Trish O'Connor (1)
At my words, Trish's eyes curved into a smile.
"You've got money, and you can read people too. My expectations are pretty high now. What was the company name again?"
"Continue Capital."
"So you really plan to turn it into a bigger investment firm than White Road?"
"Of course. Come to think of it, you're incredibly lucky."
"Why's that?"
"Because you're getting to witness the birth of the world's biggest investment firm."
She burst out laughing.
"Pfft!"
"Hey, you're not mocking me, are you?"
Trish waved a hand.
"No, not at all. Sorry if it sounded that way."
"I was joking too. As you can see, I still don't even have a proper office, so we're meeting in a café."
"If that's the standard, then a company founded in a garage by two friends assembling computers together went on to become the world's biggest IT giant. A tiny online bookstore became the world's largest online marketplace."
"You're talking about Enple and AMZ."
Those companies had started out just as humbly. Decades later, they had become forces that could shake the global economy.
My goal was bigger than that.
I was planning to build something larger than the two of them combined within ten years.
Trish pulled out a notebook and wrote down the name Continue Capital.
"Maybe someday I'll end up writing an article about Continue Capital."
That day would probably come much sooner than she imagined.
"Oh, and for now, please keep this a secret."
"Why?"
I grinned.
"It's more fun if the reveal comes at the crucial moment."
At that, she laughed playfully.
"Hmm, and what's in it for me?"
"Should I buy you a coffee?"
"Let's do it this way. If you ever have something worth running, let Wall Street Times know first."
I thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
"Deal."
"And later, an exclusive interview too."
I nodded readily.
"Sounds good."
Trish got to her feet.
"I'm off work now, so I'm going to grab dinner. Want to come with me?"
I had been thinking about getting something to eat anyway.
"What are we having?"
"How about burgers? There's a place I go to a lot."
"Is it good?"
"Of course. Speaking as a New Yorker, it's the best burger joint in New York."
I couldn't resist a local's restaurant recommendation.
I got up at once.
"Let's go."
She led me into a shabby pub tucked away in an alley.
The place was packed. Rough-looking men were noisily talking, eating burgers, and drinking beer. It had the kind of atmosphere that made it hard to walk in without hesitation.
I had the uneasy feeling that I'd wandered somewhere I wasn't supposed to be.
When I lingered at the entrance, Trish asked, "What's wrong?"
"No, it's just..."
Why did I suddenly remember my mother telling me never to follow a stranger who offered to buy me something delicious?
Just as I was about to turn back, Trish pushed my shoulder forward.
"Come on, get inside."
I stumbled in, and a man stepped in front of me.
I stared at him and was genuinely startled.
He had to have been at least two meters tall, his entire face buried beneath a red beard, and his muscular arms and thick neck were covered in tattoos.
Who was this guy? A robber?
There didn't seem to be much worth stealing here anyway.
Trish called out cheerfully, "Dad!"
"Oh! Trish!"
She threw herself into the arms of the huge middle-aged man.
"..."
Her dad? He didn't look anything like her at all.
Trish introduced him to me.
"Say hello. This is my dad. He owns the place."
"Your dad?"
So this was the New York's best burger joint? It turned out to be his place?
What a trap.
He glared at me.
"And who's this guy? Don't tell me he's your boyfriend?"
I was about to quickly say, No, I'm not even just a friend, when Trish cut in dryly, "He's just a customer."
He gave my shoulder a light thump with a hand like a pot lid.
"Ha! Welcome."
"...Yes, sir."
It hurt. He wouldn't leave a bruise, would he?
I sat down with Trish in a corner booth.
"So? What do you think?"
"I like the atmosphere."
"Hold on. I'll grab us some beer."
Looking around the pub, I noticed an Irish flag hanging on one wall. So this was an Irish pub?
She came back first with the beer. It was dark stout.
"Let's have a drink first."
We clinked our glasses together.
I looked at her and asked, "Why did you lie to me?"
"About what?"
"You said you were taking me to the best burger place in New York."
Trish smiled.
"That's right. Once you try it, you'll see I wasn't lying."
She sounded awfully confident.
A little while later, Trish brought over the burgers.
Oddly enough, there was scrambled egg inside. Judging by looks alone, I wasn't expecting much.
A burger was still just a burger.
Still, I was hungry, so I figured I might as well eat.
I picked it up and took a bite. The moment I did, I was honestly surprised.
When she saw my expression, Trish laughed.
"Told you, didn't I?"
I admitted it.
"It's really good."
It wasn't a lie that this was New York's best burger.
The bun was soft, and the patty was juicy. The freshness of the lettuce and tomato blended beautifully with the patty's richness and salt.
Burgers like this were worth standing in line for.
Still, the taste felt familiar. Where had I had this before?
After thinking for a moment, I remembered.
"Ah! O'Connor Burger!"
It was a burger famous as a Silicon Valley sensation.
I remembered lining up with Seonwu when the first branch opened in Gangnam. We stood under the scorching summer sun for three hours just to eat one.
I could've sworn I'd heard it started at a pub in New York. So this was the place.
