COMEUP 2020- the three-day festival for Korean startups and global startups ended on November 21st successfully. The biggest startup event in South Korea was held virtually this year due to the pandemic.
The event organized multiple conferences, festivals, competitions, workshops, startup pitches through multiple-channels. It was attended by world-reknowned experts, business leaders, investors, startup founders, aspiring entrepreneurs, media and general audiences. The event was made available live on YouTube, Naver TV, Kakao TV’s ComeUp channel, and a link on the www.kcomeup.com.
Special Session: Talk with Alberto Savoia – ‘Build the right it’
Alberto Savoia, a serial entrepreneur, author and founder and chief Pretotyper – Pretotype Labs LLC, gave a insightful talks to all startup founders, aspiring entreprenuers and attendees at the COMEUP 2020 event. Alberto talked about his experience as a startup founder and the challenges he faced. He described ways to overcome failures through his personal examples. He talked about his journey from Italy to USA to being part of Google and starting his own businesses.
Alberto took the leaf from his authored book ‘The Right it’ and gave seven mantras to startup founders.
- Obey the law of market failure – He said that most new ideas fail in the market and that should not be a deterrent to pursue success.
- Make sure you are building the right it, before you build it right – which meant to ensure that one doesn’t build a product which is wrong for the market and then it is certain to fail.
- Don’t get lost in Thoughtland – According to Alberto, it is not a good idea to get caught up in opinions, feedbacks from others, if you feel strongly about your product. He gave example of ‘twitter’, which was once not thought of as a great idea.
- Trust only your own data – There are many ways to collect data from market for launching products and ideas, but the best method is to rely on your own and collect data on own.
- If you buy it we will build it – don’t build pretotype it – Pretotype is word coined by Alberto, which means to not to spend fortune building any product before it is pretend tested with users.
- Say it with numbers – Numbers always attract users and they should be relevant.
- Think global test local – Every entrepreneur should aspire to take their product or service globally, but not before it has achieved success in local market.
Alberto Savio spoke in detail about all the seven features he believes are relevant for every entrepreneur in any period. His experiences, knowledge and advice are all available through his book and website.
The Youth BizCool festival culminated at the COMEUP 2020 startup event. The festival backed by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups started in 2002 as a youth entrepreneurship project that supports various entrepreneurship activities such as startup clubs and hands-on activities. The ministry is keen on cultivating entrepreneurial skills at an early age, as seen by KISED giving 6.7 billion won to around 495 schools. The BizCool festival dubbed ‘Up with Online!’ connected teenagers and schools from various parts of the world through online non-face-to-face channels.
The festival on day three at COMEUP 2020, was under the theme ‘developing entrepreneurship.’ It was hosted by Park Jong-pil, chairman of the National Bizcool Teachers’ Association and Yoon Hyung-Bin. The hosts connected with several elementary school students and teachers and guided them on how to make DIY Orgels and work together in teams. According to Park Jong-pil, “The purpose of the festival was to develop creativity, problem-solving skills, and to help the students in finding their paths. It also helped students develop teamwork and ethical mindset.”
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups presented excellent young startups that will lead the non-face-to-face era in its COMEUP 2020 special events with the ChungChung competition. The ChungChung contest seeks to recruite talent in entrepreneurship in non-face-to-face ideas in six areas – Smart healthcare, education, smart business and finance, living consumption, entertainment, logistics and distribution.
Companies participating in the competition benefitted from the TIPS and KISED programs and stood a chance of winning support for the initial commercialization of up to 120 million won. The competition saw its highest number of applicants this year of 758 teams and 60 teams were selected to take part in it. In Day 2 of the competition, held on final day of COMEUP 2020 only 24 teams participated by pitching their startup and products to a panel of specialists including Minister of SMEs and Startups Park Young-Sun. These startups included Holaplan, Bolt & Nut, Nine House, Briphy, Fusiung, Fitmed, among others.
Finally the winners were announced with the awards ceremony presided by Minister Park that saw Tyroscope, Doodlin, D.A.L, Witty, and Coconut Siler teams win the grand prize of 120 million won in their respective fields. Medipal.inc, Breeding, Chun Myun &Co, Fusiung, and Chon Hyun won the excellence awards for their various fields. Minister Park reiterated the importance of the competition stating “The current Korean startup ecosystem has many players and not many conductors. The ministry plans to create these conductors to guide small ventures and startup in the ecosystem.”
K-Startup Challenge in COMEUP2020 featured pitches from the 25 final teams chosen in the Demo Day event held on day 2 of the competition. The winning teams received settlement support and grants for their success with the day three K-Startup Challenge serving the purpose of exposing the startups and their outstanding innovations to possible investors. The challenge has attracted over $1.2 billion in investments from local and foreign companies, with more than 881 startups landing a co-operation deal with larger firms in the market. Among the startups that presented their pitch on day three were LabNote, Geo AR, Tatum, Problem, Imtech, Easy breath, and 19 other companies.
Geo AR, a location-based augmented reality company, presented its Geo AR technology, which allows developers to add their digital content to geographical points of interest. Tatum, a security management startup, pitched their AI-guided security management system, which helped companies secure vital assets such as their accounts, products, and technology. The startup’s security management allowed businesses to secure information in all its forms, protect the confidentiality and integrity of company data, and actively respond to any security threat. Tatum tests a company’s security system and provides a handwritten report on the security issue identified and how it can be resolved to ensure the data’s security. Im tech presented its metalized super engineering plastics, which would solve metal plating problems present in the maritime industry, aviation, and manufacturing industries. The metalized super engineering plastics are as strong as aluminum but 50% lighter, allowing companies to save as much as 40% on material costs and increase productivity by 30%.
There was a founder networking session for participating startups where they meet senior startup founders. Yeon Hee Kim, Senior Partner/Managing Director of BCG Korea held a Q& A session and real-time chatting session with startups. The video promotions and pitching of COMEUP STARS global and Korean startups was also accessible for all attendees and through commercial online-exhibition in alliance with Gongyoung Shopping.
Koreatechdesk.com covered the entire 3-day event of COMEUP 2020 for its global readers and will bring in more stories about emerging startups, so do read our COMEUP section for more. Those interested in the COMEUP event and Korean startup ecosystem can check www.kcomeup.com website or follow their YouTube Channel.
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