February 23rd Investor Relationship Seminar

On Thursday, February 23rd, I held a seminar at the Venture Port offices focusing on Investor Relationships: more specifically, what do Silicon Valley based investors want to see from a startup company (especially a foreign startup company) before they invest.

For the last part of the seminar, I focused on personal conversations I have had with 5 different Silicon Valley based investors. This section was particularly relavant to Korean startup CEO's, as it touches on what these investors want to see from Korean startups in particular. Below is a set of notes highlighting the most important sections:

A Tale of Five Investors

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Final part of the presentation:

A Tale of 5 Investors pt. 1

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A Tale of 5 Investors pt. 2

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StartupWeekend Daejeon Pitch Workshop with Seoul Space

Photographs courtesy of StartupWeekend organizer Sally Park


What happens when you take about 15 budding Korean entrepreneurs and make them pitch their startup ideas in English to a host of judges?

We found the answer to that question on Wednesday, February 8th during the Seoul Space pitch workshop. With StartupWeekend looming on the horizon, Seoul Space, in conjunction with host AppCenter, led the young entrepreneurs through a series of round robin pitches, and then picked the top four groups to present in front of a full audience. The winner of the contest would receive bragging rights plus a bottle of premium liquor.

Dr. Per Stenius listens and provides feedback during the round robin stage 

The young men and women had the chance to pitch their ideas in 1 minute or less, practice and refine their techniques, and receive feedback from judges.

Seoul Space bloggers Ryan Huddleston and Ross Geesman discuss the event

The judges for the event included several well known names and faces in the Korean startup scene:

1) Dr. Per Stenius, CEO and Founder of Reddal (www.reddal.com), an outsourcing company focused on advanced cognitive functions.

2) Kara Paik, a Professor at Dongguk Business School, who teaches Principles of Management and Persuasion, Presentation & Negotiation classes.

3) Jason Demant, the primary organizer of the Twist Seoul event, and coordinator for many Pitch Workshops with Seoul Space.

4) WonShik Choi, the CEO and Founder of the MKT forum, which deals with consulting and Training.

5) Richard Min, Co-Founder of Seoul Space.

These judges rated the presenters on factors like eye contact, brevity, enthusiasm, applicability, potential customer base, business plan strategy, etc.

After the round robin event had concluded, the judges convened to choose the 4 best company ideas that would move on to the final round.

Judges in the process of picking the top 4 pitches

Finally, the top 4 choices pitched in front of a full audience.

All eyes on the prize: Richard Min hoists the trophy (1 out of only 4 bottles currently available in Korea)

The top 4 teams (in order) were:

1) 1 Day 1 Song (Hyun-Gyu Ju)
Online Music Publishing Platform that plans to release 1 unique song per day.

1 Day 1 Song's Hyun-Gyu Ju

2) Reflectly (Jaegouk Kim and Paul Kim)
A solution for hair designers that allows customers to easily locate them.

3) Game Item Pricing (Jin Hwan Yang)
Service that allows gamers to easily find out the cost of different in-game items online.

4) Smart Eating (Byung-Uk Kang)
Application that provides personalized information about food.

Two judges, one presenter: Richard Min and Kara Paik with Smart Eating's Byung-Uk Kang in the background

The competition was fierce, but in the end, high school student Byung-Uk Kang of Smart Eating came out on top (although, on account of his young age, he had to pass on the premium liquor to his father).

AppCenter Director Jin Hyoung Kim addresses the audience

I had the chance to interview each of the top 4 pitch contestants afterwards and ask them how they felt about the workshop:

1 Day 1 Song

Ryan: "How do you feel about getting into the final four at the event tonight?"
Hyun-Gyu Ju: "I feel so happy to be here (in the final four) and I learned so many great things from the event. So, pretty good!"

Reflectly


Ryan: "What did you think about the workshop tonight?"
Paul Kim: "We heard a lot of good comments about our pitch, and this kind of event was really helpful for us for refining our pitch. We probably need to do some more refining at home based on all the comments we've heard today."

Game Item Pricing

Ryan: "How did you feel about the workshop tonight?"
Jin Hwan Yang: "It was so great. I really wanted to meet people involved in the startup market here, and I was very happy to (finally) meet them!"

Grand Prize Winner Smart Eating (Interview Video)

Group Photo: Everyone had a great time!

Smartphone Browser Dolphin Set to Take on Korea

If you're an Android user, you've probably had some trouble with your phone's internet browser. Imagine then how excited I became after using MoboTap's lightning fast smartphone browser Dolphin for the the first time. I'll admit, I'm a little late to the Dolphin game, having only discovered it recently. But already I've noticed a night and day difference between it and my default browser. Whereas before I would spend my time clunking through buggy menus and waiting minutes for pages to load, now I'm speeding through my favorite sites with a sleek, streamlined user interface.

