District Provides Startup Grants, Customized Education, and Mentoring to 15 Social Venture Prospective Entrepreneurs... 8 Teams Achieve Startup Success, 3 Teams Establish Social Venture Corporations, Ongoing Support for Investment Attraction
Jeshikim Jeshikichin CEO is explaining the startup process at the '2020 Social Venture Youth Startup Support Project Performance Sharing Meeting' held on the 24th.
[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] “I am truly grateful to Seongdong-gu for supporting the birth of ‘Jeshikitchen Inc.,’ a company I didn’t know where or how to start.”
Jessi Kim, CEO of Jeshikitchen, who attended the ‘2020 Social Venture Youth Startup Support Project Performance Sharing Meeting’ held on the 24th, could not hide her overwhelming emotions as she explained her startup journey.
At the performance sharing meeting held at Seongdong Safe Shopping Center that day, 15 young entrepreneurs who challenged social venture startups gathered. They shared episodes from their startup preparation period and various ideas, coming together to support startup success and growth. These young people have been striving to realize their startup dreams over the past eight months with the support of Seongdong-gu.
Seongdong-gu (Mayor Jeong Wono) has been promoting the ‘2020 Social Venture Youth Startup Support Project’ since February, providing startup preparation funds to prospective social venture entrepreneurs and strengthening their startup capabilities through customized education and mentoring.
Out of a total of 67 teams that applied, the district selected 15 teams for support, conducted online startup education and customized mentoring, and provided up to 30 million KRW per team for business development expenses through mid-term evaluations.
As a result, eight teams have successfully launched startups so far. Among them, ‘Jeshikitchen,’ which is popularizing North Korean cuisine, ‘Taxbee,’ which developed an online platform to assist small business owners with tax affairs, and ‘Impactus,’ which creates diffusers with visually impaired perfumers, have established social venture corporations and entered the ‘Seongsu Social Venture Valley.’
CEO Jessi Kim said, “The vivid startup stories and mentoring from senior companies that succeeded in startups were a great help. I am happy to have realized my dream of starting a business and to be able to achieve the social values I envision. I will work hard until the day we introduce and sell North Korean cuisine worldwide.”
The district announced that it will help teams that have succeeded in starting businesses by facilitating large-scale impact investment institutions, crowdfunding, and opening sales channels to support corporate growth. For teams preparing to start businesses, continuous startup counseling and activity support will be provided to connect business ideas to startups.
Jeong Wono, Mayor of Seongdong-gu, said, “The biggest reasons young people find starting a business difficult are the lack of initial startup funds and fear of failure. We hope this support will discover innovative ideas unique to social ventures that solve local problems and create various synergies such as youth self-reliance support and new job creation.”
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