1516T2g1 South Korea/Reflection
Day 2 |
Contents
Day 1: Reflections
Kozaza
Kozaza facilitates an economy by the people through sharing underutilized resources – the home. SanKu Jo, the CEO of Kozaza believes strongly in the suitability of home sharing in Korea due to the unique Korean experience one will get. His strategy is to target the younger generation by making presence in popular dramas and through celebrities and influencers. This I believe is a good starting point in providing a way for millennials around the world to visit Korea and receive traffic for Kozaza’s inbound revenue. In Korea, countless of home sharing businesses have failed. Kozaza beaten the odds and remain the leading player because of SanKu Jo’s hope for a better experience in Korea and his strong will and competence in managing its operations.
SanKu Jo seems to be the person with big actions. He copies carefully what AirBnB is doing and is able to see the unique experience people want through Korea home sharing, and execute it without a doubt.
Weenu
Weenu focuses on everything art with a social cause. They strongly believe in using art to promote social issues through FESTA – a festival where artists meet with the public and share social issues. Weenu Provides education programmes as a revenue stream for artists, and promotes artists online through collaboration with NAVER Corp. Weenu’s strategy is to get big players (i.e. NAVER Corp) and sponsorships to promote the artists’ crafts in return for advertising.
What hit me was Miho Heo’s passion in social causes. In Korea, female workers do not get paternity leave but Weenu has it. Miho Heo’s decision to provide this welfare empowers her employees and hopefully make a statement to the SK government.
Seoul Google Campus
The Seoul Google Campus focuses on incubating and mentoring startups with great ideas, turning their ideas into fruition and anticipating the day they move out from the co-working space. This belief excites the event planners and mentors which I thought is core in forming their motivation to host the startups and the hundreds of events held there.
1. Kozaza
The Jack Ma quote "If we fight in the ocean, we lose—but if we fight in the river, we win.” made an impression on me because it is about finding the niche market to target, and it was a challenge to scope the target market for my IS480 project. Indeed, targeting a niche market is a way to survive, but from the sharing by CEO Mr. SanJu Ko, I'm not sure targeting a niche market is enough, as the value proposition as a niche-targeting may not be sufficient for consumers to use Kozaza rather than bigger market places like AirBnB. That brings me to the second takeaway - Kozaza differentiate by providing a service personnel to bridge the communication between travellers and homeowners who do not understand English (and these non-English speakers elderly would be the ones owning the authentic hanock homes). I think that the localized service personnel is the competitive advantage much stronger than his fee-free model, since trust, also emphasized by him, is the most important factor when it comes to travel lodging.
2. Weenu
Weenu's tagline "99% of art and 99% of people" made the biggest impression on me. I later found out from the Project Manager that it means making all other art accesible to all other people, making art more equitable. The founder's energy, charisma, and enthusiasm is probably the key to success of weenu. weenu probably have a difficult time hiring talents as mentioned by the Kozaza CEO when he explained the difference between Silicon Valley & South Korea, and the status as a social enterprise makes it harder to hire talents with the prospect of making more money. However, weenu may have hired the right people with the right mindset BECAUSE of the social enterprise label. It is heartening to hear that they have managed to achieve tripling of growth in sales over the past few years after not making a profit for ~5 years.
3. Google Campus @ Seoul
Google Campus @ Seoul was a little underwhelming, I have envisioned a large complex where the whole building is occupied by Google employees, but, I enjoyed learning about the cmapus, especially on the Device Testing Lab - where startup companies can make use of the many devices in the Lab to do their app testing, it will be wonderful if SMU SIS has the same thing. I wasn't able to ask this question - but what is it in for Google to spend so much money to maintain the entrepreneurship community in Seoul? I believe it is to be in the centre of innovation in this part of Asia so that they can leverage on the connections and perhaps buyout promising startups. It is encoruage to know that space is running out at the campus, it tells that Seoul entreprenuership circle is indeed growing.
Kozaza
Kozaza is 4 years old start-up that have successfully listed 5000 rooms. They offer a fee free structure that replicates the business model of Airbnb of property leasing but focuses solely in Korea only.
Founded by an engineer who has experience in Silicon Valley, the company emphasis on trust to sell and differentiate themselves. Through the usage of a shared economy, they focus on domestic market (for now) and aim to be a concentre player before they will vastly expand internationally in order to build trust. However, I felt that trust is something hard to earn by the public and their restriction to no expand overseas might not necessarily mean good (the later they expose to international market, the less trust they can get).
