[Inside Chodong] Kim Bongjin's 'Empty Seat'

"We have steadily developed our interest in culture just as much as innovating food and delivery through IT technology," they said. Then, they decided to discontinue the service, judging that "the opportunities for creating new markets were limited." This is about ‘Manhwakyung,’ the webtoon platform operated by Woowa Brothers, the company behind Baedal Minjok. When asked why a delivery app company was running a webtoon service, the answer was ‘culture,’ but the reason given for ending the service was ‘market.’ Since culture is not a charitable endeavor, market considerations cannot be ignored. However, the gap between these two explanations is hard to bridge.

Woowa Brothers decided to maintain the Manhwakyung service only until May 2024. Since its launch in August 2019, it has been praised for striving to build an independent platform ecosystem for four years. In the domestic webtoon market, which is centered around services from the two major portal companies, Manhwakyung sought differentiation through everyday small pleasures and non-sensational content. There were also achievements. The Manhwakyung app’s monthly users approach 800,000. A year ago, it was 200,000, so it has increased significantly. The service started with 12 works at launch, but in about four years, it grew to have around 180 contracted artists and over 200 cumulative works.

However, Baemin is now informing these artists about the platform service termination and is in the process of settling contracts. The market structure, still centered on large webtoon platforms, has not changed from four years ago to now. Is the market really the reason for shutting down the service at this point? Manhwakyung was never structured to generate profits from the start. If anything has changed, it is the absence of founder Kim Bong-jin, who made such attempts possible. Some analyze that after he stepped down, and with the delivery market already facing difficulties, the company began to give up on content businesses that were not clearly profitable.

From the early days of Baemin’s service, Woowa Brothers carried out various cultural events such as developing and distributing Korean fonts, publishing the food documentary magazine ‘Magazine F,’ supporting indie musicians, and hosting the Baemin New Year Literary Contest. When asked, "Why does a delivery app do that?" Baemin explained, "We are trying various things in the sense of delivering something filled with happiness to people." These diverse attempts were collectively called ‘Baemindaum’ (Baemin-ness). This became the competitive edge that allowed Baemin to secure the number one spot in the chaotic domestic delivery app market. For example, in its early startup days in 2012, Baemin developed the ‘Hanna font’ domestically and used it in various marketing campaigns. When entering Vietnam in 2019, they expected this strategy to work and developed the Baemin Daniel font alongside their local expansion, achieving success. The strength that has kept Baemin supported despite any criticism, even as the market leader by a large margin, is said to come from this ‘Baemindaum,’ according to both inside and outside the company.

Baemin waves off any connection between the webtoon service termination and Chairman Kim. Regarding cultural content, they say they will continue new attempts, such as recently releasing music tracks and steadily launching fonts. Baemindaum is not something built by Kim Bong-jin alone but an intangible asset carefully constructed by all Woowa Brothers members so far. It is now the responsibility of the current management to ensure that future choices by Woowa Brothers are not seen as Kim’s ‘empty seat.’

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