CREATED FROM TRAUMA + SUSTAINED BY KINDNESS

THE INTERVIEW

My name is Mike Kim. My parents immigrated here from Korea when I was three years old. Growing up in the United States as a first-generation Korean American, I experienced a lot of racism. I didn't understand it at first — I just knew that people treated me differently because of how I looked.

Kids called me slurs. Teachers mispronounced my name on purpose. I started to internalize the idea that being Korean was something to be ashamed of. I spent years trying to erase my identity — speaking only English at home, refusing to eat Korean food in front of my friends, changing the way I dressed so I could "fit in."

But it didn't matter how hard I tried. I was still seen as different. And the older I got, the more dangerous that difference became.

When I was in high school, I was jumped by a gang. Six of them. They singled me out specifically because I was Korean. They beat me badly — I'm talking boots to the skull, stomping me into the concrete. I remember looking up at the sky thinking, "Is this it? Is this how my story ends?"

I woke up in the hospital. My girlfriend at the time — the woman who would later become my wife — was sitting next to my bed, holding my hand. She hadn't left my side. When I opened my eyes and saw her face, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time: love. Real, unconditional love. And I thought, if one person can love me like this after everything the world has done to make me feel less than, maybe the world isn't all bad.

We got married young. Too young, maybe. The marriage didn't last. We divorced, and when it ended, I hit a wall. A real, dark wall. I didn't know who I was outside of that relationship. I started having suicidal thoughts. I won't sugarcoat it — there were nights where I genuinely didn't want to be here anymore.

Then the cancer diagnoses started coming. First, my dad. Stage four. My sister-in-law. A close friend. Then my grandmother. Then my mom. One after another, the people I loved most in the world were fighting for their lives.

My dad survived his cancer, but the illness broke something in him. He became depressed and isolated. One day I got a phone call — he had attempted suicide. He survived, thank God. And when I went to see him, something extraordinary happened: he apologized to me. For the first time in my life, my father — a Korean man from a generation that didn't say "I love you," didn't apologize, didn't show vulnerability — looked at me and said he was sorry. For the distance. For the pressure. For everything.

I didn't know it at the time, but that moment would change the direction of everything.

DEFINING THE PURPOSE

I had already started SNP, but from that night on, SNP has been driven by my understanding that life is so short. Every single interaction we have with another human being is a chance to either add to their life or take from it. And I made a decision — I'm going to add.

Kindness isn't soft. Kindness isn't weak. Kindness is the hardest thing in the world to practice consistently, especially when the world keeps showing you reasons not to be kind. But it's the only thing that actually works. It's the only thing that changes people. I've seen it.

Every single trauma I went through — the racism, the violence, the divorce, the suicidal thoughts, watching my family fight cancer — all of it pointed me back to the same truth: what people need, more than anything else, is to feel seen, valued, and loved. That's it. That's the whole thing.

My mother passed away on January 11th of this year, and this helped clearly define the MVP for SNP. She was the most kind person I have ever met in my life. Watching her go through everything she went through and still choose love, every single day — that's what SNP is built on. That's who we're building for.

THE KINDNESS APP (COMING SOON!)

Eight billion people. Eight billion stories. Eight billion chances every single day to make someone feel like they matter.

We're building the world's first kindness app — a platform designed not just to inspire kindness, but to make it a daily practice. Something you earn, track, grow. Think Pokémon Go meets the Girl/Boy Scouts, but for kindness. We're gamifying compassion, and we can't wait to share it with you.

Because at the end of the day, the goal has never been to build a company. The goal is to change the world. One kind act at a time. One person at a time. Starting with you.

Here's to changing the world together.