… My Favorite Entrepreneur

Over my years (well, year and a half) at business school, I’ve been asked a handful of times, in formal interviews and informal settings, who my favorite entrepreneur is. I didn’t have an answer. However, over the last few months I’ve become increasingly impressed by David Chang. I’m now prepared to formally declare him my favorite entrepreneur.

David is a restauranteur. He opened Momofuku Noodle Bar in the East Village of New York City in 2004. It served Asian buns and noodle bowls. It gained a reputation for serving tasty food, and David opened another restaurant nearby. It did not take on quite as well, and was at risk of closing. David and his team scrapped the kooky Korean dishes for a more inventive late-night menu, and people began to show up in droves. He also fostered a friendship with a New York Times food writer, Peter Meehan, and in 2009 they published a cookbook inspired by Momofuku.

The cookbook was not David’s last foray into media. With Peter, he started a magazine called Lucky Peach (it recently published its last edition), and they have a new show on Netflix called Ugly Delicious. David’s restaurant business has proliferated into an empire, with approximately 13 properties around the world. In addition to the restaurants, he has a fast-casual fried chicken sandwich chain called Fuku and co-owns a chain of soft serve ice cream and cookie joints known as Milk Bar.  David is also prolific on Instagram, with far north of one million followers across his personal and professional accounts. He has made #uglydelicious one of my favorite hashtags. He was just in South Korea (David is a first-generation Korean-American) working with NBC on the Winter Olympics.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Be72rXNDxzd/?taken-by=davidchang

David’s work has always had a hint of the digital to it. Momofuku Ko is David’s two Michelin star restaurant. You can dine there by online reservation only, and it only has a tasting menu. Reservations become available 30 days prior to the day of service. David extended this online-only idea into a food delivery concept in New York called Ando. It was a delivery only company that aimed to use technology to revolutionize the food delivery space. It received millions of dollars in funding, but always had rocky business fortunes. In January, Uber Eats acquired Ando and will be integrating Ando and its technologies into the Uber Eats platform.

David did not stop at food service, media, or technology. He has also dived into food research. This has sparked a line of packaged food products that take seemingly off-kilter approaches to traditional Asian staples. David sells a miso made from chickpeas, sunflowers, or pistachios that he calls hozon and a grain-based soy-type sauce called bonji. I think my friend Dave (not Chang) even had a bonji Old Fashioned at Momofuku Má Pêche when we went there back in November. That meal remains my only Momofuku dining experience (although I did get a Compost Cookie at Milk Bar upstairs after the meal).

In addition to the packaged foods, David has partnered with a food lab called Booker and Dax to sell kitchen appliances. They have a special blowtorch for food, a food centrifuge, and a special tumbler for cocktail shakers. Booker and Dax is now also a bar inside one of David’s restaurants.

So why is he my favorite entrepreneur?

Sure, he is successful, but there are plenty of successful entrepreneurs, even more so than David. What I admire about David is that he has used different types of business to ever-expand his empire further outward, but has always kept a connection to his roots. It’s all food related, and shares similar themes of experimentation, and even the melding of the culinary and the technological. I value narrative as a high art form, and David seems to always have a narrative – whether it be literally telling stories on television shows or speaking about Asian gastronomy through his dishes.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVNiU12Dn24/?taken-by=davidchang

I’m also excited to see how David can use his knowledge, experience, and funding, to make a positive impact on the world. He talks about improving the quality of life for food service employees. Booker and Dax is about finding solutions to food problems. Ando was about innovation in food delivery, and Ugly Delicious tackles issues of culture, politics, and place in the world. I hope that David, his team, and his posse expand the empire a little bit further and strive to make a persistent, positive impact that uses good business sense and a positive narrative to leave the world better off.