The First Negotiation
Kim Siwon’s prepared confidence had been building ever since he hung up Shin Dongjin’s call.
> So the negotiation plan you mentioned earlier was about investment, huh?
> You caught on fast.
> You said you were thinking about a negotiation plan.
As soon as the call ended, Kim Siwon talked it over with Badugi.
Both of them had already predicted that, once they made a good product, investment offers would come quickly.
> You know there are plenty of negotiation angles besides immediate cash investment. Getting a huge sum is not the only thing that matters.
> Yeah. I know.
Taking investment was a good thing. Every action could be tied to money, and it meant having the capital to make that happen.
But as Badugi had said, for a startup, money alone was not always the best form of investment. If a company took on a large amount of capital without any groundwork at all, it could end up losing its own independence.
If buying data was going to cost more cash anyway, then sometimes it was better to receive help in forms other than pure funding.
"Guys. Can you meet in twenty minutes?"
"Huh? Yeah."
"Why all of a sudden?"
"I think I need to go in prepared for a negotiation."
"A negotiation?"
"Yeah. I think investment might come up."
"What?!"
"I’ll explain the details a little later."
Twenty minutes.
Under normal circumstances, that would have been far too little time to put together a proper investment proposal.
But Kim Siwon was working in a slightly different environment from everyone else.
> I already drafted two negotiation models for each investment amount. I also estimated the funding needed for business development, so use that as a reference.
He had already saved a huge amount of time that would otherwise have been wasted on plain labor. All he had to do was review Badugi’s suggestions one by one, verify the information, and adjust it to fit his business.
So when Kim Siwon explained his investment proposal, every member of the club had no choice but to nod along.
"But would they really bring up investment? We're just college students."
"The product isn't some ordinary college-student project."
When the subject actually came up in Professor Shin Dongjin’s lab, the club members could only stare in shock.
They were not surprised because of the investment offer itself.
They were surprised because Kim Siwon’s confident prediction had turned out to be right.
"You want me to state the proposal I had in mind first?"
"Yes."
At Kim Siwon’s bold answer, Professor Shin Dongjin smiled.
He really did seem different from ordinary college students.
"Looks like you expected me to make this kind of offer?"
"Haha. Our product is pretty solid, so I figured it was possible."
His modest but confident tone made even the graduate students stare at him with fascination.
It was rare to see someone who neither groveled before their professor nor strutted around with their nose in the air.
"Given the way you’re speaking, it sounds like you have no intention of handing this AI over to us outright."
"That’s right. I have a lot I want to do with it."
"Are you considering investment beyond government support programs?"
"I am. But from you, Professor, I’m hoping for something more than a simple investment. I’d like a more complex form of collaboration."
Professor Shin Dongjin’s friendly, almost saintly smile shifted into one of pure interest.
He was only intrigued by how far this conversation had veered from the direction he had expected.
"Oh? Am I allowed to make my own proposal first? You seem to already have a specific idea in mind."
"If you would present your proposal first, we were planning to adjust ours to fit your guidelines."
"Hmm. Then how about one hundred million won as angel investment?"
Everyone except Professor Shin Dongjin and Kim Siwon looked stunned.
The veterinary graduate students were shocked that Shin Dongjin himself had stated his intention to invest, while Kim Siwon’s club members were shocked by the amount: one hundred million won.
Kim Siwon was surprised too, but he managed his expression as best he could.
He had expected an offer of around fifty million won, and yet Shin Dongjin was thinking in terms of one hundred million.
If this had not been a face-to-face negotiation, Kim Siwon’s facial muscles would have twitched a great deal more.
"For angel investment aimed at undergraduates, that should be a respectable amount. Right?"
"Thank you for recognizing the value of our AI so highly."
"Hahaha! I was expecting you to say you appreciated being evaluated highly."
Silently, Kim Siwon took the negotiation drafts he had printed out and pulled out the proposals prepared for the case where he was offered one hundred million won.
Then he handed them to Professor Shin Dongjin.
"What is this?"
"Investment proposals we prepared."
"Forget the detailed clauses for now. Just explain the important parts at a basic level. There are a lot of ears listening here."
"Yes, sir."
Kim Siwon’s investment proposal covered quite a variety of points.
It was not just about receiving money or discussing management rights.
It included offering stock options and bringing the professor on as an advisor, buying the AI IP from Professor Shin Dongjin’s lab, receiving actual dog data files, and more.
As they listened, everyone’s expressions shifted beyond surprise and into confusion.
How could a college student even think of things like this?
"Did your parents happen to run a business?"
"Ah. Neither of them are around."
"Hmm. I asked because you seem to know the startup ecosystem so well. Is someone advising you from behind the scenes?"
"No, not at all. I just spend a lot of time hammering away at my computer and discussing things intensely with my team."
Kim Siwon silently thanked Badugi inside.
His teammates silently thought, We honestly didn’t do much at all.
Professor Shin Dongjin looked over the proposals in silence.
Very carefully.
"A startup with a good product, a smart founder, and intelligent employees. Hmm."
