Startups need sustainable support

Myung Seung-eun, CEO of Venture Square

By Choo Sung-ho

“The role of Venture Square is to provide sustainable support for Korean startups in developing their business, not to focus on making startups’ success stories or becoming a famous accelerator and tech media,” said Myung Seung-eun, CEO of Venture Square, startups media and accelerator, in a recent interview with The Korea Times.

“We all know that most startups fail. Our job is to bolster them to overcome their challenges and failures by providing continuous mentoring and coaching services. I think accelerators shouldn’t be a gold-digger, but a wise advisor for startups.” he said.

Myung, a former journalist with more than 10 years in the media and communication industry, founded Venture Square in 2010 with seven colleagues.

“My heart fell into IT in 1998 and I wanted to help tech startups that lack access to reliable recourses and information for their business and management. That is why I founded Venture Square,” he said.

Currently, about 140 professionals in various fields are registered as contributing writers, delivering and curating informational contents about startups.

When Myung established the media service, there was no such thing as an online media interested in backing tech startups and the ecosystem for startups also was in its infancy in Korea. But now there are many organizations and individuals that provide similar services for startups.

“Recently, with the government’s support, Korea’s startup world is booming more than ever before. Ultimately this massive support will have a positive impact on the startups ecosystem in Korea, but too many renewed schemes and policies made by the government can make startups confused,” he added.

In order to prevent confusion, Venture Square holds a regular startup conference designed to provide critical information startups need, including global trends, government backed schemes and startup related organizations’ accelerator program. The accelerator successfully hosted the Global Startup Conference (GSC) on April 17, which drew more than 500 attendees.

“I think a little existence of a startup bubble is good for building a firm ecosystem. The problem is the moral hazard after the bubble bursts, like when we experienced the venture bubble in the early 2000s,” Myung said.

He hopes that there will be continuous support and encouragement for startups.

“Venture Square also will endeavor to ensure that all the resources startups need are available for them,” he said.

Venture Square recently opened its office in Samseong-dong near the Gangnam-gu Ward Office to provide a better working space and accessibility for startups.