The Guamegi Startup Competition (Guamegi) is a program hosted by POSTECH’s Research and Business Development Foundation (PRBDF) to facilitate the development and realization of creative business ideas. This program is open to all members of POSTECH; any inspired Postechian can sign up for Guamegi to benefit from all the goods that it has to offer. To gain a detailed glimpse into the program, The Postech Times interviewed Ryoo Ji-ho (ME 17), a participant and awardee of the 2019 Guamegi.

Why did you sign up for Guamegi?
Tech start-ups require a person or a group with technology to commercialize it and generate revenue. Just having state-of-the-art technology does not guarantee success; an eye for the market is also needed. As an engineer, I believe that any technology that is not needed by the market is dead technology. Hence, I signed up for Guamegi to gain market insight and also to find out how the items that my team have been developing would be accepted into the market.

What was the best thing about Guamegi?
Personally, I think that the two-day camp was the pinnacle of the program. During those two days, I was able to craft my business items into actual products that customers would love and buy. I learned how to analyze the market and use it to improve my products. Lectures on how to create good presentation material were also highly beneficial as it could be applied to any other context such as school presentations.

Any difficulties?
Getting rid of my original thoughts was the hardest. When I conducted market research on the items that I originally thought of, in most cases, the items were actually not that desired by the customers. Modifying those unwanted items into more desirable ones, or even coming up with new ideas was the most difficult process for me.

Any advice to future Guamegi participants?
Engineers often think that the technology they are researching is highly needed in the market. Unfortunately, this is not true most of the time. Even if the technology is highly innovative and groundbreaking, if it cannot change people’s lives in a positive way, then people will not pay for it. It could indeed be great scientific research, but any research that is not profitable cannot be regarded as useful research in the engineering world. This is where Guamegi comes in; startup competitions like Guamegi are a good opportunity to learn more about research and business in the engineering world. 

Guamegi is a must for students who are interested in tech start-ups. Whether you win or not, you can learn a lot just by participating. The well-prepared mentoring programs will help transform you into a potential entrepreneur. If you have ever thought about start-ups, give it a try!