Recently, more college graduates are jumping into the realm of business by starting start-up companies with “innovative” items. Undeniably, as more people are getting higher education, competition among people to take the limited positions in companies has become ever-intensifying. Not only do they study hard to maintain a high GPA, but they also do other extracurricular activities to build up their specifications as a preparation for the future.

 

Far from being fettered by the societal norm and expectation, Kim invented a mobile application called Modoomap to help people, particularly young people under 30, to expediently and conveniently find the useful information about restaurants, bars and cafes in some of the major regions in Korea. Currently, there are six members in this corporation: four being system developers and two who are responsible for business affairs such as finance and marketing.

 

Kim’s dream for venturing came very naturally as he had many distinct experiences prior to opening up the Modoomap. In 2012, Kim published a book titled Standard of University that introduces different departments in some of the major universities in Korea. Unexpectedly, this book sold out very rapidly, which boosted Kim’s confidence. In the course “Campus CEO,” Kim met his co-CEO and started to plan out the application business. Using his social network, he successfully found two more competent members to work with and, from that moment, they divided up the work and specified the plan.

 

According to Kim, initial investment is very crucial when starting one’s own business. In order to start up the company, even if it deals with a small business like a mobile application, they need a tremendous amount of money that college students solely cannot prepare. As a result, the very first thing they did after making the team was to participate in different venture competitions and to ask for the government’s support to gain monetary assistance.

 

Including the financial shortage, Kim faced many difficulties throughout the course of his business, since he did not know how to effectively advertise the application. Luckily, the news about Modoomap went viral when he decided to post the introductory writing about the application on Koreapas, the biggest web community primarily used by Korea University students. Due to the word-of-mouth effect, people naturally came across this application and the popularity of it skyrocketed within a few months.

 

To further advertise the corporation and build up a positive image, Kim created a Facebook and Twitter account to do the online promotion and is planning to recruit interns to do the offline promotion. Modoomap is a participation-oriented application, wherein users are allowed to vote for different characteristics such as quiet, delicious, cheap and so forth that represent certain cafés or restaurants. By simply touching the icon that corresponds with the places, they can gain points and the points are later served as a good index from which to choose recipients of presents, such as an iPad.

 

Another hardship he had to bear was the lack of time to socialize with those around him, including his girlfriend and family. Since all members are required to arrive at the office by noon at the latest and to work until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, he simply has no time to chill out with friends and drink. “Although I can make up excuses if I really want to drink and enjoy my social life, I feel sorry for the other members to do so. Also, since our company is still at an unstable stage, I, as the CEO, must overwork and maintain a regular lifestyle,” insisted Kim.

 

When questioned about whether he feared failing for all the things he had done in the past, Kim smirked and confidently stated that failure is not a shameful thing to encounter. Given the fact that he is still young, he believes that failure is acceptable as long as it allows him to grow mentally and gives him a life lesson.

 

Kim referred to his business as a lean startup, which seeks to eliminate wasteful practices and increase value-producing practices during the product development phase so that his firm can have a better chance of success without requiring large amounts of outside funding. That is, the repetition of observing public reactions toward the application and making corresponding changes as quickly as possible are the keys to success in Kim’s mind. “We constantly update the application whenever our customers file complaints about it through the Facebook page or by phone. Both of the groups are better off by having constant discussion about the application.”

 

The mission statement of Modoomap is to provide a valuable and time-efficient service available for all people to use as a location search engine. Beyond this rather plain and banal mission statement, Kim’s aspiration is to actually surpass Google within ten years in finding locations. Kim vehemently maintained that he will make this happen in the near future. “We will release the entire Seoul version of the application and we are also planning to make a LA version by the first half of next year. Slowly, we will expand our business globally and offer services not just to domestic users but also to the international users.”

 

As a final word to KU students who are planning to startup their own companies, Kim stated that they must possess the business mindset and not fear in trying things out. “Do not think nature will unravel all the problems and that you will come to earn quick money out of the blue.” He believes individuals must become very active when doing their own businesses to acquire related knowledge and experience. Although startup companies are commonly deemed as a risky road, CEO Kim offered a counterexample to the notion by thorough preparation. Nothing in this world happens by coincidence; everything happens for a reason.