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Startup Wonder Uber Launching in Seoul With High Hopes
2013년 07월 31일

Whether you are heading out to Itaewon for a night in town, going shopping on Garosu-Gil, or looking to get back to your hotel from a COEX event, Uber is just a touch of a button away. Within minutes, your private driver will come and whisk you away in style. The premium on-demand car service today officially launched in Seoul as its third Asian city to expand its presence in the region to,…

Asian Messaging Apps, Line, Kakao, WeChat, Battle It Out For The Global Market
2013년 07월 31일

NE Asian messaging apps are the talk of the town with Japanese Line and Korean KakaoTalk reporting promising user acquisition and now Chinese WeChat (known as “Weixin” in China) rapidly expanding outside its native boarders. Chat app messaging last year overtook SMS texts as the preferred way to send text messages with a staggering 19 billion messages sent in 2012 compared to 17B SMS texts, according to research firm Informa. In the…

SeedStars World Competition Comes To Korea; Apply Now!
2013년 07월 29일

Seedstars World is an exclusive worldwide competition to discover the best startups in emerging startup scenes. The competition is taking place March to December 2013 in 20 cities across the globe. One startup per country will be selected to participate in the final, held in Spring 2014, in Switzerland. The winners will receive prizes such as equity based investments, entry into acceleration programs, advertising and hosting services. How to apply? Visit this link and fill…

Korean Firms controlled 42% of the Global Smart TV market in Q1 2013
  ·  2013년 07월 27일

According to new research by Strategy Analytics, Samsung continues to hold the largest market share of global Smart TV shipments, occupying 26 percent of the market, as vendors attempt to combat falling average selling prices (ASPs) of Flat Panel TVs (FPTVs) by adding premium features that better match evolving viewing habits. The Strategy Analytics Consumer Home Devices (CHD) service report, “Global Smart TV Vendor Market Share Q1 2013,” indicates that global Smart…

[Part III] On Cybersecurity Issues In Korea
  ·  2013년 07월 25일

*This is part III to the series on Korea’s cybersecurity issues. We all know that security is a vital investment for survival. In this article, I will cover: Issues involving China; Issues involving North Korea; Their implications; Evolution of cyberattacks, and APT; Korean government’s plans; and Reactions to those plans. For Korea, the biggest concerns are ‘Chinese and North Korean hackers’. Some may remember the attack on the U.S. by Chinese hackers who succeeded…

Startup Visas To Be Given To Facilitate Foreign Investment And Employment
  ·  2013년 07월 09일

Last Sunday, the South Korean Ministry of Justice announced the revision of the ‘Enforcement Decree of the Immigration Control Act’, which includes granting of startup visas to foreigners for better facilitation of foreign investment activities in Korea. It also aims to encourage international students in Korea to establish startups in the country. (Is Seoul going to be the next Silicon Valley?… Maybe, maybe.) I have looked at the proposed revisions to the…

This Week’s Startup – DreamCosmo
2013년 07월 07일

This Week’s Startup – DreamCosmo   DreamCosmo <Dreamallow>     Our Dream is to help your “Dreams Come True”- DreamCosmo “It was all started from my dream. My dream to help others’ dreams come true!” said Mr. Shin,  the founder of DreamCosmo. DreamCosmo’s first ever app service in public called “dreamallow” is now getting popular in Korea by providing various interesting tools to achieve users’ goals. Dreamallow presents challenge missions in various…

BootstrapAccelerator Asia Announces its July 2013 Class of Startups
  ·  2013년 07월 05일

BootstrapAccelerator Asia, the joint-venture between Silicon Valley-based BootstrapLabs, and Malaysia-based MAD Incubator is opening its doors officially to the public July 3rd, 2013. It is the first Southeast Asia-focused Tech Startup Accelerator with a Silicon Valley Fast TrackTM program for its most promising candidates. First announced back in May of this year, BootstrapAccelerator focuses on early-stage capital efficient software startups that leverage the speed of Internet distribution and the scalability of cloud…

Zuckerberg In Korea: Face-to-face Meetings With Samsung And President Park
  ·  2013년 06월 19일

Zuckerberg (center) walks into Samsung Electronics’ building to meet with executives of the Korean tech giant. Samsung We wrote earlier that the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg will be in Korea (read the article here). The meeting with the Vice Chairman of Samsung Electronics, Lee Jae-yong was one of the key points in Zuckerberg’s short itinerary in Korea. It was speculated that he will be visiting President Park Geun-Hye – but he had also…

The Rise Of Collaborative Consumptions And Korea
  ·  2013년 06월 17일

Business is a zero-sum game. Collaboration is a plus-sum game. Everyone seems to be talking about “The Sharing Economy” – everybody literally gets a share of your meal, and vice versa. Take the Korean startup, Zipbob. So: Forget zero-sum games; people are all about “collaborative consumption” now. And the people in Asia, especially Korea, are rising up. Wait. Collaborative consumption? Short answer: commercial arrangements and transactions in which participants share and access…

