INTERVIEW Online community operator empowers women in startups

Kim Ji-young, the founder of Facebook community Startup Women in Korea / Courtesy of Startup Women in Korea

By Jun Ji-hye

Kim Ji-young believes that community is the most important factor for the success of female entrepreneurs in Korea.

She noted the oftentimes insufficient support systems and the huge burden of a woman's role in traditional Korean society as obstacles faced by women who run businesses.

Based on these beliefs, she created a Facebook group, “Startup Women in Korea,” in November 2017, aiming to bring together female founders of startups as well as those working for them.

“I thought the community was necessary as female entrepreneurs appeared to lack interaction between juniors and seniors,” she said in an interview with The Korea Times. “I wanted to help young female entrepreneurs share the knowhow and experiences of other businesswomen to reduce the amount of trial and error.”

Kim said Startup Women in Korea is operated with a vision of “We are empowering women in startups to improve the Korean startup ecosystem.

“We welcome any female workers in startups regardless of their positions and locations,” she said.

In a bid to help female entrepreneurs develop human networks more effectively, the community holds a lunch meeting once a month.

“During the meeting, community members talk about the difficulties they faced while setting up or working for startups,” she said. “They mostly said systems or manuals in operating startups are insufficient, in addition to the lack of a welfare system.”

Kim said the community has now become a venue in which various startups form collaborations in promoting their content. The community sometimes becomes an online job site as well.

“I feel rewarded helping startups at an early stage,” she said. “I also feel great responsibility for offering a venue in which the information exchanged can change the direction of a person's life.”

Among the roughly 100 Facebook communities worldwide financially supported by the company under the Facebook Community Leadership Program, Startup Women in Korea is the only Korean group to have made the cut.

Facebook runs the program in a bid to nurture various online communities that can drive meaningful changes and positively contribute to the global village.

Kim said the number of members of Startup Women in Korea has reached 2,000 as of April.

“The community operates various small meetings to discuss a variety of subjects such as marketing, planning and organizational culture,” she said. “We will continue to actively form alliances with startups and hold offline events and conferences to further boost communication between female entrepreneurs.”