[Hang on] "You won't die even if you get stabbed with a knitting needle. You can do it again".

■ Broadcast: YTN Radio FM 94.5 (20:20-21:00)
■ Date: January 19, 2025 (Sunday)
■ Proceedings: Professor Lee Seong-gyu
■ Dialogue: Kim Dae-ri, a professional knitting influencer,

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information.

◆ Professor Lee Seong-gyu (hereinafter referred to as Lee Seong-gyu): There are a few things that come to mind when you think of winter. One of them is a soft sweater. When I was young, my mother made me a vest and a woolen hat while unwinding the wool of my father's sweater. It's been a long time since this knitting, which only mothers would have liked, has become a beloved hobby among young people these days, regardless of gender. When you search for knitting on YouTube, hundreds of videos pop up. Knitting comes to mind as a popular hobby, and this person's role is quite big. <There's no one like this.> Let's talk with Ms. Kim of the popular YouTuber 'The Needle Story' in the hand knitting field. Hello,

◇ Mr. Kim, a professional knitting influencer (hereinafter referred to as Mr. Kim): Hello.

◆ Can you introduce yourself briefly?

◇ Mr. Kim: My name is Mr. Kim, Mr. Needle Story, who has been working as a deputy in the marketing team for 7 years at a shopping mall that sells knitting goods called Needle Story and a company that operates a store. We teach people how to knit on YouTube, promote our products, and produce various videos and contents so that knitting can become a popular hobby.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: But I'm Mr. Kim on YouTube. You're also the assistant manager right now?

◇ Mr. Kim: His position is also an assistant manager. I'm working like a team leader. I have a planning team, a design team, a video team, and a marketing team under me, and I'm working like a team leader who manages all of them.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: Are you going to keep using the name Mr. Kim when you get promoted later?

◇ Mr. Kim: Yes, I'm going to keep using it.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: 'It's a gold spoon in the knitting industry. ’ There's a name like this, and I heard that you learned how to knit from your mother's womb?

◇ Mr. Kim: Yes. It's actually funny that it's a gold spoon. When I was young, my house was really difficult. My mother knitted prenatal care. A few years after I was born, he started his business when he was 5 years old. But the reason you started your own business was because you started your own business during the IMF. The house became so difficult that all the houses I just had disappeared, and my mother had to make money while she was almost throwing it on the street, so I raised money that I really didn't have and started a business. That's why I grew up watching the company grow from a young age. So there are a lot of knitting rooms, so it's a knitting spoon, but I don't know if it's a gold spoon. Since my mother did prenatal education, I think I've had a feeling since then. So I started when I was 5 years old, but I haven't done it since then. I only had a little sense of it, and it's been about 7 years since I joined the company.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: 9.1 billion won in annual sales after coming in. Is that how you achieved it?

◇ Mr. Kim: We reached over 10 billion last year.

◆ Last year, we got more than 10 billion won?

◇ Mr. Kim: It hasn't been counted yet.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: Then the size of the employees will be quite large.

◇ Mr. Kim: Yes, including the part-timers, there are almost 40 people working right now. About 30 people are working as full-time employees.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: But it was really hard for my mother to put it on the street earlier. Then, I told my daughter, 'Let's do this and that together. ’ When was the first time you said this?

◇ Mr. Kim: I've seen the company grow since I was young, so in my perception, knitting was definitely a 'needle story', but I think it's been like that for about 20 years. I think it was about 10 years ago when social media kept going well and YouTube and Instagram were posted. But at that time, we couldn't respond quickly to that, so we were gradually being forgotten by people. So I thought, "I think we're not good enough." I think he felt that he lacked a sense of youth because he thought that. So I said, 'Young you should come in and raise SNS a little bit such as Instagram and YouTube. ’ That's why I started to come in and work so that our company can become No. 1 again.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: You need a young sense. Then your mother is not young.

