Korean Job Discussion Forums

[yingwenlaoshi]

I've been wondering about this lately.

We only have about 100 English students, 2 foreign teachers, 2 drivers, and a secretary. He also has a math hagwon in the same building and has to pay that teacher's salary. He owns the building and is expanding the hagwon. It seems that he's expanding the math portion of his business to attract more students and I heard he's getting another teaching. He charges students 150,000/month. The driver told me today that he spent 2 million Won on gas.

I worked it out in my head that his maximum expenses would be something like 13 or 14 million. That's maximum for all utilities, gas, salaries, and rents. Then he would profit somewhere between 3 and 5 million, maybe. That's not much.

[Pak Yu Man]

Do you make 3-5 mil a month?

That's not much for a school, but he's making good money for a Korean.

[sadsac]

Remember also that he can get a nice chunk back at tax time. He's doing okay.

[MissSeoul]

[yingwenlaoshi]

Don't get me wrong. I know that any profit is good because money's rolling in. Of course there are other jobs that I do where he gets a cut. But I'm just talking about the hagwon. At the hagwon, he makes more than I do. It's just that it's not that much. If I were teaching on my own, I'd be pulling in all that money less expenses. Seems sort of ridiculous.

[blynch]

[wylies99]

Once the start-up costs are paid off, owning a hogwan can be a HUGE profit game. That is, if it is properly marketed and managed.

[Qinella]

I worked at a hagwon that actually did operate on a loss. The boss was telling me the business lost him money, but he's so rich he doesn't care. It was always his "dream" to own one, so.. can't argue with that logic!

I'd say your hagwon sounds alright as long as the current scenario has room for growth (i.e. more students). Let's say 10 students are added. That's an extra 1.5 mil. Is it posisble?

[Rteacher]

I actually felt sorry for my first hogwan director/owner. He had been a teacher for nine years and invested all his savings into starting his own hogwan. He was such a workaholic that he took practically no vacation for several years and rarely even took Sundays off. He once showed me his books, which indicated that he had been steadily losing between one and two million won every month for nearly three years.

Afer exhausting his bank credit, he relied on borrowing money from his brother-in-law, who was a fairly well-to-do politician. His wife, who had assisted - to the point of exhaustion - in various roles for the hogwan advised him to give up or sell the business, and she finally left him.

His sister (whose husband's money was keeping the place going...) also advised him to give it up and finally take a vacation - after which he could work as a teacher in her hogwan. He stubbornly resisted (despite the fact that he was obviously drinking heavily on weekdays and showed signs of a nervous breakdown...)

Last I heard, he was still trying to keep the place going - despite the fact that he had fewer than 50 students - down from 120 when I was there three years ago...

[rothkowitz]

I wonder how much the franchise fees can be.

If you're in a the midst of a quiet spell,those have got be a drag on resources.3-4K a month for the well-known ones?

[AwesomeA]

[ChopChaeJoe]

So the guys who do the work get paid less than the capitalists who don't. Is that any different than any buisness anywhere....

[yingwenlaoshi]

[yingwenlaoshi]

[djsmnc]

Found any dead ajosshis in the storage closet?