Shortly after finding out about Dolphin, I had the opportunity to sit down with one of MoboTap's executives and find out more about the browser. Taek Chung, Head of Business Development and GM of Operations at MoboTap, was in Seoul giving a press conference and conducting meetings at the Seoul Space office in Gangnam. Korea being their third largest market (and him being Korean), Mr. Chung had quite a bit to say about his company's stance on the country, his views on the start-up scene in Korea, and several other subjects. What follows is the abridged transcript of that interview:

Myself and Mr. Chung

Who are you? 

My name is Taek Chung. Taek pronunciation wise, same as T-E-C-H.

How did you get involved with the Dolphin browser and what is your role at MoboTap?

So my role is the general manager for the U.S. office. I have two roles, number one is GM for the U.S. office and (the other) is as head of business development. So what it means is I’m in charge of all the operations; business development, marketing, PR, everything that you can possibly think about a start-up -- I run the U.S. office. And, also, specifically, I’m in charge of business development myself, and now the marketing functions; I’m the head of marketing.

Why are you here in Korea today? 

Oh, it’s our number 3 market. And we launched our local product yesterday. And we are trying to make sure that people know about this new product.

As MoboTap is a startup company, how do you feel about the startup scene in Korea today?

That’s actually a good question: I mean, I’m learning about this. I don’t know that much about the Korean startup market. Korea is more about business for us.

http://www.dolphin-browser.com/about

Can you tell me a little bit about Dolphin’s history? Why did MoboTap feel the need to create this browser? 

Sure, so we introduced our first product in October of 2009. And that was our first product, it was on the Android. And at that time, it was really a simple reason; there were no good mobile browsers on the Android market. So we were trying to bring a good experience to people by making a browser, and that’s what happened. And at that time we leveraged the touch based screen, so we made a gesture based input, and also we implemented multi tap. After that we added more features. We have a thing called add-on, it’s like an extension from a web browser context. And also we have a webzine, which is a new way to consume magazines; we curate the media content, that’s what we do, for the Korean market; not just a direct translation, but we are also trying to introduce a new feature specifically targeting the Korean market as well, and that’s where we stand.

And how many employees does MoboTap currently have?

About 50-60. And most of them are engineers. If you’re looking at a start up, there are, like, different focuses for the companies. For example, I guess for Groupon, it’s the sales, for us it’s the product. Often, with like last year, we really didn’t do that much activity around PR, the product sold itself.

Can you tell me anything about the Sequoia Capital/Matrix Partners Series A investment MoboTap received last year? 

Sure, so they invested in us, and Sequoia was the lead investor. (Ryan-What was the size of that, by the way?) It’s public news; it’s $10 million dollars, so that is public information. So they believed in us, in the sense that we are one of the key companies in the mobile industry, counting 5 to 10 years. And we appreciated their expertise, they know about the industry, you know Sequoia. So all things considered, that was very helpful for us.

MoboTap's Taek Chung

How have things changed within the company since the investment? 

In terms of major structure, not much really. We feel like we have a very good, smart, reliable friend that we could talk to whenever we had to discuss something. As you know, with a startup, you encounter a lot of small or big problems. And sometimes you have to make your own call, and sometimes you need a friend to talk to.

As you expand out of the U.S., does that relationship with Sequoia help you? I know they have offices abroad in some places in Asia...

That’s a very good question. Of course, they know a lot of people, but for a local market, let’s say like Korea, they don’t have that much of a connection here. So it’s more about, we try to figure out the way ourselves. And that’s where we stand. Actually it’s kind of interesting, it’s kind of an answer to your question from before which is, before coming to Korea, I did not know the fact that there are so many people like you, who are coming from the U.S. to work in a Korea related start up environment. That’s pretty interesting, but anyways that’s where I’m learning about this market as well.

Has your role changed personally since the investment?

No, actually, I joined right after the investment. (Before the investment) I was more of a personal friend, I’d like to call myself an advisor, but it’s a small start-up, you know? So it’s related. So that was the case.

Where would MoboTap like to see Dolphin go in the future? How many users, how many countries, etc... ? How does the company plan to expand?

So our aspiration is to make sure that all smart phones, whether Android or iOS, we hope that all users use the Dolphin browser. So that’s our target market. So to get there, in terms of geography, U.S., Japan, and Korea are our 3 major markets. And in terms of groups of users, we are doing a great job with tech savvy people, because people who are really following the tech industry, which I guess is a lot, we have a good relationship with them. But we are trying to also work with not so tech savvy users as well.

Right now, your company has a free Dolphin browser with advertisements, and a paid browser with no ads, is that correct?

What you said was true, but I thought we removed the paid version. Right now our status is that we have no advertisements. All the browsers are free. And that’s our current portfolio.

Does the company have any plans for adding additional income models?

Sure, we are testing multiple hypotheses right now. So we cannot talk about too many details, however we are testing lots of hypotheses based on the PC browser market. Like FireFox has a search deal as one way to make income. And also, in our case, we have add-ons, so add-ons can be another source for income as well.

