LEONARD LIM: ”WE ENJOY THE WORK EVERY SINGLE DAY”
Photo Courtesy: WILD Group.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
EVERLAST KOREA proudly presents an exclusive interview with Leonard Lim, the Founder of KAPSUL Collective, and CEO of WILD Group. Leonard discusses his career experience, his growth as a person, and his successful businesses. Let’s take a look at who Leonard Lim is!
WILD Group started off with building a team of influencers and content creators, and recently signed big named talents within entertainment - including Thai K-Pop singer, Sorn, and former The Return of Superman (슈퍼맨이 돌아왔다) family, The Hammingtons. KAPSUL Collective is known for its jewelry-makin
Video Courtesy: DIVE Studios.
THIS IS LEONARD LIM
Leonard Lim is Australian-born, and his parents are from Singapore. Leonard has experience traveling around Southeast Asia, South Korea, and Los Angeles for his work within the entertainment industry. Some of his work experience includes, but is not limited to being a model, actor, former athlete, and even a cafe owner!
Since starting a business comes with many unknowns and risks, Leonard explained how his adventure into starting and running his own businesses came with a lot of thought and work experience. He stated,
“...before I dived into business, I was working in banking. And from there I took a one year leave from my job - just to test out the waters. In that one year I was able to accomplish starting a business. The first business was just a cafe, but it actually allowed me to learn how to operate a business. And at the same time, I was modeling, commercial acting, and personal training...and once I felt comfortable I left that full-time job, I just went and fell into different types of businesses.”
Leonard also mentioned how moving out of Australia was not that hard of a decision for him. He mentioned while Australia is one of the greatest places in the world, how he misses his family and best friends that are still there, because of the lack of opportunities for certain avenues, he knew he had to leave Australia to pursue better opportunities. He said,
“...this is just my opinion, but for certain avenues, especially the industry that I’m in, which is Asian and Western entertainment, it's just not the best place for it - purely because these types of industries are collaborative. And a lot of the artist resources to make good stuff is all out in the US or out in Asia. So that's purely the reason why I think that moving out of Australia was the most important reason for me to grow as a person, entrepreneur, and as everything. But I will certainly want to go back to Australia at some point.”
KAPSUL COLLECTIVE
Video Courtesy: KAPSUL COLLECTIVE.
Leonard's first big business adventure started with KAPSUL Collective - a jewelry business that collaborates with K-Pop Idols to create a limited edition jewelry collection for them and their fans. Let’s all look forward to new collaborations in the future!
WILD GROUP
Video Courtesy: WILD Group.
WILD Group is a hybrid entertainment company that focuses on different facets of business within the entertainment industry. Leonard stated,
“...we try to be a holistic entertainment company, and that’s why I describe us as a hybrid entertainment company. Because for anything and everything, there's an answer for it.”
WILD Group has separate divisions that consists of talents, (ranging from influencers and content creators) music production, and a marketing division. The talents division has a team of 100+ content creators and influencers from around the world. WILD is a music division and they recently debuted Thai K-Pop Idol, Sorn, a former member of CLC, and winner of K-Pop Star Hunt in 2011. Another division within WILD Group focuses on the production and marketing side of business that helps their clients with marketing campaigns, influencer campaigns, and digital marketing.
As Leonard expresses his own stories of where he came from, how he started his business, to where he is in the present day, there is a clear indicator as to why WILD Group has become so successful - it’s having the passion for the work one does. Leonard stated,
“We enjoy the work every single day. We don’t have a really big team, but I really enjoy the team that I have. You know, I trust them well, and it feels like we’re working, but also not really. We’re just having a good time.”
ABOUT TRUSTWORTHY RELATIONSHIPS
Video Courtesy: THE 윌벤쇼 THE WILLBEN SHOW.
When asked about what’s important to the business, Leonard mentioned how starting and maintaining strong relationships with those he works with and may potentially work with in the future are important. He stated,
“...a lot of my close friends and networks have a massive audience. And I think this business of entertainment is all about relationships. And you know it's a really difficult thing to do. People who know me as a person, they never doubt that side of me, in terms of my business etiquette, my morals, my values, everything like that. But the one thing about now is onboarding a lot of these really big artists, influencers, creators or public figures. They're all really good friends of mine, so the trust is already there.”
While Leonard mentioned having close friends and networks that are already well-known in the industry, he emphasizes how staying true to himself and staying true to those he works with on a professional level have to be consistent.
Leonard goes on to talk about how working with his friends also meant understanding his business model. He stated,
“...and for me it was more about starting slowly to make sure that I have the capacity to look after them correctly. Because in my mind the relationship is more important than the work. Like I wanted to make sure that I have the right team, I have the time, and I have the resources.”
Lastly, Leonard stated some exciting news! With the new additions of Sorn, The Hammingtons, and a new partnership with Basic Models, he explained,
“...so that's where I’m at now. And you’ll see that we haven’t even announced like, I would say, 10 other people that have joined us. But yeah, we have a lot of really great people that we are about to announce that have joined us recently. It makes me happy, it makes me proud, but I think to answer your question, the relationship part is so important to me. The people that don’t know me personally, it'll take time to have them onboarded.”
HERE’S TO THE MEMORIES
Video Courtesy: WILD Group.
Here is an excerpt from Leonard about an important moment for WILD Group - this was a moment that was special and very memorable for the whole team and for Leonard on a personal level.
“I would say that the last couple months of putting together Sorn’s stuff was a great experience. It’s something that I honestly have never been through before. And I was just really stressed out because I wanted it to be the best that we could possibly do for Sorn. And I think that’s what matters, you know what I mean? Like expertise is one thing, but also the care and the precision of how we go about putting things together, and making sure that all the bases are covered was the most important thing to me - so Sorn could have a successful comeback. And yeah I’m just really happy. You know Sorn is like family to me too, so it felt like a family project to be honest. Like we traveled together, me, her, and our team. Yeah, great experiences. We will always look back on this first one, and we’ve got three more songs coming out in the next couple of months, so it's gonna be a wild ride...pun not intended, but I think it's Sorn's first comeback that will always stick with us. Because it was such a huge learning curve for most of us.”
THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT
Video Courtesy: WILD Group.
Leonard mentioned that during this year and moving forward, he hopes that WILD can focus more on the music side of things, mainly because he personally enjoys it and because it's been going well so far. He explained,
“I was really really happy to see how “Sharp Obejcts” (Sorn’s debut single under WILD) was received. And you know we were quiet confident because we thought the song was great. We thought the rebranding that me and Sorn were very calculative about was something that would be well received.”
It became very clear that Leonard was excited to talk about working with Sorn and her debut under WILD. As Leonard reflected on this particular work experience, he stated,
“I’m just very proud of my team and the artist for the thought and effort that they put in. You know, everyone sees a well written song and the visuals to pair with it, but the thought and the effort that the team and Sorn put into putting it together, it’s just so hard to portray to everyone what goes on behind it.”
Let’s all look forward to new jewelry from KAPSUL Collective, new talents signing with WILD Group, and new music from Sorn in the upcoming months! To stay updated, you can follow Leonard Lim, WILD Group, and KAPSUL Collective’s social media channels!
CREDITS
A big thank you to WILD GROUP for allowing EVERLAST KOREA to cover KAPSUL COLLECTIVE and WILD Group. Also, a big thank you to Leonard Lim for allowing EVERLAST KOREA to conduct an exclusive interview. WILD Group is a hybrid management, music production, and marketing company representing top talent and content creators from across the globe.
SOURCES
All photos and videos are credited to WILD Group.
