it on January 22nd of 2022.

because

I'm really superstitious with numbers. And then we also announced this event on Korean American Day, which is January 13th. So we try to be really mindful and intentional about release dates, the programming, the content, and thankfully I think people were able to recognize that and pick up on it. so...

What happened was the people that came, was like 600, 700 people to that first market. All of them had such an awesome time. Everybody purchased something and everyone has such an appreciation for what we were trying to do. And I think that's the magic of bringing the right people together, you know, and being a curator of not just the vendors, but also curating the audience that's gonna come and experience the marketplace. so...

That was like the first taste of Maumarket and I right away I knew like this is something I'm really going to enjoy doing. It fit my personality very well.

Alan Li (16:47)
I mean, personally, I have quite a few friends that have participated in my market, which is how I found out about it. Kai Lim from Reprise, Ryan from Kim C Market. It's always cool to see their booths. And that's exactly right. That's how I found out about it through friends. And it's a testament to that. What is January 22nd, 2022? What does that symbolize? Is it because it's a repeating number or what is your superstition with numbers?

Arnold Byun (16:52)
awesome.

Yep.

Yep.

I just love repeating numbers. So that one is 12222. I immigrated to the States on February 2nd of 2002. I got married at a venue. That address was like 3333 Avenue of the Arts. That's where I got married. I just like to put, it's my own little thing. I like to put meaning, my own type of meaning into these things. like whenever I open up stores or pop-ups, like it has to land on a number that I...

that I think is meaningful, you know? Yeah.

Alan Li (17:45)
Cool, I like that.

I have a slight superstition too. If I see ascending numbers, it's usually a good sign. And if I see descending numbers, then be a little wary. It's ⁓ just a funny little trick. ⁓ That's great. So great turnout first ⁓ pop up. You host a few more. When does it become like, okay, let's turn this into a business. ⁓ Let's also open up physical retail. How do you think about those steps?

Arnold Byun (17:56)
Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that first year, ⁓ January, right, was like the first market. We decided each month we were going to do one market. So the cadence was one market a month. But the other thing that we decided was let's make this a traveling pop-up. Let's do a pop-up market in different neighborhoods around Los Angeles. So the first was Hollywood. The second was Kariatown. The third was... ⁓

Arts District in downtown LA. The fourth one was at Culver City. The fifth one was in Chinatown. And really, the fifth one was it really transformed the business because the fifth one happened to be May. And May is AAPI Heritage Month. And so in celebration of AAPI Heritage Month, we decided that this would not just be a market exclusive for Korean Americans anymore. We would open it up to all sorts of Asian diaspora starting in May of 2022. And that's also when we hit 10K on Instagram.

And so that was really, ⁓ I think, the evolution of our business. And that's when it opened up so many more opportunities and it opened up for us to be able to work with ⁓ friends from all different Asian heritage and Asian backgrounds, no longer just Koreans and Korean Americans. So that was a really big turning point, I think, in the business.

And then along the way, I want to say in like June or so, we tried our first ever pop-up store. So our first ever pop-up store was held at Culver City and it was at a development called Platform. And it's really great, small development. It actually has a lot of New York transplant brands. Like, for example, there is a Roberta's Pizza there, which is actually that's the only West Coast location. There's actually Capur jewelry there now.

Alan Li (19:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Arnold Byun (19:56)
There were a few more, but there's a lot of these like New York brands that open in platform Culver City. But ⁓ we identified it as a really great place for us to open up our pop-up store, mainly because of the median income. And then the second thing I would share is we purposely targeted a neighborhood that ⁓ was not really heavily Asian. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but we tried to stay away from Kreatetown as much as possible. That was actually a big strategy for

us. We felt that people that were non-Korean and non-Asian would actually, and get this, this is still true today, would actually appreciate Asian culture more. And that was the case. And that first pop-up store that we did at Culver City, where it was predominantly white American population,

Alan Li (20:38)
Mm-hmm.

Arnold Byun (20:51)
non-Asian population, we crushed it. We did probably 80,000 in 30 days. that was just like, mean, the other pop-ups, unfortunately we don't have the same statistic to share, but it was just, ⁓ it was a really great testament to the fact that people appreciated our curation and we were really intentional about who we were putting into that store.

