The Bridge Interview with Youngwook Ko, founder & CEO at ACA Network
20 years ago, Ko came to Japan by himself from Korea when he was just 20. After working at a TV station, he founded his company called Rocket Staff in November of 2010, taking on cross-border app development between Japan and Korea while coordinating app marketing or acting as a reporter introducing Japanese tech trends for a Korean IT-focused TV program. The firm’s representative works include chat and photo-sharing app Peppermeet and ad-based user engagement app Ad&Joy.
According to Ko, Rocket Staff’s business has still been doing well. Its current key product is free Manga app such as KING (for iOS / Android) or Manga Kiss (for iOS). The business model is to digitalize Mangas which are already published through partnering publishing companies and to share the revenue earned from advertising. Rocket Staff was initially managed by Ko with support from shareholders including VC firms and angel investors, after which Ko bought shares back under the strong performance of Manga app sales, and now the firm is wholly owned by him.
He is married with children, and has produced a stable business. He can be called a successful man, and yet never settles for the situation. That is because he is full of entrepreneurial spirit.
EIGHT YEARS HAS PASSED SINCE I STARTED THE BUSINESS OF ROCKET STAFF. THE CURRENT BUSINESS HAS BEEN DOING WELL IN JAPAN, BUT I NOTICED THERE ARE DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES BETWEEN STARTUPS IN JAPAN AND THAT IN THE WORLD.
I WANT TO CREATE A SERVICE THAT CAN COMPETE ON THE GLOBAL MARKET AND DO NOT WANT TO REGRET. I THINK THE LIMIT THAT I CAN WORK SUPER-ACTIVELY ENOUGH TO START NEW BUSINESS MAY BE 40S OR 50S, SO THERE IS ONLY 20 YEARS LEFT FOR ME THEN.
In a lot of apps including Rocket Staff’s Manga apps, ad frames are inserted as set by ad agencies. Good sales performance can be seen right after a salesperson first visits an office for promotion and the firm adopts the new ad, as it is fresh. But the performance starts diminishing as freshness wears off a few weeks later. Once the ad agency is prodded into making improvements, the sales recovers but then soon goes down again after refreshment periods. Ko explained that to be a typical cycle of ad sales.
Ad agencies provide either ads they acquired the contracts by themselves through promotion activities or ads distributed from ad network through RTB (Real-time Bidding) to their ad frames. According to Ko, ad agencies tend to prioritize the ads they won contracts due to its better gross profit in many cases. As a result, they often provide ads making much of the number of impression and sales rather than the affinity to media or apps; therefore, the advertising revenue for media or app operators declines.
For example, ads for women are sometimes distributed in Manga app for men. This tragedy is not caused by technical problems but caused by contradictions of the current online advertising business. More than a few global media or app developers earning advertising income must recognize the same issue. So, is it possible to construct an ad network securing transparency by using blockchain? That is the answer Ko found.
TRYING TO SECURE TRANSPARENCY OF AN AD NETWORK IS LIKE TRYING TO HANDLE ONE OF THE SACRED COWS IN THE AD INDUSTRY. SINCE CONVENTIONAL AD NETWORKS ARE UNLIKELY TO WORK ON IT, I FELT CERTAIN THAT IT IS WORTH DOING BY OURSELVES.
Perhaps, it might become a disruptive product that presses conventional ad agencies or ad networks. Rocket Staff now is a company with 100% owned capital, so that Ko can strive for development of new platform at his unrestricted position without disturbance by conflict or delicacy.
To realize the new business idea, Ko found a new company in Estonia and moved his base to there. Cooperating with remote developers and staffers in Japan or Korea, the firm will be engaged in development of a decentralized ad network named ACA Network.
Writer : Masaru Ikeda
You can also visit our official website. Here, you can check out our White paper, road map and meet our team. Please check the link below and subscribe to us for the latest news and information.
■ WEBSITE : https://aca.network/
■ WHITEPAPER : https://aca.network/documents/aca_whitepaper.pdf
■ TOKEN SALE SCHEDULE: https://aca.network/documents/tokensale_schedule_EN.pdf
■ BOUNTY PROGRAM: https://aca.network/documents/BountyProgram_EN_public.pdf
■ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ACANetwork_io
■ FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/acanetworkofficial
■ TELEGRAM: https://t.me/acanetwork
