Check out our speakers for beLAUNCH 2013!! The order is in the order that they are speaking in! 🙂 ■     James Jung     CEO of beSUCCESS ■     Euno Lee     Editor of beSUCCESS ■     Mongjoon Chung     Honorary Chairman of ASAN Nanum Foundation ■     Phil Libin     CEO of Evernote ■     Jaeuk Park     CEO of VCNC ■     Jeongseok Chester Roh     CEO of Ablar Co. ■…

This year beLAUNCH organized an Indian edition to enable startups from India interested in entering the Korean/East Asian market. We are delighted to announce the winner of beLAUNCH India edition – Bangalore headquartered UMobile. A panel comprising of VCs and industry experts in Korea have chosen the winner from the 65 startups from India that applied. Palo Alto headquartered company Cooliris has supported the participation of the beLAUNCH India winner at beLAUNCH…

Soujanya Bhumkar, CEO of Palo Alto based CoolIris, will be speaking at beLAUNCH on May 1st – 3rd and he has given us a taste of what is in store, in the form of 16 gems of wisdom, taken from his journey so far. Idea is only 5% of what it’s going to take. Execution is 95% It’s not the what and the why, it’s the how. The how is the game…

VCNC는 커플을 위한 모바일 앱 비트윈을 서비스하고 있습니다. 비트윈은 사진, 메모, 채팅, 기념일 등 다양한 기능을 제공하며, 오픈 베타 테스트를 시작한 2011년 11월부터 현재까지 연인 간의 소통을 돕고 있습니다. 그동안 비트윈 시스템 아키텍처에는 많은 변화가 있었으며 다양한 결정을 하였습니다. 비트윈 아키텍처를 발전시키면서 배우게 된 여러 가지 노하우를 정리하여 공유해보고자 합니다. 그리고 저희가 앞으로 나아갈 방향을 소개하려 합니다. 소프트웨어 스택 Java: 비트윈 API서버는 Java로 작성되어 있습니다. 이는 처음 비트윈 서버를 만들기 시작할 때,…

I never recommend anything without trying it first: that is the golden rule that I go by! 🙂 Here are some great websites I found that will help you increase your productivity within your startup. 1. Projectflow It’s simple and easy to use with a drag-and-drop interface. It has customizable columns – so you can add more columns needed and is more flexible than the traditional To Do/In Progress/Done columns. “A popular example is…

There is a growing population of foreign workers here. The National Tax Service, estimated that the number of non-Korean taxpayers surpassed 500,000 in 2012. (That’s a significant increase from 403,000 in 2010 and 465,000 in 2011!) Foreigners must file for their year-end tax settlements, but NTS provides a set of guidelines you can follow. Foreign residents must submit tax forms on the same day as Korean citizens, but tax treatments differ slightly….

As I explained in the previous article, startups can choose to share or partner up with others for mutual benefit. Startups like yourself would enter into these sorts of partnership arrangements as a part of your endeavor to do everything legally/ethically as possible; not only that, this would improve your bottom line and sustain/increase profits. This can be done in various ways. You can do things like: arms-length licensing, strategic alliance building, joint ventures,…

You want to remain profitable in an increasingly global economy. There’s pressure to create new opportunities, new revenue streams from existing assets, new innovations. And all for what? Well, to create new products, enhance existing ones, and to explore new markets. Innovations are valuable assets and must be protected by using the tools of the intellectual property system before you reveal, share, or have it stolen from you. Gain and retain competitive…

This is the third part to IP issues in Korea. You can read Part I here: http://betech.asia/2013/04/part-i-what-is-the-rationale-behind-ip-disputes/ And Part II here: http://betech.asia/2013/04/part-ii-ongoing-patent-battles-in-korea/ We talked about IP patent battles in Korea in the previous article. There is a recent IP agreement that caught my attention, which was between Apple and HTC. Apple v HTC Apple and HTC announced in November 2012 that they have settled their ongoing patent dispute, opting for a 10-year…

정신연령을 실제 나이로 나눈 수치에 100을 곱한 값을 지능지수라고 합니다. 흔히 아이큐(IQ ; Intelligence Quotient)라고 부르죠. 지능지수는 오랜 시간 인간의 지능을 수치로 잡아 평가하도록 했습니다. 그리고 지금의 애플을 평가하는 지수라고 한다면 필자는 단연 ‘에디 큐(Eddy Cue)’를 꼽을 것입니다. 애플의 머리, 에디 큐 애플을 이끌고 있는 실질적인 머리가 누구입니까? 팀 쿡? 그는 역시 제품 개발보다는 이끌어 내고 수용하는 역할이 어울립니다. 지금의 자리가 나쁘다는 건 아니에요. 조나단 아이브는 최고의 제품 디자이너입니다. 하드웨어뿐 아니라 소프트웨어…

