Today, in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

• 💰 How a founder slashed his monthly overhead from $142K to just $8K

• 🎯 The real reason behind switching from "growth at all costs" to "growth on your terms"

• 🤖 How AI and no-code tools are changing the game for this solo founder

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🚀 From Growthaholism to a Minimalist Business | Yong-Soo Chung

“My name is Yong-Soo, and I’m a recovering growthoholic.”

Yong-Soo Chung recently hit publish on this newsletter post, “How I Cut My Monthly Overhead Cost from $142,777 to $8,134”—which landed in my inbox instantly.

I was immediately intrigued.

For a while, I had been following Yong-Soo’s tweets on creating his holding company.

But after reading his post, I knew I HAD to invite him to share his thought process.

Going from a “growth at all costs” to “growth on your own terms” mentality is one thing.

Actually taking action to produce your desired reality is a whole ‘nother thing.

Especially when the decision is paired with becoming a new father.

I’m pleased to introduce Yong-Soo:

Yong-Soo Chung is a serial entrepreneur who founded an e-commerce brand called Urban EDC in 2015 from his one bedroom apartment in San Francisco after leaving his job as a Software Engineer at Ripple, a cryptocurrency startup in Silicon Valley. He then launched GrowthJet in 2019, a Climate Neutral Certified third party logistics company, from a second floor dance studio in the Dogpatch neighborhood in San Francisco. GrowthJet sold to a strategic buyer in 2024.

He and his wife Sandy are also proud dog parents to two French bulldogs named Humphrey & Pota, who have over 150,000 followers across all social channels. Sandy, his business and life partner, also owns a dog boutique called Spotted By Humphrey.

You wrote about giving up “growthaholism” and downsizing your business from 21 to zero employees. What were the biggest challenges you faced during this transition, and how did you overcome them?

To be fair, it wasn't like I was firing 21 people. Part of the "downsizing" was me selling off one of my three businesses (GrowthJet) to a strategic buyer. That business (third-party logistics company) had the highest overhead cost with employees and a warehouse lease.

Selling the company was no joke. (You can read about it in detail here)

When GrowthJet came off my books, I just had a couple other employees on my ecommerce business, Urban EDC. But given that I was transitioning and simplifying operations, I decided to slim down even further. Plus, Urban EDC's revenue was a lot lower than it was in 2023, so I had to make some tough changes.

Before, I had an operator in place to run Urban EDC while I started other businesses / companies. But, I've learned that it's difficult to grow a business with your own vision when you've delegated so much of your. business. So, I decided to take it back and run with it myself... with no w2 employees. I still hired offshore, and I have a US-based contractor... but really, it's me as the operator again, which has been surprisingly fun!

You've embraced a 100% remote, contractor-based business model. How has this shift affected your work-life balance, especially considering the birth of your son?