Alan Li (20:58)
Wow.

Arnold Byun (21:18)
And I always think back to that time and it's so crazy because we didn't have any price points. We just like forgot. We didn't have, this was our first foray into retail, right? We didn't know anything. We didn't have barcodes, we didn't have price tags, we didn't have scheduling, we didn't have, we didn't have, we had nothing. So it was just me and my co-founder, like we would be the ones working the floor every day. And people will ask like, how much is this? How much is this? And we would just have it memorized. ⁓

Alan Li (21:45)
Wow.

Arnold Byun (21:46)
Yeah, we would have the prices memorized, we would have the stories memorized, right?

It was so important for us to be able to tell the story of the founder or the maker behind a product because these, we had maybe 50 brands, all small businesses, right? Not on Amazon, they're not really in any other retailer. This was like the only place that you could really get their stuff. Most of it was handmade, it's small batch. Once it's sold out, it's gone. We can't restock it. Why? Because they can't make it exactly the way it was. And so there was kind of this like specialness, a special teeness to it.

I think people really appreciated. ⁓ It was crazy. It was a really crazy store. We were selling like $7,000 necklaces. We're selling $2,000 ceramics. I had no idea what was happening. Like looking, can't explain it, but there was something really magical about that. so yeah, that was our first experience with retail. And ⁓ now that I'm pretty seasoned, I will tell you that that was kind of like beginner's luck.

Alan Li (22:34)
Wow.

Arnold Byun (22:51)
The reality is very different, ⁓ but that's kind of how we started in dabbling in retail.

Alan Li (22:59)
Okay. When you said that you had to memorize everything, it kind of reminds me of sometimes when I go to a bodega and like you give someone the item and there's no price tag anywhere, but they just input it directly into the card machine because they just have everything memorized. I'm just imagining you and Kiyo just like, oh yeah, this is, and then like the backstory here is XYZ and people are just like, what is, what the heck is going on? That's incredible. mean, $80,000 over three days. That's a strong start.

Arnold Byun (23:09)
No.

Yeah, I hear. Yeah.

Alan Li (23:29)
⁓ Is the business model you buy from small makers at wholesale and then sell at retail price? Is that just how it works?

Arnold Byun (23:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm happy to get transparent about this, because I know this would be helpful for other small businesses too. From the get-go, we never did wholesale. Wholesale, I think, is really difficult. It's a really difficult model unless you have some serious capital or deep pockets, which we don't. Like I said, we started with $1,000. I put in $500. He put in $500.

Nowhere was there an opportunity for us to buy these goods at wholesale. There's absolutely no way. And so what we ended up doing from that pop-up was ⁓ we did a consignment structure. Obviously, consignment as a model is not a new model. But... ⁓

we felt like it really worked for us given where our business was at the time. And so, and we still do consignment structures actually for our retail stores. And so we did a consignment structure. The percentages have fluctuated over the years, right? So when we first started, it was like 70, 30, and then we tried 60, 40, we went back to 70, 30, and then, you know, we kind of stabilized now at like 50, 50. We felt like that was the most fair split. But it was a consignment structure that we did. And I honestly,

It's a lot of work, but I do recommend it for first time business owners. It really de-escalates the risk. You're not with like just 200k, 300k of unsold inventory.

Alan Li (25:03)
Yeah, and just for the audience, and let me know if I'm explaining it correctly, but consignment is where you don't actually purchase the inventory, but the inventory is given to you. And then when you make the sale, you split, you know, 60, 30, 50, 50, the revenue price with the seller after the fact, correct?

Arnold Byun (25:21)
Yeah, that is

actually correct. It's basically on loan. You can kind of think of the item as on loan and then you're paying it once a sale is made. ⁓ Every retail store is going to be a little bit different in terms of how they take care of those payments. We do it on a monthly basis. So at the end of the month, we send an itemized sales report to each maker of like what sole, what skew sole, which color, how many, and then we're able to transparently let them know, you know, this is the amount that we owe them and we pay them out accordingly.

