Founder of France’s 1st K-Pop Café, Visited by 3,000 Fans Monthly

Hello, this is Klab Insight.

For this feature, we’re excited to introduce Savannah Truong, the founder of Kick Café, the first K-pop-themed café and concept store in France. More than just a business, KickCafé has become a cultural hub where K-pop fans can gather, discover exclusive merchandise, and immerse themselves in the world of Hallyu.

With a background in luxury marketing and experience at global brands like Hermès and Chanel, Savannah brings a unique perspective to merging K-pop culture with the European market. She’s also the author of K-Pop Drinks and the voice behind Kick Radio, expanding K-pop’s influence beyond music.

Her journey is a testament to how passion, innovation, and strategic vision can transform a niche interest into a thriving business. From launching one of the first K-pop lifestyle brands in France to collaborating with major Korean entertainment companies, Savannah has played a key role in shaping how K-pop is experienced outside of Asia.

In this interview, she shares her entrepreneurial journey, insights on monetizing a K-pop-related business, and advice for those looking to turn their passion into a career. Let’s dive into her story.

This newsletter highlights:

• Building France’s First K-pop Concept Store

• Monetizing K-pop Beyond Music

• Expanding K-pop’s Presence in Europe

Q. Can you introduce yourself?

Hi My name is Savannah Truong, I am the founder of Kick Café the first K-pop and Hallyu concept store in France and also the founder of Insa Agency, the first Hallyu focused consulting agency. 

Q. Could you share a little about your personal background and what led you to become passionate about K-pop and Hallyu culture?

I discovered K-pop in December 2008 with the song Haru Haru from Big Bang and became an instant fan of the music genre. Then in 2009, I watched my first ever Korean Drama : Boys Over Flowers which opened the world of K-Culture for me : the lifestyle, the food, the language. Since then I became a huge fan of the country and its culture. 

Q. Growing up, were there any experiences or influences that sparked your interest in entrepreneurship or cultural exchange?

Since young, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. My dream at 14 years old was to be the CEO of a big corporation, so I think my drive to create my own company started very young. My passion for South Korea started almost at the same time too. I was fortunate to travel a lot in Asia with my family as I am half Laotian half Vietnamese so whenever I was going to one of these countries I could discover more about asian pop music in general : Thai, lao, Viet, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. 

Q. How has living and working in Paris influenced your perspective on combining business and culture?

I think Paris was a huge inspiration to create Kick Café because my main inspiration for our shop was Colette a former fashion and exclusive product concept store which held events with stars like Beyoncé or Pharell Wiliams. They were open for 20 years and had a shop, restaurant and event space just like Kick Café. Paris is a huge melting pot of culture and you can find any type of cuisine in this city and French people are eager to try that is why I thought combining my passion for South Korea and business would be a good idea. 

Q. Please share the story behind founding KickCafé in Paris.

Before creating Kick Café, I was working as a fashion producer organizing fashion shows and photo shoots for brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior or Chanel. I had the idea of opening such a shop because I went to Sunmi’s concert in Paris in June 2019 and my friend told me «what a shame it is that there is no space for K-Pop fans to share their passion and be together». That sentence was the trigger for me to imagine the shop and what kind of business I would like to do. Soon after, I started working on my market research and my business plan and in December 2019 we held our first crowdfunding campaign. I wanted to spend Kick Café in 2020 but as you know Covid-19 hit the world like a storm. Thankfully, we opened Kick Café in May 2021 after almost 2 years of development.

Q. As an offline business, the initial investment seems significant. How did you secure the necessary funding?

The initial investment for such a business is quite big, especially in the center of Paris where the rent is really expensive so the first down payment is really high. Fortunately I have a family that supports me so they helped me to finance the initial investments and I did a loan at the bank too. It was during Covid so banks were very open to new projects. 

Q. How did you develop your revenue model when Kick Café was first launched?

My business model is similar to any café and shop : we sell drinks, cakes, food, products. The only difference is that it is Korean culture oriented so we have everything a K-Pop and K-Culture fans would love to find : K-Pop albums, streetwear, stationery and beauty all from South Korea.

Q. What percentage of your revenue comes from product sales versus experiences?

Right now our revenue share is 60% café (food and drinks) 25% shop and 15% events and B2B collaboration. 

Q. How do you utilize online platforms or social media for Kick Café? What has been your most successful marketing strategy?

Our most successful strategy has been organic growth on Instagram. We worked really hard to grow our audience through authentic content and natural engagement.

As I am writing this we have 25K followers on Instagram and I am proud to say that our community is very active and are part of our everyday ideas to develop Kick Café. We also communicate on tiktok and LinkedIn a lot but right now we are looking to develop Facebook as it is a medium we have not explore yet and where a lot of parents of younger K-pop fans are. 

Q. While K-pop fans are likely your primary audience, who are the main customers of Kick Café?

Kick Café’s main customers are K-Pop fans that live around the Paris area mainly ranging from 18 to 35 years old. From time to time we have families that are coming as a family trip which I find so adorable. We also have a lot of tourists from Europe especially Germany and Spain.

Q. What are the average monthly visitor numbers for Kick Café?

The number of visitors for Kick Café is around 3000 per month. 

Q. What has been the biggest challenge in running Kick Café, and how did you overcome it?

The biggest challenge is being the first company in the market that does this concept. Being a pioneer means creating the standard by yourself, discover the suppliers and how to make this company work with what the customers want. I think it is really hard because sometimes you can guess right and sometimes your choice can be a miss. If there was another company that opened before me I would at least have a referral o f what would work or not. So making these choices are quite hard for me and my team. however we do discuss a lot together and we asks our customers for their opinion for example to choose drinks or which event we should host next.

Q. Have you faced any cultural challenges in operating a K-pop-related business in France? If so, how did you address them?

I think there is a lot of cultural challenges in operating a K-POP related business in France because of the difference of timezone first with Korean companies: whenever we want to set up a meeting it has to be early morning for us in France so it is afternoon in South Korea.

Another challenge is the time it takes to set up logistics process with a supplier. If we are to order anything setting up the process from order to delivery is very long because of contracts, payment delays and of course customs. Sometimes it can take us 2 months before we receive the products we need.

Q. How did you build a fan community during the early stages of your business, and how do you engage with them?

We build a community for Kick Café by first doing a crowdfunding campaign to talk about the project and let people know that there was a plan of opening such a shop. Then when Covid hit we opened a Discord server where up to 400 people where connected to talk with each other about K-pop and also playing games. It was really amazing to create this community of like minded people. What was great was also posting almost everyday on Instagram. 

Q. What are your strategies for monetizing K-pop merchandise and experiences in such a competitive market?