Biker-turned-entrepreneur
MADsmart CEO Kim Chang-ha ready to hit US with mobile SNS
By Kim Tae-gyu
From the perspective of Korean Internet firms, the United States is a graveyard where no player has ever chalked up a notable success over the past two decades.
Even the nation’s business bellwether NHN, which runs top Web portal Naver, and other first-tier game publishers could not take firm root in the world’s largest economy.
However, there is now a Korean entrepreneur who is trying to blaze a trail through making his presence felt in the U.S. with a mobile instant-messaging service dubbed Tic Toc that is already popular in Korea.
“I am well aware that many failed to succeed in the U.S. but that doesn’t mean our players are doomed,” said Kim Chang-ha, founder and CEO of MADsmart that operates Tic Toc. MAD is short for mobile application developer.
“Before Kim Yu-na topped the podium, many other Koreans had struggled to pave the way for Kim’s rise. An equivalent of Kim Yu-na will emerge soon in the Internet industry and hopefully, I want to take the honor.”
Kim Yu-na is a Korean figure skater, who won the gold medal in the ladies’ singles at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. No other Koreans have ever garnered an Olympic medal of any color in the competition.
To become the Internet version of Kim Yu-na, the CEO has done a lot of preparation ― he released an English-language service called Tic Toc Plus this October after founding Tic Toc Planet near San Francisco.
Kim expects that the handset-based instant messaging services will be all the rage in the U.S. in tandem with the fast spread of smartphones.
“We will upgrade our services to cater to the specific needs of Americans. With such customized versions, we hope to become a contender in a couple of years,” the 33-year-old said.
“Up until now, Korean Internet firms could not successfully land in the U.S. as they lacked the venturous mantra. The key is not the amount of funds but the readiness to take risks and offer tailor-made services.”
Toward that end, Kim plans to appoint someone with a deep understanding of U.S. culture as the CEO of Tic Toc Planet, which was founded on multi-million dollar capital. The chances are that he or she will be an American or a Korean-American.
Meteoric rise
Early last year, few knew Kim but by now he has emerged as one of the biggest blips on the radar of most market observers, who are keeping tab on his U.S. maneuver.
Kim surfaced out of nowhere midway through last year when he came up with Tic Toc.
Initially some cast suspicions on the commercial potential of Tic Toc because it seemed to be a me-too service of established Kakao Talk.
However, Kim silenced the critics once and for all since more than 10 million people downloaded the application less than half a year after its debut.
Even he was surprised at the fast pace.
“Tic Toc offered much faster services with fewer problems. It also provided a set of new applications, which were not available in other alternatives,” Kim said. “That’s why Tic Toc could expand its user base in such a short period of time. Word of mouth was the secret. We did not spend a penny on marketing.”
The hitch was that its initial capital of 400 million won was not enough for the service 10 million-plus users, which prompted Kim to seek a substantial amount of fresh investments.
SK Planet, a major affiliate of Korea’s No. 3 conglomerate SK Group, bought the entire company ― the size of the deal was not disclosed.
Yet, his managerial right was guaranteed to lead MADsmart as well as its U.S. venture.
With both sufficient funds and experience on his hands, Kim tries to do what no other Korean Internet entrepreneurs were able to achieve ― to make a splash in the U.S. with homegrown ideas.
Biker-turned-businessman
Kim has track records as an elite businessman ― he studied at a special science high school and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), arguably the best ivory tower here in engineering.
After graduating from KAIST, he worked for such foremost domestic Internet outfits as Neowiz and NHN. In particular, he took charge of the important Web crawling at Naver in his late 20s.
As soon as he set up MADsmart, it became an instant hit and was acquired by SK Planet early this year.
But his life was not a bed of roses as he suffered hard times in his late teens.
“After studying a year at KAIST, I felt empty. I just studied very hard all the way to the university and missed many things that people of my age enjoyed. It was a kind of tradeoff between study and play,” he recollected.
“As soon as I finish my freshman year, I stopped studying and experienced a lot of things. I worked on a subway construction site and even roared into town at the dead of night on a motorcycle.”
After spending a couple of years in such a fashion ― the maximum period allowed to do so, he returned to KAIST and graduated from the Daejeon-based university, some 170 kilometers south of Seoul, three years later.
And the time off was not a waste of time.
“If I had kept studying, I would have become a researcher with a master’s degree or a Ph.D. Because of my experience on the road and the construction sites, I thought of doing business on my own,” he said.
Asked whether he wants to succeed in Korea or in the U.S., he did not hesitate to pick the latter.
“If you’re a man, your answer should be the U.S. If I do my best, I think we will be able to succeed. Actually, it’s fun,” he said.