A Conversation on Regional Language Content: Kocowa CEO KunHee Park (Part 1)

There’s quite a bit of white space in the domain of regional language content.

KunHee talks about Korean content. It should give you ideas that you can extrapolate into other languages.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start from the very beginning. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

KunHee Park: I was born in Busan, South Korea. I majored in industrial engineering. I founded companies when I was still a university student. I dreamed about all the good entrepreneur experiences when I was a student during the dot-com bubble at the end of the 90’s.

Sramana Mitra: In the first dot-com bubble, you were not an entrepreneur yet?

KunHee Park: Not yet. I was struggling to get a VC with my plan. Luckily, I found the opportunity to build a company. My colleague made a platform company.

Sramana Mitra: Platform for what?

KunHee Park: It was a translation e-commerce platform. At that time, we could see the price differences across countries. When I translate English to Korean, it was $10 per paper. If I translate Russian to English in Korea, it’s over $100. We failed. I believed too much in technology. I knew nothing. I really relied on technology advancement much more than the business model.

Sramana Mitra: How many years did you work on this project?

KunHee Park: Almost three years.

Sramana Mitra: What year does this bring us up to?

KunHee Park: We terminated in 2001.

Sramana Mitra: What did you do after that?

KunHee Park: I just came back to university. I knew that I knew nothing. I had to study and get more experience. I graduated from university and entered one of Korea’s big companies as a system integrator. They are focused on specific industry in each division. I tried to learn all the industries at once – e-commerce, fashion, military, governance.

Sramana Mitra: You’ve collected broad experience through this system integrator company.

KunHee Park: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: How long did you work there?

KunHee Park: Almost four years.

Sramana Mitra: That brings us to 2005?

KunHee Park: 2006.

Sramana Mitra: What happens then?

KunHee Park: This company managed me as a core employee. I took part in many special workshops or trainings. I could meet many strategy people. When I was designated as such member, I started talking to the strategy person and asked about our future in the company. They said, “I don’t know. It depends on the Chairman.”

I was very frustrated. I decided that I should be globalized. This domestic company is very small. I looked at the industries one by one and concluded that Content is the future. There are various types of content. Video content is number one. I needed a little bit more exposure to this industry. I joined PayTV as part of the news data system (NDS).

This segment is part 1 in the series : A Conversation on Regional Language Content: Kocowa CEO KunHee Park
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