On a sweltering July afternoon, Jung Park was handing out flyers to passersby. His friend, Emerson Bonilla, joined him while his sister, Yeon Park, was inside applying a final coat of lime-green paint to the building that will soon hold his new business.
In mid-August, the 34-year-old Park will open the doors to Metroboom, a hair salon for men at 1550 Platte St. that has been a year in the planning.
Without the help of friends, relatives – and a panel of University of Colorado at Denver judges – Park wouldn’t be preparing to live out his dream.
A year ago, he presented a business plan for the salon to students and faculty of CU-Denver’s Bard Center as part of the third annual business-plan competition. Park won $10,000. For a time, he considered pocketing the prize.
He was halfway through a two-year master’s degree program at the time, having come to it from a job as a brand consultant at Monigle Associates in Denver. After the competition, his college adviser, Nim Patel, urged him to think carefully about what came next.
Did he really wanted to pursue this business, or did he consider it just his 15 minutes of fame?
Park was leaning toward the latter and had thought about getting back into the corporate world after graduating. Patel “really lit a fire under me,” Park said. “I didn’t want to look back when I was 65 and think, ‘What if?”‘
He graduated in December and has worked full-time ever since to get Metroboom off the ground.
“I was raising funding, doing background research on retail costs and negotiating the lease on the building,” Park said.
His biggest hurdle, as it is with most small businesses, was getting the financing. He needed roughly $60,000 for the lease, equipment, décor and six months worth of operating cash.
The first $10,000 came from the business-plan competition. He secured the remaining $50,000 from private investors, debt-consolidation loans and credit cards.
“My business wasn’t big enough for venture capitalists, and I didn’t qualify for SBA loans,” Park said. “I signed up for several zero-percent-APR credit cards and maxed them out.”
In order to pare costs, Park did all the salon’s electrical and most of its plumbing work himself. He also recruited the help of friends and relatives.
Park’s sister put her career plans on pause early this year and moved from New York to be by her big brother’s side.
Bonilla met Park three years ago at Monigle Associates and has helped out in several ways. He stored Park’s supplies and equipment in his garage, offered his home as collateral if Park needed a cosigner on a loan, and drove with Park to the closest IKEA store – 14 hours away in Tempe, Ariz. – to buy furnishings for the salon.
A year after the news of his Bard Center award was published in The Denver Post, Park is philosophical about what he has learned.
“A man’s wealth is judged not by how much money or how famous he is,” Park said, “but by how many good people surround him.”
When Metroboom opens, Park intends to give clients the unique blend of service and attitude that caught judges’ eyes last year.
He came to Denver from Brooklyn, N.Y., and had worked in a corporate environment. He remembered wanting to maintain a professional appearance, yet struggling to find someone he felt comfortable hiring to cut his hair.
Park proposed a new kind of hair salon: He expects to serve working professionals and wants his stylists to have intelligent conversations with them. He also wants his stylists to “understand that they are in the service industry and customer service is key,” he said.
Park also will offer a concierge service and premium packages that include a haircut, 15-minute massage and shoeshine.
After the Bard Center competition, judge Jim Lejeal said this about Park’s ideas:
“His plan was excellent. The business strategy is viable, and there is great clarity.”
If potential customers feel the same way, Park intends to increase his staff over time to 10 stylists and four massage therapists.
Staff writer Marcus W. Vanderberg can be reached at 303-820-1209 or mvanderberg@denverpost.com.
