Google's 'ChangGoo' programs gives startups a boost

From left, Petpeotalk CEO Kwon Ryun-hwan, Zackdang Company CEO Yoon Jung-ha and Medility CEO Park Sang-eon pose for a photo at Google Korea's office in southern Seoul on Thursday. [GOOGLE KOREA]

Nearly seven out of 10 startups participating in Google Korea's mentoring program successfully branched out overseas, the company said Thursday.

It helped some 460 participating startups to attract a total of 118 billion won ($87.9 million) during the five-year period since Google Korea first rolled out the program in 2019.

“ChangGoo,” a compound word of Google and the Korean word for starting a business, is sponsored by Google, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development and began in 2019 to support early startups in marketing, consulting, and securing investments.

“On average, startups who participated in our initiative from 2019 to 2021 reaped the following achievements — downloads of their apps surged 140 percent, revenues by 62 percent, the number of startups who entered overseas markets jumped 69 percent and attracted investments totaled 118 billion won,” Shin Kyung-ja, head of marketing at Google Korea said at a press event in Google Korea’s office in southern Seoul on Thursday.

Alongside the ChangGoo program, Google Korea hosts various events providing up-and-coming startups the opportunity to enter the global market on the back of Google's networks. It regularly hosts alumni nights for entrepreneurs who previously participated in the ChangGoo program to form connections and provides a three-month training program for early-stage startups by pairing them with Google developers as their mentors.

"Particularly in 2023, we will work together with Google Japan to introduce Japanese experts to Korean developers as they roll out their services in the neighboring country," Shin said.

This year, the ChangGoo program supports 100 startups, up 25 percent on year compared to last year’s 80 companies.

The unanimous consensus reached by three startup CEOs participating in this year’s program is that ChangGoo is a great gateway to promote their companies overseas.

“Our goal is to expand our app Zamface to Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam,” said Yoon Jung-ha, whose Zackdang Company services the beauty recommendation app. Zamface recommends best-fit cosmetic products by defining users’ “personal color,” a beauty trend in Korea that categorizes what colors suit people the best based on their physical characteristics.

“So far, Zamface has accumulated 3.5 million users and small- and medium-sized enterprises like us face hurdles when we want to expand our service overseas because there aren’t a lot of marketing tools or sources we can utilize outside of Korea. This is why we are hopeful we can utilize Google’s infrastructure through this program.”

Medility, which services the pill-counting app Pilleye, hopes to enter the North American market.

“By taking a photo of the pills with a smartphone, the app uses artificial intelligence to instantly count the pills in the photos,” Medility's Park Sang-eon said. “Counting pills was something that had to be done manually and we’ve developed this app to change that. We have over 400,000 subscribers from 230 countries and one of the most frequent feedbacks we receive from pharmacists is how much time they are saving through Pilleye.”

Pepeotalk’s Kwon Ryun-hwan, whose pet monitoring app Dogibo probes a universal sentiment — people’s love for their pets — estimates the app will gain a solid overseas following.

Dogibo uses AI to recognize and analyze pets’ behaviors via smartphones.

“Domestically, Dogibo’s monthly active users grew 35 percent and the retention rate of our paid subscribers is 50 percent,” Kwon said. “I believe that people’s love for their pets, and the anxiety when they have to leave their pets alone in their homes, is ubiquitous. Through Google, we hope to increase our revenue globally to attract more investments this year.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]