Startup Experience in POSTECH
Startup Experience in POSTECH
  • Reporter Lee Jun-yong
  • 승인 2017.09.20 07:19
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POSTECH offers a variety of experience to students. Of all the experiences, founding a start-up company is a bit foreign, for it requires a lot of time and energy. In this article, we interviewed Kim Hyun-sung (EEE 15, cofounder) and Park Chan-hoo (CSE 15, CEO) of GEEKBLE.
To show that engineering can also be nifty, and to share pleasure from it, the two students founded GEEKBLE, an engineering media startup. “Fashion designers boast their abilities on the runway, and get applauded. Just like that, we want to create a system where we can also take the spotlight.” Park said. Kim added “The conventional engineering media tries to explain scientific concepts to the public, therefore being too easy and kid-oriented. We wanted to change that.”
However ambitious they are, they confessed that they are facing many hardships. “Economic problems concern us the most,” Park said, “after we pay our rent, taxes and payroll costs, we are always short of money.” They also pointed out it was hard for them, undergraduate engineering students, to run a business. “Since we grew up in a small society full of science majors, it’s troublesome to communicate with people from different fields, such as art or humanities,” Park said. Kim added, “As undergraduates, what we do is elementary, compared to high-tech engineers. Since we don’t have the key technology to back us up, it is psychologically challenging, knowing that we have to compete with those veterans.”
The two Postechians mentioned the support they were experiencing. “POSTECH provided us with our office and studio, and economically,” Park said. The two agreed that alumnus’ help was also helpful. “There is a sense of fellowship between senior startup founders and us,” he explained, “when we go to Seoul, they would meet us and give us advice while sharing coffee.” They also pointed out their investor’s help. “As engineers, we don’t know much about people’s reaction to the media. Our investors help us to analyze the reaction of our videos, and determines the period and timing of our uploads,” they explained.
The two adventurers revealed that it all goes back to studying. “Starting a business is fearful, since you are jumping into a whole new area full of unknowns,” Park said. “You start meeting different people, need to do practical administrative work, study laws and taxes, and learn a lot of other things.” “The work itself is also foreign”, Kim agreed, “to make our content, we had to study making, coding, and editing.” Starting a business also kindled a fire for studying. “As I went through business, there were so many moments I thought ‘I would have known this if I had taken that class’,” Kim said, “It makes me want to go back to school and study again.”
“It is hard to start a startup. There are so many difficulties. However, the important thing is to start the challenge, and soldier on,” Park said, “and during the process, you will find out that it is not harder than you thought.” However, Kim warned that “It’s different from clubs and student activities. You must have the tenacity to endure all the hardships, and you need to be desperate to achieve your goals.”