◇ Ms. Kim: As my mother got older, the customers also got older. So what's interesting is that my customers are my age right now. But my mother's customers are also around her age. And when she first started the business, she was about her age. As the company got older, it got older with the customer. But since the company is old, the staff members were 45 years old when I came in. So, there was something that I lacked in my youthful sense.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: He's wearing a sweater right now. Did you open it yourself?

◇ Mr. Kim: The staff gave this to me. I design and knit. If I design it myself and ask the employees to design it, please open it up the same way. I'm wearing that floating thing right now.

◆ Is there anything else you wanted to do other than knitting?

◇ Mr. Kim: I originally wanted to do marketing so much that my dream was to join a marketing company or a marketing team at a large company. I just wanted to go to a big company. But at first, it's a small and medium-sized company. I think it's here.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: Start-up. It's bigger than that.

◇ Mr. Kim: It's a small business. Since I have a long career. So my mother was a little disappointed, and I was a little disappointed to go to a small and medium-sized company alone when all my friends went to a large company. But when I look back, I think it was a really good choice, and now I think, 'Then shouldn't I grow that small and medium-sized company into a large company?' ’ I'm trying to grow the size of the company with this thought.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: Is that the marketing that makes knitted clothes like that and sells them as ready-made products to the market? Or, "Do it like this." ’ Then, is there a marketing that matches it like that?

◇ Mr. Kim: We are a company that sells ingredients. You can think of it as a company that sells designs containing how to make the same as ingredients. People may want to see a picture and look exactly like this. Then, you buy the same ingredients, and you buy the same way you open it, and it pops up. That's not why people want to buy something that's floating, but because knitters have a great desire to make their own. We are selling it to knitting people like that and those who want to have a hobby. That's why we rarely sell finished products. At first, people who don't do this hobby are interested in the finished product. The minimum hourly wage in Korea is over 10,000 won an hour. So, if you think about the minimum hourly wage, if you invest time in this sweater, it's about 1 million won. So, since the balance of payments doesn't match, it's good that we don't have to spend time to float if we don't sell finished products and only sell ingredients and how to float, and people can enjoy the float process.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: In that direction. Was it your mother's marketing strategy? Is that a new marketing strategy when Assistant Manager Kim signed it?

◇ Mr. Kim: It was your mother's strategy. But what I reinforced a little more in my mother's strategy was that she sold designs to people who were good at knitting, so it was a little difficult for people who couldn't knit to recognize designs. So the design was written briefly. After I came in, I took a video and showed you how to upload it in detail, and the length of the design got longer, so I usually include videos as a necessity and sell them. And the design is usually drawn out with paper. But overseas, this is digitized, bought, sold, and traded in PDF files. So I thought I should quickly introduce this to Korea, so after I came in, I built another design so that I can buy PDF files through system development and various investments.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: Yes. But he originally majored in business administration at the undergraduate school. at Ewha Womans University By the way, did the management technique help you with your marketing?

◇ Mr. Kim: To be honest, it's a little hard to say that it's enough. What I learned at school is that there are a lot of collaboration processes and team projects. So I think the experiences of team projects while taking management classes and blog marketing while doing external activities when I was in school helped a lot.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: Does your mother set the salary?

◇ Mr. Kim: Yes. My mother is doing it, and my salary.

◆ Do you have any complaints about that?

◇ Mr. Kim: Please give me too little. I recently asked for a raise for the first time. I don't have any complaints about the salary because I have some negative profits, such as writing a book, doing an online lecture outside, or selling designs as a private writer.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: You mentioned Yeonhui-dong earlier. Did Ms. Kim release the workshop separately?

