Press

Underdogs CEO Jo Sang-rae: 'Making the World Better is Innovation, and that Innovation Starts from Entrepreneurs' CEO Jo Sang-rae of Underdogs recently met with Maeil Business Newspaper and stated, 'We want to become the company that best nurtures entrepreneurs who create change.' Underdogs is a startup education specialist company established in 2015. Since its founding, the company has trained over 10,000 graduates through its entrepreneurship education programs. CEO Jo has experience operating 'WaterFarm,' a social venture that provides water-saving solutions. He joined Underdogs in 2016 with the goal of creating more social enterprises that can serve as a social safety net. Underdogs moves away from rigid lecture-based entrepreneurship education and aims for practice-oriented coaching. CEO Jo explained, 'In the past, entrepreneurship education often consisted of special lectures on entrepreneurial spirit, marketing theory, and business plan writing, but these often had little direct connection to aspiring entrepreneurs' actual startups. Underdogs has coaches who lead participants to concretize business ideas and develop them into actual business models.' Recently, Underdogs has been focusing on nurturing local small business owners and young entrepreneurs. They believe that by having these entrepreneurs settle in their regions based on startup ideas utilizing local specialties and culture, regional decline issues can be addressed. In Gunsan, where a major automaker withdrew, they have nurtured media and tourism content companies to fill empty houses. In Jeongeup, they have supported popup store-style shared shop operations and online commerce consulting for local small business owners to revitalize the area. CEO Jo stated, 'Each region has its own unique cultural characteristics,' adding 'We are nurturing over 100 partner coaches nationwide.' Companies seeking collaboration with Underdogs are increasing. They operated 'Hana Social Venture University' with Hana Financial Group and 10 universities nationwide to develop regional entrepreneurs. They also nurtured venture companies with companies like Aegis Asset Management to create social value through building energy efficiency and discovering unused content. CEO Jo conveyed, 'Initially, companies showed interest from a corporate social responsibility perspective, but recently they have also collaborated to create new business models internally or nurture internal ventures.' Underdogs plans to launch 'Lightclub,' a data-driven mutual learning platform for entrepreneurs, by year-end. The plan is to operate a community where entrepreneurs can help each other grow. Entrepreneurship education for teenagers is also in preparation for January next year. CEO Jo stated, 'Lightclub will be operated as a beta version for 2-3 months after launch and improved accordingly,' adding 'We are also preparing to showcase entrepreneurship education for office workers next year.'