Kakao, Government, Startups: What Will 2013 Have In Store For Korea?
  ·  2013년 06월 13일

We wrote previously about the current situation in the South Korean startup ecosystem. We said that the global startup capital is declining whereas the Korean venture world is seeing more fundings, more startups, and more enthusiasm. The rise of startups in Korea really started with KakaoTalk i n 2010, and since then we have seen $191 million US dollars raised in Korea (in 2013, up from $189 mil in 2012), and increase…

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg To Visit Korea At The End Of June. What Are Its Implications?
  ·  2013년 06월 12일

Facebook’s Co-Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg will visit Korea at the end of this month, according to Yonhap News. Seeing that Bill Gates and Larry Page visited Korea recently, it seems likely that Zuckerberg, too, will discuss the future of IT with the Park administration. People are speculating that he will visit Cheongwadae (the presidential residence in Korea, or the ‘blue house’) at the end of June. He will be spending about…

What’s Up In Korea This Week? [12. Jun]
  ·  2013년 06월 12일

  KT Will Spend $2.65B Upgrading Network And Create Jobs Remember how KT said they set up a fund of USD 132 million by 2017 to help smaller and mid-sized firms in Korea earlier on this year? Well, according to Yonhap News yesterday, they will spend KRW 3 trillion (approximately USD 2.65 billion). KT is more ambitious than we thought. That means that the south Korean telco is spending approximately half of the USD 5.3 billion…

This week’s Startup – JellyBus
2013년 06월 11일

This Week’s Startup – Jelly Bus Inc.   JellyBus Inc. <Picsplay Pro> <Official Web Link> Anyone can make awesome photos with us! Whether you are an unskilled user or a photo experts, Jelly Bus assures that you can make a stunning photo by this photo editing app service “Picsplay pro”. As it is called an Image processing engine, it provides a basic features and cutting-edge technologies. For example, its newest HDR functions…

PRISM: Why Global Citizens Are Concerned
  ·  2013년 06월 10일

We thought it’s about time we wrote about the U.S. National Security Agency’s PRISM program, the latest phenomenon around the world today – and yet, it’s old news, because information is and has always been the ultimate power. This issue is quite divisive – some people care, some people don’t, some people think you ought to care. What do you think about the PRISM issue? What is PRISM? PRISM is an electronic…

Korea And The Internet Of Things
  ·  2013년 06월 10일

Good thing the Koreans went for the fiber early. South Korea dominates the top lists when it comes to broadband, according to latest edition of Akamai’s State of the Internet report for the three months ending December 31, 2012. The quarterly State of the Internet report puts the South Korean city of Daegu at the top of the 100 fastest cities. Here are some highlights from Akamai’s official press release: Global On…

Korea’s Startup Scene Still Growing Fast
  ·  2013년 06월 05일

Korea is still seeing some immense growth. According to the Korean Venture Capital Association, venture capital firms in Korea raised $191 million in the first quarter this year, up slightly from $189  million in 2012. Interestingly, there is a general slowdown in the U.S. startup scene – U.S. venture capital firms raised $4.1 billion from 35 funds during the first quarter of this year according to the National Venture Capital Association (this is about a 34%…

beSUCCESS 3 Morning Reads [3. Jun]
  ·  2013년 06월 03일

Good morning everybody! June is the last month for Q2 – hope you are all satisfied with the results you’re getting. Here are some beSUCCESS-approved readings for this morning: 1. The New “Handmade” (Part Three) This series from TechCrunch is all about 3D printers. Consumer interest in 3D printing is booming, thanks to affordable printers. But 3D printing is fueling artists’ creativity, too, and turning your consumers into artists. The series tells you about 3D-printing technology, the artists…

Thinking Of Going Global? Three Things You Should Consider
  ·  2013년 05월 20일

International markets are too big an opportunity to pass up. Why allow physical borders to dictate the limits of your business? Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, once said that “if you have a product business and you aren’t focused on international, you are missing out on two-thirds of your potential customers.” This is still widely relevant to many startups around the world. Michael Fertik, the ‘serial entrepreneur’ said in his Harvard Business…

Disruptive Asian entrepreneur: Cracking the Silicon Valley code
  ·  2013년 05월 03일

A panel discussion titled ‘Disruptive Asian entrepreneur: Cracking the Silicon Valley code’ was organized on Day 2 of beLAUNCH 2013, the biggest startup and technology conference in South Korea. The panel discussion was designed as a forum for successful Asian American entrepreneurs to share their insights and experience from starting and growing their company in Silicon Valley. The moderator of the session was Jay Eum, Co-CEO of Translink Capital and the panellists…