Working for a startup is rewarding to say the least. True you have to dive right in, roll up your sleeves, and get comfortable with change — a lot of change. But at the end of the day, there is nothing more satisfying than knowing you helped build a successful business. No matter how small your role is, that’s the most unique part about working at a startup.
For early-stage startups like QARA, there’s always some work to be done; some more progress to be made. Especially in regards to global expansion, QARA continually seeks out opportunities to sit with foreign investors and venture capital firms. This week, in particular, was especially busy because QARA had participated in Invest Korea Week 2018. Here’s a recap of what happened.
Invest Korea Week 2018
On November 6th and 7th, team QARA attended Invest Korea Week (IKW) to attend VC meetings and pitch sessions at the Grand Intercontinental Seoul. IKW is organized by Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) and hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE), to help foreign investors and Korean companies find business opportunities.
During the first day, QARA’s Content Marketer James participated in the pitch and got to speak in front of 30 + foreign investors and journalists. Of the 88 Korean startups that applied to attend the event, QARA was among the five startups to pitch that day.
Given 6 minutes to pitch with 2 extra minutes for Q&A, James took the stage and shared about QARA’s vision, business strategy, and future goals.
On the second day, CEO Luke ChangHwan Byun, James, and QARA’s Intern Woohee met with several venture capital firms and discussed potential business partnerships in the future.
In total, team QARA spoke with 6 VCs and each time it was a unique experience. Unique in that each company came with a different expectation and mind for what they wanted to get out of the meeting. But one thing that remained consistent was the focus on QARA’s financial forecasting and analytics application, KOSHO.
KOSHO uses the latest CNN & RNN deep learning algorithms to create the following week’s market predictions. It analyzes the last 30 years of market history and uses nearly 400 million data, including news reports, company profiles, equity markets, fixed income levels, and over 20,000 major stocks, financial indexes, and cryptocurrencies.
Ginseng Education Corporation
Also this week, QARA’s Global CEO Katie Bomi Son and James visited Hanyang University to meet with Howard Hao Shen, the CEO and Founder of Ginseng Education Corporation.
Howard graduated from Harvard University with a Master’s Degree in Education and Technology. With a passion to help students achieve their goals, Howard founded Ginseng, an international full-service educational consulting firm.
During the meeting, Howard understood QARA’s marketability and realized its potential for market penetration in China. To enter into the Chinese market, however, QARA needs to know the right people and build the right connections. Howard said he could provide us with those connections.
Next Step
QARA participated in several pitch competitions and VC meetings in the past. This has always been the QARA way — to get ourselves out there and grab as many opportunities as we can. The key to building credibility with investors is knowing what to say and how to say it. To do this in the most efficient way possible, QARA will continue to seek out opportunities to participate in pitches and gain insights from global investors.
If you want to check out our app KOSHO, it’s available to download for free in the Google Play Store and the App Store. Click here to download!
