Chapter 264: Chapter 258

Jinhon and Angela lived in America all summer thanks to the soaring popularity of their new song I’m Not Lonely, which surpassed Duckling Fly.

Though they released other hit songs, they were put in the shade by I’m Not Lonely in terms of popularity. It was ranked the top song on the Billboard chart for more than six weeks.

Thanks to the popularity of that song, a campaign was launched to find Angela’s father in America.

But her father didn’t appear yet. He didn’t show himself through the fall when the song enjoyed the top ranking in the Billboard chart.

Nonetheless, Angela didn’t feel lonely because Jinhon stood beside her strongly.

That song’s ranking fell around September, but Jinhon’s third song was still inside the top five on the chart. It was called Flower Girl. He made it with Angela in mind.

Because of his popularity, Jinhon had to delay his return to Korea. Though he was determined to enjoy Korean Thanksgiving Holiday with his family, he could not take time out at all.

That’s why his family visited America to spend time with him.

It was unthinkable a year ago. He would envy anybody a lot who could spend Korean Thanksgiving holiday with his or her family in America.

But Jinhon changed his mind when he made hundreds of billions won through his music activities. He missed his hometown and wanted to have more free time than money.

Hyunwoo felt the same way.

He tried to erase the word ‘money’ from his head these days. As early as spring he used to count the monthly revenues, thinking about something like ‘this month I had this much in profits. Let me set the profits higher next month.’

But that was meaningless now.

Last month KOVE’s net profits amounted to 60 billion won mainly because of a reduction in membership fees. If it had maintained its previous fees, the profits would have been 90 billion won.

The fee reduction was inevitable to KOVE DREAM. As its member companies rode high, lots of large companies imitated the business model of KOVE and established their own companies.

Accordingly, there was fierce competition not only in China, India and Indonesia but also in Vietnam where KOVE established itself as the dominant player.

As a result, its member companies asked for fee reduction. Hyunwoo felt their demands were legitimate and lowered the sales fee to that of rival companies.

Fee reduction encouraged more companies to join KOVE DREAM. Currently, there was a total of 46 companies that joined KOVE DREAM.

Among them were Vietnamese companies that included several top companies.

In the past, it took lots of time to test and certify the technical skills of hopeful companies, but KOVE solved the problem completely thanks to Korea Quality Certification Association. They found the test experts and paid 50% of the test costs in subsidies.

The sales of the existing members increased drastically. With the bold expansion of facilities, they could process the rush of orders from Korea, America and Japan.

Some companies received large investments on the condition that they transfer some of their company stakes to Hyunwoo.

Nonetheless, there were not sufficient enough facilities. They could not process orders on time in China, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

KOVE DREAM Blue also began to grow in size. When the perception spread among the companies that any products under KOVE DREAM Blue would be sold well, many of them hoped to apply for membership when their technical skills met the criteria.

As they had to deal with the rush of orders on time, KOVE DREAM had to hire more and more, and its employees now reached more than 900. The office staff of KOVE DREAM headquarters was 50, those assigned to the warehouses numbering over 700 and the truck drivers over 100.

83 delivery trucks of KOVE DREAM were in full operation any day across the country.

As for the warehouses, Hyunwoo secured two more in Incheon and Pusan respectively.

Ani & Funny also continued to make a success in business. In particular, the short animated stories selected through the open contest played a crucial role.

Sales in paper books were pretty big, too, thanks to the foreign language editions of the animated books.

But the increase in Hyunwoo’s wealth was not necessarily caused by profits.

In fact, it was the return on his investments in many companies like DF Technology and Sungsin Co.

In particular, DF Technology enjoyed the fastest growth among Vietnamese companies. Sungjun’s boast of its best technology in the world was far from an exaggeration.

Whenever Hyunwoo found a high-potential company, he made a bold investment. So far, he made investments in as many as 27 companies, with his investment totaling 200 billion won.

On such occasions he acquired the stakes of the companies. Sometimes he acquired 20%, and sometimes over 80%.