Amongst the many challenges, Kozaza faced 2 main challenges, Funding and Cultural difference between Silicon Valley and Korea. Although currently Kozaza is backed by $800k ($500k self-raised and $300k government matched), they are no different from any other start-ups. As with every start-up, funding will always be a key issue. Secondly, because the founder had experience in Silicon Valley prior this start-up, he tried to applied what he learns in terms of culture into this start-up only to realised it doesn’t work due to vast culture difference. I learnt that funding has always been an issue with start-up and that cultural difference are impactful factors.
With regards to their expansion plans, Kozaza Used to interview each host individually but soon realised it is not sustainable as they grew and are planning to roll out video interview function soon to resolve this issue. Additionally, they aim to target a total of 30% of their customers from foreign markets and 70% from domestic markets. I learnt that adding new functions to resolve new problems may take some time, hence we should be forward looking from the start.
Weenu
Weenu stands for We Enable You and they strongly believe that they enable artist to reach the public. Through the use of various platforms(FESTA, Education and Online), they believe themselves to be a social orgainsation in aiding the artist to adds values to themselves. A total of 300 artist benefited from 8 FESTA, 1671 students benefited from 123 education programs and 36 artist through 4.66 millions views online.
Some challenges Weenu faced was a different in culture they are trying to promote against the culuture of the country. While the Korea culture do not promote family bonding, Weenu strongly believes and emphasis this. I learnt that regardless of the surrounding, sometimes it’s better to stand fast in your values.
Google Campus
Google campus Seoul is one of the 6 available campus set up worldwide by Goolge to act as incubators or accelerators for star-ups. They provide space and mentorship to those in need. Sometimes, Google offers funding for equity for selected start-ups but mainly wishes to see the start-ups do well.
Although the open area is accessible to any who apply only (start-up size of 2-8), the selection process will select only about 400 people to be given the Google access card to study in the free space. More exclusively, they only have 9 companies in the incubation rooms as their capacity is 100 persons in the room.
Google feels that they do not really to advertise to gain application numbers, they emphasise that they are better as they are not driven by equity purchasing as with other accelerators. I learnt that Google does not see competing accelerators companies as rivals as they are trying to achieve the same aim, regardless of the nature of the software(i.e. iOS or Android).
Kozaza
Kozaza business model is similar to Airbnb. However, unlike Airbnb who is a global leader in home sharing for travelers, Kozaza aims to be the leading local home sharing platform. The nature of the business is community driven hence it is dependent on the community in order to thrive. This is also known as the sharing economy.
To differentiate itself from other potential competitors, Kozaza business strategy mainly focuses on product differentiation. For instance, Hanokstay provides guests the opportunity to experience living in a traditional home. It is also interesting to note that Korea companies tend to develop and adopt leading global companies’ business model to suit the needs of it own people. Besides Airbnb, another example is Naver which is also the “Google” of Korea. Despite it success, by focusing only the local market, the company could be missing out on the marketing opportunities to target the foreigners as Hanokstay is particular popular among them.
Weenu
As a social enterprise, the motivation behind the creation of the company differs from the other companies we have visited. Driven by the social responsibility, financial resources are no longer the only performance metrics to keep track of the effectiveness of their program.
Weenu differentiates itself by adopting a western working culture by placing more emphasis on work life balance/family in contrast to the society norm. Therefore, one of the challenges faced by Weenu is the clash in the Korea working culture. Weenu business strategy aims to create a virtuous cycle through the Festa, Edu and Online program. This may be beneficial in the long term as is promotes sustainability and scalability.
Key Learning Points for Day 1 of Company Visits
- Reflection goes a long way to learning what I've experienced - By reflecting on the events and guest lectures, I understand the lessons learnt much better.
- Listening - Like what I've said in my profile, listening is key to absorbing experience like a sponge. Quick and really easy if you concentrate. Coffee by Weenu helped alot too.
Learning Points from Kozaza
- Understanding the demographic is key to put the product forward and market it – Kozaza fights in a market where Airbnb has international market power while there were many players in Korea who tried homesharing on a global scale and failed. Last year's TSM went to a similar company and that company scaled down its operations. Kozaza targets (1) Korea (2) homesharing while other companies were too ambitious by either targeting a too large a segment (Asia / Worldwide) or promising too much (hotels + homestay). Kozaza goes a step further to target short term (hanokstay), long term (seoulstay) and high valued (finestay).
