If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s how central meaningful connection is to the human experience. Connection is everything—our health and well being quite literally depend on it. Speaking from my own experience, being in the business of helping others connect is a uniquely rewarding endeavor. But regardless of what industry or position you find yourself in, the ability to connect with others and foster connection is vital—that’s true whether you’re working directly with customers and clients, collaborating with colleagues, leading a small team, or running a company. Empathy, understanding and relationship building are all crucial skills, particularly for leaders who, after all, need to be able to connect with the teammates they help, the colleagues they collaborate with and the people they serve.
With that in mind, I recently spoke with Jane Park, whose leadership philosophy is so centered around the tenets of connection and empathy that she built her business on them. Park has had a successful career that took her from law to the beauty industry to founding a company on a mission to spark connection. In our conversation, Park shared how her parents inspired her entrepreneurial spirit, her empathy-driven approach to leadership, her insights on unconventional ways to raise capital and the importance of accessible investing pathways, and of course, the magic of connection.
Liz Elting: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. Could you please introduce yourself to the readers and tell us a little bit about your life and career?
Jane Park: I’m Jane Park. My parents and I immigrated from Korea to Canada when I was 4 years old, and I grew up in Toronto. I actually gave myself the name “Jane” in kindergarten from the Dick and Jane books because no one could pronounce my Korean name. I didn’t tell my parents about it, so they were surprised to be talking about “Jane” at the parent-teacher conference.
I had a front-row seat into what it takes to run a small business by watching my parents run their 7-Eleven store. 7-Eleven stands for seven days a week, 11 hours a day; no matter how hard I work, I know that nothing I do will be as hard as what my parents went through making a life in a new country where they didn’t speak the language. My father was forced to be entrepreneurial at an early age because he was orphaned at 9 years old. He was walking home from school one day when the border between North and South Korea was put up between his school and his home. He never got to go home to see his parents because their house was now in what became North Korea. He dug sweet potatoes out of the frozen ground to survive, and he picked apples and sold them around town. Growing up, he told us kids that the most successful Korean businesses like Samsung and Hyundai were built by refugees like him who lost everything during the war.
So in many ways, building a business made more sense to me than anything else. What felt strange was going to work in an office building when I got my first job as a lawyer. I think most of what I did in my brief nine months as a junior attorney is now done by software. I sat alone in a room with hundreds of boxes, helping to prepare for litigation. It was very solitary, and not at all like Ally McBeal (now I’m giving away my age). I found my way to strategy consulting at The Boston Consulting Group, where I got my “mini-MBA” as a non-traditional hire. I made lifelong friends at BCG—I remember the exact moment I felt taken seriously as a professional for the first time. I later moved to Seattle to work on innovation at Starbucks before leaving to start my first company, Julep Beauty, which I grew and exited to private equity. I learned a lot through that journey, but the most important lesson was the impact we had on each other as people and the unique culture we built. My former Julep colleagues and I just had a reunion a few weeks ago.
In starting Tokki, there is so much that I am leaning into again because of my Julep experience, but it’s also exciting to have a chance to take different paths, use shortcuts and avoid the pitfalls this time around.
Elting: What inspired you to found Tokki?
Park: I really didn’t expect to start another company, but one Christmas, I was cleaning up and felt so guilty about all the trash we created when we opened our presents. I did a quick search to see what was recyclable, and I was shocked to find that most giftwrap can’t be recycled if it’s too sparkly, thin, color saturated, adorned or coated. In fact, every year, Americans use enough single-use gift wrap to go around the Earth nine times.
I remembered that my grandmother used to give us important gifts wrapped in reusable squares of silk, and that’s where the idea for Tokki was born. Tokkis are made to be reused over and over, and updating the idea, I incorporated a QR card so gift givers could create a personalized message with a photo or video. Tokki means rabbit in Korean, and my hope is that every Tokki hops from friend to friend, sparking joy along the way.
Elting: I talk a lot about how entrepreneurship is really about seeing a problem and then building a solution, but turning a solution into a workable business requires a lot of self belief. How did you know you were the right person to tackle this problem?
Park: I love to merge what is possible in technology with the tangible delight of the physical world, and I had experience in leading physical product development that went hand in hand with digital innovation in my first company. Not many tech leaders are comfortable managing international supply chains and the challenges that happen when there is a shipping container shortage, for example. And not many consumer goods leaders know how to think about digital product design, rethink the user experience and manage a software development cycle. Bringing them together creates more than double the complexity—but also more than double the reward.
Elting: Can you speak to the process of merging a physical product with technology? What insights would you share with other founders looking to do the same, particularly with products that aren’t typically associated with tech and social?
