1415T2g1 South Korea/Reflection
South Korea
| Day 2 |
Contents
Day 1: Reflections
The United States has long led the way as the leader in high tech innovations. This is largely attributed to the fertile ground it has provided for tech startups - access to capital and a culture that celebrates risk taking. However, there is one city that is developing itself into another important tech hub, the next Silicon Valley: Seoul.
The number of startups operating in South Korea quadrupled from approximately 3500 in the early 2000s to 15,401 in 2008. With increasing governmental support and an influx in foreign and local investors, the number of start-ups readily doubled to 28,763 in 2013.
As we embark on our first company visit, I really hope that these 5 days will help me understand and gain an appreciation of the factors that shaped Korea’s tech start-up scene, which used to be non-existent in the early 1980s. The first company, JJS Media, sets as a good example of the opportunities and challenges faced by a start-up. “My Music Taste” is developed by the JJS team with the intention of disrupting the concert ticketing industry. I personally feel that developing such technologies work as a double-edge sword. On one hand, the company is able to target a big and wide market, which gives them the potential to scale exponentially. On the other hand, such technologies run the risk of inviting attacks from companies which are going to be affected by the disruption. This could be in the form of conglomerates buying out the product, or worse still, replicate the technology and start squeezing the start-ups dry.
Despite that, I am inclined towards believing that JJS Media will succeed and grow to become a very successful company in the next 5 to 10 years for the following reasons. Firstly, the company has garnered support from stronghold investors including Samsung. The presence of such investors will not only spark greater confidence in potential investors, but also acts as a protection towards the tragedy of start-ups being crushed by the giants. Secondly, the team is made up of diverse individuals, each expert in their own field. Their members comprises of geniuses graduating from elite schools such as KAIST and Carnegie Mellon. Yet interestingly, their interview selection is based largely on being able to portray critical thinking skills over academic grades. The team dynamics is hence a good blend of both the geniuses as well as the critical thinkers. Lastly, the company has made very clear progression steps for their future. To ride on the advantage of being an early adopter of this technology, I feel that it is very wise for the company to roll out their plans to expand to the US and China market at the end of this year. This is a very well-timed move, especially after JJS had recently received their Series A funding.
The second company, Template:Font color, provided another perspective of the nature of start-ups. The implementation of this application is not exactly one that is disruptive to the entire ecosystem, neither is it a game changer. Instead, it is going back to the fundamentals of using technology to boost an existing business model by having new features that will help increase customer satisfaction and usability. The concept behind making package delivering easy and hassle free is not new. However, I believe that Zim Car successfully identified that Koreans are in a constant quest for efficiency in every sphere on their life, and they boasts the highest smartphone ownership rate in the world. Thus, leveraging on the mobile platform, alongside understanding the users’ concerns, needs and wants will be a key to their success.
JJS Media
We were greeted by a lively lady by the initials of CJ who shared with us about JJS Media and the service they currently provide.
JJS Media created a service called MyMusicTaste which uses technology to bridge the gap between different stakeholders in the music industry. Curious of the reason behind cancelled concerts, the founders gathered that such incidents happen when the planning team and the artists are unsure of the preferences of music lovers. Hence, by using an application to find out about the music tastes of fans, they have managed to satisfy the demand and supply for concerts. The application has thus effectively reduced the number of cancelled concerts.
MyMusicTaste was started in 2013 and the service currently has about 400,000 users with majority coming from South America and Europe. The service has helped artists find places where their fans want them to have concerts and JJS Media has held 50 concerts in 25 countries up to date. Through word of mouth from fans, the service was able to gather users quickly under 2 years without the need to market the service themselves. The company is currently focusing their efforts on MyMusicTaste and has no plans to further develop another service.
We had a fun session with CJ and these are my takeaways from JJS Media.
- “You’re the only person that thinks that this is going to work”. So you need to be able to convince people that your product/service will benefit them. Hence, the ability to convince is an important skill to have for an entrepreneur.
- A leader’s role is very important. Responsibility, courage, leadership are traits that a leader should possess.
- A strong team is necessary to complement the product/service that you sell. Find people that share the same interest and have passion for the work that they do.
- Good word of mouth is the best way to gain user base.
FiveThirty
With the motto “We Make Life Better”, FiveThirty has come up with an origami application, a part-time job seeking application, and an application to help with the chore of moving house.
Mr. Sanghwa Chung from FiveThirty shared with us about their services called ZimBox . ZimMan . ZimCar – These services provided by the company focuses on helping single families reduce the trouble of moving house. ZimBox provides all essentials needed for packing and ZimMan brings helpers while ZimCar transports the packed items. The company does not plan to patent the idea as they believe that competition will help to bring about greater awareness of such service. Contrary to JJS Media, FiveThirty plans on having many applications to benefit groups of people with various needs. I’ve learned from FiveThirty that competition is not necessarily bad for companies.
We had another speaker Mr. Lee who has various experience with start-ups and he previously held a stable job in aerospace engineering. He currently is developing an application to aid parents with special needs children. This idea stemmed from the birth of his son who is disabled and he is working on the application to guide parents who are facing the same situation as him.