◇ Mr. Kim: So it was 100% completely my mother's opinion. I first started working in Paju. It was so nice when I was in Paju. Because the land price in this large Paju is a little low, so it's very big. Then, I was so happy that I could realize my dreams in that big place. So I was satisfied, but my mother must have felt something was missing. I guess you thought you were locking her up in Paju. Seoul is a bigger market, so I thought I should go out to Seoul. Even then, the company wasn't that big, but they pushed ahead. The big building in Yeonhui-dong must be built and must be large. He said that he had to give people a wow point no matter what, so he worked really hard and made it like this. When it was about a year ago, I wondered why I did this, but it's been about three years now. It's been a while since we came out to Yeonhui-dong. But afterwards, I thought, 'If it wasn't for this, our company wouldn't have grown this big. As I thought, 'My mother definitely looked a few steps ahead and felt like she was moving on.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: I heard that your mother originally created that YouTube channel.

◇ Mr. Kim: My mother told the employee who was there at the time, 'Make it. And we've filmed a video, so just upload it there. ’ He usually gives instructions like this. When I went in and looked at it, it wasn't being managed well, so I said, "Mom, I'll do this," and I took over.

◆ YTN Radio's Lee Sung Kyu's happy comma. Hold on. <There's no one like this.> Today, we are with influencer, who did a great job in making knitting a hobby culture of the MZ generation. By the way, the number of subscribers is about 427,000 as of January 15th, do you have any income?

◇ Mr. Kim: I think my income is just about the salary of an office worker.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: I see. And when Ms. Kim first produced knitting video content, it wasn't this general, right? It wasn't generalized, was it?

◇ Mr. Kim: I was there then too. But the age group was a little different. I was a very young content producer. It's rare to see people in their early 20s knitting on YouTube. But it wasn't that there were videos that told us. So I thought it could be a red ocean at the time. What I targeted a little narrower is 'knitting that young people tell me', so I can win first place right here. Because I don't have it. I think that's why we started really fast.

◆ Does the season get a bit tan, too? Knitting reminds us of winter.

◇ Mr. Kim: That's right.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: I can imagine you knitting while sitting down and grilling sweet potatoes when the cold wind blows. Are you on the season?

◇ Kim Daeri: The season used to burn up to three times in the past. If it was 1 in summer, there was about 3 times the difference between summer and winter, but these days, the trend is that winter is gradually decreasing and summer is gradually increasing. That's why summer and winter are almost like the same. I think winter is more common. Now, it's not 3 times, and it's not even 2 times. It's about 1.5 times better. In the summer, there's also summer knitting. I usually open my bag in the summer. Props.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: The material is different.

◇ Mr. Kim: The material changes. In the summer, I use cotton yarn and paper yarn, and in the winter, I use wool and cash cotton yarn. I think it's become a hobby for all four seasons.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: Yes. But when do you realize that MZ is getting more interested in this area?

◇ Mr. Kim: When I first started working, I really didn't have any friends around me who knitted. So my mission, my goal, is to make cool things that my friends want to buy. ’ And I want to create a brand that my friends know. ’ That was my goal. Even now, my friends don't do it. But my friends told me more these days that they were doing it, so when I met my friends, I said, "Some of my co-workers started it." ’ And I said, "My friend started, too. My friend is really good. You know that. ’ I think I've heard that more often these days.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: You didn't even say it earlier. I'm selling it with a design. But do you keep working on the design?

◇ Mr. Kim: I personally make about one design a month. Have you ever tried a 3D printer?

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: Yes.

◇ Mr. Kim: You also need a 3D modeling file for a 3D printer. But in the United States and European countries, buying and selling 3D modeling files is very active. So if you have a 3D printer, you can buy the modeling file and print it out at home with a 3D printer just like the picture. But this knitting is the same. If you think of a person as a 3D printer and think of the design as a 3D modeling file, you buy it and when a 3D printer knitting machine called 'I' pops up, it comes out the same way. So, if you input the value of the design to a knitting machine, you can do the same, so such file transactions are very active.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: That's why it has to be entered in the head.

◇ Mr. Kim: That's right. But since knitting has a fixed language and is similar to coding, there is an advantage of being able to come out the same because there is a clear guide.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: Yes. So even if it's input, can it be a little different depending on the equipment? Equipment laundry?