Park: Operating at the intersection of physical and digital products requires a lot of collaboration and communication. The bottlenecks, timelines and difficulties of each effort are totally different from the other. Without a strong sense of mission and an understanding for how the pieces fit together, it’s easy for an idea to fall apart before it even gets going. Whether your team is two, 20 or 20,000, it takes thoughtful communication to keep everyone rowing in the same direction and understanding the importance of their respective roles. I also think you have to be humble. There are more areas of risk, uncertainty and lack of knowledge. Because I’m not a software engineer, I had to work closely with my technical cofounder, Taylor Hoit, and we had to build Tokki with tremendous trust in each other.
Elting: Your company is based around the idea of connection, and through that, you’ve aimed to not just offer a product, but to build a social experience. Can you talk about what that means and what goes into creating a social experience?
Park: Building connection is my personal and professional mission, so it’s part of the Tokki DNA as well as every decision we make about the physical and digital product. I think the best gifts make people feel seen, which is such a powerful form of connection. How can we make this moment more powerful? How can we help people express how important they are to each other? From the design of our bags to the experience of scanning and seeing your personalized card show up on your phone, we’re guided by that north star. And the core idea of Tokki is about connecting us all in a chain of gifting. Where has this Tokki bag been before? Who gave it to whom before it got to me, and where did it go after? You can track all of that in your Tokki account online after the bag leaves your hands.
Elting: Can you talk about Tokki’s capital strategy? Why did you choose crowdfunding? And if you had to do it all over again, would you utilize crowdfunding again?
Park: Capital can be the most frustrating part of growing a company for all entrepreneurs, but institutional financing basically doesn’t exist for women entrepreneurs. Only 2% of venture capital goes to women-run startups—think about that. It’s not even statistically a 2% chance for any given woman entrepreneur, it’s saying that her total eligible pool is just 2% and she’s got to win her way into that. I don’t say this to be discouraging—I just want other women entrepreneurs to not feel alone if they’re feeling like it’s a struggle. I see you! You are not alone.
My view on raising capital is that getting capital wherever you can get it, in whatever check size, whatever structure, is a win. I’ve raised over $50 million in my career, I was one of the lottery-winning few. And I’ve raised it in chunks from hundreds to tens of millions. Up rounds, flat rounds, down rounds. I think the most important thing to keep in mind as a woman raising capital is that it’s probably not about you. It’s about whether angels feel flush with cash. It’s about what idea made the investor money last time or lost them money last time. Term sheets can disappear because a VC gets divorced or has a death in the family, and the timing isn’t right for them. Get your ego out of the way, and do everything you can to raise the money you need to build your idea. Get creative!
Elting: Why are accessible investment options important? How do you see greater accessibility in investing impacting future startups and business more broadly?
Park: Accessible investment options are important so that the door to building wealth can be open to a more diverse and inclusive population. It’s especially critical for women, who often feel like they need all the boxes checked and more to apply to for a job, and the same thinking can infuse investing strategies. Smaller dollar amounts lower the barrier to participation both financially and emotionally.
I’m also a huge proponent of family foundations and donor-advised funds (DAFs) putting some of their investment dollars behind women and minority-run startups with social missions. Billions of dollars are currently sitting in standard investments while donors decide where their funds are going to go. Channeling just 5% of those funds to be invested in women and minority-run companies would change the world.
Nonprofit intermediaries like Realize Impact enable investors with family foundations or DAFs to channel funds to startups easily—by making a grant the exact same way that grants are made to other nonprofits. The difference is that Realize Impact becomes the “investor” in the startup, and at exit, the funds can be returned to the foundation or DAF—or donated to another nonprofit. The dollars have to land in the nonprofit world, but they can do a useful tour of duty through a startup that generates jobs and flows through the community. Every dollar can do double duty this way.
Elting: You’ve spoken about the importance of empathy in leadership, what does that mean for you and how has it shaped your company?
Park: To me, empathy is the heart of connection and the most important foundational requirement of any leader. And doing it right is hard! It’s a struggle for me everyday to remember how differently we each approach the world, and to be able to transport myself as fully and whole-heartedly as I can into someone else’s shoes. When I can get it right, when I can truly hear what a customer, partner or employee is saying from her place in the world, and when I can give her just the right experience, feedback, help and opportunity, it’s magic.
Being a parent of two has been a helpful daily reminder that one size definitely does not fit all. I am constantly working to expand my empathy in both my personal and professional life. Who is this person in front of me? What do they need? What do I have in my toolkit that I can give? This is life’s most incredible puzzle.
The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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