After years of leading the U.S. office of Com2us, a mobile gaming company, my KOICA-sponsored trip to Palestine was a turning point in my life. It was a three-day workshop at a startup accelerator in Ramallah, the Palestinian capital, that changed the course of my life, leading me to South Korea, where I joined a non-profit, quasi-governmental startup accelerator called Gyeonggi Creative Economy Innovation Center, one of 18 innovation centers across the country spearheaded by former President Park Geun-hye, who was impeached over a political scandal known as Choi Soon-sil Gate. “Creative Economy” was the slogan of the Blue House and the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning, and the idea was to find innovative startups that could revive the stagnant South Korean economy and faltering conglomerates. The idea was to establish 18 Creative Economy Innovation Centers in each of the country’s major cities, matching government funding with donations from large corporations to run non-profit startup accelerators to discover and help startups in various business sectors, including ICT, gaming, fintech, big data, logistics, and tourism. Conglomerates mostly participated in the government’s initiative with financial investments and organizational support. As the highest authority in the country, it attracted the attention of foreign embassies, venture capitalists, and startup accelerators, as well as many global startups looking for funding and business opportunities in Korea.
As the head of the Global Business Team at the Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy and Innovation, I had the privilege of meeting many innovative startups through various startup acceleration programs, startup exchange programs, and trips to global startup conferences. My job was to help Korean startups go global, identify business opportunities for global startups in Korea, and connect them with various stakeholders in the Korean startup ecosystem. At the end of my two-year stint, I realized that I had made more than 1,000 business contacts in the Korean startup ecosystem, more than I had made in the previous 10 years. It was a great opportunity to see the Korean startup ecosystem at the center of major government policies, which turned into the eye of a political storm in the midst of impeachment politics. However, it gave me great insight and a deeper understanding of how government support programs are designed and executed in collaboration with the private sector, and it made me think about the meaning of “global,” the word most used by government officials. Working with many government agencies, I realized that the Korean meaning of ‘global’ is still ‘overseas’, which is based on the domestic market paradigm. You might think it’s a minor semantic nuance, but the Korean meaning of ‘global’ divides the global market into the domestic market and the rest of the world, and implies that startups must succeed in Korea before they can go global. I think this semantic distortion stems from Korea’s export-oriented economy.
In Silicon Valley, on the other hand, the word “global” is not used as much as it is in Korea, probably because Silicon Valley is already the epicenter of many startups’ entry into the global market, so the word global does not need to be emphasized as much. Once a Silicon Valley startup’s product or service has gained some traction in the local market, surrounded by top-notch mentors and experts, it can quickly secure VC funding to expand its business globally. This puts them on a growth trajectory that allows them to attract larger investment opportunities to expand their business and organization, which is fundamentally different from the domestic and international market paradigm in Korea. Also, when comparing the people who are the change agents in each region, the differences are incomparable, as Silicon Valley is constantly being refreshed with new entrepreneurs replacing those who have failed. It’s no secret that the top 1% of the world’s talent is concentrated in Silicon Valley, and many global companies, including Samsung, have opened R&D centers there to attract key talent. Walking around Google’s Mountain View campus or Apple’s Cupertino campus, I could sense the untapped ‘power’ of the Jedi—the potential to create a second Google or a second Apple.
On the other hand, what I realized after returning to Korea after a long time is that although there are many changes on the outside, the “people” who make up this society have not changed much because most of them were born in Korea and educated in Korea. Fashions change quickly due to the change of generations, and devices and products used by people change quickly due to new technologies, but it was difficult to find startups created by innovative technologies or groundbreaking services due to new paradigms in Korean companies, and it was inconvenient to not have the Uber service that I often used in Silicon Valley, and as a user who was used to Amazon’s one-click, I needed a period of adaptation when installing various plug-ins and using certificates in Korean online shopping malls. In fact, I didn’t have a big problem with new technologies and devices because I got used to them with a little effort, but I was surprised that people’s culture still hasn’t changed. Maybe it’s natural that culture doesn’t change in Korea, which is composed of a single ethnic group.
