We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kenny Kim a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kenny, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My Mission is to share mine and others success stories to empower the younger generations in setting goals and as a Entrepreneur.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I currently own and operate Kenny Kim Brazilian Jiu Jitsu located in Marietta GA serving close to 400 students from kids to adults. I’ve been in Marietta since 2006 and have become to powerhouse when it comes to martial arts training.
Whether your goal is to get in shape, become a champion or to meet and surround yourself with positive people we have created a space for anyone and everyone.
While this is my main day to day operation I have extend my time to work on something bigger to empower not only the people that reside in my city but to reach hundreds and thousands of people all over the world.
We have launched Mat Made reality tv series featured free on YouTube where I chase a redemption story of how the martial arts has changed someone’s life and while I’m there I tour their city and eat the cities best culinary dishes.
Here are the websites:
My gym: www.kennykimbjj.com
Show: www.matmade.com
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
When I first started my business back in 1998 I was only 20 years old and I knew this is what I wanted to do.. So I worked construction for a couple of years and saved every penny to start my own business.
Starting my own business was the easy part, I really didnt’ know what I was doing and had to really “grind” to survive day to day.
For the first few months I literally at 1 meal a day and it cost my $1.00. It was from a Chinese restaurante next door and all I had was a bowl of rice with soy sauce..
I had many nites where I sat in the dark and cried because I didnt’ know if I made the right decision but I knew I wasn’t going to give up.
Discipline and goal setting help me to overcome hardship and now looking back I know why I have become successful.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
This was over 20 years ago but I knew about how much capital I needed to start my own business so I got into construction where I worked 7 days a week and anywhere from 10-12 hours a day.
I drove the company van and saved every penny I made towards my dream of running my own business.
After 2 years I was successful in saving enough to start up the business of my own.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kennykimbjj.com www.matmade.com
- Instagram: @kennykimbjj
- Facebook: @kennykimbjj
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/MATMADE