Real Man

Chapter 23

Yoo-hyun had already prepared for the worst.

‘It won’t be easy. This team is already heading for disaster.’

He felt a twitch in his mouth, but he decided to wait since he had a plan.

Then, Jung Da-bin looked at him with curiosity from his side.

“Yoo-hyun, you seem so quiet, but you’re really good at talking.”

“It’s because you gave me a lot of good ideas. I just listened and combined them. Chang-seok also led us well.”

No matter how much he hated someone, he wouldn’t curse them if they praised him.

“Well, yeah.”

Kang Chang-seok nodded his head from a distance.

The atmosphere was getting better, but there was no way they could produce amazing results in such a short time.

Yoo-hyun looked at his team members with the feeling of a toddler taking his first steps.

He wanted to jump in and help them right away.

-How can you think properly under him? It doesn’t matter how good your performance is. The employees think of themselves as machines.

But he remembered the wise advice he had heard from his former executive director and swallowed his sigh.

Let’s just help them a little bit.

Let them think for themselves.

He made up his mind.

After all, Yoo-hyun was also part of the team.

He didn’t give them the answers, but he decided to help them narrow down their thinking.

“But don’t you think using characters for targeting cafes or luxurious atmospheres would be too light-hearted?”

There were realistic problems that came up, and Yoo-hyun intervened a little bit.

“Then how about using them for interior design? I think newlyweds or families with children would like it.”

“Oh, that’s true.”

Yoo-hyun didn’t miss the sight of Choi Seul-gi blinking her eyes quickly when he mentioned families with children.

She was introverted unlike Jung Da-bin, so she couldn’t join the conversation much.

This was the moment.

Yoo-hyun looked at Choi Seul-gi.

“By the way, you seem to know a lot about this, Seul Gi. Do you live with your niece by any chance?”

“Huh? How did you know?”

“Just a feeling.”

“I was actually thinking about that because I have a niece. I think she would like it. It would be fun to make it for children’s computers too.”

That was enough to create a friendly atmosphere where they could talk.

Even though she was introverted, Choi Seul-gi became more active, and Seol Ki-tae who had been staying back also joined in.

When they saw small ideas become seeds for more lively discussions, they were amazed.

It seemed like they could all do well when they saw this.

But is business that easy?

There was bound to be something blocking them somewhere.

“What kind of characters should we use? There aren’t any famous Korean characters, are there? And we can’t use Japanese characters either.”

Things like this,

“I’m worried about how to deal with the part that sticks out of the computer. There aren’t many characters like that.”

These were important questions.

“Let’s make it detachable, but the computer is too big to bother. We’re just going to leave it at home anyway.”

And there were negative opinions like this too.

It was inevitable that they would run into problems when they were trying to concretize their initial idea.

Every time that happened, Yoo-hyun said things like “What are you drawing on the paper, Ki Tae? You’re really good at drawing.”, “Oh? The doll on your bag has a round belly. That’s cute.”, “What are you searching for, Seul Gi? You used the props nicely.” He didn’t give them the answers, but he gave them hints that could help them.

Someone said that even if you know the way, you should go around it.

Yoo-hyun repeated that phrase in his head as he tried hard.

He suppressed his frustration and waited patiently.

They showed some signs of progress as if they had some conscience.

They struggled and slowly moved their ideas forward.

They poured out ridiculous things at first, but they gradually got closer to the right answer.

They decided to keep the exterior as simple as possible and only cover it lightly.

They didn’t need to use existing characters either.

The part that stuck out of the all-in-one computer became a white rabbit’s butt, and there were rabbit ears and eyes on top of the screen.

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Swoosh!

Seol Ki-tae sketched it without hesitation, and there were exclamations everywhere.

“Wow… This is awesome!”

All the ventures thought their ideas were the best, but well.

When he was a new employee, Yoo-hyun would have given them 30 points out of 100 for this level.

If they polished it a little bit more, they might at least pass the cutline.

The rough design and concept were set, and the work was naturally divided.

Kang Chang-seok seemed to think it was feasible and became more active, and Oh Min-jae, who thought he was the first one to come up with the idea, also worked hard.

There was no need to mention Jung Da-bin, who was leading the idea.

Yoo-hyun was not intervening, but the way they worked was impressive.

He felt a desire to take them one step further.

He didn’t want to hog it all, he just wanted to help them.

He felt a strange sensation.

Yoo-hyun held up the sample design in front of him.

“Is this how we do it? We need to show the excellence of our technology and the rough schedule, right?”

“Oh, good. For the technology part, I think you can write based on the draft that Min-jae gave us, and for the schedule, let’s go with what Seul Gi said earlier and set it for a year. Ki Tae, you work on the images, and Chang-seok and I will add the differentiation points. Yoo-hyun, you make the backup materials.”

Jung Da-bin took credit for everything he had slightly assisted with.

Before he knew it, everything revolved around Jung Da-bin.

Was this how it felt to see your subordinates grow?

Yoo-hyun felt a proud emotion that he had never felt before.

On the other hand, Jung Da-bin’s eyes were ambiguous when she looked at him.

‘He pretends not to know, but he’s smart. He knows exactly what to do. He’s also good at quietly encouraging people from behind. How did he do that without even being an intern?’

She was the one who knew that Yoo-hyun was the starting point of this change.

But there was something she would never know.

