YG founder, Yang Hyun Suk has been getting more press these days due to his planned participating in SBS’s Survival Audition K-pop Star this December and his recent interview with Osen made me realize why I have and always will respect the man.
Yang stated that his business philosophy is rather simple. He either seeks out talent based on word of mouth or carefully selects talent among those who comes to audition at YG. What amazes me is his sole focus on just talent and nothing else. Working in the business world, I often see many executives slack on innovating the product (or in this case talent), once they achieved the critical mass. Once their product is known, a lot of executives start focusing more on the fluff, such as “branding” and “packaging”, slowly forgetting that their success was attributed to a great product, not a great packaging. How many times have we, as consumers have been disappointed with the new and improved products from our favorite brands?
The most common reason behind the shift in focus from product is associated with cost. Approximately 95% of products fail and investing in various products to see another product succeed is very cost prohibitive. As a result, a lot of companies try to milk as much as they can from their current successes. For example, consider what happened to Kodak? Despite owning the “Kodak moment”, the company is struggling to stay afloat.
Conversely, companies who continuously invest in product innovation (think Apple, Google, etc.) are the ones who delight the consumers with a truly amazing product. And reading that Yang has the same business philosophy as these companies, with a proven track record makes me respect the man even more.
I love that he refuses to compromise on talent, no matter what other companies in the industry do. No matter how long it takes to produce an album or debut an artist, Yang always took his time to make sure that they are ready. YG Family artists are notorious for exposing their boss regarding the long training days, but as we all know, Yang never budged. And that’s why we are able to enjoy the likes of Big Bang, 2NE1, Se7en, Gummy, etc.
It would be nice to see more executives in Korean entertainment focus on the product, rather than compromising talent for a quick buck in the near future. Who do you think is a close second in terms of executives investing in talent rather than the packaging? SM? JYP? DSP? LEON?
(Osen)
