[Startup Lecture Series #1] ‘Doing big things with a small team’ – Interview with Dreamary 

The first KUBS Startup Lecture Series of 2020 was held on April 28th (Tue). Startup Lecture Series is run and supported by Seungmyungho Center for Entrepreneurship Education, which opens various kinds of lectures with CEO mentors from KUBS. For April’s lecture, Dreamary (Gunwoo Shim and Taehoon Lee, two co-founders), a platform that connects hair designers and customers made a lecture through online, due to the concerns of ongoing COVID-19.

(From the left) Gunwoo Shim, Taehoon Lee, Co-founder of Dreamary

[Part I. Q: Gunwoo Shim A: Taehoon Lee]

Q. Please describe the overall service of Dreamary.

A: Dreamary is a platform between the hair designers who need practice opportunities and the customers who want reasonable prices for hair services. We initiated our beta service at the end of 2018, and has launched version 1.0 since the mid of 2019. Currently, more than 60,000 users are enjoying our platform, and our monthly sales has reached around 100 million won recently. 

Q. What was your main motivation to start up a business?

A: The first incentive that made me dream of starting a business was a “Demo Day” video clip produced by the Start-up CEOs in Netherlands. After watching this video, I sent an email to the CEOs that came out at the video with a request of meetings. Apparently, one of them accepted my request and that made me fly to Netherland right away. I asked him how to begin a startup and what to do, but the first question he asked me was “Do you have a family to serve?”. “No”, I replied, but then he asked me again why don’t you start business right now. The point was that after having family members to support, it becomes much harder to make an adventure of doing business. After that conversation, I just decided to start my own business.

Q. Could you introduce your decision-making criteria?

Before, I believed that there would be an absolute criterion for every decision. That made me attach on the problem, and made the problems difficult to solve. However, what I realized while growing up with Dreamary is that there’s no single answer to solve every issue. For example, I remember one marketing team member arguing an idea that seem unfeasible according to the past experience and criteria. But our team made a bold decision to proceed it and that became a game changing moment in our service. I believe that the core beauty of startup is making experiments. There would be no progress in venture firms without repeated experiments. 

Q. What was the most memorable experience while operating a business?

The best memory was the time when we got the first investment from the markets. At the beginning, we made various efforts to receive support from the government and the campus society, but the best result was the financial valuation given from market side: company value 1billion won (April 2019).  

Q. What’s your perspective in undergraduates doing start-ups?

I support people doing business in their earliest career. It’s really good to make success but even if the result turns out bad, the experience of adventures will become a huge asset for the future. Furthermore, KUBS students have extra advantages in start-up fields, thanks to the support from KUBS Start-up stations and Crimson Start-up center. There’s no reason for KU student dreaming start up business to hesitate a challenge.

[Part II. Q: Taehoon Lee A: Gunwoo Shim]

Q. What’s your primary principle when it comes to running a business?

The shape of company always varies, and the culture changes all the time. Therefore, I always strive to come up with the most efficient way to prepare for the changes. In case of Dreamary, we have our own decision-making process which is separated by 4 steps of ‘Execution level’ (E1 to E4). Projects classified as E1 are signed by CEO, and E4 by each department head; CEO only takes role of an advisor for them. It makes the team work much efficient, and also puts autonomy into each team member.

Q. Could you share some interesting memory while developing the company?

For a while since the team establishment, we failed most of the startup competitions that we applied. 8 months later, we found that we were nominated as a social venture candidate supported by LH. Accidently, after checking that news in the elevator at KUBS main building, we cried out loud, throwing ourselves into the professor who was standing in front of us. The aid was about 10million won, and it was very important amount of support for us at that time because we could sustain our business without paying monthly wages to the staff. 

And another memorable story is that in November 2018, right after we launched our platform, we were wondering how many customers will book our service at the opening day. Expecting a huge number of orders, our team made a bet for the number of customers, but the result was shocking. I had placed my bet for a lowest number for a joke; but I won the bet at last. We realized the importance of communication with the customers and keep developing based on the feedbacks, rather than making high expectation on the service opening.

Q. Please advise to the students who are to start up a business.

A: (Gunwoo Shim, CEO) Reading books helps a lot for the start-ups. Basically, I’m not used to reading books, but now I love reading and even books like principles of marketing became one of my favorites. Start a new habit of reading! 

(Taehoon Lee, CEO) I know it’s a stereotyped argument, but “Do not make what you want, make what your customers want” is a most important key in business. You have to listen carefully to what customers are saying. I think the most significant component that made Dreamary grow is the habit of listening to the demands of hair designers and customers.