▲ Lee Myeong-woo

The age we are living today tells you you can do your own business as long as you have an idea and skill. The government started to support one man business from 2009 through the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. Yet, many of them still seem to experience difficulty in securing an office. To improve it, the government introduced a support program through privately run one man business centers with 40 to 50% cheaper rent. Yet the problem still lingers and Power Korea looked into the case through CEO Lee Myeong-woo of Metro Business Center.

Starting with the Seogyo-dong center in 2002, Metro added one in Yeoksam-dong the next year, Bundang and Samseong in 2004, Jongno and Gangnam in 2005, Daerim-dong in 2008, Guro and Sinsa/Nonhyeon the next year, Gangbyeon in 2010, and Migeum the next year. 

The excellent management system of Metro proved its value by listing its name in the authorized Creative Startup Business Center of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and of the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development. The services of Metro not only include office space and effective management but also offering accounting, tax and legal services. 

However, there is a problem in this. CEO Lee Myeong-woo of Metro Business Center points out “It is good the government expanded rent-free public centers for one man businesses but that doesn’t mean they need to cut down the support to privately run centers. How can we survive then?”

“Accessibility and business environment are as important for one man businesses as reducing the burden of the rent. In other words, we need to diversify the locations and conditions according to the need of each startup. But I can’t help feeling that the government is rather trying to kill the privately run centers.”
When the Ministry of SMEs and Startups Seoul held the one man business center meeting at the One Man Creative Company Support Center in Bangbae-dong, Seoul, on October 17th, Lee made clear of this complaint alongside a number of improvement suggestions:1) 40% rent support and budget increase for in-house companies of private centers for the year 2019 2) state investment-led technology development and patent application 3) commercialization of the patent and technology through in-house companies of one man business centers 4) check up on business purpose of startups 5)connecting dormant patents to the use of one man businesses. 

Through this, Lee asserted, the government should review the appraisal standard (the current standard applies same to both public and private business centers) and recover the discount rate up to 40% like 2017 in which the occupancy rate of the private centers hit 100% despite the option of choosing free public center (the discount rate is capped in 25% as of 2018). 

Lee also suggested extending the current 2 year in-house period to 3 years if the performance during the 2 year proved to be good and need to support more. Power Korea hopes that Lee’s measures will bare good fruit.

Introducing a new concept Arumiru Pang Pang Mask

Arumiru is a cosmetic brand launched by Arumi. It is rising as a hot skin care brand among those who are seeking simple and convenient skin care products. Aurmi is producing this new cosmetic brand through a MOU with companies that passed the production and quality test of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and the GGMP approval. 

Arumiru Pang Pang Mask in particular is made with 100% pure cotton gauze sheet that can give all in one solution to pore, dead skin cell, moisturizing, whitening and wrinkle. It is offered in three types: Vital Skin, Ultra Aqua Skin and Ultra Calming Skin. The mask is applied with a patented packing technology (No. 10-1491040): you can pop the pouch to blend the extracts for instant absorption; the special coated sheet also maintains moisture for 2 hours. 

Surf on SNS to feel the heat of Arumiru Pang Pang Mask used by Lady Jane, Kang Han-na, and T.E.N. 

Ibeaute changes the way we seat and trim hairs

Ibeaute is a hair salon chair company. CEO Kim Min-jae, who worked as beauty-related marking on Naver and Daum, was not happy with the existing chair used in many hair salons. So he launched Ibeaute and started to introduce multifunctional chairs for hair salon from 2016. 

“My older brother business partner Kim Nam-gyu said one day ‘Why all chairs used in hair salons seem to be the same?’ It was the moment we started thinking about our own business” says Kim.

The two major differences Ibeaute chairs have made are: 1) you can freely attach worktop on and off on the back of the chair 2) you can freely adjust or rotate the chair for easy move; in other words, it has improved work efficiency and saved space. 

For the last 2 years, the Kims analyzed the movements of 1,000 hairdressers and customers in 30 hair salons as well as 4 times of redesigning. Finally, they have set the product launching day around February next year. 

It is notable that Kim has 25 intellectual property rights relating to hair salon chairs and he is ambitious to grow Ibeaute as No.1 hair salon chair manufacturer in the world. 

All-in-one hairdye makes your dying experience easer 

Genpic Cosmetics’ recent introducing of a new concept hairdye is making the job of dying our hair easier than ever. Unlike the exiting inconvenience of using separated hairdye and oxidizing agent, this new hairdye of Genpic Cosmetics put them both in a 500m pumping container to release both simultaneously when pumping. The brush in the package is reusable for protection of environment and is detachable for convenience. Genpic Cosmetics has obtained 5 intellectual property rights in relation with the product. “We will demonstrate its excellence at an exhibition late this year and try to seek a channel to overseas market” says CEO Jun Kim of Genpic Cosmetics in confidence.  

Making software performance optimized 

Coding Power Plant started business as a system software company in 2016 and listed its name in the K-Global 300. System software requires OS, compiler, and development tools and application programs. CEO Kim Hee-du of Coding Power Plant saw the Korea’s lack of manpower and technology development in the field and started business to make better and smarter compiler tools with Korean technique. Coding Power Plant has achieved improved performance of fisheye revision algorithm and developed battery power saving technology for black box recording. “In order to optimize software, we use assembly language and apply part of parallel transaction technology. This can improve the performance by 10 to 70% but several times better when applied the parallel transaction” says Kim. 

Finding hot places and things on SNS at #brand

Hashtag (#) is changing the way we search and mark things due to the ever advancing SNS platforms. A social media company Taglab’s #brand magazine in this respect is a rising SNS tag book that focuses on delivering user message and experience on specific things. It targets unspecified individual consumers who can help build natural fellowship on a certain person, product or region. CEO Jang Moon-ah of Taglab says “I will include more cities and areas alongside hot places and brands. I hope my business can help activate regional economy.” 

Burden free yet effective market research solutions for SMEs

To give better and fast decision making in this rapidly changing 4th industrial revolution, market research is a must. It is required that the head of marketing should catch the market trend and bring up appropriate measures in speed. The problem, however, is that many small and mid-sized businesses are finding hard where to start this market research or cannot even afford to do it. JNC realized this difficulty long time ago and has been offering burden free yet effective market research solutions to SMEs through precise data gathering and optimum analysis methods. 

There are many ways of doing market research: face to face, online survey, product survey, telephone survey, discussion, group talks, mystery shopping, home visiting, workshop and observation. JNC gives an analysis first on the purpose of the market research from the client and picks up the right method among above mentioned to finally draw most effective marketing process. 

The brand communication of JNC is especially good for its attention to detail screening on market trend, new product and service development, maximizing sales, and checkup and improvement on distribution and customer response. 

All specialists of JNC have a degree or two in each related field and have extensive knowledge and experience. An official of JNC says “We confidently say that our solutions are professional and effective and we always make the most of our partner companies’ resources to bring the best solution possible.”

강진성 기자  wlstjdxp@naver.com