Since FiKee opened in the fall of 2021, there’s been so much I’ve wanted to talk about. What this place is for. Why we keep going. How much thought goes into it. Yet I’d never written any of it down.
Why not? I suppose I worried I’d just be making noise—going on about something no one had asked to hear. I also clung to the rather old-fashioned belief that the experience of being here should speak for itself. And honestly, letting people see all the uncertainty behind our decisions was a little frightening.
Between that and the small matter of making a living, five busy years went by. Five years. Five whole years… I was in my twenties when FiKee opened. Now I’m in my mid-thirties. Both my face and my way of thinking have changed a little.
Recently, while planning our fifth anniversary, we looked through old photographs together. “Oh, that’s what we were thinking back then.” “Right, that was how we approached it.” Nothing grand enough to call our “founding vision.” Just glimpses of what we’d noticed about the world and the questions we were asking at the time. Some were a little embarrassing. Others I’d forgotten completely.
“Let’s look back over the past five years before any more time slips away.”
“The past five years” sounds so tidy. Inside it are countless small decisions we agonized over. I wanted to set down what we were thinking and why we chose what we did. Perhaps some of our visitors—our finders—would be curious too.
So I’ll share those thoughts, one at a time: the thoughts of someone running a small place and trying to build a brand. This first story is about how we chose the name FiKee.
When you sit down at FiKee, your drink comes with a card:
“FiKee is a basecamp for adventurers who read.
A place to find your bearings, plan your next steps, gather your tools, and stock up on provisions.
We hope your time here helps you set off on an adventure of your own.
finders keepers. FiKee.”
Words like “adventure” and “basecamp” came to us around the same time as the name. But the introduction we use today took much longer. We wanted it to bring everything together: what this place felt like, what it was for, what we would offer, and what we wanted to say.
The phrase that started it all was this:
“finders keepers.”
Five summers ago, Jjangmo, Albam, and I signed a lease before we’d really worked out what we were going to do. Then came the scramble to open. We’d been working on book-related projects, including Currybook and Bookshop Soseo, but the response hadn’t been good or bad. There simply hadn’t been one. We blamed it on books feeling too serious, and decided to create a place that would make them more approachable.
Could we make books—and reading—feel lighter, more inviting? We agreed on one thing: the more you read, the more you see in the world. “The more you know, the more you notice.” Whenever we stepped into unfamiliar territory, all three of us turned to a book first.
But after all that talk about making books feel less serious, “The more you know, the more you notice” was a rather dull place to land. We kept circling the idea. “Reading changes how you see the world.” “Every book is another lens to look through.” Then Albam, who was enthusiastically studying English at the time, came out with:
“finders keepers, losers weepers.”
Something clicked. In Korean, the first half means, roughly, “Whoever finds it gets to keep it.” What if reading was a way of finding something? We all read for different reasons, but we’re each looking for something of our own. Once we find it, it becomes ours. The finder becomes the keeper.
There was our first line. It captured what we valued about books without once mentioning them—in Korean, English, or any other language. We took the first few letters of each word: Fi + Kee. FiKee.
With that phrase in place, the rest began to fall into place too.
finder → a reader → someone searching → someone finding their way → an adventurer → a guest
keeper → someone who looks after the space → a helper → a companion in adventure → another finder → a member of staff
FiKee → rest and preparation → courage → encounters and connections → a basecamp for adventurers
The first half of the phrase, finders, became our name for the people who visit. They read, and they search. More broadly, they’re people finding their way through life, trying to make it their own. Adventurers.
The other half, keepers, became us: the staff. We look after the place so finders can feel at home, rest, and prepare to set out again. A keeper is also a finder. We’re companions on the same adventure.
FiKee is somewhere to rest a tired body and mind after an adventure, and get ready for the next one. Somewhere to rediscover a spirit of adventure that daily life might have worn down—and find the courage to follow it again. A basecamp where you can meet other finders along the way.
Those are FiKee’s three elements. Put more plainly, they’re also the basic elements of a business: customers, staff, and a shop. But described like that, the shop is just a physical space, and the relationship runs in one direction: staff provide products and services to customers.
We wanted to put it in our own words. And the words make a real difference. Give those relationships new names and meaning, and FiKee becomes more than a physical space. It becomes a basecamp where finders meet other finders, and finders meet keepers—people who understand, influence, and learn from one another.
Those words help us make decisions, too. When we arrange and furnish the space, we ask, “Will our finders feel comfortable here?” When we plan something new, we ask, “What might this give them the courage to do?” When we welcome someone in, we start from the idea of being companions, rather than simply staff and customers.
A conventional business — a one-way relationship
Shop (a physical space)
Staff → products and services → customers
FiKee — a web of relationships
Basecamp (FiKee)
keepers (helpers) ↔ connection, influence, and understanding ↔ finders (adventurers)
That was how we opened our doors as FiKee. We had big ambitions for this basecamp. Five years, though, have worn some of them down. The oversized table in the middle of the café, meant to bring finders together. “FiKee and 40 finders,” now on hold. Plans and dreams are so easily pushed aside by sales figures, profit margins, lease renewals, and whatever comes up next.
Writing this makes me notice those worn edges all the more. Little by little, I’d like to share what’s faded over the years and what’s become clearer. To work out what we want to keep shaping, and what we can simply let be.
I hope you’ll come along.