Alan Li (25:46)
Okay,

gotcha. ⁓ So I know you said ⁓ the first market and maybe the first few months were beginner luck. ⁓ Tell me about ⁓ going from pop-up to, ⁓ you know, your other locations and maybe some of the challenges that you faced after the fact.

Arnold Byun (26:03)
Yeah, there were some huge challenges. think what I learned throughout this process was that Culver City location was 600 square feet, right? 600 to 650 square feet, but there was a corner unit on a main street. So it's really hard to miss. You have to kind of walk by it.

We didn't do those evaluations. Let me be honest with you when we're taking that space, we're like, okay, this looks good. This feels good. Like this is kind of cool. Let's do it. And, you know, and what happened is because that's how we approached it and we did fairly well, we felt for the future locations, it was as easy as that. And so we did no canvassing. We did no market research. It was really based off of intuition and our gut feeling. I don't think I really, I recommend that to anybody, but

Alan Li (26:27)
Yeah.

Arnold Byun (26:50)
We've definitely had our highs and lows because of that approach and we've taken up pop-up spaces where there was zero foot traffic.

I think a lot of brands, have to be honest with ourselves, we're not, we thought we were a destination brand. We quickly learned we were not. We needed a strong co-tenancy. We needed a strong infrastructure such as free parking. We needed other restaurants and coffee shops around us to be able to bleed into their foot traffic. And so you have to look at and assess all those things, but in the beginning we didn't know anything, you know? And so we took those chances, we learned ⁓ and you know, we've made those improvements now, but.

Back then, I wish we did a little bit more homework and research into the neighborhoods and to ⁓ the places that we were popping up in. But ⁓ I still to this day don't have, you know, it doesn't keep me up at night, to be honest with you, because...

At the end of the day, it was a pop-up. And I really love the pop-up model. I think it's the smartest way to do business, especially if you don't have VC funding or outside capital. If you're bootstrapping a business, pop-ups is really the way to go. So we were able to try and gather data, right, and see which neighborhoods worked, which demographics worked and which didn't. so...

That was kind of like how we went about it. yeah, to answer your question, I... ⁓ Location. Location is so important.

Alan Li (28:18)
Yeah, it's important.

⁓ You have three locations right now, think in LA, New York, Seaport, and then also SF. So are these all still pop-ups or are they more permanent locations? How is the structure currently?

Arnold Byun (28:33)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have ⁓ really great relationships with the landlords and the property managers. And the other thing that we've found to be very successful with retail is a percentage split. A percentage split.

of your monthly revenue is, if you can get the landlord or the property manager to agree with, is actually, I think, the most sustainable way to do business and the most mutually beneficial way to do business for both parties.

And the current setup that we have with these locations is kind of like a semi-permanent situation where it's like a year-by-year agreement, right? So we knock it down for a year and then month 11, month 12, we start renegotiating for the next year. And so we found kind of a really great sweet spot. We're really grateful and blessed to be in this situation. ⁓

To be honest with you, I would never sign a three year, five year, 10 year lease. I think that is a terrible idea. ⁓ I do not recommend it, especially if it's your own brand, right? And you don't have investors, I do not recommend that path at all. ⁓ Unless you're really bullish about your brand, but even then you should really do your research. Anyway, so currently our three locations are structured in that manner.

Alan Li (29:54)
Yeah.

Arnold Byun (29:54)
Percentage

rent and kind of like a like a yearly lease that's renewed every year

Alan Li (29:59)
That's

really cool and I think different from what most retail brands do because most brands, you the landlord is, I'm not even gonna talk to you unless you're signing a three, five or 10 year lease. I think the structure that you're talking about is a little bit more unique or do you have to have a little bit more leverage on your side to be able to command something like that?

Or is, in your experience, are landlords just open to it even when you first started and you weren't as big as you are now?

Arnold Byun (30:33)
Great question. You definitely need leverage. You can't approach a landowner with like 100 followers and say, I would love to do percentage rent.

Alan Li (30:39)
⁓ Fair. Yeah, exactly.

