The Scale of Ambition
It wasn’t the money that made Yoo Jae-won a giant killer—it was the equity. If Su-gyeong’s father had simply offered to buy the chicken recipe outright and open a modest shop in town, Jae-won would have been deeply disappointed. But the moment the man declared his intention to build a franchise rather than a single store, the minimum requirement had been met. When he further proposed granting equity in exchange for the recipe, he crossed the threshold into the realm of serious consideration. These conditions were the very criteria Jae-won used to judge whether someone could become a business partner with genuine vision.
“Thank you for valuing my recipe so highly. And to think you’re planning to launch a business as well—I’m the one who’s honored.”
Su-gyeong’s father, who had been watching the boy with nervous tension, broke into a relieved smile at the positive response. Had Yoo Jae-won been an ordinary child, he would have undervalued the recipe without a second thought. Instead, his only real dilemma was how highly to value it. After running the numbers, the figure had climbed into the tens of millions of won. Then the thought struck him: why not make the boy a full partner by offering equity instead? Fortunately, that final choice seemed to have secured Jae-won’s approval, and the man felt quietly proud of himself.
“There’s something else, sir. I’ve been thinking, and there’s a far better business than simply running a chicken franchise.”
Su-gyeong’s father tilted his head. The franchise idea was the result of an entire night of careful deliberation. His plan had been to open two locations in Yeoju, then expand into neighboring cities and the greater Seoul area. No matter how he looked at it, nothing seemed better. Yet here was Yoo Jae-won, barely having heard the proposal, already claiming to have something superior.
“Oh? What kind of business?”
Still, the boy was the owner of the recipe and clearly no ordinary child, so he decided to keep an open mind.
“Are you familiar with vertical integration in the broiler industry?”
The term was technical, but fortunately the man worked in the field and understood it immediately. It meant controlling every stage of chicken production: supplying chicks and feed to farms, raising the broilers, then slaughtering, processing, and selling them directly.
“Right now, the only companies doing full vertical integration are Maniker and Harim Foods. On paper it sounds impressive, but neither has real substance yet. Why do you ask?”
“There are two possible businesses centered on chicken. One is the franchise model you mentioned. The other is a broiler processing operation that supplies chicken to franchisees and other buyers. If you’re going to enter the industry anyway, I recommend pursuing both at the same time.”
Harim Foods might be a small player now, but one day it would be designated a major corporation. As domestic chicken consumption exploded, simply selling chicken would be enough to elevate the company to conglomerate status. The same was true for a chicken franchise headquarters—several companies had built skyscrapers in Gangnam on chicken sales alone.
“B-both of them?”
Vertical integration was vastly larger in scale than operating franchises. Owning hatcheries, supplying chicks and feed, and then collecting, processing, and selling the grown birds required enormous capital. By contrast, the franchise model he had envisioned was relatively simple: license the recipe, supply stable chicken, and grow the number of outlets. Given how delicious the chicken was, the outlets would surely multiply. But integrating the entire production chain would make the business exponentially larger—and the risk of failure correspondingly catastrophic.
“You don’t need to own every farm. You can supply chicks and feed on a contract basis. The farmers won’t have to worry about finding buyers, and as long as they raise the birds well they’ll make a profit. Plenty of people will sign on.”
Chickens reached maturity in roughly a month. Su-gyeong’s father had often been forced to keep birds longer simply because there were no orders, watching feed costs accumulate with no outlet in sight.
“I see. If someone’s willing to pay just for raising them, even I would take that deal. But to run a business that big, you’d need to sell an enormous number of chickens. At least ten thousand birds a month, I’d guess. Can you really sell that many?”
Uncle, your ambitions are still too small. Ten thousand birds? The words rose to Jae-won’s throat, but he swallowed them. In the twenty-first century, a single farm could raise two hundred thousand birds at once. Chickens matured in a little over a month, theoretically allowing ten cycles per year. Accounting for cleaning, rest periods, and shipping, the realistic average was six to seven cycles. One farm could ship over a million birds annually. Such operations were commonplace, and there were already a thousand such farms nationwide. Of course, at this point in time, that scale was difficult to imagine.
“Yes, I’m certain. Vertical integration offers many advantages. Through economies of scale you can lower the price of fresh chicken while maintaining strict hygiene standards that consumers can trust. Bulk feed imports will also be cheaper. The same applies to the franchise side. If you supply chicken at a lower cost, the retail price of fried chicken drops, attracting more customers.”
Jae-won sketched diagrams as he explained—supplying chicks and feed under contract, processing birds in a large modern plant, and distributing to multiple outlets. Su-gyeong’s father’s jaw dropped when he realized the operation could supply not only his own franchise but other chicken businesses as well.
“Hold on. Shouldn’t the lower price be reserved exclusively for our own franchise to strengthen our competitive edge?”
The man’s instinct was to treat the cost advantage as a unique weapon for his own stores. Jae-won was suggesting the opposite—using the low cost to dominate the entire market.
“Sir, no matter how good my recipe is, it won’t stay unique forever. Other companies will develop their own. As household incomes rise, people will care more about taste than price. We can keep prices at a reasonable level while using cheap chicken to monopolize the broiler market itself. Even if other franchises sell chicken, they’ll still be buying our birds.”
The man’s mouth remained open. Monopolizing the fresh-chicken market—the sheer scale of the ambition took his breath away. Yet the plan wasn’t reckless. The current poultry industry was fragmented and small-scale. Only Maniker and Harim had any real size, and even they weren’t giants. With massive capital and advanced technology, seizing the market was entirely plausible.
Jae-won moved on to the details of the franchise model.
