1415T2g1 South Korea/Reflection/day5
South Korea
| Day 2 |
Contents
Day 5: Reflections
The journey in South Korea has been great and enriching. After listening to many people, I realize that it is not easy to start a company. However, I am even more driven right now to start my own company and will continue to refine my own idea. I will take the approach at which I will take a normal office work and prepare for my own company on my free time. This approach will allow me to learn from others and build my idea at the same time.
Seoul Topis
Seoul Topis is an integrated transport information and service system for South Korea and we had the rare opportunity to sit in a boardroom that foreign dignitaries use to discuss about policies and ways to improve transportation in many countries. From the visit, I have picked up some advice that can also be applied in starting up a business.
- Make it human-oriented, user-friendly, and eco-friendly.
- There are always alternative ways for improvement. For example, Seoul Topis realised that building infrastructure was not an effective way to solve the problem of traffic congestion. Hence, they put their focus into managing traffic congestion.
Auctionary
Auctionary is a crowd sourced translation platform and from the founder, I've learnt 3 things.
- Start with a small market and then slowly expand your target market
- Market research and knowing your competitors is important
- Always look for people who can value add to your business
Korbit
Tony from Korbit shared with us that his first startup didn't go well and he realised that 5 other companies had the same idea as him. From this, I've learnt that if we should be open to accept failure and embrace failure as a learning opportunity.
With this, I wrap up my 5 days of learning from 18 companies !
The technology in Korea is so advanced. I was amazed at how Seoul TOPIS had such advanced technology that allows for Big Data Analytics. Just imagining the amount of data input to plot the map of traffic flow was mind-blowing. The system even allowed for predictive analysis to analyse the congestion levels when a particular road is blocked. In Singapore, even the prediction systems available for bus timings aren’t accurate at all.
The founder of Auctionary shared with us his failures and success stories. What I made out of it is the fact that a business idea needs to be thought out well. Market research is the most basic step that must be done thoroughly.
The inspiration I got from Korbit was the fact that the founder took 20 days to code from scratch and launched Korbit itself. Although he failed his first few startups, we can learn from the spirit of entrepreneurship and to pick ourselves up after failing.