- Senior talent leading a company provides foresight - With experience comes a less chance of failure. The founder, SanKu Jo, mentioned his experience is big conglomerates and banks, backed by academia as a PHD holder.
- Trust is important to leveraging the Sharing Economy - Connected resources rely on being open and safe, and having trust in the provider is a key tenet to operations.
Learning Points from Weenu
- Artists in Korea are undervalued for their creations and efforts - Weenu has two objectives in helping these artists as part of their social cause (1) Increase accessibility to art and (2) give the artists better opportunities to increase their earnings
- Persevere - Weenu suffered 5 years of losses before turning a profit recently in 2013. They fought hard to double this amount in 2014.
- Diversify the engagement platforms - Intimate spaces (FESTA), continual engagement (Art education) and 24/7 availability (online) enabled the omnipresence of Weenu
- Remember to help the people helping Weenu - the same idea as in an emergency, putting on your oxygen mask on a plane for yourself before assisting your daughter or son, it is important to keep the people running Weenu contented. Weenu understands the culture (of Korea) it operates in. This is exemplified by allowing their female employees leave before their 5pm curfew and allowing all staffs to have proper holiday-rest. Employees are people too. No woman should work like men especially if they are childbearing, and no man should work without rest. Treat people well and they will be nice to you back.
Learning Points from Google Campus
- Incubators & Accelerators are present in the community, entrepreneurs need to have good, viable ideas and know where to look for help
- Entrepreneurship comes with great rewards (a "graduated" team from Google Campus Seoul achieved 70million in funding) but great risks too
- Being connected to other entrepreneurs spurs innovation and these other players could one day be a key resource or a working business relationship (like in the case of the lighting & special effects company was connected to a startup just by a simple billboard in the Campus, and the relationship lasted more than 5 years)
1. Kozaza
Kozaza is a home sharing platform similar to Airbnb. The founder, Mr Sangku Jo, had in mind to start up Kozaza to provide ownership to sharing, make use of under utilised resources and create an economy by the people. This has enabled monetary savings and the maximization of resources. Although successful in Korea, Kozaza can leverage on the international market through the Hanok stay as it is more popular with tourists and foreigners. In light of this, I would think that Kozaza can utilize marketing efforts such as getting popular Korean variety shows such as Running Man to use their facilities for their show as it has a large international audience. This would allow them to create greater awareness of such places and provide opportunities for future growth of Kozaza.
2. Weenu
Weenu provides a central platform for artists to publicise their artwork and for easy access of users to purchase these artworks. They have utilised business concepts from established platforms such as Etsy and Pinterest and have also branched efforts into three avenues – FESTA, Education and online to reach out to a larger audience. What caught my interest was their ability to differentiate themselves from social norms (e.g. ending working hours for women at 5pm even though there was an initial conflict of interest). They also shared many interesting insights on each avenue as well as the positive impacts it has brought about such as having 300 artists who joined each of the eight festivals in 2015 and having an audience size of over a million. With their success in bringing income to artists and experiencing a gain in popularity over the past few years, I would suggest for Weenu to target specific sectors to improve benefits provided to them. One of the sectors would be fresh graduates without prior experience as they are part of the future workforce and this platform will allow for them to be equipped with better art capabilities and recognition through art advisory and media.
3. Google Campus @ Seoul
The visit to Google Campus in Seoul was a refreshing experience as I was able to witness the day-to-day lives of Google employees on a Monday afternoon. The interaction for Q&A allowed for greater insights as to what Google provides for startups – Networking space without having to pay. Anyone with the membership card would be able to access any of the six campuses around the world to utilize their facilities provided. Furthermore, mentorship and training programs were given to these startups while letting them freely experiment with their work on campus. Google also ran events such as getting Mums with newborns to acquire information about re-entering the workplace. These efforts have allowed many individuals benefit significantly and bringing success to startups in the Korean market.
