[Power K-Women] Park Ji-hee, CEO of Cocozzi: "Leadership and empathy honed through parenting... Women are strong entrepreneurs"

Yogiyo Co-founder Spent 5 Years Developing Kids Audio Content 'Cocozi'
Declined Startup Proposal but Prepared by Creating Business Model Over Months
Secured 10 Billion KRW Investment After Launch

No Process Was Easy, But Women Are Not Weak in Management and Experience
Hope It Is Seen as Another Competitive Advantage

Editor's NoteAsia Economy selected 40 women from various fields at home and abroad as ‘Power K-Women’ at the ‘2022 Women Leaders Forum’ held on October 19. These are women leaders who, despite facing all kinds of barriers and boundaries such as gender, race, disability, and poverty, did not yield to them but broke or transcended those boundaries to create new and universal values. Their stories will provide comfort to a weary world, become role models for someone, and give the community the strength to move forward again.

"Being a woman can make you hesitant to start a business or become an executive. But from another perspective, being a woman is a competitive advantage. I believe that the process of giving birth and raising a child helped me grow. Women who raise children surely have good leadership."

Jihee Park, CEO of Cocozi, is a figure who has actively worked across domestic and international fields, from global corporations to startup founding. From 2006, she was in charge of digital marketing for the Asia region at InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) in Singapore for seven years. She worked on platform operations for the hotel group and generated sales through data-driven performance marketing.

Living in Singapore, which startups use as a foothold for entering Asia, she naturally became familiar with the venture company culture and joined as a co-founder of the delivery application Yogiyo in 2012, staying for five years.

Afterward, she worked at online investment-linked finance company Lendit and fashion platform StyleShare, and while taking a break, she received a proposal to start Cocozi. It came from Lukasz Gadowski, CEO of Team Global, an early investor in Yogiyo. He said, "The children's audio content market is showing signs of growth. Europe is centered on audio players (hardware), the U.S. is centered on content platforms, but Asia lacks a main player." In short, it was a proposal to do business in Asia, but Park declined at the time, saying, "Find someone else."

"Starting a business alone requires great responsibility, so I couldn't readily accept. But my heart was leaning that way. Perhaps because I was a working mom raising a child and felt regret about not properly utilizing audio content, after declining, I unconsciously immersed myself in creating a business model for 4 to 5 months (laughs)."

Park founded Cocozi at the end of 2020 and succeeded in raising 2.7 billion KRW in seed investment, followed by 7.05 billion KRW in pre-Series A funding. Notably, the pre-Series A investment attracted attention as it included domestic investors such as Signite Partners, L&S Venture Capital, KDB San-eun Capital, and Dong-A Science, as well as international investors like Japan's Jet Venture Capital (ZVC), Germany's Team Global, and China's Sinovalley Ventures.

Regarding ‘Cocozi House,’ launched last February, Park explained, "Until now, parents showed smart devices to their children to consume audio content, but Cocozi House allows children to actively enjoy content from start to finish."

Park Ji-hee, CEO of Cocoji, poses while attending the 2022 Women Leaders Forum hosted by Asia Economy at Lotte Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

Cocozi House, based on the Internet of Things (IoT), consists of a main unit (house) and Atti (doll). When Atti, connected to the app function, is placed inside the house, various audio content such as traditional folktales, Aesop's fables, children's songs, and English musicals play. For example, the tiger Atti plays a famous traditional tiger folktale with the line, "If you give me a rice cake, I won't eat you." There are also modern adaptations of traditional folktales.

Park said, "The princess Atti contains several princess-related stories, portraying characters beyond just waiting for a prince on a white horse, showing wise and intelligent traits." She added, "The device can be operated according to the child's will, allowing them to spend time independently without parental help," and "Studies show that auditory stimulation can positively affect children's cognition, language, and brain development."

The main unit was designed in the shape of a house for a meaningful reason, which was an ‘everyday discovery’ experienced while raising a child. "Toys like blocks and cars quickly bore children, but with a ‘dollhouse,’ they play role-playing games with friends. The house shape seems to provide a sense of stability over a long period, transcending age groups." Cocozi House targets various ages from 2 to 7 years old. Since it is an audio player, not a toy, familiarity and a sense of stability were important.

There were many challenges because they had to manufacture not only software but also physical products that children touch. To smoothly implement the system inside the house-shaped hardware, each component had to be efficiently assembled. This was a completely different area from the platform development work Park had done so far. She personally visited factories to check the manufacturing process and stayed at the factory until the finished product was completed, building trust with partner companies.

Park recalled, "Manufacturing was a completely new field for me, so it felt like ‘headfirst into the ground.’ From selecting factories (manufacturers) to building trust-based relationships and producing products, nothing was easy."

Park Ji-hee, CEO of Cocoji, is discussing "The Present and Calling of Challenge (START UP) Women Entrepreneurs" at the 2022 Women Leaders Forum. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

The path from female executive to CEO was not smooth, but looking back, Park says those difficulties became nourishment for growth. "As you rise to leadership positions, the number of women sharply decreases. There were times when all executives except me were men. It was hard to expect empathy for my situation, so I had to work in a tense state. But through that process, I secured my own competitiveness."

Based on her experience, she advised junior female entrepreneurs, "Rather than considering yourself weak because you are a woman, think of being a woman as your own competitive advantage." She added, "I hope women discard the idea that ‘it will be a disadvantage’ or ‘it will be harder’ because they are women," and "Even if you face injustice or bad experiences, overcoming them leads to confidence, and as your career and experience accumulate, a virtuous cycle of achievement occurs."

Even when physically exhausted or facing business crises, she overcame them with her unique guts. Experiences from founding Yogiyo became a stepping stone, giving her the strength to endure any difficult situation. "Starting a business means facing new problems every day. The harder the problems, the more I developed the guts to face them thinking, ‘This problem is probably not the biggest in my life; there will be bigger ones.’"

Her management philosophy is ‘empathy.’ She felt how important empathy is through the process of marriage and raising children. Just as a mother empathizes when a child shares worries, empathy is necessary when responding to customers. She also sees empathy, an essential quality for leaders, as a competitive advantage women possess.

Park said, "The process of giving birth and raising children helped me grow," and "I believe women who raise children have good leadership." She smiled brightly, saying, "The reason I was building a business model alone when the audio content business proposal came was because, as a working mom, I empathized with the product's needs. Going forward, I will create better services in the market that employees and customers can empathize with."