Arnold Byun (30:45)
Yeah, it's leverage in a sense of relationships. think relationships are so important. At the end of the day, like I said, going back to my earlier point about business just being a transaction, there's a seller and a buyer. Business, at the end of the day, if there's a seller and buyer, what are they? They're human, they're people. You're dealing with people, right? And so we call them landlord and all these titles, but at the end of the day, we're talking to people. And so...

with these relationships, ⁓ you need to think about what's in it for them. Why should they give you percentage rent? Why should they talk to you? Why should they work with you? And so for us, we've really been able to position ourselves as like, we have a network of 2,000 Asian-owned small businesses that we've worked with. We've done 70 markets across the country. ⁓ We have these metrics and ⁓ data that we can share with them that's valuable to them. ⁓

The

other thing that's kind of always in my back pocket is the market. Like when we do a market, we bring easily 3,000, like 10,000 attendees in a single day, right? So what kind of venue or what kind of property owner would not want that kind of foot traffic, right? And so I think when you're going to these negotiations or these conversations, to your point, yeah, I feel like you do have to hit certain checkpoints and... ⁓

be able to be in a place to be able to leverage the conversation. And so it's been a really slow burn for us. We've had to slowly get ourselves there. I can't tell you the amount of cold calls and cold emails I've sent in the past three and a half years we've been in business and I've never heard back. It doesn't happen overnight for sure. It takes a lot of persistence and just endless follow ups. Hey, just kind of following up. Hey, just kind

Alan Li (32:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, thanks for explaining that because I just want to make sure the audience didn't realize just like, I'm just going to go to all these places and just be like, I want to take zero risk and let's just do a revenue split. I want them to understand that you had put in a lot of work beforehand. You were doing pop-ups and markets beforehand and you had a semi-permanent location and a following and all this attention that you were able to leverage to negotiate these terms with.

Arnold Byun (32:43)
on ⁓

Yep.

Alan Li (33:03)
New York City real estate with SF real estate. ⁓ But it's a great way to de-risk the business for sure. ⁓ Awesome. ⁓ So for your, I believe in your SF location, you also are doing like a bit of co-tenancy, is that correct? With another store and is that also just through sort of what we were talking about, cold calls, Reach Now, partnering with different people? How do those work?

Arnold Byun (33:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, mean, you know, all three locations are really unique in terms of like how they're structured on the back end. They're all different percentages. They're all different clauses. And that's the thing is like one size does not fit all with retail. ⁓ And so you have to understand what's like the average going, you know, square footage in the area and like what's like a reasonable ask in the sense of the SF store, the way that came about. ⁓

I was actually approached to become a creative director for this coffee shop called Sohn in San Francisco, which is where our store currently lives within. And so as I was taking up that project, I quickly realized that it's a massive space, like 7,000, 8,000 square feet, two floors. ⁓ Yeah, super, it's an industrial neighborhood, ⁓ really high ceilings.

⁓ They wanted to make sure that this wasn't just another cafe. They wanted really robust retail. They wanted programming and events and collaborations. And so I jumped on the opportunity to become the creative director for this ⁓ cafe. And in that process, you know, one of the partners he wanted to bring in the mom store inside the cafe. And so, you know, the more I thought about it and it obviously became more familiar with the neighborhood and also the square footage of our space is probably like five

500-600 square feet. ⁓ It seemed manageable enough and so that's how that opportunity came about and I negotiated again another percentage deal where we would take up a corner space within the cafe and we would remit a sales report like an itemized monthly sales report to them and then let them know like how we're doing and then

transfer over the percentage that we agreed to. So that's how that San Francisco store came about. And that one in particular, actually, ⁓ it curates only Korean and Korean American brands because the cafe that we're in is kind of like a Korean American cafe. That's the concept. And so, you know, what we've done with the three locations actually is they're all individualized. The curation is not the same in the three locations that we have. We try to be mindful of the demographic and the context of where our store is.

Alan Li (35:21)
Hmm.