Kozaza
Kozaza which means “Having a good night sleep” is a start-up that focuses on providing a home sharing platform in Korea which is similar to AirB&B. Leveraging on his expertise in engineering, and his experience working at Silicon Valley, Ikjun Goh(CEO of Kozaza) sees an opportunity in this market in Korea. With Kozaza business strategy focusing on locals, price and trust, Kozaza tries to differentiates itself by making their marketing efforts comparison to focus on local instead of global. However, with the emphasis of Hanok stay, I believe there are further opportunities of Kozaza to venture further into the market. By venturing further into other aspects, the influx of foreigners seeking different “adventure/experience” would definitely increase the awareness of the Kozaza as a home sharing platform and a start-up.
Weenu
Weenu, the first social enterprise that is founded in 2007 is an interesting start up visited that adopts a different approach compared to the other start-ups. Weenu focuses a lot of efforts on CSR, giving back to the society, and providing alternative means of giving people with another source of income. With the online and offline platform for artist to interact, market and sell their talents, the market for the art industry would slowly monopolize. After hearing their talk, I felt the importance in Weenu for their consideration of the different mediums to approach artist. Events like FESTA, Education and online was their highlight of how they connect artist with the public, and the importance of how each event targets the targeted audience. The government in Korea also supports the initiative of Weenu and recognizes the importance of its presence in CSR efforts, bringing artist together and most importantly to provide a source of alternative income for the artist. I really liked to idea of this 2 way giving back to society from Weenu and to the public.
Google Campus
The visit to Google Campus was definitely an eye opening experience for me today. With a question posted to Wonchul, he mentioned that since facilities was free and accessible to people, the only expected return that Google Campus want is for the entrepreneurs start up to be successful. With the concept of open space collaboration and conducive environment, there is a huge demand for more spaces to be made available and Google Campus is making efforts in addressing the issues faced about the lack of space. This clearly shows how much Google Campus values its employees and believes the need of providing a proper space for all entrepreneurs. With HR efforts that allow people to post for jobs, there is a “hidden” channel that has inadvertently opened communication channels for people whom are strangers and has now become business partners. I like this approach of getting to know different people and the shortlisting approach that Google Campus has adopted.
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Kozaza
We kicked off our company visits with Kozaza which is a home sharing platform that specialises in Hanok stays. CEO SanKu shared with us more about the "Sharing Economy" in Korea and how Kozaza has been leveraging in it for the past 4 years. Personally, it seems like they are doing a relatively decent job with 70% of its focus on fine travel and 30% on domestic Hanok stays. However, due to their unique selling point of Hanoks, they are limited to reaching out to domestic travellers only and this may prove to be stumbling block for any possible expansion overseas. Despite this, Kozaza still believes that profiting 1% of what industry leaders, Airbnb, can earn is sufficient for them to survive. After all, they are 1 of 10 similar companies that managed to survive in the past 4 years. In addition, we were enlightened about the importance of trust between the hosts and consumers in order for such a home sharing model to work. Something that surprised me is that unlike Airbnb, they do not charge consumers booking/processing fee. Instead they only receive a certain percentage when hosts attain a certain target e.g. 10% of $3k target. Overall, Kozaza is still striving to be the best in Korea for the next few years.
Weenu
Weenu aims to be an art platform 99% for the art and 99% of the people. When I first heard this line, it gave me the impression of how social enterprises are very different from other startups we see today. It seems too good to be true, especially for artists that such a platform exists and helps to promote and build their careers. In fact, it is true that such artists earn about a quarter of the average family income and clearly lack the appropriate channel and experience to further their career. It felt pretty structured for Weenu to have 3 different channels to help artists in such areas namely: Festivals, Education and Online. In my opinion, festivals seem to be one of the better stepping stones for new artists to increase their reputation as people get to come into close contact with the artists themselves. Despite being a social enterprise, Weenu has demonstrated great foresight and planning to conduct annual events for artists, thereby creating a relatively sustainable platform.
Google Campus Seoul
Google Campus Seoul was the last visit of the day and it was an eye opening experience to witness such an open community exist in the streets of Gangnam. It is one of the 6 campuses around the world and it is actually Asia’s first campus. It provides many networking events and have accelerator programs (offered by Maru180) for startups that have less than 8 employees. Upon seeing the space they have, it really seemed like a conducive environment for startups to hold their events and collaborate. Besides, they also offer free membership to anyone out there who intend to use their space and currently have over 30,000 members. In my opinion, the space they have will soon be limited and members might face constraints and inconvenience. However, the idea of having this place as a collaborative platform is still beneficial to the startup community in Seoul.