Hanaro — Gen Z Community Builder

I first connected with Sunwoo last August. She was interested in the world of venture capital, and specifically, she was curious about the limited community surrounding Asian American VCs. I assumed she was an early career professional interested in transitioning to the world of venture capital…but it turns out she’s a college sophomore!

Within a month and a half after we connected, she had spun up Hanaro.vc, a newsletter covering deals, content, job openings, and more from the Korean American entrepreneurial community. It’s clear that Sunwoo’s reach into this community is quickly becoming second to none. Once this community fully hits its stride, I know it will create powerful momentum within the Korean American community, and I also know that it will create connections, learnings, and professional opportunities for Sunwoo that will help her as she launches what is sure to be an exciting career.

Sunwoo and I have had some interesting conversations. I continue to learn a lot from her about Gen Zs, and more specifically the role of (mostly online & decentralized) communities Gen Zs are able to build and thrive in. We’ve also talked about career paths and my own strange path to venture capital. So we thought, ‘other old people are probably curious about what makes Gen Zs so unique, and other young people are probably interested in the different ways careers can play out’ and decided to make our conversations public! As casual & informal this is, instead of yet another podcast, we are going to try publishing our Slack discussion. You’ll immediately see the generational gap from the strength of emoji usage.

So, here’s the first one: https://josungjoon.medium.com/hanaro-conversation-1-1ba5ae928c25