Korean startup Tenqube co-CEO Sol Kim about creating Gomst app, the ‘one-stop-shop’ for fashion

Korean startup Tenqube co-CEO Sol Kim is helping all mobile phone shoppers with his startup’s GOMST app that makes for a one-stop shopping destination. Sol and his co-founder KwangJin Lee were software engineers working with the equities teams in the IT sector. Both founders learned the basis of data and soon started Gomst app as a business model that can handle different data sets.

The Gomst app is a one-stop-shop for all your mobile fashion shopping needs with access to more than 1000 online stores and over 1 million products. The app uses AR technology for user preference data to make customized brand and product recommendations. Its camera makes it easy to check out the fitting of the fashionable buys.

Sol Kim talks to koreatechdesk.com about how he got motivated to start Gomst, their product history, and the company’s plans amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

1. Please tell me about your background and wWhat motivated you to get started with your company?

Co-founder and co-CEO Lee and I met in a securities company. We both had graduated from engineering school, and he and I worked in the equities team for IT sectors. Working with data to extract information was a daily routine. Naturally, we often discussed possible business models that can be done with different sets of data, and that is how we started.

2. What is your current main product, and can you share any previous product pivot story to the present work?

We are currently focusing our efforts on Gomst. Gomst is a Global Fashion Discover & Curation service for mobile users. We focus on personalizing fashion discovery from over 1 million products. Fashion is an imagery industry, rather than descriptive. You can’t expect to find a “chic dress” by searching the keyword “chic dress” on search engines.

You can do that with electronics, but not with fashion. Also, there are many great brands – but even the savviest shoppers know the only handful. So the question is, how do you find a brand or product or style that you don’t know? So we focused on personalizing the discovery experience based on the user’s preference. With our proprietary engine, we analyze and label all products with style labels. We understand the user’s preferred style and make a customized brand or product recommendations to users.
Our earlier product, Visual personal finance manager, is one of the pioneering products in the personal finance manager field. It automatically labels the user’s transaction records to create visualized reports and provide financial advice. Gomst is built on top of this experience.

3. What is the market opportunity for your app?
The fashion e-commerce market is enormous. It accounts for 30% of the total e-commerce. In most economically advanced countries, it is the largest segment in e-commerce. We see this whole market as our opportunity. Our central target regions are the US, France R, and the UK.

4. What’s your business model, and how have you grown your revenue? What strategy worked best?
Our business model is based on sales commission from our traffic. But we are not just into the traffic business. We are now talking to brands for direct shipping and ways to increase global presence.

5. What are your milestones for the next round? And what are your goals for the future?
Our goal for Gomst is get 700K active users by the end of 2021. We plan to raise our next round along the way. While Gomst’s Fashion AR feature (Virtual Try-on) is still in the early phase, we will continue to invest our resources in AI and AR for fashion.

6. How do you handle this COVID-19 outbreak situation for your company’s survival in the future?

In this unprecedented event that affects all aspects of lives all over the world, our most sincere thoughts go out to everyone. While it is difficult for all of us, some of our affiliates are working hard to meet rapidly changing consumer needs. Working with the affiliates, GOMST provides a Virtual Try-on to users via the user’s AR Camera. Just like they would at an offline mall, users can try on the items they like, virtually and “un-tact,” and share it with their friends.

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