Press

My entrepreneurship started from travel. It was when I was staying at a small Tibetan temple on the outskirts of Brisbane, Australia. I was traveling for about a year, and I was torn between regret and resignation, wondering why I was putting myself through such hardship. Then I saw people filled with happiness. A German grandfather traveling around the world caring for sick people, South African couples earning decent livelihood while pursuing meaningful lives according to their beliefs. While I couldn't fully understand their lives, I suddenly became curious about ways to earn money while finding fulfillment, and I learned that 'social enterprise' could be the answer. Then I returned to Korea and visited social entrepreneurs throughout the country. I didn't have sufficient education, experience, money, or connections, and it wasn't something I could do alone. I started talking with the most trustworthy friends from my school days, and we are still together on this challenging local journey. Looking back at my initial entrepreneurship phase, I remember military-style roll calls and books. I started each day with the morning alarm in a 170,000 won monthly rent studio, emphasizing the power of reading with '1 book per day', and went through business books. Eight years passed as I challenged chocolate 3D printers, share houses, and shared reading rooms. The harvest from the past 8 years was 'self-reliance'. Literally, after the chocolate 3D printer business where time melted away like chocolate, the share house and shared reading room gave me confidence and big dreams. There were crises, but we continued our ventures with money we earned ourselves. It became the driving force that freed us from worrying about others' eyes. On the other hand, experiencing various startups clearly meant there were 'limitations'. It's very difficult for an 'underdog' startup founder, whom no one expects to win, to keep winning in this game. When a business succeeds, benchmarking happens in the market, and to overcome this, we need additional capital, manpower, and capabilities. But we didn't have the strength to fight such external environments. The reason startup teams seek investment is likely connected to this environment. Since the team was formed based on friendship, the team we created with like-minded friends easily encountered practical difficulties such as lack of expertise and inefficiency. However, it's not what I hope for as an entrepreneur for our team, which has worked together so well, to take a different path. Now, after 8 years have passed. I've learned that passion alone isn't easy, and I've reached an age to discuss stability, but I still worry about survival. Such concerns bring frustration. Eventually, I felt that my execution capabilities were the only breakthrough. Small companies utilizing each person's competencies growing through independent decision-making, ensuring autonomous lives, and transforming into structures that can support one another. So for 10 months now, I've been conducting one project monthly to navigate through small-scale business challenges. Among quite a lot of failures, the businesses that have endured well so far are Gogae Seodong and Busan Coding School. Gogae Seodong is a space upcycling project utilizing abandoned empty spaces in 'Seodong', a neighborhood no one visits. Using idle spaces, we operate various spaces including Seodong Kitchen, Seodong Cinema, and Seodong Inn. While January had only 7 visits, October reached 95 visits, and we confirmed that 1,328 visitors came to this neighborhood through the Gogae Seodong project over 10 months. We are proving that even abandoned spaces in stalled neighborhoods can sustain profitable businesses if well utilized. Also, Busan Coding School is an educational service for elementary, middle, and high school students. The importance and necessity of coding education was highlighted through media, but professional coding education had not developed as much as in the Seoul metropolitan area. Thus, we started Busan Coding School to provide better quality coding education. While May had only 2 learners, October reached about 50. There are still mountains of tasks to resolve, and I'm dealing with various problems daily. But if there's something the past 8 years taught me, it's that nothing is perfect from the start. Looking only at the space startup field currently in progress, we learned that it's important to minimize initial costs and go through sufficient customer validation. Starting small and growing gradually. Until the day when everyone in the harsh local startup scene can live with independence and stability, until the day when I can confidently say I'm living a meaningful life, I will continue to strive forward. By Song Byung-geun, CEO of Creeplay Currently CEO of Creeplay Co., Ltd., introducing space startups centered in Busan. We showcase share house 'Song's Ville', shared reading room 'Blue Dot Lounge', and 'Gogae Seodong Project' for space upcycling, while serving as an Underdogs partner coach and dedicated mentor at the Social Enterprise Research Institute. Prior to a world tour planned for January 2025, I'm an entrepreneur seeking answers for our independence and survival. I've founded over 20 different spaces and am challenging 'ordinary entrepreneurship by ordinary people'. ※ Local Game Changer is a local press corps jointly conducted by Startup Recipe and Underdogs, introducing various local startup ecosystem voices. Local Game Changer Starting entrepreneurship education in 2015 with the goal of 'discovering good entrepreneur colleagues', we changed the one-way lecture-focused entrepreneurship education to practice-oriented coaching education. As a result, as of 2022, we have produced over 10,000 entrepreneurship students, 'Underdogs Alumni'. We believe that advancing the world to a better place is 'innovation', and that innovation is created by 'entrepreneurs'.