Ajou University Presentation: May 17th

On May 17th, 2012, I was invited to give a presentation about Korean startups at Ajou University (아주대학교) in Suwon, south of Seoul.

 My presentation was part of a special seminar series featuring Dr. Moon Kim and a New York based patent attorney, Mr. Ron D'Alessandro.

The Seminar Space

I focused my presentation on my experience with Korean startups, divided into three main areas: characteristics of Korean startups, obstacles facing Korean startups, and advantages that Korea has as a country/advantages that Korean entrepreneurs possess.

The seminar started at 5 p.m. and lasted until about 7:30 in the evening.

Beneath are some excerpts of my notes from the presentation, plus my entire presentation in SlideShare format:

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My Presentation Begins

Hierarchy Confusion

-Hierarchy just means ranking system; I am talking about the way Korean business people rank their status at a company, like you have the 대표님 then 부장, etc

-But this is can be a problem at a startup company, should you address the other members of your business by their rank? What if the CEO is the youngest person?

-What language should you use at a startup (if people are younger and older, or if you’re their boss?) 높음말 or 반말?




Tied to Organizations

-The next thing I noticed is that people in Korean businesses seem to be very closely tied to the organizations they are affiliated with

-First, here’s a picture of SKY

-Being a member of one of these universities, or a another very highly rated university like Ajou, is very important in Korea, and people will rate you sometimes based on this

Early Stage Capital

-The next obstacle I want to talk about is venture finance in Korea, especially getting early stage capital

-Entrepreneurs in South Korea often struggle to raise capital

-Here are some of the top VC companies in Korea; Stonebridge, Softbank, and IDG

-Here’s a startup investment stage graph, and most of the money going to startups in Korea is going in at Round 2, Round 3, Mezzanine, even later

-These are much more conservative investments, and it’s really tough for a new startup to get capital

Path to Follow?

-The next obstacle I want to discuss is the path for startups to follow

-In the U.S., there are a number of ways to find the right path to follow if you’re a startup
.....

-All of these services help companies benchmark against other companies and track where they should be with key metrics like:

Speaking about the Path for Korean Startups to Follow

1) Customers

2) Product

3) Team (How much equity should CEO and Founders have? How about the CTO?)

4) Business Model

5) Financials (How big of an investment did this similar company get when it was at your stage? How many users did they have at the time?)

The Beginning of Dr. Moon Kim's Presentation

Advantages: Korea

-Well, I’ve been talking a lot about negative things and obstacles facing Korean companies, so for the last part, I want to talk about some of the advantages that Korea or Korean entrepreneurs have

-I think Korea is a deceptively large market,

-Many people say the market is small, but it’s not, it’s huge

-I think a lot of companies think they can solve their market problems by trying to move to a bigger market, but I think Korea is a great test bed for services, a large, very dense market with lots of purchasing power

-Now is a great time to test and scale your product/service in Korea

-The Korean government is putting a ton of money into startups, 

-Look at these government agencies like:

-Kocca, SMBA, SBA, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Kotra, NIPA, MKE

-Many of them are involved with giving money, seed money, incubating space to startups

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Ajou University-Startups in Korea

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