I am realizing more and more in the center of the Korean startup ecosystem that there is a huge cultural difference between Korea and other countries in the startup sector. I’m not talking about the differences in government policies related to startups or the pros and cons of creating a government-led startup ecosystem instead of a private-led ecosystem such as VCs or large corporations, but the Korean startup ecosystem from a startup’s perspective is simply that there are too many resources and opportunities. It’s like when it’s raining outside and some people stay inside to avoid the rain, while others go out with an umbrella and complain about the rain, but for some people, the rain can be seen as a precious resource or opportunity from the heavens. When I look at the many government-funded projects and programs for startups, I think it’s like rain from the sky, and I think there are so many resources and opportunities that it’s strange not to start a business at a time like this. However, just like when there’s a flood, there’s no water to drink, startups often don’t get the right resources and opportunities, and they may end up drinking any water and getting poisoned. Especially for foreign startups who don’t know the Korean culture and don’t have a legal entity in Korea, it can be a picture of rice cake, or they may fall into the trap of bad mentors who approach them with the promise of government funding.
In this regard, I think the Creative Economy Innovation Centers play a role as a hub where you can find out about various support projects and programs related to startups at a glance. Not only are they already established in each region, but employees from various government-affiliated startup support agencies are organically collaborating with each other through secondment, so startups can get opportunities or apply for programs based on consistent information without confusion. In addition, since they are not for-profit organizations, they provide information and advice that can help startups without any conflicts of interest, and the best dispatched employees of the sponsoring companies at each center help them make business connections with the sponsoring companies, so startups can get a link to large companies. As mentioned above, when overseas startups enter Korea, they are provided with one-stop services from advice on obtaining a visa to advice on establishing a corporation, and 40 startup teams from around the world are currently undergoing an acceleration program in Pangyo through a support project called “K-Startup Grand Challenge” promoted by the Ministry of Future Planning.
So why are there so few successful examples of Korean startups going global and why are companies like Google and Facebook not coming out from the first generation of ventures in Korea, but I think there are many such examples and we just don’t recognize them. There are already many good examples of game companies going global, and the company I worked for, Comptus, has also been successfully doing global business by opening overseas branches since 2002, especially the U.S. branch since 2004, and has been leading the global business centered on game publishing, and even though overseas sales were in the red for a few years, it has been steadily maintaining the business and investing in the global business, so in the end, I think it was analyzed that it caught a good trend with the rapid growth of the smartphone market. In his lecture at the Inven Game Conference last week, he also told prospective entrepreneurs and college students who want to work for game companies to invest in one field for at least seven years, and said that if you do business for the purpose of survival, not for the purpose of success, you will remain a successful company at a stage when all your competitors have given up or disappeared.
And one of the things I’ve learned from doing business globally is that the rules of the game are different in each country. For example, when we closed our UK branch, an employee who left due to long-term sick leave filed a malicious unfair dismissal case against us with the labor bureau, or our HR manager in India took a bribe to hire new employees from a university, And especially in China, having experienced directly or indirectly various non-transparent sales reports and fraud from local partners of local Sino-foreign joint ventures, I realized that it is important for Korean companies in the local market to quickly identify and respond to various embarrassing and unequal business practices and risks as the rules of the game in the jungle-like local market. The good news is that there are definitely Korean companies and Korean professionals who have learned the ‘rules of the jungle’ and are surviving in the market, and there are more ‘masters’ than you think who are working silently in their respective fields like hidden masters of jaya. While working at Com2uS’s U.S. office, I began building a consistently strong professional relationship with Apple App Store’s developer relations manager through meetings. This eventually led to securing a game promotion opportunity in a TV commercial for Apple’s new iPod model. Particularly, Google’s gaming business manager was dispatched to the Korean office as Google’s Korean gaming industry grew. He frequently visited Com2uS headquarters as well, which naturally led to securing game promotion opportunities on Google Play.
Meanwhile, a developer who built Google Play’s backend systems has launched an ad tech startup in Silicon Valley with promising results, while the former Korea director of Oculus—acquired by Facebook—has also founded a VR startup. Seeing the former co-founder of Gamevil, which acquired Com2uS where I served as US branch manager, also launch a startup in Silicon Valley, I believe many seeds of hope are sprouting within Korea’s startup ecosystem. I expect these seeds will soon bear fruit, one by one. Historically, I believe Korea has developed through the self-reliance of its people striving for survival. Similarly, I expect the startup ecosystem to evolve as the survival stories of startups accumulate, culminating in a national success story. Even after returning to Korea, I still primarily access news and media through keyword searches. The reason is that I want to view the world through my own kaleidoscope, unfiltered by others’ perspectives, and I want to have my own thoughts and voice, not just those of others. Ultimately, I believe that within the vast currents of history, startup survival stories are simply the enduring tales of ordinary people, their names changing slightly with each era. My ongoing survival story is to gradually expand my business network through the Gyeonggi Creative Economy Innovation Center, serving as a bridge connecting entrepreneurs in Korea, Palestine, and Silicon Valley.
Deliveryman's Blog 
Leave a comment