On April 22, an email arrived. I passed CFA Level III. Of course, because I barely have any work experience in the finance sector, I’m far away from actually putting CFA on my business card.

I started Level I on February 2023. Didn’t put much thought into it, but I wanted to catch up to the fancy finance senpais that I had admired back then. Maybe because I’m used to studying for tests with the KSAT memories, It was an easy pass - was at the top 1%.

By mid 2024, which is when I passed Level II, my passion for startups was getting hotter than ever. So I pondered whether I should finish Level III or not. It was pretty obvious that I wouldn’t be working in asset management or banks. But oh well, Not going for it felt like not finishing up a master’s degree. Maybe it’s stupid to spend almost 10,000 dollars on a charter that I may never gain. However, I was sure that the knowledge (or its name-value) will help me out at some point. It was actually not such a hard study, because I had an easy semester planned out anyways.

So anyways, passing Level III has absolutely no impact on my life right now. Maybe I could’ve been bragging around a bit more if I was working as an analyst. However, what was waiting for me the next day was how to better ZUZU Investor Matching Service to increase its WAU. Maybe I should make it into some impact. What if I studied businesses in my own time, so that my knowledge of finance meets the area of application?

Yonsei has so much potential. There are plenty of brilliant young minds that can make amazing products, service, and change in the way in which people live. There are already so many amazing early-stage teams that will become even more spectacular with just the right support. I believe so deep inside my heart, so I really wish to create an amazing institution that has the knowledge accumulated from inter-generational interactions.

Not only that, but I also believe that the time in university is the best period for anyone to become an outlier. With enough experience to at least begin with something, but still having some originality within them, whatever they want to accomplish could actually be carried out according to the methods that they feel is right.

Everybody knows Korean students are some of the smartest kids in the globe, right? If they were suddenly dropped amongst SF based founders, they would compete as hard as they can and become winners. We’re in the wrong environment. We live according to how the older generation wants us to. That’s not how we catch up with the modern world. I have a dream where universities could actually become a hub with overflowing new challenges and experiments.

That’s the goal I have with Y-Ventures. We don’t want to just make a cliche alumni fund. We are going to accelerate the school. Accelerate the bright minds to be able to use new technology like toys.

BTW, I didn’t overthrow Sunwoo. He’s just too busy right now, but he’ll come back once he finds his place.

I’m an economics major with a business minor. How in the world would I be able to work with SaaS products and brainstorm specs? That was my initial thought when I was looking for my first job. I love the fact that I’m not just able to run the product and speak with customers, but also grind on how to improve user flow, find appropriate query for data analysis, and decide on priorities of specs to be worked on.

My JD is CEO Staff, but I work like a product owner. More like, my CEO makes me work like one. That’s what I liked the most about working in ZUZU. So it was an easy decision to start full-time, let this place be my first official career. I joked around to my colleagues that I would learn to do product design, possibly commit to git, and then leave for another job. Of course, my decision to leave would only come when there is a better place for me to be, but I genuinely believe the fact that I can confidently say that I would learn to design and code in my workplace is an advantage very hard to find from any other.

I honestly have so many things I want to do right now. I think I would go as far as possible, testing my bandwidth. Let’s see how I end my 2025. Rather than feeling like I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do for this year, I would want to feel like there were so many thing I wanted to do more but couldn’t finish.

Watch me. I’m going to do it well. “Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.”

Best,

Bosung