Though, in my memory, it hadn't tasted quite this good. Was it different because this was the original location?
Trish looked startled.
"How did you know the menu item? Have you had it before?"
"No, I haven't."
The story of O'Connor Burger coming to Korea was still five years away. Even in the U.S., it probably wasn't all that well known yet.
I kept eating.
"This is really delicious. The bun seems a little unusual."
"It has potatoes in it."
"Potatoes?"
Trish said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Irish people love potatoes."
"...Didn't they hate them?"
There was no separating Ireland from potatoes.
At one point, potatoes had been a staple food there, but in the mid-nineteenth century, potato blight swept through the country and starvation claimed countless lives.
The Great Famine.
To survive, many Irish people emigrated to the United States. Her ancestors probably crossed over back then too.
That was why there were so many Irish-Americans even among white Americans today.
Thinking about it, it was kind of fascinating.
The burger sold in this shabby pub would become, years later, a franchise enjoyed all over the world. I was probably the only person here who already knew that.
I was hungry, so I finished the burger in no time.
Even though it was fairly large, I somehow felt unsatisfied.
Should I order another one?
Just then, a man approached our table. He was white, with red hair, and looked to be in his late twenties.
The apron and hairnet made it look like he'd just come out of the kitchen.
He looked at Trish and said, "What brings you by?"
Trish introduced him to me.
"This is my brother, Sean."
I held out my hand.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Han Miru."
"Nice to meet you too. How was the burger?"
"It was amazing."
"Haha! Right? Even I, who eat it all the time, still think about it now and then."
Trish introduced me.
"This is... a famous investor from Korea."
"Really?"
I nodded.
"Not famous yet, but yes, I'm an investor."
Sean took off his apron and sat down beside Trish, looking curious.
"What kind of investments do you make?"
"Venture capital, I suppose. Right now I'm looking for companies with real potential and putting money in."
"Really? Actually, I started a company with a friend in Silicon Valley not long ago."
"I thought you worked here."
"I'm just helping out because I came home for a bit. I'll head back the day after tomorrow."
If Manhattan was the center of American finance, Silicon Valley was the center of the country's IT industry. Even now, countless startups were being born and dying there.
"What's the idea?"
"An app that tracks food trucks."
He explained it with obvious excitement.
There were all kinds of food trucks around Silicon Valley, but each truck had different hours and different locations depending on the day.
So he wanted to build an app that could track food trucks' locations and let users make reservations and payments in real time.
Sean stressed that people working in Silicon Valley were busy, and that this was a system they really needed.
"As an investor, what do you think?"
"..."
Yeah. That's going to fail.
To be fair, the idea itself wasn't bad.
The problem was that a similar service already existed. All an existing restaurant reservation app company had to do was expand its range to food trucks.
That was why it would crash and burn before it even managed a proper launch.
But there was no need to worry too much, because he'd strike it big with something else.
With the burger I had just eaten.
One of the promotional lines for O'Connor Burger when it first entered Korea was that it was "a Silicon Valley sensation." If that was true, then how had a New York burger become a Silicon Valley sensation?
The reason was the man sitting right in front of me.
Sean O'Connor, the son of the owner of O'Connor Pub, had gone to Silicon Valley with dreams of making it big and started a business with a friend.
And within months, it had completely collapsed.
Left with no way to make a living, he rented a used food truck as a stopgap until he could prepare his next venture and started selling the burgers his father made at the pub.
At first, he only did it to cover overdue rent and scrape together a bit of seed money, but then office workers at IT companies started spreading the word, and the whole thing took off.
People went wild for the burgers with potato buns and scrambled eggs made from fresh eggs.
Even famous startup founders like Zeke Barron and Knight Cameron, along with CEOs from major IT companies, lined up to buy them.
Once that became news, even more people came flocking in.
As the fame grew, Sean O'Connor eventually opened a shop in Palo Alto.
After that, O'Connor Burger became a franchise and grew into a burger chain loved by people all over the world.
I looked at Sean and thought for a moment.
What should I do?
Should I tell him not to go through with his current business because it'll fail?
But wouldn't he need that failure before he could end up starting the food truck and striking gold?
Besides, telling him to quit his job right now and start a food truck would never make him listen to me. And the story of starting a company, failing, and then turning to the food truck would probably help the business even more.
There are plenty of delicious burgers in the world.
It wouldn't be that hard to copy the recipe exactly and make them yourself. That's why the franchise industry is flooded with me-too products.
But simply making the same product doesn't mean everyone succeeds.
The key was marketing and identity.
Even with the same product, whether it lived or died depended on how you marketed it.
What was interesting was that in Korea, O'Connor Burger was known as a "Silicon Valley sensation," while in Silicon Valley itself, it was known as "a Manhattan sensation."
For people on the West Coast, the idea of a burger being famous on the East Coast must have made them want to try it.
In other words, not just anyone could set up O'Connor Burger and succeed.
To make it work, Sean O'Connor had to be the one to launch it, carrying the O'Connor Burger brand and story with him.