Arnold Byun (35:36)
located. So for example, like I just mentioned to you, the San Francisco store is inside a cafe. So being that it's inside a cafe, what do we curate? Cookbooks, dinnerware, mugs, cups, grading cards, stuff like that. ⁓ Orange County store is inside a museum. So for the museum, we have a lot of art prints, posters, key chains, ⁓ things like that. The New York store is a little bit different. It is a little bit more general and more of a general store. would say we have a really mixed

everything but ⁓ yeah that's kind of like the situation with SF store.

Alan Li (36:11)
And Arnold, who is doing ⁓ the curation right now? Is it you and your partner? Is it ⁓ someone else?

Arnold Byun (36:19)
Yeah, the curation is still between myself and my partner. We definitely have a final say in the curation and we're still to this day, we select the brands that are going to the stores.

Alan Li (36:31)
Okay, and how big is the corporate team structure and what is the structure like?

Arnold Byun (36:36)
Yeah, corporate team structure is me, my co-founder and ⁓ one full-timer. So it's just three full-time folks, know, the two, myself and my co-founder, and then we have a brand director who handles really most of the design work that you see. yeah, yeah, thank you. And so we've been very intentional about that as well. She's our first hire and she's been with us for...

Alan Li (36:54)
beautiful.

Arnold Byun (37:03)
close to almost three years as well. And we hire, the way we operate our business, we hire a lot of contractors, a lot of freelancers, and that's how we're able to kind of operate the business.

Alan Li (37:16)
Gotcha.

And then for each store location, do you have sort of just part-time people working on a rotating basis? Is that how it works or are some locations not even staffed?

Arnold Byun (37:26)
Yeah, so another great question. We actually experimented with... ⁓

concept where we would just set up the curation and the staffing would come from the venue. We've actually tried that arrangement. It's difficult. I think it's really difficult given the nature of what we're selling. I think the products that we're selling need to be explained and the story needs to be told. so that was fail. And so we decided we're going to actually staff our stores ourselves. And so we have our own staff. We're getting to a level now where we kind of want to hire some sort of like an operational

Alan Li (37:37)
Mm-hmm.

Arnold Byun (38:01)
manager for each store at least and so we're actually in a process of doing that. We have an operations manager actually for the SF store ⁓ and so we're trying to promote within so really push someone up that's been with us for a while and get them to be overseeing the day-to-day for each store because as you might imagine it's really difficult for us to ⁓ have our hands in everything and you know lately I've been getting better at delegating as well and empowering my staff.

Alan Li (38:28)
Yeah.

Is there a sort of division of labor between you and Keo in terms of what you guys focus on or is it, you know, we try to do everything together.

Arnold Byun (38:39)
Yeah, we try to do most of it together. would say ⁓ naturally what I've been doing a lot more lately is I think physically because we're in two different places. So for example, I'm here in New York, he's in LA. So anything in relation to the West Coast, LA, Orange County, he's going to really oversee. Anything related to New York, East Coast, like Boston or wherever we're going to be expanding to, I would oversee. So that's kind of how we split up the work. ⁓ And then

I have spent more time lately doing a lot of business development and business partnerships and ⁓ I spearhead most of the landlord relationships and representation as well.

Alan Li (39:21)
Gotcha.

And Arnold, with the three locations that you have on pop-ups and also the markets that you do, what sort of numbers can you share in terms of how mom is doing today?

Arnold Byun (39:32)
Yeah, to be honest with you and to be honest with the audience, the retail stores are not profitable. It is breaking even. We're not losing money. And I think for us, we're...

We're really eating the cost because at the end of the day, it's a marketing vehicle for us to have these retail stores and it's an ecosystem that we're creating, right? Where we are trying to continuously create more opportunities and ways for which our makers can... ⁓

Increase their exposure and visibility to their brand what I mean by that is let's say they've been with us on a market And we really like their product. Oh, we really love your product You know we'd love to have you in our store great And then we put them in our store in New York Orange County or San Francisco And vice versa people come to the store and it's an opportunity for them to learn about our brand the mom brand and let them know that hey We're actually doing a market here. You know next Saturday, and we can promote our market so In terms of sharing you know numbers. I'll just tell you right now

Alan Li (40:18)
Mm-hmm.

