[W Frontier] Kim Mi-gyun "I Started a Social Venture to Reduce Malicious Comments"

2021 Asia Women Leaders Forum 10th Mentor
Interview with Kim Mi-gyun, CEO of Cizion

Zero sales in early days, lived in goshiwon and worked part-time jobs
Now thriving with 1,400 client companies
Enjoys counseling juniors on their concerns as a hobby and specialty
Companions more important than startup items or money
Women entrepreneurship requires resolving childcare burdens first

Kim Mi-gyun, CEO of CJON, is being interviewed on the 4th at JustCo, a shared office in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jihwan] "Rather than thinking about making a lot of money, I started with the hope that no one would suffer from malicious comments spreading online." The year 2007 was when the issue of malicious online comments emerged as a serious social problem. Kim Migyun, CEO of Seezion, who was studying journalism and mass communication at university and dreaming of joining a media company, began contemplating ways to reduce malicious comments and started developing technology, marking her first step as an entrepreneur.

Seezion is Korea's first social venture. It began in 2007 as a university student startup club at Yonsei University's Venture Incubating Center but has now grown into a company with about 1,400 clients. The core of the business is the social comment service called ‘LiveRe.’ LiveRe provides a service that allows users to leave comments on specific sites such as media outlets and shopping malls using social network service (SNS) IDs like Facebook. It eliminated the hassle of having to sign up for each site to leave comments. It also automatically filters out malicious comments. On one website where the proportion of malicious comments reached 68% last year, the rate dropped to the 2% range after applying LiveRe.

◇Three years with ‘0 won’ in sales... Instant noodles as stock in a goshiwon room

Seezion did not have a smooth start. Focusing more on increasing social value through the service than on growing the company's size meant no revenue was generated. The company's sales were ‘0 won’ for the first three years. CEO Kim lived in a goshiwon room in Sinchon costing 300,000 won per month for three and a half years. With no money, her stock was mostly instant noodles. Kim recalled, "I did part-time jobs like tutoring and video production whenever I could. I earned about 1 million won a month, and after deducting 300,000 to 400,000 won for living expenses, I used the rest entirely for company operations."

After enduring for three years, light began to appear. In July 2010, a media company became the first client, spreading word of mouth, and soon contracts with over 100 media companies rapidly increased sales. However, crises continued even as the business grew. The toughest moment was when the funding dried up, making it difficult to pay employees on time. "Payday was the 25th of every month, but in October 2013, I lost sleep worrying about not having enough balance to pay the salaries of 15 employees. I reached out to acquaintances, and one of them generously lent me 100 million won without any conditions, helping us overcome the crisis. After that, investment attraction went well, and with that funding, Seezion grew successfully."

Kim Mi-gyun, CEO of Seegion, is being interviewed on the 4th at JustCo, a shared office in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

◇Hobby is ‘listening to juniors’ concerns’

Since CEO Kim founded Seezion in 2007, she has become a veteran manager with 14 years of experience in her mid-30s. This is why she is called the ‘pioneer’ in the startup world despite her young age. Because she has more experience than her age suggests, many juniors line up to share their worries. "The questions juniors ask are actually quite similar. They ask whether they should part ways with a co-founder after a dispute, how to hire good employees, how to increase sales and reduce costs, from A to Z. I try my best to answer them. Spending 3 to 4 hours a week like this has become a hobby at some point."

CEO Kim advises university students and young people dreaming of starting a business to first find a partner. While finding a business item is important, she emphasizes that who you work with is even more crucial. "For a business to succeed, you need three things: an item, money, and people. If you have people, the item and money tend to follow." She advises, "If you have a problem awareness like mine, wanting to reduce malicious comments, you should continuously exchange ideas with people interested in this topic and concretize your ideas."

◇Parenting is the biggest hurdle

From observing numerous female entrepreneurs for over ten years, CEO Kim feels that parenting is the most difficult barrier to overcome. She believes this is a common challenge not only for female entrepreneurs but for all working mothers. She said, "Many female entrepreneurs overcome numerous business difficulties but often cannot overcome the parenting hurdle. I have seen many cases where women gave up or delegated their companies because of parenting." Although she is not yet a mother herself, she pointed out that environments allowing women to focus on work without worrying about parenting, even temporarily, need to be created, and the perception that parenting is solely a woman’s responsibility must change somewhat.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.