◇ Mr. Kim: What it feels like to wash equipment is actually a thread and you can do everything with just one needle. But the material of the needle is steel needle or wooden needle, or there are bamboo and black needle. But in fact, coriander doesn't care about equipment. I just feel good. If I use something good, I feel like I'm speeding up. It's not a hobby of riding equipment like that. But there is a world where you can make enough if you are greedy, so it's also called golf in the room. It costs more than 1 million won if you have full equipment. But you can start with 500 won.

◆ Lee Sung-gyu: What is a yanball?

◇ Mr. Kim: How do you know Janball?

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: It came out in the data.

◇ Mr. Kim: A yanball is like a bowl for thread. The thread rolls around here and there. That's why it's made of a heavy material like pottery and if you put thread inside, it won't roll around. I feel that the knitting market is expanding to the extent that the market is growing quite a bit these days.

◆ Lee Sung-kyu: Now I've learned how to knit from my mother, and I've inherited everything about content, YouTube channels, and everything. But what is the most valuable of them?

◇ Mr. Kim: I think the most valuable thing is determination, execution, and business judgment. Because my mother is really interesting because she's not supposed to say this anywhere, but she runs an Internet shopping mall and doesn't know how to order something online. But what I thought was really interesting was that an entrepreneur doesn't become an expert in that field, but just needs to hire an expert and run a company. I felt this when I saw such an example of my mother. Even though my mother is not a builder, she expanded her business by raising the building like this, and then moved to Seoul several times ahead. Now, I wonder what my mom's plans are next. So, I learned a lot that it wasn't just a small hobby, a hobby at the studio level, or just a hobby where women were struggling at home, but it was also corporateized and commercialized. So I'm trying to accept that kind of spirit as much as I can. If I don't keep focusing on small things or how should I say it? If I don't solve it for business, I'm often stuck like this. So I'm trying not to do that as much as I can, so I'm talking to my mom and learning a lot.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: But you accomplished a lot with this knitting with your mother. Do you think this knitting popularity will be more lively in the future? How is it?

◇ Daeri Kim: Since about three years ago, this is the last year. That's what I thought. So, it's so popular these days, and I thought the end of the knitting population would be the last until this year, but I just got it wrong every time. And once in a while, a product becomes popular. But the reason we don't really like such fashionable products is that they come in once and then fall out. At that time, there was one such product every year, but last year, there was no such product. There were so many people even though there were none. This means that more people are interested in knitting itself rather than coming to make a certain product, so I thought, 'If this trend continues, wouldn't it last this long for about five years? Unlike other hobbies, knitting has a very long history. I think it's going to be a thousand years. In my opinion, there are records of relics excavated in the past, so there are a lot of things to learn when history is long. And there is a lot of data that has been accumulated, and content is constantly supplied. I think it will last a long time because there will be new things so that people won't get bored. I want to go for a long time and rather than fast growth, I just want to keep it as good as it is now.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: I don't have any experience knitting while listening to this broadcast, but for those who are interested, please wrap it up.

◇ Ms. Kim: Especially, there are a lot of people who cry when they start. Can I do it? I've never done it before. I'm a beginner. I'm a man. I'm an elementary school student. I'm not good at all. ’ He comes like this. But what I always tell you is that you don't die even if you're stabbed by a needle. The needle is lumpy, so it doesn't hurt even if you poke it, and nothing happens even if it's wrong. It's because the world doesn't collapse, it doesn't bleed, it's very safe, and it's a hobby that can be solved and done again at any time. I hope you can judge whether anyone will get it right or not. If you start, there's a really fun world out there, so I hope you try it at least once.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: <There's no one like this.> Today, we talked with Influenza influencer, who is sincere about knitting that entered her mother's knitting business. Thank you very much.

◇ Mr. Kim: Yes, thank you.

◆ Lee Seong-gyu: <There's no one like this.>You can listen to it again on the YTN radio website and YouTube.