Also, last year Dolphin was released for iOS. Were there any problems in taking the browser from being an Android exclusive and bringing it to the iPhone, iPad?

No, it’s actually a good question, because we thought there could be some challenges, but for us in fact our Android OS fans actually helped us a lot in moving towards the iOS. Because a lot of people who have iOS, who use the iPhone, especially if you are like more of an influencer, a lot of people have both the Android and the iOS phone. So a lot of fans who had the Android helped us a lot in getting a lot of entry success, and that was very helpful for us.

How many people worldwide are using the Dolphin browser?

12 million users right now. It’s growing very fast. So depending on how you look at it, it’s a big number, but our aspiration, as I said, is to make sure all the smart phone users use the Dolphin browser, so, you know, that’s the aspiration. So if you have a chance to talk to your friends or family about this... (Ryan: Oh, I’m using it) Hope you like it. (Ryan: Yeah, I do).

How many total users are in Korea, out of those 12 million? 

About 1 million.

Did your company have any trouble bringing Dolphin to the Korean market?

Not really, because Korea became our number 3 market even though we didn’t do anything. In that sense, a lot of tech savvy users liked us, and a lot of viral marketing from their side was the key factor. But as you can imagine, there’s a limit on how much you can achieve just based on the viral marketing. So, that’s why I’m here, for that reason. Because on one hand, it’s really some marketing and PR for me to talk about the Dolphin browser to other people, but on the other hand, it’s also a chance for me to listen to other people’s perspective. It’s a pretty new industry, so we are trying to understand how users use our Dolphin browser.

What are your plans for the future as far as Korea is concerned? 

Well, it is our number 3 market. And my number 1 goal is to make sure that people know about us. It may sound a little bit arrogant, but I have a strong belief and confidence that once people know about us, they will use us. So, in that sense, that’s my goal. But at the end of the day, I hope that all the 30 million smartphone users, no 20 million, there are 20 million smart phone users in Korea, download the Dolphin browser and then use it. That’s my aspiration.

Do you have an office in the country, and if not, do you plan to establish one soon?

That’s something that we’re talking a lot internally about, but we really haven’t decided what to do about this. I mean, it’s a good point, because, you know, you have to have some local person here, and we are thinking about it. So we’re thinking about it, that’s the right term.

What makes Dolphin better than other mobile browsers?

There are, I would say, two core reasons, and the third one is more of a feature related answer. Number one is, we make a mobile web browser for smart phones. And we do not make a PC browser. And we do not make a feature phone browser. What it means is that our entire product, both user interface and software, are really optimized for the smart phone. And it really drives all the different decisions about how your product goes. Number 2 is, we, as a very small company, have a very good internal process to reflect user feedback for our product, very consistently… (Ryan: So it can move up through the chain very quickly, right?) Right. So those two things are our core reasons, and as a result, like we have a gesture based input, add-ons, multi tap, webzine, that’s what we have. But I think really the first two reasons are really the core power that drives our success.

Do you have any exciting stories you want to share from working at MoboTap?

Yeah, well, every day's really exciting. For me, what’s a really exciting part of this industry is, we are building a business model as an entire industry. I’m sure you know what I mean by this, but for example like, it’s quite recent that Apple and Google have stabilized the application ecosystem. And, with a mobile web browser, we are still trying to figure out how to work together with other partners, and that’s really exciting, because it is a lot of connections, relationships, business developments, marketing, PR, it’s just the whole package. That’s very exciting.

Finally, how did you find out about Seoul Space and what do you think about Seoul Space’s role in the Korean start up scene?

Yeah, so Seoul Space, one of the founders is David Lee, and he is an advisor, so that’s really the direct reason why I got to know this space. But I’m very pleasantly surprised about the fact that they provide like a Silicon Valley kind of support for small companies. And we can talk a little bit about the Korean funding situation, but the rumor that I heard is that it’s a little difficult to find a Silicon Valley type investor in Korea. And then I think Seoul Space is really satisfying that empty hole in the ecosystem, and I believe that it will really help nurture a lot of future Dolphin browsers in Korea as well. And I think it’s really good for the economy and I wish it great success.

Seoul Space's Richard Min with Taek Chung

So, do you have any special additions you would like to make, or anything else you would like to say?

Well, I’m learning about this market. And really I’m trying to learn what the best way to approach people is. Any feedback or suggestions, if anyone visits your blog with questions or comments, I welcome it. And also, I see a lot of young, energetic, smart people here and they're working on a start up, it’s a pretty good thing.

Thank you so much for meeting with me.

Thank you

Recood App Store Description Update

Recently, I updated (fixed and edited) the English for Ahiku's Recood American app store description.

I sent the updated description to Ahiku, and they have now replaced their old description with my updated one!

Check out Recood on the iPhone app store today:

Ahiku COO Ms. HwanHee Koo's Facebook message

Updated Recood American iPhone App Store Description