On September 24, Startup Grind Seoul hosted its 2nd event at Maru180. It was an exciting night filled with great people, networking and food. For those of you who missed out, you can click here to get a feel for the buzz that night.
The night featured Junghee Ryu, an inventor, serial entrepreneur and investor. We had the amazing opportunity to hear about his background as a Ph.D student at KAIST, co-founder of Iconlab Inc., CEO of Olaworks, and now as CEO of FuturePlay Inc.
Click here for the full video.
FuturePlay is a very unique investment company in that it actually hires entrepreneurs and invests in them by providing these entrepreneurs with salaries, benefits, facilities and professional services. This model enables smart technical engineers to leave companies like Samsung to start a business, providing a transitional period of a year. The selected inventor has one year to create a proof of concept or working prototype. While the inventor focuses on creating a product, FuturePlay focuses on everything else from marketing to raising capital, to HR.
FuturePlay considers itself a co-founder of the entrepreneur or “inventor” in its investment in the entrepreneur. This year, FuturePlay is supporting five inventors who were sought out through personal networks. When selecting these inventors they mainly looked in following four areas:
- Human computer interaction and user experience
- New hardware
- Wearable device services
- Big data analysis
One other aspect Junghee values in these companies is that they are techie and sexy. By sexy he means that the idea is new and fresh as well as having a change-the-world Don Quixote attitude.
Here are some key tips he gave to entrepreneurs that night:
- Don’t be a copycat. In order to be a successful company, you cannot imitate someone else already out in the field. Korean startups have had this habit of copying other successful companies but it’s no longer the case that imitation is the right formula. If you want to truly change the world and make an impact, you need to bring something new to the table.
- Don’t be safe. A high-paying job at a big company is not the safe way out in life. Money can buy you things such as an apartment in Gangnam, but is that all that you want in life? Challenge yourself and take the road less taken. Constantly innovate and focus on creating things that change the world.
- Be happy. Most entrepreneurs in the Korean ecosystem are not happy. There are a lot of headaches in the world and its very stressful dealing with these headaches. However, remember that you embarked on your venture because it made you happy.
- Focus on relationships. In a stressful and fast-paced environment such as the startup ecosystem, things are always going to change. Changes have an impact on relationships for the good or the bad. Make sure to concentrate on ensuring that these relationships as they are important.
Thanks again to our sponsors (The Asan Nanum Foundation, SparkLabs, Mousq Angel Club) and our partners (KISED, SMBA, Oliver Sweet, Tapzin, Elephant, MangoPlate). We will see you guys at our next event!
[gallery ids="70512,70513,70514,70515,70516,70517"]