With past experience of failed start-up attempts, he shared with us that passion is what really keeps him going. However, sometimes money kills the passion. In seeking co-workers, he too believes that it is important to find someone with interest in the work that he does and having goals is a must. The trade-off of working in a start-up is that there will be less time to meet friends and there is a wider gap in interests.
The two companies that we visited today were very welcoming and I look forward to visiting Pristone, Seoul National University, KBAA, and FuturePlay tomorrow!
On day one of our company visit, we visited to 2 companies – JJS Media and FiveThirty. From the sharing of JJS Media, they have encountered mix of success and failures. That is most common barriers that most of the technologies will face and get through of it. From the sharing of their flagship app “My Music Taste”, the important thing I learnt was they all have put so much passion with what they are doing and focusing on that only. The person said in order to succeed for a startup, all the team members should stand out to take responsibility and leadership. They are working with trust and believe with one another and not restricting with rules and micro management.
The second and last visit of the day is to FiveThirty. They are working on a platform that offers easy and cost effective solution for house moving service. And it is specifically towards to singles and single families. From the founder and CEO of the company shared us about his service and company to us. I learnt from that company visit is it is good to identify a concrete problem and focus to solve on that in starting a startup. He shared to us that it is more manageable to handle and know market response by making a small start. Once it has a good potential, try to accelerate further and push towards the main goal. I have seen that they have so much passion working on the project and much efforts.
JJS Media
As JJS office is not open when we arrive thus a lady brought us to tour around the building. The building consist of few levels. Mainly the 9th floor which is open to anyone to use. The lady mentioned that students can use that area as well. And I felt that the area looks like SMU Labs back in Singapore. And at the 7th floor, it’s the Content Korea Lab Gyeonggi. They have a recording studio as well as a big 3D printer! There are currently 28 start-ups and they can stay there for 2 years max. The minimum period is 6 months, but there will be an interview again on the 5th month. Unfortunately, this program is mainly for Korean.
The representative from JJS Media is a lady called CJ. JJS Media have a product called MyMusicTaste. Artists and promoters can use this application to measure the demand while the fans can request for the concerts that they want. Currently they are targeting K-Pop. That’s because they are from the same country and that K-Pop stars prefer to work with Korean company as compared to foreign companies. However, CJ also mentioned that they are preparing to flip, which means that their HQ will be at US, and Korea will only be the branch.
From CJ, I learnt a lot. According to CJ, the biggest hinder is to convince others to believe that the product is good and the team will be able to support it. Thus, the team is very important. They select their team member by sitting down with them and look at their personality. They will only hire if there have something that is in-line with the company. Hence, grades doesn’t matter to JJS Media. Also, CJ felt that you should not be frustrated when she calls you at 5am on a Saturday for work related issue. If you will be frustrated, don’t go into the start-up industry.
She also compare Korea start-up ecosystem against Singapore and US. The Korea government provide help to the start-ups. Example JJS Media is located in a government owned building. Their rental fee for 6 month is USD1000 only. However, this benefits are more towards the Korean citizen. On the other hand, Singapore too have government funding. But they benefits the foreigners as well. And most importantly, people in Singapore knows English! That is something that Korea do not really have. As for US, especially Silicon Valley, it is the best place to get funding if you have a great idea. There are a lot of VC there and “they are just waiting to throw their money in”.
FiveThirty
The latest product/service that FiveThirty do is the ZimCar, ZimMan and the ZimBox. This is targeted for the single family who need help in moving house and they are flexible in time (meaning 24 hours). The ZimCar provide the vehicle to carry the items and will cost 49800 krw (S$61.69). The ZimMan is the mover and will cost 33000 krw (S$40.88) and ZimBox is provide the box to store the items as well as the necessity that is needed, such as bubble wraps. It cost 25000 krw (S$30.97) each. There is a bundle price of 249800 krw (S$309.42) which consist of 1 ZimCar, 2 ZimMan and 1 ZimBox. FiveThirty are not worried that others will follow them and be their competitors. Instead, they mentioned something that inspire me: “People can follow them. But they (FiveThirty) started first. So they have an advantage. When others are following them, they still need to get the contacts and material, but they (FiveThirty) had all the materials already, thus able to do more and go further than others”. From the speech, I learnt that to have a higher success rate in start-up, we need to focus on our passion. Passion is the thing that keep us moving and to push our team. They felt that if you are below 25, it’s okay for you to try doing a start-up first. However, if you are more than 25, you should do some work first before proceeding to start a new business. They also agreed that it is not easy to attract employee. Unlike big companies, start-up generally can’t provide a high salary to their employees. Thus, in start-ups, the company will tend to give their employee some stocks instead.
The culture of the companies we visited today are very much different from Singaporean companies. Usually in Singapore, it’s so competitive and cooperation was at a minimum level. Even within the company itself, people just dealt with things separately and combine whatever they had later. However, what I saw today while we were visiting JJS Media was something really hard to emulate in Singapore. Co-working spaces are available for freelancers in the Hub and for designers at Content Korea Lab. These free working spaces allows people to develop their ideas and creations. They are free to use the resources provided in the space, including all the people around them who are working for the same goal.
This collaborative spirit is something Singapore needs to develop more. I look towards this in the future as a collaborative environment would be much more conducive as compared to a competitive one. However, all it is right now is a lofty dream that would take a whole new generation’s time to change.
