Home   >   People   >   ‘Korea offers opportunities for startups’

‘Korea offers opportunities for startups’

October 2, 2013
David Lee, CEO of Shakr Media

David Lee, CEO of Shakr Media

By Choo Sung-ho

“Silicon Valley is not the only perfect place to start one’s own business. Korea is also a wonderful place for startups. With the highly educated young workforce, there are lots of very talented people here who are global-minded and inspired to achieve more.”

David Lee, CEO of Shakr Media, is optimistic about the future of Korean startups, stressing that more and more global venture capitals and investment companies are coming to Korea hoping to find promising new businesses.

The Canadian-born ethnic Korean has entrepreneurial DNA. At the age of 14, he set up his first startup called “Avenir,” a webpage design company. He established two other startups and worked for several companies in the United States and Korea before running Shakr Media.

Shakr Media, the instant video-making platform, launched its service in Korea in 2010, with an idea of transforming photos into videos with lengths of 30 seconds to 5 minutes.

Users can customize their own videos by choosing ready-made templates that are on the Shakr website.

“Our service targets small businesses, independent bloggers or people who can’t make a video. Shakr is the bridge that connects them to the land of the video,” Lee said.

The innovative ideas of Shakr Media have raised almost 2 billion won from “500 startups,’’ the Silicon Valley startup Accelerator, and other venture capitalists, including NHN.

The company is about to launch its English service for global users and participated in beGLOBAL 2013, a global tech conference which was held on Sept. 13 in Palo Alto, California.

“Many people think that this conference is for Korean companies seeking to become global. I completely disagree with this idea. I think Korea is global.”

Lee claimed that Korean startups have own strengths to compete with foreign rivals in the global market.

“Data-driven decisions, commitment to excellence, fluency both in Korean and English, problem-solving skills ― these are some of the characteristics of the best in global class. Korean entrepreneurs have all these traits, I think.”

He also offered advice to people thinking about launching startups. “Future entrepreneurs need to have passion and a global mindset to turn their ideas into real products or services.’’

6 Comments

  1. Orthomol Sport health supplements

    October 3, 2013 at 12:00 AM

    Valuable information. Fortuitous myself I discovered your web site by mistake, using this program . surprised exactly why this specific accident failed to occured in advance! My spouse and i bookmarked them.

    Reply

  2. maillot de foot pas cher 2013

    October 4, 2013 at 2:30 AM

    Hi there, I found your web site by means of Google although looking for a related topic , your internet site arrived up, it seems great. I have bookmarked it in my google bookmarks

    Reply

  3. maillot-barca.asktorihartman.com

    October 4, 2013 at 11:39 PM

    Hi, i thiink that i saw you visited my blog thus
    i ame too “return the favor”.I’m attempting to find
    things to improve my web site!I suppose its ok
    to use some of your ideas!!

    Reply

  4. 3ds xl jeux

    October 6, 2013 at 11:24 AM

    Thank you for the good writeup. It in fact was a amusement account
    it. Lookk advanced to far added agreeable from you! By the way,
    how could we communicate?.

    Reply

  5. web page

    October 8, 2013 at 3:52 AM

    Wow,this paragraph is good, my younger sister is analyzing
    such things, therefore I am ging to inform her..

    Reply

  6. bottes alpinestar web gore-tex

    October 21, 2013 at 3:09 AM

    The subject that your site deals with needs loads of investigation.This variety of weblog often useful for site audience,.

    Reply