Arnold Byun (40:33)
⁓ we're not making money from these stores. ⁓ After rent, after labor, after utility, all of these fixed costs and expenses and also just like unforeseen costs, right? So let's say for example, your toilet's out of order, you gotta call a plumber. Something's wrong with your AC, you gotta call, you know, AC engineering. ⁓ Maybe something went wrong with your lock, so now you gotta like break your lock and get a new lock. Maybe you had a break-in, maybe you had theft. You know, all these crazy things can happen.

especially in the retail side. So when you factor all of that in, we're ⁓ not profitable on the retail side.

But thankfully, our main really driving revenue source is the market. so that's what's keeping us going. ⁓ I think without the market, it would be really difficult for us to have these retail stores. would even try to change it into some sort of like a nonprofit angle, you know? But that's really the reality of situation right now. Retail's tough. Retail is really tough.

Alan Li (41:18)
Hmm.

Yeah,

for the markets, know, there is, when I went to the last one in New York, I think there's probably like 40 or 50 booths and set up like, are you coordinating all of that? Are you like helping with the setup and getting all the vendors on? Like who's doing all that work at these markets?

Arnold Byun (41:55)
yeah.

yeah. mean, it's all hands on deck, man. I'm still the one getting a U-Haul and going to my storage and putting in tables, putting in the umbrellas and then, you know, ⁓ over parking the U-Haul somewhere. And then next day we go in at eight in the morning. We take out the tables. We take out the umbrellas. We set up all of that for the makers. And that's what's really different about Maumarket is we actually ⁓ own. We own all the tables and we own all the fixtures. We own...

Alan Li (42:03)
Wow.

Arnold Byun (42:24)
things. So we are in fact a rental company ⁓ and so we provide all of that to our makers which if you compare us to other craft fairs and markets around the country, ⁓ typically what they do is they just give you a marked 10 by 10 empty space and you yourself are responsible for bringing a canopy and a table and all of that.

Alan Li (42:27)
Mm-hmm.

Arnold Byun (42:47)
We from the get-go, this was like our differentiating factor, we decided that we were going to be providing all of those things. And so to this day, 70 markets later, we still provide all those things for the makers. And to this day, it's either myself or Keeo that's...

loading the tables and setting those up. It's us, and we thankfully have helpers, the day of obviously, that are kind of like contractors as well that come and help, but we're still driving the machine and we're still kind of behind the engine.

Alan Li (43:19)
Yeah.

And what does the next few years look like? I know you said, you know, retail's tough, it's breakeven, and ⁓ you're gaining most of your revenue through the markets. Is it to host more markets? Is it to ⁓ maybe open more retail? So then you do have more marketing to open markets in different areas. Like, what is the plan for the next three to five years?

Arnold Byun (43:40)
Yeah.

Three to five years is tough. mean, I think with business these days, it's hard to forecast that far out. ⁓ To be honest, I'm thinking like maximum month out. But if I was talking three, five years, one of the key focuses that we have in the coming years is we feel that there's an incredible, tremendous opportunity to be a bridge between brands coming out of Asia and entering the US. And so that's actually a focus that we're going to be

starting to do in the next few months and You know up until now we've really worked with a lot of the local small businesses and that's not going to change but we see a signal in the market where we need to ⁓ help now like homegrown like Asian brands and so I think you can expect to see mom become a more of an international platform where you can discover brands from Asia directly ⁓ and Then also we want to have obviously just a nationwide presence, you know, especially

up and down coastal America. want to be able to have markets all over the major cities. Ideally, I would love to find an operator for those local markets. That would be great. And in terms of scaling this business, think, you know, the markets are great, but again, the main driving revenue is actually ⁓

us becoming an event producer for the city. So for example, we do something for LA city where we do a lunar block party every year. And so that's lonesome contract that we get. So I would love to get more contracts like that where we can put together cultural festivals for the city or for other big companies. That's kind of how we see ourselves becoming more of a profitable business.

Alan Li (45:34)
Interesting.

