AREAA GLOBAL’S JOURNEY TO THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE by Jim Park
In early 2013, Allen Chiang approached me with an idea after an AREAA board meeting. He said “wouldn’t it be great if AREAA can be financially independent so we can pursue our mission without the worries of fluctuating sponsorship dollars and the ups and downs of the real estate business’ or something to that effect. The following week, I wrote up a draft business plan and a mission statement of sorts based on Allen’s goals. In that initial draft, I wrote “With AREAA Global’s platform, you can cultivate new international clients and turn your real estate investment ideas into long-term, wealth-building opportunities for your business.” With that basic concept in hand, Allen and I hit the road and started to talk to our members and partners about our new business plan for this new for-profit entity under AREAA National. Few months later, AREAA Global was officially launched as a California corporation with the small capital investment from AREAA National. And with that, we were in business. Sort of… As someone once said to me, if you aren’t transacting business then you are not in business. To create that first business transaction, Allen and I pursued many ideas such as a property management deals for our members, explored investments into China to develop a China-based “HomeDepot”, EB-5 investments, relocation business, global referral business out of France and many more. We tossed many ideas around build that momentum, but we were getting minimal traction.
44
FA L L 2 0 1 8