That he was Han Yoo-hyun, who became the youngest president in 20 years.

It was a story that she wouldn’t know even if he died and came back to life.

They gathered their strength without any break for the remaining two hours.

Even if the new employees tried their best, they couldn’t do much, but since they had a clear direction and tasks, they used their talents to make a rough draft of a mediocre business plan.

What they had to submit was a report.

A thorough training was essential for the question and answer session.

Kang Chang-seok turned his eyes to Yoo-hyun.

“Did you finish what I asked you earlier?”

“Yes.”

“Wow… You’re fast. I think the data might be wrong.”

“Why don’t you check it? I checked it once, so it should be right.”

“No. You have to take responsibility for what you did. This is a company.”

Yoo-hyun held back his laughter and nodded his head.

It was funny that Kang Chang-seok said that.

But his expression wasn’t very bright.

He looked anxious.

He thought it was because the presentation time was approaching, but the problem was more serious.

“We still don’t have enough materials. Let’s do the presentation after dinner and brainstorm a bit more.”

“Huh?”

Yoo-hyun was dumbfounded.

He had a bad feeling about this, but he didn’t expect it to be this bad.

That’s when Jung Da-bin intervened.

“I applied earlier.”

“Who told you to do that without the team leader’s permission?”

That was it.

The good atmosphere turned sour in an instant.

If it had been like this morning, they would have been depressed again.

But now it was different.

Jung Da-bin knew exactly where she was and what she had to do.

“If you don’t like it, I’ll do it.”

“What? What did you say?”

“I said I’ll do it. It’s an idea that we all came up with. I’m confident.”

Jung Da-bin spoke confidently and the other team members agreed with her.

“I agree. Let’s do it now.”

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Kang Chang-seok was cornered in an instant and had nothing to do.

“Huh, fine. Let’s see how well you do.”

The only thing he could do was pour out his bitterness.

But Jung Da-bin ignored him easily.

‘She’s got guts.’

Yoo-hyun was amazed by the situation.

He had suggested that they should hurry up, but he didn’t expect Jung Da-bin to take charge like that.

He was just watching, but they gradually got organized and became confident enough to make their own choices.

That meant one thing.

They were becoming active humans instead of passive ones.

Among them, Jung Da-bin was a bit special.

That’s when it happened.

Rumble.

The door opened and the senior mentor came in.

The presenter would present from the front seat of the lecture hall, and the team members sitting in their seats could answer questions instead.

The presenter would show a simple presentation they made and answer questions like an interview with all six members.

The senior mentor said,

“Team 6 applied first. Please come out, presenter.”

Jung Da-bin’s presentation began.

“This is…”

The report went through the concept, differentiation points, competitiveness, business feasibility, etc.

The presentation screen only showed graphs and big pictures, which could mean that they didn’t prepare much or that they prepared hastily without any evidence, but the senior mentor’s face became more and more surprised.

The content was quite convincing, and more importantly, there was a thick business plan.

It was definitely not something they could fill in three hours.

Jung Da-bin’s presentation was neat.

She ignored the notes that Kang Chang-seok had written and went at her own pace.

Her voice was clear and her posture was confident.

“Wow.”

Yoo-hyun muttered to himself without realizing it.

He almost messed up by not telling her to do it.

As the presentation went on, the other team members also stopped working and paid attention.

Kang Chang-seok was shaking his legs nervously.

He must be praying for her to fail, but well.

She had already surpassed that level.

Jung Da-bin finished her presentation with a strong voice.

“That’s all for my presentation.”

Clap clap clap clap clap.

After the presentation ended, the senior mentor pretended to be calm, but he couldn’t hide his expression in front of Yoo-hyun.

He was clearly amazed and impressed.

But he frowned as if he was looking for a reason to criticize them.

He probably thought that passing them right away would mess up his planned schedule.

“Hmm. I listened to your presentation well. Now let me ask you some questions. You analyzed five competitive products, but what is the basis for calculating the prices?”

“That’s what Han Yoo-hyun, who came with me, will answer.”

Jung Da-bin passed the question to Yoo-hyun without blinking an eye, even smiling slightly.

Yoo-hyun remembered a person who had worked under him with a strong personality.

-Sir, I’ll do my presentation well. Don’t worry and just trust me.

Jeong Da-hye, the manager who worked with him 10 years ago.

No one dared to voice their opinions in front of Yoo-hyun, but she was different.

She looked similar to her at a glance.

She had some baby fat, but her droopy eyes with a puppy-like face were like hers.

Yoo-hyun quickly brushed off his thoughts and got up from his seat.

He had no choice but to fix his posture and answer the question, since he would be the one in trouble if he didn’t.

I’ll take this one for you.

Let’s finish this quickly and go home.

Yoo-hyun calmly answered the question.

“The prices were calculated by comparing the prices of the products that Hannsung had released in the past five years with the competitive products, and then deriving the brand premium value of Hansung. Then we added the product cost and manufacturing cost that we could estimate. We also calculated the character cost based on the price of the character mini fan that Han Sung launched recently. The details are on page 15 of the report we gave you.”

Of course, it wasn’t exactly as Yoo-hyun said, but this was a simulation, not a real business.

And it was a presentation for new employees who didn’t know anything.

This was easy.

Even field workers who were in R&D (research and development), who were equivalent to assistant managers, wouldn’t know this part well.