I sat down with Andrew Kim, the first angel investor at Shakr Media, just a few hours before Shakr was announced as the beLAUNCH2013 Startup Battle Winner. Andrew Kim is currently working for a major Korean conglomerate in a senior position, and was previously with telecom startup Kineto Wireless. He studied Engineering at Carnegie Mellon and holds a M.Sc. in management from Stanford University. We talked about why he invested in Shakr,…

Justin and I got the opportunity to chat with Jeff Clavier about the Korean startups and the ecosystem. Jeff Clavier has a MS in Computer Science and a degree in Distributed Computing and is the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC (one of the most established seed VC firms in SV. They closed 150 investments since 2004!). What I found fascinating and admirable was that although SoftTech concentrates on the US, Jeff makes at…

LatteScreen’s Grand Global Launch in 14 Countries LatteScreen Launches in 14 Countries Across Asia, Europe and North America: The First Incentivizing Mobile Advertising Platform on Smartphone Lock Screen. Jeong Soohwan, CEO of AppDisco (http://eng.adlatte.com/), the market leader in reward-based mobile advertising scene, announces the launch of LatteScreen in 12 countries in addition to its current operations in Korea and Japan. On May 13th, the product will be released in six countries including…

This program is dedicated towards helping Korean Startups get global perspective by sponsoring their travel to three major innovation hubs: Singapore, Israel, and Boston. KISED and the SMBA recognize the difficulty of startups going global with their user base and thus have created a fully immersive program to help take their companies to the next level. This six month, fully-sponsored program will include monthly intensive workshops, mentorship training, meetings with funding sources,…

I had the privilege of interviewing with Gwendolyn Regina Tan, SGE’s Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief. SGE is one of the best online publishers dedicated to the Southeast Asia startup and entrepreneurship scene. SGE is one of beSUCCESS’ partners and serves as an online ecosystem where fellow entrepreneurs, investors & venture capitalists, technologists, developers and business plan competition organizers discuss their experiences on entrepreneurship and enterprise in Singapore. Startups In Korea: Her Perspective “This…

Inspiring CEO, an incredible team, united by one vision. VCNC: possibly one of the most successful startups in Korea. Just like Jake, the CEO of VCNC, the company is incredibly, incredibly driven and passionate. I must say, it’s not every day that you get to interview both the CEO and someone from within the company – and what integrity. I’m excited for things to come for this one – and you should…

[Singapore] 17 May 2013: Tech media and events platform, e27, today announced the speakers, agenda and pitching startups for Echelon 2013 (e27.co/echelon), a two-day technology and business event that attracts investors, startups and business and technology leaders from the Asia Pacific region to connect and drive Asia’s tech industry forwards. Echelon 2013 is happening on 4 – 5 June 2013 at Singapore Expo MAX Atria and will see the likes of top investor,…

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…

At beLAUNCH2013, I had the privilege of interviewing Christine Tsai, Partner and ‘pug herder’ at 500 Startups. (Confession time. I almost fell in love.) “Grace under pressure” really did define Christine as a person – throughout the interview, she was collected, passionate, and incredibly charismatic. But she was also sharp, clear and spoke with conviction. Christine is a true compétant of a woman and role model. Previously, Christine was in product marketing at…

“What do you mean ‘create’ a culture? Cultures should and do just happen.” “A company is a purely intellectual concept.” – Dee Hock, Founder of VISA International. As Tom Peters put it in his book “In Search Of Excellence”, a company can provide the same level of ‘social resonance’ as does an honorary society, or an exclusive club. A company has the same culture that goes hand-in-hand with that resonance. But how…

The Korean Market: Huge.  Korea’s population: 50 million, with strong purchasing power. Korea’s GDP as of 2011: in the range of US$1.16 trillion. Korea’s GDP per capita: $22,778. Geographically, Korea is situated at the center of maritime & air transportation networks in Northeast Asia. Northeast Asia has now become one of the three global economic pillars, along with the US and Europe. Korea’s its high-end market is recognized as the ‘global trend-setter’ in the region. There…

We wrote earlier in the year that Samsung and Pantech will compete in the smartphone and tablet marketplaces in 2013. The decision comes as a surprise and may raise some eyebrows among analysts and investors who say that Pantech doesn’t have much to offer Samsung in terms of technology or software capabilities: it was confirmed today that Samsung invested in $47.6 million in Pantech, the third largest mobile device manufacturer in South…

“Two’s not enough to provide true competition. These guys are getting ready to kill the Internet, that’s where this [disordered, no-rules and] unregulated duopoly is headed.” -Mark Cooper “Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.” – Thomas Edison A duopoly is a market condition in which two companies producing a similar type of product have control over the market. It’s a situation in which two companies own all or nearly all…

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – May 23, 2013 – SparkLabs (www.sparklabs.co.kr), a startup accelerator in Korea, has selected its second class of companies.  The companies range from subscription e-commerce to productivity applications to search, and from bootstrapped financing to those who raised a Series A round.  “Our second class reflects the momentum and interest SparkLabs has generated outside of Korea.  Included in our ten companies is TrakInvest from Singapore, which is an online…

The World’s Biggest Digital Cable TV Show Kicks Off According to the Korea Times, the biggest cable TV forum kicked off yesterday at Jeju, Korea. “Beyond Cable, Smart and More” is the main theme for this year’s “Digital Cable TV Show,” which kicked off at the Haevichi Resort on the nation’s southern resort island of Jeju. The conference is the 11th such held annually. The event, organized by the Korea Cable Television and…

Industry officials recently said that SK Communications, the social network service (SNS) affiliate of SK Group, is planning a ‘refashioning’ of its ailing service Cyworld. We all know that due to a decline in their earning, SK was forced to downsize in 2012. It had an operating loss of 10.3bil KRW in Q1, marking its sixth consecutive quarterly loss. However, market watchers believe that they are aiming to draw back its subscribers….

“This is a PDF document. You can page through it with your finger.Of course, you can also write comments and draw lines in the PDF document. Also, if you choose the marker, and move your finger over text, you can highlight text like this…” -Kenji Matsunaga, Marketing Manager at Sony Business Solutions A4 size papers are now a thing of passé. Sony has recently launched an A4 sized equivalent 13.3″ digital paper notepad,…

At beLAUNCH2013, I had the privilege of interviewing David Lee, who I found to be extremely experienced, confident, and witty (these adjectives fail to describe how awesome he is).  David had previously been the Director of Google and the company’s first international executive to lead the sales, operations, and business development efforts in Asia, Europe and Latin America. He is also the Co-Founder of XG-Ventures, a renowned angel fund in Silicon Valley, the…

1. Comic XKCD Nails Google Glass Critics (Especially Congress) “‘Maybe before we rush to adopt Google Glass, we should stop to consider the consequences of blithely giving this technology such a central position in our lives.’ Don’t have any insights about a technology? Just use this sentence! It makes you sound wise and you can say it about virtually anything.” 2. Samsung Briefly Posts Galaxy S4 Mini On Its Apps Site, Adding…

Howdy world citizens! Here are some morning reads for you today, good-to-go either on a train, a bus, over a cereal bowl (or another bowl, if you know what I mean)… whatever you desire, I supply ya. It’s Wednesday! Keep it up! Whatever you do, don’t be this guy. Weekend’s almost here! 1. Thomas Clayton: Bidding war between Tencent and LINE for Kakao Great article by Product Manager and Senior Writer at e27,…