Getting Started: Confession of a Lazy Person

Looking at my previous retrospectives, I see the last ones were from 2021 and 2022. Yeah… I’ve been pretty lazy about this whole reflection thing, haven’t I? 😅

As a New Year’s resolution for 2025, I’m going to try to write down short records whenever I have time, even if they’re just random thoughts.

Sonatus has grown at an unbelievable pace, and I like to think I’ve grown along with it. I’m approaching my 5th year at the company now. My trusty Dell laptop that’s been with me for 4 full years is definitely showing its age, and coincidentally, 4 years is also when my stock options fully vest. Seems like the perfect time to look back on these 4 years of experience.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about “the essence of life.” I have this habit of asking people I meet questions like “When are you happiest?” but I realized I’ve never really organized my own thoughts about it. So I thought I’d use this blog to sort through my concerns and thoughts in an informal, chatty way.

My Core Values: Mission-driven, Mover, Giver

1. Mission-driven

I’ve loved math since I was little, especially tackling difficult problems for hours on end. Even when I looked at the answer key and it didn’t make sense to me, I’d ask the teacher again and again, then proudly show off how I solved it a different way.

At Hyundai Autron, I was already planning my exit pretty early on. When I joined Sonatus, I actively looked for work and created my own role within the company.

I’m happiest when I’m creating something or solving problems in complex areas that few people understand. When my alternative military service was ending and I was deciding between continuing in “automotive” or pivoting to “crypto,” what ultimately attracted me was the complexity of the problems I’d be solving.

The problems I tackled in 2024 were more complex than I could have imagined, and I had an absolute blast working through them. Sure, it was exhausting too, but I think tackling increasingly complex problems is the essence of my life.

2. Mover

I prefer jumping into action rather than overthinking things. When faced with new challenges, I feel more excitement than fear. This means I take a lot of action and make a lot of mistakes (haha). I’m far from a perfectionist and often need help from others, but I also gain a lot from trying so many different things.

As the company has grown rapidly, the scope for me to move freely has narrowed a bit, which is somewhat disappointing. But I’ve learned that solving complex problems with multiple people is much harder and more challenging than I expected - and the rewards are proportionally greater.

3. Giver

I think the reason I’ve been able to meet so many great people and build relationships with them is probably because I tend to give first. One of my earliest childhood memories is taking a box of snacks I got at my grandfather’s house and sharing them with kids at the neighborhood playground.

I still have a vivid memory of the kids in Cambodia during a volunteer trip, how happy they were wearing the basketball jerseys I gave them. I want to continue being someone who gives without expecting anything in return, which means I need to earn more to be able to give more (still a long way to go though!).

In December 2024, our CCU2 project that had been running for nearly 4 years finally reached mass production (MP), and team members from around the world gathered in Korea for a busy schedule. Despite not getting much sleep, I really wanted to treat everyone to delicious Korean food. Thanks to that, we all became friends, and I especially enjoyed finding cultural connections with our colleagues from Poland - we created some really positive synergy together.

Challenges I’m Facing

The Evolution of My Role

When I first joined Sonatus as one of the early employees, I wore many hats - I was doing customer support, infrastructure work, field systems, container management, you name it. There was this exciting chaos where everyone had to figure things out as we went.

Now that we’re a 300+ person company with clear organizational structure, roles have become much more defined. While this makes business sense, I sometimes miss the days when I could jump between different areas and tackle whatever needed solving.

The Classic Startup Dilemma

There’s this interesting tension that happens as startups grow. The very things that made the early days exciting - the flexibility, the broad scope of responsibility, the “figure it out as you go” mentality - become less feasible as the company matures.

I’m trying to find ways to maintain that sense of excitement and challenge within a more structured environment. It’s like learning to be creative within constraints, which is its own interesting problem to solve.

What’s Next?

I’m at an inflection point where I need to think about what the next chapter looks like. The skills and mindset that got me here might need to evolve for what comes next.

Some questions I’m pondering:

• How do I stay mission-driven when the missions become more defined by others?
• How do I continue being a mover in a more structured environment?
• How do I scale my giving as both my resources and responsibilities grow?

Wrapping Up

Writing this down has been helpful for organizing my thoughts. I realize that even though the external circumstances have changed dramatically over these 4 years, my core values have remained pretty consistent.

Maybe that’s the key - holding onto what fundamentally drives you while adapting how you express those values in different contexts.

More retrospective thoughts coming soon. Time to stop being lazy about this whole reflection thing!