Setting up a business is not something that you achieve when you learn but something that you do because you want to. It’s neither something that happens naturally on its own not is it something that you can try to prevent if someone insist on doing it.
SoCAT’s CEO KIm Seong Woo is just like this. He feels that being an entrepreneur is his vocation.
In any case, he tried a variety of part time work from nightclub waiter to tuition. And he rented out a Chinese stall in a department store’s food court. A business worth 25 million won. However, the department store failed. After paying off his employees, he went to serve in the army.
He chose a slightly different path in the military too. He did not want to live a normal life like others and decided to do something different. He did not want to stop earning money even in the military. That is why he decided to sign up to be part of the dispatch team to Iraq. He was just in the next barrack when a shell exploded and it was in the news too.
After discharge from the military, he felt that going to school is like a form of luxury. He decided to help out in his aunt’s trading business and then tried his hand with the fashion business in Dongdaemun. After being a middleman for some time, he decided to go into the designer office and start a wholesale business. It was a huge success and he made a handsome profit. And he got even more ambitious. He decided to go into retail business. Quoting his words, it was ‘a complete failure’. For the first time, he had to get loans from nonmonetary institutions.
Kim has been through times of profit and loss. He decided to create a new business and service. He now decided to enter the IT industry and he started a mobile fashion platform with his close friends of 10 years. He wanted to make a change in the fashion business.
They both know that they cannot enjoy profits instantly. This is why they decided to make a sub-business selling design T-shirts (http://bylab.kr) in order to be able to pay wages to the employees.
The main product of CEO Kim’s SoCAT is a Fashion social network service called SNAFLE. SNAFLE is a mobile service that allows users to take snapshots of his/her own fashion or that of others and then do a review or judgement.
In order to join SpartSquare, they have created the following video that can give you an idea of their business.
CEO Kim explains that It is possible to create a new and interesting trend where people can connect via fashion and photos through SNAFLE. Users who received many ‘Likes’ on their fashion will be able to rise in ranking and when they reached the level of ‘Runway’, a new point of contact with fashion businesses is created.
They hope to provide customized information on items, brands etc to each group of user (by gender, style, preference) via this fashion curation service.
Although the company was founded in April 2011, they took a longer time than expected because they made many changes to their items and decided to work from afresh. In truth, SNAFLE started its business only in January this year. Although they were apprehensive at first, they are now confident about their product.
When asked to define success for them, CEO Kim wanted ‘to be able reserve a whole meat restaurant and let all employees eat and drink to their hearts content’ and Director Kim Hyeong Gi said he wanted ‘SNAFLE to be the representation name in fashion business’.
It remains unsure whether SoCAT will succeed or fail in the competition with other fashion social network services. However, they are definitely a team that will never give up and persevere on.
[#M_Click here to view the original Korean article |Hide|창업은 배워서 되는 것이 아니라 하고 싶어서 하는 행위다. 등을 떠밀어 봤자 창업이 저절로 되는 것도 아니고 결사 반대하고 말려도 창업하겠다는 데 막을 방법도 없다.
쏘캣(http://socat.co.kr/)의 김성우 대표가 그렇다. 그는 사업가가 천직이라고 생각한다.
김 대표는 “스내플을 통해 패션과 사진을 주제로 사람들이 서로 놀 수 있다면 흥미로운 현상을 만들어 낼 수 있을 것”이라고 설명한다. 스내플에서는 패션과 의류를 통해 ‘좋아요’ 버튼을 많이 받는 사용자들을 스타로 만들어내고 그 스타들이 ‘런웨이’라는 등급에 올라가면 새로운 형태의 패션 비즈니스와 맞닿는 접점이 생길 것이라고 기대하고 있다.
_M#]