Street Startup Fighter
Street Startup Fighter
  • Reporter Kim San
  • 승인 2022.10.03 01:45
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▲Sept. 19 CHANGeUP GROUND idea pitching session
▲Sept. 19 CHANGeUP GROUND idea pitching session

APGC-Lab is a POSTECH student organization that spreads entrepreneurial culture and organizes startup events that guide Postechians to start their businesses. For those newly aspiring entrepreneurs, APGC-Lab hosts idea-thons, seminars, and talks to provide preliminary knowledge about starting a business and creating a viable business model. In addition, it partners with startup investors from Naver D2SF, Kakao Ventures, Mashup Angels, and POSTECH Holdings to provide students with opportunities to meet and discuss problems with experts in the field.
Street Startup Fighter (SSF) is a competition-like entrepreneur incubation program designed by APGC-Lab and sponsored by the POSTECH alumni association, Kodebox, Blue Point, Kolon Investment, POSCO Technology Investment, and POSTECH Holdings. In recent startup scenes, STEM college students are stepping into the limelight for their ability to go beyond mere ideas and create technology using their practical knowledge and skills. SSF represents the pinnacle of POSTECH’s ability as a powerful think house and successful venture capitalists’ benevolence to help students grow. SSF spans over 14 weeks, starting in September, and any Postechians with business ideas can simply apply by submitting an application form outlining their rationale until Sept. 6. 15 teams are then selected to participate in the first four weeks from Sept. 15 to Nov. 4 during which each team is evaluated based on their performance to solve weekly tasks. The evaluation is used to select the final four teams who will each be directly advised by the sponsors’ venture capitalists. These teams will compete against each other for 3 million KRW prize money and an opportunity to receive actual investments from the sponsored companies.
SSF is a new program that started this year for the first time; nonetheless, 40 participants in teams of 10 were enrolled in the competition. On Sept. 18, the teams gathered at the ChangeUp Ground and gave their first presentation outlining the ideas and plans. There were a wide variety of students from POSTECH, Ewha Womans University, and KAIST. What was surprising was that there were a good proportion of undergraduates in the competition. Although they may be at a disadvantage compared to graduate students in terms of knowledge and skills, they passionately pitched their ideas and proved worthy.
At a glance, starting a business seems like a far-away thing for grown-ups, not fit for students still studying at school. That is far from the truth as is evident from those teams of undergraduate freshmen. The fact that investors are taking students’ ideas seriously and that they are willing to invest their money only comes to show that there is no age limit to being an entrepreneur. The best time for starting a business may be when students are still undergraduates, because they are still within the safety net of a school and because people are more willing to help students. If you have an idea, the time is now.