Hey there! Welcome to the Independent Money newsletter 👋 We’ll be exploring the fascinating lives of our favorite entrepreneurs. We’re taking a closer look at their backgrounds, careers, and financial journeys.

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We sat down with Koh Kim, who takes us inside her unique entrepreneurial journey and a glimpse into her personal finances

I'm a former tech executive and multi-passionate entrepreneur with 15+ years of experience in marketing, business development, strategy and operations. I've helped founders and companies in gaming, web3, and consumer products achieve more than $500M in sales, exits, and raised capital.

Now, I advise and coach multi-passionate women to reinvent themselves and build enduring legacies with their second (or N+1) act. I also invest as an angel in early tech startups.

Entrepreneurship

What made you go from corporate employee to starting your own business?

Ironically, I thought I would never leave Corporate America because I thought I wasn’t entrepreneurial enough. I am a divergent thinker with many interests, so it was hard for me to decide what to pursue. Instead of agonizing over what would be the best path, I just tried a lot of different paths. That made it easy for me to experiment, get some feedback, and prioritize what mattered to me.

To this day, I still battle impostor syndrome even with all of the accomplishments I’ve had. As I accumulated more skills and experience, I became more confident about my own decisions and started to create my own opportunities. Reflecting on my career, I realized that an underlying desire to create and run my own business was trying to manifest. I have collaborated with smaller, earlier stage companies over time, but what I enjoyed the most was working 1:1 with people to find more creativity and confidence while building their teams and businesses, especially in difficult times.

You grew impressions on Pinterest from 0 to +10M  impressions, what was one strategy you used?

This shouldn’t be a surprise, but like any other social media platform.

1) Consistency: Stick to a regular schedule and consistently show up. 

2) Content: Post content that your audience wants to see.
 
Pinterest is like Google Search for visual inspiration and ideas. For those familiar with SEO and an eye for visuals, it can be a great platform depending on your audience and business. It’s also relatively straightforward to grow quickly with the right strategy. 

For myself, I’m transitioning into the next chapter of my career. As a consequence, I have to adjust my own strategy and content to serve the new audience. I have shifted to longer form video content, and I launched my YouTube channel and newsletter (links below!)

What’s your advice for someone just starting out on their entrepreneurial journey?

The biggest struggle I’ve had when I transitioned from 9-5 executive to digital entrepreneur begins with the world, “over.” 

That’s overthinking, overcomplicating, and over-engineering. 

There is no better teacher than doing the work and talking to your prospective and current customers.  

What has been the most effective channel for lead generation?

Nothing beats the referral from a happy client. Social media is a great tool to test your offer, but you can only go “viral” if you have a strong product-market fit with your target community. I have built fairly large followings on LinkedIn and TikTok, but I am starting over again on YouTube to attract a new audience.

Money

What’s one money tip you live by?

Being financially flexible is more important than being financially independent. 

While I appreciate the FIRE movement, I think the culture now focuses too much on the number and not actually living your life in the present. It’s pretty much a given that you’re going to spend money, and I see people sacrifice their relationships, experiences, and time to save 80% of their earnings for some life in the distant future. 

While having a destination is important, being financially flexible builds a long-term mindset, decision-making and resilience. 

What is your current savings and investing stack/portfolio (i.e any retirement accounts, emergency fund, etc)?

I won’t divulge my actual net worth (but I can see it’s more than enough for me to do what I want). I am in the process of simplifying and updating my personal finance stack. I used to have a ton of different accounts across various assets, but I was spending too much time managing my portfolio and less time building my businesses. It’s much easier to make critical financial decisions with fewer accounts and less software. I’ve built up my own tracking system with Notion and Google Sheets

My overall investments portfolio excluding includes: 

• Cash

• Treasury securities

• Taxable brokerage

• Traditional IRA

• Alternative assets (e.g. crypto, real estate, collectibles, private lending)

I am quite comfortable with risk, so my investment strategy leans on the aggressive side with bias towards technology companies. 

I am carrying more cash in case there are any business acquisitions or real estate opportunities. 

My investment portfolio allocation is the following:

• Cash: 15% (checking, HYSA)

• Fixed income: 10% (treasury securities, bonds)

• Stocks: 45% (individual equities, index funds $VOO)

• Crypto: 20% (bitcoin, ethereum)

• Alternative Assets: 10% (real estate, private credit, art, collectibles)
  

  This excludes value of my business assets, restricted crypto holdings, and equity options from startup advisory.

What’s your retirement goal and what steps are you taking to achieve it? 

I don’t want to do a traditional retirement, so I can see myself working on things I care about for the rest of my life. I have friends all over the world, and it’s been a dream of mine to be an expat. I’m intentionally building location-independent businesses, so I can operate them no matter where I am at the time. My investments portfolio has performed remarkably well over the last few years, so I am taking the time to make the future a reality.

Additionally, I’m focused on my health. I’ve opted for produce from local farmers’ markets and preparing delicious, nutrient-dense meals for my family and friends. I want to live a long, meaningful life where I can enjoy my wealth, family, and friends. I had a health scare while on the job that required a visit to the emergency room in a foreign country. That was the wakeup call for me to design a new life.

Are you an entrepreneur that’s still figuring out how to achieve your dream retirement plans — learn more about your retirement options.

To learn more about Koh Kim and stay connected, you can find her on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok or visit her website.

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If you want more resources on building wealth as an solopreneur/entrepreneur, check these out:

• The Solo 401k handbook 

• What is a Solo 401k?

• How to Open a Solo 401k

• Common Solo 401k FAQs

• Solo 401k Contribution Calculator