From Dropout to $9B

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

🌟 Editor's Note:

Welcome to Behind the Books! A 3-minute read with stories, tools, and lessons from real companies—what worked, what didn’t, and what founders can learn.

📦 The Story:

In 2010, Bom Kim left Harvard’s MBA program after just six months.

His belief? There was only a short window to build something meaningful.

That gamble became Coupang, South Korea’s most valuable startup, now valued at $9 billion.

But the journey wasn’t linear.

• Coupang started as a Groupon-style daily deals site.   

• Pivoted into an eBay-inspired marketplace.   

• On the verge of an IPO, Kim pulled the plug because it wasn’t jaw-dropping for customers.

Instead, he rebuilt Coupang from scratch.

This time, he designed it end-to-end:

• His own UPS-style logistics (Rocket Delivery).   

• Infrastructure to deliver 99% of orders in under 24 hours.   

• Even Dawn Delivery: order by midnight, receive by 7 a.m.

What once seemed like a curse having to build everything themselves became their moat.

Today, Coupang delivers to nearly half of South Korea’s population, outpacing local giants and even beating Amazon (which never entered the market).

The Lesson:

Coupang wasn’t about chasing trends.

It was about relentless pivots until the customer said “wow.”

• Startups die clinging to a good-enough model.   

• Winners ask, “Would this make my customer’s jaw drop?”   

• If not, they start over even when it hurts.

Sometimes the curse of building from scratch becomes the blessing that sets you apart.

From Behind the Books:

Your moat isn’t the model you start with. It’s the lengths you’re willing to go to delight your customer.

Your weekly prompt:

If you had to scrap your current model today, what would you rebuild to make customers say, “wow”?

See you next Friday,

– Yan

P.S. The next big opportunity might look like a curse until you lean into it.