TSM Day 3 Company Visits: Seoul Companies Conquered

Today marks the end of the company visits in Seoul, South Korea. It was the day with the most companies that we had to visitas there will be a long weekend with their Children day on 5th May. Luckily all were around the area of GANGNAM!

VCNC (Value Creators & Company)

The creators of Between. A messaging app which caters for couples to improve their communication and love life with one another. VCNC have been growing rapidly in the past three years and what I can learn from them was their marketing strategies. They spend lots of time researching the different markets and culture. Like in Korea , they employ the “Fear of loosing out” tactic to market their app. Edward our host also shared with us interesting informations on the different culture like how the western users uses app which have lots of   great features but for Asian, we tend to use app which have more of an emotional attachment.

At VCNC, security and privacy are also key factors which makes them successful as no one have rights to the data of the users. This is a really key thing as such personal stuff should not be use to sold to others. Users privacy needs to be protected and having such measures shows a great deal of integrity in the company. Especially with more users are aware of privacy issues these days.

Memebox

 

A platform to order pre-arranged make-up kit of different well known brands at a cheaper price in bigger size. Having a strong foundation is the key to Memebox. Using two years to setup a strong base by focusing on the local Korean market, they were able to go global effectively within just 6 months.

Their marketing tactics of utilising famous Bloggers and YouTubers to market their product show the effectiveness of how Social Media is very important in business nowadays and they are strong in this aspect making them successful now.

Flitto

Flitto is an app which translate text, voice, picture to native languages accurately through crowdsourcing. Simon the CEO and founder shared with us his great experiences in his past as an investor and the challenges that he faces. What I really learn from Simon was his passion and believes in pushing his ideas and accepting other people opinion. The insights he have provided me is to do something that you are passionate about and not about making money. Flitto $0 marketing effort have brought great light that users are willing to use your app if you are able to solve their problems and they will share it with their friends.

Another thing is the importance of having the right team. With only 16 members they are able to handle a user base of 3+ million users based. Their continuous effort in joining start-up competition gave them great exposure to learn and strengthen their product even further gaining support from big players like even Google. Which prove their point of sharing your ideas.

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Housing Flitto is an incubation place which is supported by the Hyundai Engineering. It houses lots of other start-ups and provide the facilities for the start-ups to do their work. Incubator, investors are also housed here to aid the start-up in the project. We were really glad that we get to see and expose to such a scene where even big companies are helping to push the tech start-ups forward.

 

 

 

TSM Day Two Company Visits: Labour Day

Day 2 of the trip and it’s labour day today in Korea today and we were lucky that Ideaabove Inc. was able to host us even in the holidays.

Ideaabove Inc.

What makes music now is the social aspect of it. This is why Ian of Ideaabove Inc. decided to take the risk and venture into such a market though with many obstacles against him. To him the passion of music runs his company and not much of revenue.

He drive in wanting to share music to others have made him to take risky move and create his product call listr.fm. listr.fm is a YouTube video music playlist  which allows users to create a playlist from YouTube Videos and soon Soundcloud.The concept is very interesting and there are lots of opportunities in making it better.

However to me the most inspirational part would be the Ideaabove Inc. team. The story of everyone holds great meaning. Loving music and sharing common ideas and dream is what makes this company so inspiring and is also pushing the company far. The  local market here in Korea is being restricted by legal issues and is very small. Therefore they decided to venture outside and brought themselves into the South East Asian Market and is planning to setup their office in Singapore. We really hope to see them in Singapore when their office is finally up.

Ian was very helpful and actually introduced us to another start-up company which was started by one of his University Junior.

MyRealTrip

MyRealTrip is an online platform to find tour guides in the country as free and easy trip planning is getting more and more common. Younger generation now would tend to explore more into countries’ culture and want to do what the locals actually does. What makes better tour guides then local themselves!

Today’s visit was a fruitful journey. Not only new experience was learn but new and great people were met. Like every end of the visits comes the free and easy.

Free & Easy: Ewha & JUMP

So for free and easy we decided to go to Ewha to have our free and easy and follow by an awesome theatre show call JUMP

TSM Day One Company Visits : The Beginning

Anyeong!! Finally it have begun. The start of a Learning Journey of Technology Start-ups and FUN!!!!

It all started  at the Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 3 Row 7 to prep for Check-in.

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Touched down and let the Exploration begins!

Twinword

Sentiment analysis and Natural Processing of language is definitely not easy but Twinword have done it. Though it is still young it will definitely be something which will continue to grow bigger in the near future. The sharing of the company knowledge and experiences really help in preparing oneself in what is to come when starting a company.

Smart Content Centre (SCC)

Is an incubation centre housing SMEs of South Korea. They aid in helping start-up with their business for 2-4 years. Providing grants and test beds needed by the start-ups and no share/equity of the company are being taken. WOW! In Singapore we are only given grant but here they are also equipments and other technologies (if requested) for them to test and use in their development.

Lasso

This company was not really in our plan but they were so kind enough to further broaden our horizon in the Korea e-commerce market and sharing their ideas. Great insight and data in showing why Korea has the largest e-commerce platform. 90% of the users here uses android and there are lots of users purchasing item from online shops. The concept of using a “showroom” to show user the actual product before making the purchase is very interesting as in Singapore more younger generation have shifted to online shopping. However, though there blog shops which currently have such method, it would be very hard for Singapore to adopt on a large scale. The market is not as competitive as Korea and distributors holds rights in controlling the prices. Thus, prices does not differ much.

Office Tours in SCC

We were also given a tour of some offices (ETRI & Lasso) which were incubating in the SCC itself. Some of the cool stuff we have seen are 3D printing tools and test beds rooms. It was my first time seeing a 3D printer in real life. The printing process was so awesome. The support which SCC gives to the companies were so great that really wish that Singapore could one day become like that.

KBS

Time to get some AIR time, KBS next.

Though not a start-up having to visit one of Korea’s Television Studio is really a great pleasure. Having to see the dressing rooms , concert halls, studios and props that were use in the show. Also we get to see some Korean MC and famous people in the studio filming. It was really a warm welcome by the staffs at KBS. They were very keen in showing the entire group and explain fully what KBS does.

The team have our hearts go to the victims of the recent incident. Not much filming was taken place due to the incident but still really have to thanks KBS for giving us such a special tour and a fantastic experience.

FREE & EASY TIME @ MYEONGDONG

Finally! Is time for the fun stuff. Shopping, eating and don’t know what more awesome stuff to do before heading back to the hotel to prep for the next day.