“The key to franchising is maintaining identical quality at every location. That means the headquarters must supply not only fresh chicken but every ingredient—batter mix, seasoning, even packaging boxes. We’ll also need to train staff at each outlet. This structure itself creates economies of scale. Buying supplies and equipment in bulk lowers costs for everyone, and the same applies to interior fit-outs.”
“Ah, I see.”
Su-gyeong’s father possessed genuine business sense. Running both a poultry farm and a pig farm through two decades of volatility required real acumen. He quickly grasped the profit points in Jae-won’s explanations. Both the integrated poultry operation and the franchise model were attractive. The only obstacle was capital. The funds he could currently mobilize were insufficient for either venture, let alone both.
“You offered me equity, but I have no intention of accepting it for free. I’ll make a proper investment so we can start this properly.”
“Really? You’re willing to invest in me?”
“Yes. No one in our neighborhood understands chickens better than you. And since we’re aiming for economies of scale from the beginning, starting big will help us overtake any competitors.”
In November he would receive the Bundang new-town land compensation. ID Office would launch soon. Most importantly, next year held a major opportunity. Money would not be a problem.
“Then where do we begin? Do we need to secure buyers for the chicken first, or start recruiting franchisees?”
The modest business he had planned had, through conversation with Jae-won, transformed into something monumental. His carefully prepared notes were now useless, and he found himself unsure of priorities.
“The very first step is to build a large-scale, fully automated chicken processing plant. Construction will take time.”
It would be a modern facility where live birds were hung on a conveyor and automatically slaughtered, defeathered, and processed—exactly the kind of plant already used by global fast-food chains like KFC and McDonald’s. If domestic technology proved insufficient, they could commission the same foreign companies that had built those plants.
“We’ll also need to hire a large number of chick sexers to supply farms and establish a collection system once the birds are grown. That’s essentially building a distribution network—not just for chicken, but for all franchise supplies as well. We can handle other logistics on the side too.”
A reliable distribution network from plant to outlets was essential. Once franchise locations existed nationwide, the network would spread like a spiderweb. Jae-won’s equity investment was motivated not only by the chicken market itself but by the distribution infrastructure that would naturally emerge alongside it. Through his stake he would provide generous technical support, enabling a modern logistics system that could later expand into courier services, hypermarkets, and other distribution businesses.
“Most importantly, we must execute with a proper system rather than ad-hoc decisions. That starts with drafting a detailed business plan. Don’t rush—prepare the plan, calculate the required budget, and show it to me. I’ll provide the investment then, and we can settle the equity split at that time. If you find the planning difficult, the president of the brown-rice oil factory can help. I’ll ask him in advance.”
“The market analysis expert? Understood.”
The ease with which the man referred to the oil-factory president suggested they were already acquainted. That was reassuring.
“Ah, and I recently developed a comprehensive office suite called ID Office. It includes a word processor that should be useful for writing the business plan. I’ll install it for you today. It’s very user-friendly—unlike Bosukgeul, you can edit exactly what you see on screen and print directly.”
“ID Office? The same one we celebrated with the chicken party? Thank you. I can’t accept something like this for free. How much does the full version cost?”
Jae-won was already making a sales pitch. Once Su-gyeong’s father began using ID Office, he would likely continue even after his poultry business grew into a major corporation.
“Have you decided on a company name yet?”
They had discussed the business model at length, but Jae-won had not yet heard the name.
“Of course. My first idea was Yugyeong Chicken. But since you suggested expanding into the broiler business, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to chicken alone. So it should be Yugyeong Food Co., Ltd.”
Yugyeong Chicken? Yugyeong Food? The name had an eighties feel, but it wasn’t bad. What did it mean? He had taken the “Yugyeong” from his own surname and Su-gyeong’s given name? But the man’s surname was Ryu, not Yoo. Shouldn’t it be Ryugyeong Food? Why Yugyeong? Perhaps to avoid the North Korean association with “Ryu.”
Jae-won’s analysis was only half correct. The “Yu” did come from a surname, but not the Ryu family—it came from Yoo Jae-won’s own name. Yoo Jae-won’s “Yoo,” Ryu Su-gyeong’s “gyeong.” The name was a thinly veiled declaration of the man’s ambitions regarding Jae-won, yet Su-gyeong’s father was not the type to voice such thoughts so openly in front of the boy himself.
Ding-dong!
The doorbell rang just then. Su-gyeong and her mother had returned from church.
“Jae-won, you should have called ahead and told us you were coming early. Then I wouldn’t have had to go to church today!”
Today’s visit was for business, not computer lessons, yet Su-gyeong still found a reason to scold him.
“I saw the car outside and wondered. So Su-gyeong was right—you really were here.”
Su-gyeong’s mother greeted him warmly. Their hospitality was so generous that both Jae-won and Kim Dae-seok ended up staying for lunch before departing.
“President, I truly respect you.”
The moment they stepped outside, Kim Dae-seok repeated his admiration. He was once again impressed by how quickly a modest chicken business had been transformed into a massive integrated poultry operation.
“You’re already receiving such affection from your future in-laws. Quite the prospective son-in-law.”
“Me? Son-in-law? Su-gyeong and I are just friends. Nothing more.”
“Of course, President. If you say so.”
His tone made it clear he was not convinced in the slightest. It felt as though he had given a mal and received a mal in return. Sensing he would only lose by continuing the conversation, Jae-won simply nodded.
“Where shall I take you next?”
“We’ve eaten well. Let’s head straight to the Sambocomputer headquarters. It’s time to return to our main business.”
Sambocomputer was an appealing company, but Jae-won intended to extract every possible advantage from the negotiation.