But he kept two principles in doing so. First, he promised he would never intervene in the management and its authority on human resources. Secondly, he promised to transfer his stakes to the company management when the president stood on his own feet confidently.

In fact, money didn’t matter that much to Hyunwoo. Even if he made 10 trillion won, his life would be still the same. For he would put on the same clothes, live in the same house and eat the same food.

What was more important to him was who he would spend time with now.

Whenever he thought about that, he kept recalling Yu Zuung’s face.

She was still as busy as ever because she participated in the next song Girlfriend as a dance.

She even participated as a vocal this time. Though she could not make a high-pitched tone, she rapped on the song with her misty voice.

Hyunwoo was opposed to her continued participation. Basically, he wished she stopped entertainment activities.

He wanted to keep her beside him, above all. For he couldn’t see her often as she was busier every day.

But she wanted to continue her entertainment activities so much. Obviously, she seemed happy when she got people’s attention. He could not force her to stop it just for his own selfish desire.

Girlfriend was as popular as Temptation. Though it didn’t make a hit in the US market, it hit gold in the Asian market, with the rush of requests from many countries for their appearances on TV shows.

Thanks to that explosive popularity, Yu Zuung was now in Japan. After she was done in Japan, she was supposed to go to Vietnam, and then Hong Kong and China before returning to Korea in about two months.

The fact that he couldn’t meet her at least two months made Hyunwoo sad.

Of course, when he could find free time, he flew to the country she was performing, and stayed three days to spend time with her.

But it was only two or three times per month that he visited overseas to see her.

Damn it. Can I be her manager, forgetting about all my work here?

He really wanted to do so if he could have his way.

But there were too many business projects that he had initiated. The most urgent one now was that Ani & Funny’s preparing to meet a new goal.

Originally, Ani & Funny was to open a second office near its headquarters in Bonodong in Ansan.

But they couldn’t find a good office no matter how long they searched. So, they felt it would be much better to find one in a totally different place.

What they found was in the vicinity of Seoul. Fortunately, there was a three-story building on sale. Though it was expensive, it was in a good location with a lot of space. Hyunwoo purchased it without hesitation.

And he hired 40 new staff members.

Most of the new hires were from the members of the internet cafe run by Ani & Funny.

Another goal of Ani & Funny was to open the Animoon website, which Hyunwoo wanted to grow as the Story Mecca of animation. The opening of the website was timed with Seoul Broadcasting’s airing the special program about Ani & Funny.

In fact, Animoon should have opened eight months ago but kept delaying for various reasons.

In the meantime, there were many changes in Ani & Funny.

Initially, the main target of Ani & Funny was children and kids, but over time they felt they didn’t need to avoid teens and adults.

So, the website created a separate space for them. They also prepared animation learning based on the ages of the consumers.

The results were a tremendous success. As the works of Ani & Funny were popular around the world, most of the fans became Animoon’s fans, too.

Those studying animation had their heyday like a fish in water. Not only Ani & Funny students but also lots of students in the world tried their best to make the best animations.

Lastly, Ani & Funny’s goal of producing an animated movie was also achieved.

The title of the movie was Super Kenny. It was the favorite of the students when all the entries of the story contest were submitted. Yenam Noh reacted to it enthusiastically.

Of course, it was made for TV, not a movie theater. Thanks to that, Hyunwoo only spent 2.1 billion won in producing the movie despite its 80-minute running time.

The animated movie ‘Super Kenny’ was released through Animoon. Ani & Funny inserted a 30-second ad in it and aggressively promoted it on YouTube.

In fact, it didn’t generate good of a response as Hyunwoo expected.

The main culprit of that seemed to be the viewing fee of 1,000 won. For 1,000 won, they could not download it. The fee was only for a week-long viewing right. After one week, they had to pay another 1,000 won to get access to it.

It was natural that the public could not easily watch the movie.

But in about two weeks the situation began to change a bit as those who watched it spread good reviews of it.

“Very interesting. It’s the best movie I’ve seen recently.”

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