“Do you know how Korea’s Kyochon Chicken started?”

Are you looking for the fastest path? In fact, that path is the most honest one.

Unrivaled Value Created by Inefficiency

We live in an age of efficiency.

We worry about how to work less and earn more.

But the birth of ‘Soy Sauce Chicken,’ which shook the Korean chicken market,

began with an obsession that was stubbornly inefficient.

Today, we look into the ‘essential bet’ that Chairman Kwon Won-kang found.

📍 1. A Single Taste Carved Over Two Years

What Kwon Won-kang chose amidst the terror of zero sales was not flashy marketing.

He shut himself in the kitchen and researched sauces.

Not the seasoned chicken popular at the time, but a taste that would be deeply embedded in the Korean palate.

For two years, he combined soy sauce and garlic, going through tens of thousands of trials and errors.

That is how the ‘Soy Sauce’ that made today’s Kyochon was born.

📍 2. Two Frying Sessions to Squeeze Out Moisture

His obsession didn’t stop at the sauce.

He insisted on frying the chicken twice.

Ten minutes at a high temperature of 180 degrees, and then another two minutes.

He completely removed the moisture inside the chicken to keep it crispy even when cooled.

While others picked up the pace, he stuck to the basics and poured in his time.

📍 3. Sincerity Engraved One by One with a Brush

The most significant feature of Kyochon Chicken is that the sauce is applied individually with a brush.

It would be much faster to toss it in a machine or spray it with a nozzle.

But he picked up a single brush.

It was to ensure the sauce permeated evenly between the layers of the batter.

This stubborn inefficiency created a difference in deep taste that no one could imitate.

📍 4. Honesty: The Cruelest yet Most Certain Business Strategy

Chairman Kwon Won-kang says, “Honesty is the best business strategy.”

For him, honesty was not a moral choice but a decision for survival.

To make even a single customer say “It’s delicious” and return.

That desperation established the principle of not compromising on a single bird or a drop of sauce.

The essence maintained with honesty eventually created Korea’s №1 franchise.

The Time of a Master Obsessed with Essence

Kwon Won-kang’s success was not luck.

It was a stubborn obsession with ‘essence’ discovered at a cliff with nowhere to run.

We often get lost while looking for shortcuts.

But the true shortcut is honestly maintaining the essence that others find bothersome.

What is the ‘brushing-like’ sincerity in your work?

That stubborn principle that only you know, even if others don’t recognize it.

Those principles accumulate to become your own unrivaled value that no one can covet.

Today’s Mission: “Starting My Own Brushing”

Find one process in your work that is the most bothersome yet important.

For just today, don’t worry about efficiency in that process and give it your all.

Like applying sauce with a brush, complete that task meticulously and honestly.

Feel for yourself how the result differs from before.

“Honestly maintaining the essence. It seems the slowest, but it is the fastest way.” — Kwon Won-kang

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