In truth, Professor Shin Dongjin had nothing to lose no matter which option he chose.
Compared with investing one hundred million won in cash, the risks were lower, and some of the proposals could even be counted toward his own achievements as a professor.
The only unusual part was that college students had come up with such a negotiation package in the first place.
"Which option does Kim Siwon prefer most?"
"The first option on the first page."
"May I ask why?"
"Because I’d like you to become our advisor, Professor."
Option One was the only proposal Badugi had put forward.
That meant it was, after combining multiple data points, the best choice.
Kim Siwon preferred it as well, but he had prepared other options in case Professor Shin Dongjin had no real interest in the students’ business.
"Hmm. If it’s Option One, then I’ll be quite deeply involved. I’d also be lending my name to marketing, wouldn’t I?"
"You’d likely become a KOL, a key opinion leader, whose support we’d request a great deal."
"Hmmmm. That’s a difficult one. It’s a little too serious."
Professor Shin Dongjin fell into a long, serious silence.
In that quiet, only the students grew tense.
"I think I need some time to think about this. Could you come again tomorrow, not today? At least Kim Siwon can."
"Yes, of course. Shall I come by tomorrow?"
"Yes, yes. Let’s meet at the same time tomorrow."
"Understood. I’ll see you tomorrow."
Kim Siwon and the club members bowed politely and filed out of Professor Shin Dongjin’s lab.
Some of them still looked dazed.
They could not understand why, after such a good conversation, they had suddenly been sent away.
"Couldn’t we just keep him there and persuade him why Option One is good for him too?"
"Better to leave when he tells us to leave. We don’t want to become annoying people."
"He really is top of the field, so maybe that’s why he’s a little prickly."
"Still, he’s on our side more than not."
While Kim Siwon’s club members muttered their way home, Professor Shin Dongjin’s lab remained wrapped in silence.
That in itself meant his head was full of complicated thoughts.
"For now, I’ll share the proposal details about our AI with all of you too."
So he also revealed part of the negotiation to the graduate students in his lab.
He wanted to see how they would react.
"What do you think?"
But none of the graduate students could tell the finer differences in the details.
The wording in those contracts could change the conclusion entirely.
The clauses were subtly different, but not so much that they could easily state an opinion about them.
Honestly, it would have been stranger if someone had been able to catch all of that perfectly.
"Right. That’s the normal reaction."
Professor Shin Dongjin shook his head as if he had not expected anything else.
At the same time, he once again recognized just how exceptional Kim Siwon really was.
And unless Kim Siwon stumbled because of his own arrogance, he now believed that the company would grow properly.
"Everyone, you remember those abstracts we once tried to write for AI diagnostics papers and then scrapped because the performance wasn't good enough?"
"I’ll check the related files right now."
"We need to figure out exactly how much value we can extract from those students’ AI. If you have opinions, feel free to share them."
"Yes, sir."
Little by little, Professor Shin Dongjin found himself leaning toward Option One.
The next day, I met Professor Shin Dongjin alone and finished the final negotiation and contract drafting.
It was a completely clean, efficient use of time.
Professor Shin Dongjin agreed to become our advisor, and we would be able to use that fact later in our product promotion.
Even so, since the veterinary medicine data from Korea University could not be handed over solely at Professor Shin Dongjin’s discretion, we agreed to receive the IP of the AI trained on that data instead.
With the product updated that way, various papers would be written on it as much as possible, and by the first half of the year we planned to complete both business registration and patent registration.
We were also scheduled to receive thirty million won in cash investment, with office rental and patent registration in mind.
"The first button is on pretty well."
Feeling satisfied, I went to the Club Room and opened the door, only for everyone to lift their heads at once like meerkats.
"He's back, he's back!"
"How was it? Was it okay?"
"Did things go well with Professor Shin Dongjin?"
"Yeah. Option One is locked in. I’ll upload the scanned contract to the shared drive."
"Whew. Nice work!!"
Everyone let out a forceful sigh of relief, then broke into smiles.
After that, they looked at me with eyes full of energy, already waiting for the next step.
"So what do we do now?"
But there was nothing we had to do immediately.
"The professor said he’d talk with Your Paw about our app. Once they contact us, we can think about our next move."
"Exactly how long are we supposed to wait?"
"He said they’d get in touch sometime within this month."
"Didn’t you ask for a more specific date?"
"He’s busy. I can just send a reminder email again at the end of the month."
Everyone’s faces soured with disappointment, but they seemed to understand that there was nothing to be done.
"Anyway, today’s negotiation went well, so should we all go out for a celebratory drink? Early dinner right away?"
"I have class right now."
"Huh? Right now?"
"Oh, right. I did nerf his schedule, didn’t I?"
"Nerf?"
"I mean, I just corrected it."
The moment I regressed, it was right after the spring semester had just begun in my third year of college.
It was the period when I had arranged my timetable around the so-called easy classes, just before I started running full speed toward founding the startup.
But in this life, while preparing for the business, I had also made a few changes to my schedule.
In a direction that would help my startup a little more.