원문: Innovation teams don’t work. Here’s what does 초창기 스타트업을 위한 VC인 Sigma West 사의 파트너, 그렉 그레치의 기고문입니다. 필자의 회사인 Sigma는 1년에 한 번씩 회사 포트폴리오 기업들의 CEO를 한 자리에 모은다. 여기서 우리는 기술, 비즈니스 모델, 실리콘 벨리, 시장에 대한 최신 트렌드와 함께, 각자의 경험을 공유한다. 매 번 이 행사가 끝날 때마다, 많은 분들이 다른 참가자로부터 좋은 것들을 얻었노라고 이야기한다. 스타트업을 경영한다는 것은 좋은 결정들을 최대한 많이 만들어 내면서, 나쁜 결정은…

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index has also been surging over the past three days as of Thursday morning, moving up 5.80 points to 1941.38. Also, other indexes have shown South Korea is and remains as an attractive business destination, with foreign direct investment reaching $3.39 billion in 2013 Q1. This is a whopping 45% increase from 2012. The president explained her “creative economy” mantra will also apply to foreign businesses who she…

Seoul is keeping a staunch watch on any military provocation from North Korea through a close cooperation with the U.S., China, and the international community. Representatives of eBay, Google, GE Healthcare, Citibank Korea, BASF Korea, Siemens, Standard Chartered Bank Korea, Dongwoo Fine-Chem, Denso, Bank of China and S-Oil joined in the luncheon with President Park. With some representatives stating their wider investment plans for this year, the members, expressed faith in the…

This is the second part to IP disputes in Korea. Part I here: http://betech.asia/2013/04/part-i-what-is-the-rationale-behind-ip-disputes/ Samsung Electronics v LG Electronics Recently, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have locked horns over the eye-scrolling technology that was embedded in Samsung’s Galaxy S4 unveiled in New York earlier this month. This is LG’s stance: LG LG had rights to the eye-scrolling technology- it applied for a related patent in Korea in December 2005. LG also applied for…

Achieved a place in top 15 global economies, and has stayed there 8th in terms of ‘Ease of Doing Business’ Smartphone penetration: 97%. Internet speeds (top 3 in world for last 10 years) Population: 49.8m GDP per capita: $22,424 ($2,300 in 1980) GDP growth (2011): 3.6% Inflation (2011): 4.0% Key cities: Seoul (9.8m); Busan (3.4m); Incheon (2.5m)

Here is a list of great websites you should know about when you want to do business in Korea:             KOTRA (Korea Trade Association). http://english.kotra.or.kr/             KOCCA (Korea Creative Content Agency). http://www.kocca.kr/eng/index.html             KOVA (Korea Venture Business Association). http://venture.or.kr/kova/index.jsp             Invest Korea. http://www.investkorea.org/ikwork/iko/eng/main/index.jsp             The Korean Law…

1. Users Are Important. Success lies with the loyalty of your users, or fans. By now you should know the importance that influencers, users, and fans have to your brand. These are the people who are driving viral interactions for you naturally. You need to nurture them, keep them loving and adoring your brand. One thing you can do is give your fans a shout out every now and them. Successful startups…

*This is a 3-Part article on IP disputes. The first part talks about the rationale behind IP disputes, the second talks about current legal battles between Apple and Samsung, and the third talks about cross-licensing. For the global electronics industry in the past, patent infringement was not an issue. Ramp up the design factor, appeal to customers, create a feel that was different from other – and the software, or how much…

Is South Korea becoming more environmentally friendly? LG CNS (LG’s IT arm) will launch an electric vehicle sharing service for residents in Seoul. The service will be operated by EverOn (an affiliate of LG CNS). Drivers will be able to rent electric vehicles through them for a minimum of one hour at an hourly rate of 6,300 won (approx. $5.50 USD) and by the end of April will have 120 electric vehicles…

Following reports of office raids the day before, Samsung Display denied that it had been investigated for technology espionage against its rival LG Display. Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency – also the cyber crime unit of the country – conducted plant and office raids based on allegations that Samsung stole LG’s patented OLED technology through suppliers. “Samsung is the only company in the world possessing OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology. Our concern is that…