The Story
The two of us have been doing Eat Your Kimchi videos for over 4 years now. We started off just doing it as a hobby for our families. Now, we do it as our full-time job. We're trying to take Eat Your Kimchi to the next level, but there are a few hurdles along the way.
Living in Korea as a foreigner who is not hired by any company or married to a Korean person, is difficult. We've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how we could continue making our videos in Korea if we're not teaching. We've found that there's no one to sponsor us for a Visa, so we have to set up our own Business to get a Visa to stay here.
Setting up a business in Korea is a lot cheaper for Koreans, but for us, the price is very steep. Specifically, setting up a business here requires $100,000 just to get the paperwork started!
We've scrounged up our savings to apply for a business Visa. With our $100,000 we'll be able to put down key money for an officetel in Seoul (which is a lot more expensive than our apartment in Bucheon, because it's Seoul), get the registration process started for businesses in Seoul, pay the registration fees, pay the legal fees, and so on.
But that's only the first step. We'll be in no different position than we are now, except we'll be in Seoul with the required paperwork, but we won't have the office to set up our studio.
What's Next?
We're trying to set up a studio so that we can do a better job with our videos, and make Eat Your Kimchi something special. Here are our goals!
- Currently, we're pretty much shooting everything in our living room and kitchen, then sitting on our couches and bed all day editing, or spending hours in the coffee shops around Korea. We don't really have a work place. Having a studio will let us have all of our lighting, audio and video equipment, and our editing computers in one spot, so we can live in our home, and work at our office.
- We'll be able to conduct interviews in our studio. We've been in contact with different music companies in Korea who are interested in working with us, and we'd like to have a place where they can come over, chat with us, and answer your questions. We don't have a place for this now (not like Big Bang can sit on our tiny living room couch). Setting up our studio is what we need to get this part rolling!
- We'll be able to hire a full-time video editor. Currently, we work around 70 hours a week. We post regular segments Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, and random Open the Happy videos usually on Tuesday and/or Fridays. Altogether, we're working every day of the week and don't really get any time off. When we do take a couple of days off, just to recuperate, we disappoint our viewers with no video. Hiring a video editor means that we'll be able to get some decent rest while still putting up a video! And since editing is really 80% of the work we do - we'll be able to film NEW video segments we've always wanted to film, but just didn't have enough waking hours to create.
- There are many of you we want to meet in Korea. We get your emails often, but we just don't have any place to have meet ups. We can't just overthrow a coffee shop, you know? In opening our studio, we'll finally be able to reach out to you, personally, and have a venue for us to have meet ups!
If we can raise $40,000, we can put down the deposit for a studio, which is what we're asking for. If we can raise more than that, we could put furniture in it (haha!) and, more importantly, we could get that full-time video editor to help us keep these videos going. There's a lot we want to do with Eat Your Kimchi. We have the vision, we just don't have the funding for it.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can't donate, we totally understand. We hope, at least, you can ask others to help us out with this. Like the video on YouTube, share it on Facebook and Twitter. If your mom and dad like us, ask them! If you're close friends with the President of Samsung, let him know, too! ;) Help us spread the word so we can get this studio up and running and take Eatyourkimchi to the next level! Cue music!
