From Velocity to a successful career in innovation and entrepreneurship: a chat with Kevin Park

21 April 2023

Kevin Park has a background in start-up incubation, growth management, and sales strategy. While he initially pursued a career in medicine, he eventually found his calling in the start-up world, working for organisations such as The Icehouse, Vodafone and Crimson Education. During his time at university Kevin was involved in Spark/Velocity as a participant, a committee member, and later a judge. Currently, he is the Vice President of Sales at Hectre, an orchard management software company, where he is responsible for their revenue growth strategy. 

Where does your interest in innovation and entrepreneurship stem from?  

Throughout my childhood, I saw my parents running different types of businesses. I used to do jobs that they disliked doing but were super important. They’d teach me how to do stock takes, run stalls at industry expos and listen in on sales conversations (cheaper than a babysitter I guess). I didn’t realise anything at the time but looking back, these experiences have helped in ways that I am still only recognising.  

Another major factor was exposure to computers at a younger age than many of my peers. I was about 7 when my dad started teaching basic computing skills to the community. We had 10 to 20 computer setups in the garage and many more broken desktops that I got to tinker with.  

By high-school, this new thing called “drop-shipping” was starting out (apparently, it’s still going?). I’d advertise items on TradeMe then get them drop-shipped to the buyer or sell things to kids at school. I probably made more money doing this than my parents at the time and I hadn’t discovered taxes back then – whoops.  

Give us a rundown of your career history: 

After university, I joined the start-up incubation team at the Icehouse. We worked with 100 or so start–ups each year to help the founders get their ideas validated, investments raised and growing. We did some work with corporates to help them to carry out internal venturing activities, which led to me joining Vodafone to help with their start-up acceleration and internal venturing work. After two years at Vodafone, an earlier Icehouse intern messaged me to join his company – Crimson Education. I joined as a Growth Manager and led international growth until we were in about 25 countries. I eventually became Senior Vice President and help launched new ventures within Crimson Education, including Crimson Global Academy. After 5 years, to focus on my young family, I joined a smaller start–up called Hectre where I am now the Vice President of Sales. 

Did you always imagine yourself having a career in innovation and entrepreneurship? 

I actually thought I’d be in a “professional” job. The usual: accountant, lawyer or doctor. I was clueless to be fair. I did what I thought was “prestigious” at the time (I’m Korean and have Asian parents) and went on the medical school track. I flunked medical school interviews, while working as a sales-guy at Vodafone and doing other start-upy things on the side. I didn’t put the effort into understanding what the medical pathway needed other than trying to ace exams. After getting rejected from Med-school, I went all-in with startup stuff. 

Tell us about a standout career highlight: 

There are a fair number of highlights but there’s one that I believe needs to be experienced for any entrepreneur or intrapreneur to be successful, and that is to achieve something that you thought was impossible. I remember when the founders of Crimson Education said something like “we have to launch in 20 countries in the next 2 years, can you figure out which ones and how”. This super-ambitious approach was against everything I had seen to date, and I thought it was crazy. I planned nonetheless to pull it off. Two years on, we were in 20+ countries and I couldn’t believe that things were working (mostly) as planned. That made me question my own beliefs and limits a lot and try to help others to try find their own limiting beliefs.  

What advice do you have for students/staff entering Velocity competitions this year?  

In my experience, the Velocity competition had more lifelong value for me than anything else I did at university (except meeting my wife in Physics 160). I can’t guarantee that it will have the same impact for you but since there are countless examples of where it has for others, you might want to give it your best shot and make the most of all the workshops and events it has to offer.  

All the cliché’s are true: ideas are cheap, execution is hard, 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration, the guaranteed way to fail is to say I’ll start tomorrow, “just do it”.