I wasn't aware of that. So sometimes to host like a lunar, you know, celebration or mid-autumn festival, the city will pay you to put that on. Interesting. Fascinating. ⁓ Is MOM available on market or online where people can just purchase ⁓ through e-commerce as well? Or is that like a channel that you're thinking about as well?

Arnold Byun (45:43)
Yep, yes.

We tried e-commerce actually. We tried e-commerce, we've had our own app before, we tried all those things. We realized that's not for us, you know? When you say e-commerce, immediately you're competing against Amazon. I can't, you we can't, we tried, we, it's tough. Unless we can get some serious funding and build out a really crazy infrastructure and be able to eat shipping costs, absolutely no way. There's just no way.

Alan Li (46:22)
Yeah. I see.

Arnold Byun (46:25)
Yeah, I'm usually a positive guy and positive person, but it's not a fight that I think we can win. We've tried. It's tough.

Alan Li (46:35)
When you're competing against free two-day shipping, ⁓ even for sub- $10 items, it's very tough to compete as a bootstrapped brand.

Arnold Byun (46:43)
Good.

It's very hard and ⁓ that's why we're really trying to, even if the stores are breaking even, we're really trying to hold onto these stores because I think there's still some sort of a magic when you walk into the store and you discover something that is not available on Amazon that is just super unique. There's a story to it. You know it's been handmade. ⁓

Yeah, so we feel like our strength is in in-person, offline, in real life experiences, whether it's with our markets or with our retail storefronts.

Alan Li (47:17)
Yeah.

Arnold, I know that you said ⁓ earlier in the conversation that you wanted to be in Culver City because you thought that non-Asians would appreciate Asian goods even more so than Asian people would. ⁓ How have you seen sort of the arrival and renowned interest in Asian brands evolve over the last five, seven years in the US?

Arnold Byun (47:41)
my gosh, it's night and day and you can trace it. Maybe it's cause my background is in restaurants, but I always like to trace trends through food because I always feel like food is really the first to get hit. That's the first industry that's going to be a indicator for, for just.

Alan Li (47:58)
great point.

Arnold Byun (48:01)
what's gonna come, right? So for example, like what's being used, it's like a trickle down. It starts in fine dining, because fine dining restaurants are the ones that are gonna take those risks, and they have ⁓ an audience that's willing to take.

chances and be educated on like new ingredients and new cultures and new etc. Then it kind of trickles down to like fast casual and then when it comes to fast food that's when you know it's mainstream. It's like okay this is when it's arrived you know and then it trickles down into grocery aisles and grocery stores and so there's I see kind of this trend happening usually in ⁓ restaurants and so in the past ⁓ you said five seven like nine years just look at restaurants and I'll give you an example in terms of like New York City.

The amount of Korean restaurants in the Michelin Guide? Insane. It's crazy. Like what's happened. And you see that and then you see obviously you know just IP like original content coming out of Netflix but other also just other media, movies, animation. mean

Alan Li (48:50)
I've been blown away.

Arnold Byun (49:06)
It's amazing. I think it's so cool ⁓ how Asian culture is, I feel like we've really arrived at a point where, ⁓ you know, we're really accepted. We're really accepted. People love and appreciate our culture. And ⁓ I know for a fact, myself included, but other Asian Americans, like we're so proud of our heritage now, right? Like growing up, we used to really hide it and kind of be almost like ashamed of it. But now it's something to be proud of. And I think

I'm really lucky and blessed and grateful to be doing business at a time like this where ⁓ people do want to support Asian-owned businesses and they're just like a lot more open-minded to experiencing new things and new ideas and ⁓ I think that presents an opportunity for us to be able to be mindful and intentional about the experience that we're providing them. And so that's always definitely at the top of my mind. It's like, yeah, as Asian, as a general Asian culture is now beloved, right?

and people love it. But now the next homework is, okay, how do we tell them what Korean culture is and what Chinese culture is and what Japanese culture is and what Thai culture is and what Vietnamese culture is? Like how do we help tell those stories and how do we help them differentiate Asians? I think that's the next homework we have for the next five, ten years.

Alan Li (50:26)
Yeah.

