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The sushi burger was by no means on the menu — that was the purpose. Paul Ryu informed the struggling Las Vegas restaurant to maintain it off the radar and make it unique. They need to let him and his creator associates flood social media with it, unexpectedly.
Spicy tuna, crispy rice buns, stacked like a burger and styled for the feed. Inside days, there have been traces down the block and reporters from Thrillist and Meals Community calling. One lady drove in from San Diego simply to attempt it.
That one dish did not simply go viral. It launched a complete company.
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By the point the sushi burger hit, Ryu already had years of content material underneath his belt. He had posted 1000’s of meals, constructed a loyal following and juggled restaurant photoshoots after lengthy days in gross sales. However to grasp how he acquired there, it’s a must to return to the day his mother and father took him to Disneyland after which left him behind.
Ryu was 13 when he arrived within the U.S. from Seoul. The journey was a decoy. Behind the scenes, his mother and father have been racing the clock. South Korea’s necessary army service was tightening its guidelines for abroad college students. Their resolution was to ship him early, whereas they nonetheless may. After the theme park go to, they dropped him off at boarding faculty and returned dwelling with out him.
Ryu did not converse English and did not know a soul. He discovered by watching, listening and mimicking. That early isolation made him resourceful. It additionally made him unshakable.
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By the point Instagram caught on, Ryu already had a system. Eat, shoot, submit, repeat. That consistency become a possibility. The chance become outcomes. And the outcomes become word-of-mouth. “After the sushi burger, I did not have to clarify what I did,” he says. “Individuals simply known as and stated, ‘Try this.'”
Right now, Paul Ryu’s shopper roster reads like a Vegas energy checklist: Station Casinos, TAO Group and The Mina Group. When Restaurant Influencers host Shawn Walchef sat down with him contained in the Hofbräuhaus Las Vegas, it wasn’t only a filming location. It was a flex. Hofbräuhaus is a shopper. So is the marriage chapel throughout city. Ryu did not pitch his approach in. They got here to him.
“My total enterprise is inbound,” he says. “All of it comes from the work.”
His work philosophy is brutally easy. Submit quick, be actual and cease overthinking. “Everybody needs high quality content material,” he says. “However high quality comes from consistency and velocity. Should you’re not posting frequently, you do not even get to the purpose the place high quality occurs.”
That is why Ryu’s company, JPMforce, solely hires energetic creators — individuals who stay and breathe content material, not interns pushing buttons on Hootsuite. And each submit, throughout each shopper, goes up stay — no scheduling or shortcuts.
When new restaurant shoppers signal on, Ryu tells them the identical factor: He is not right here to push promotions or design flyers. He is right here to search out the story. Possibly it is a chef’s secret ingredient. Possibly it is a forgotten element about how a dish is made. No matter it’s, it must be sincere. Individuals can odor a gross sales pitch from a mile away.
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Through the interview, Walchef shared certainly one of his guiding rules: Be the present, not the industrial. Ryu lit up. “That is precisely what I am attempting to say,” Ryu says. It is the right phrase for the way he approaches content material.
That mindset has helped his company scale with out promoting out. “You’ll be able to’t assist everybody,” Ryu says. “You have to consider within the product. If we’re not enthusiastic about it, we cannot contact it.”
Seven years in, he nonetheless appears like somebody simply getting began. “I really feel like I am late to the sport,” he says. “However we’re simply getting going.”
And in a city like Vegas, there’s at all times one other story to inform for those who’ve acquired the velocity to catch it.
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