Well, kudos to you for spearheading this journey. ⁓ And I personally also felt the shift ⁓ and interest for Asian products, food, culture. And it's been really, really awesome to see. ⁓ Arnold, know we're running up on time here, but sort of looking back on your journey over the last five or so years, ⁓ starting mom, doing the markets, opening retail, working with so many cool brands. ⁓

Arnold Byun (50:39)
Yes.

Alan Li (50:56)
Is there anything that you would have done differently knowing what you know now?

Arnold Byun (51:01)
If I knew if man going back and if I knew what I know now, I would not do this. I would not. I would not. I would not. It's it's hard. It's really difficult. ⁓ Like I told you, I'm so happy. I'm so blessed and grateful. Don't get me wrong. But like it's daunting. Entrepreneurship is it's not easy. I think it's often. ⁓

Alan Li (51:10)
I love the honesty. Why?

Arnold Byun (51:29)
How do I say, romanticized, you know? And people think it's all glitz and glamour. It's not. It's entrepreneurship is getting a U-Haul for your market and loading it up with 40 tables and 40 umbrellas and hauling ass. And being sweaty after a 12-hour shift, you know? Like, it's not. And...

That's just the reality. I'm sorry to say, we've done a really good job, I think, of creating this ⁓ brand image, and I'm really proud of that. And I think even your questions reflect that. It's like, okay, who's doing all of this work, right? It's us, it's just three of us. And I don't think I would, man. It's not for the faint of heart, it's not for everyone.

I think if I, at that point I'm like, wow, that sounds like a lot of work. So I probably, I would probably just go back into the restaurant industry ⁓ and kind of go back to that. But ignorance is bliss and sometimes it's good to not know everything. ⁓ There's kind of a beauty in that as well. And so I don't think I would.

But that being said, I wouldn't change anything. I wouldn't do anything differently. I think I've learned so much from everything that we've done in the past three and a half years.

Alan Li (52:45)
⁓ Thank you for being so transparent and honest about that. Because I could imagine everyone looking in at mom is just like, wow, they're killing it. Everything's going perfectly. ⁓ It's living the dream. ⁓ But I appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing that. Because entrepreneurship is tough. It's really tough. You kind of have to be a little crazy to do it and continue with it. ⁓ But what I've also realized is if you are doing good and you have a great mission, ⁓

Arnold Byun (52:54)
I'm not sure.

Alan Li (53:15)
Sometimes just being in the game long enough to get lucky is part of the game. And I'm hoping and wishing that mom continues to get lucky. And ⁓ you guys are positioned well, think, for all the interest in Asian culture and the trends. So I'm rooting for y'all.

Arnold Byun (53:32)
Yeah, I appreciate that man. Yeah, I think you nailed it. I think it's luck and persistence and just surviving it and seeing it through through the end and you know, I love what you guys are doing too. You guys make beautiful signs and we're really, you know, we're really happy that you guys are around too and

Alan Li (53:45)
Thank you.

Arnold Byun (53:51)
⁓ Yeah, I think, you know, we're really confident that we can do a good job, but ⁓ yeah, we're just trying one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time, and just trying to take it easy.

Alan Li (54:04)
fail

you. ⁓ Arnold, if people want to learn a bit more or get in touch or follow along, what's the best way for them to do so?

Arnold Byun (54:11)
Yeah, we have two Instagram accounts and two websites. One is mom.market. That's M-A-U-M dot market on Instagram. That's also the website. And then the store is mom. stores with an S at the end, mainly because we couldn't get that handle. Someone else has it. That's not using it for the past like 10 years, but the website is mom.store singular. And so those are the two kind of handles and websites you can find us at. And you know, if you're in New York, we're at the Seaport in Financial District.

Orange County. We're at the Orange County Museum of Art in San Francisco. We're in the Dogpatch neighborhood in Saenzon.

Alan Li (54:47)
Awesome. Well, we'll include all those links in the show notes. yeah, Arnold, thanks so much for taking the time today. This has been a really awesome chat.

Arnold Byun (54:55)
Yeah, I appreciate your time too, man. Thank you so much.

Alan Li (54:58)
awesome.