Interview with Oh Hyun-oh, CEO of Gaudio Lab
Strategy to Overcome Crisis: 'Strong Choice and Focus'
On the 4th of last month, the show ‘Hidden Singer 7’ was aired, filled with the music of the late Kim Hyun-sik. In this program, challengers and Kim Hyun-sik each sing a legendary hit song line by line. Although Kim Hyun-sik, who was mainly active in the 1980s, did not have separate files for instrumental music and vocals, this stage was made possible by AI technology that isolated only his voice. The startup Gaudio Lab provided this audio separation technology, and their technology has already been applied in various places where immersive sound experiences are available, such as Naver, Bugs, and Flo.
Although Gaudio Lab now leads the market with its unique technological prowess, there was a moment of crisis. They nearly shut down after running out of investment funds. The crisis Gaudio Lab faced and the process of overcoming it provide clues for current startups to devise strategies to break through the harsh winter they are experiencing. We met Oh Hyun-oh, CEO of Gaudio Lab, in ‘Aewol,’ reached by following the Olle Trail, to hear his story.
CEO Oh said, "Gaudio Lab’s core technology is spatial audio technology through headphones," adding, "Even when listening to music with headphones, you can experience three-dimensional sound and immersion as if you were in an actual concert hall." He explained that even sitting in a room listening to music with headphones gives the sensation of being at a BTS concert, and when video calling distant family members, it feels like conversing in the same space.
In Gaudio Lab’s office on Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, there is a sound laboratory where this technology can be experienced. It is named ‘Bijarim,’ after the Bijara tree forest in Gujwa-eup, Jeju Island. As Gaudio Lab decorated its office with a Jeju theme, the employees’ rest area is called ‘Udo,’ and the meeting room is called ‘Aewol.’ This reflects CEO Oh’s dream of living in Jeju Island and Gaudio Lab’s vision to establish its headquarters there within ten years and compete in the global market.
However, the process of Gaudio Lab entering the global market was not smooth. They experienced a failure earlier. After founding Gaudio Lab in 2015, CEO Oh moved to the United States targeting the VR (virtual reality) market and actively pursued business. There was a calculation that if Disney used Gaudio Lab’s technology as the audio format for VR content, they could dominate this market. The market, which seemed rosy, reversed after 2017. This was when Facebook’s VR device ‘Oculus’ recorded poor sales. All ongoing projects were put on hold. Literally, winter came, and the market froze.
In this crisis, CEO Oh abandoned VR and returned to Korea, shifting the business focus to the OTT (online video service) market. He said, "When trying to change focus from VR, there was no guarantee of success," adding, "One of the investors advised that when making a change, you have to boldly and radically turn things around." After that, CEO Oh forbade any mention of VR in the company. He structured the company so that all members worked as one team, with the CEO leading decision-making to overcome the crisis. As a result, this decision allowed Gaudio Lab to rise again.
Gaudio Lab’s ‘harsh winter’ strategy after overcoming one crisis is simple: strong selection and concentration. CEO Oh said, "Instead of expecting things to get better next year, you must assume the premise that you don’t know when this winter will end," and "You must focus on the one thing with the highest probability of success, minimizing resource loss, and face the winter head-on."
The one thing Gaudio Lab will focus on next year is AI technology. Through this, they will re-enter the global market, which they had abandoned after the VR challenge. This involves technology that generates audio in real time and plays it back immersively to make the metaverse environment realistic. The ‘CES 2023’ event held in Las Vegas, USA, in January next year will be Gaudio Lab’s first stage to re-enter the world. CEO Oh said, "Gaudio Lab’s technology received the CES 2023 Innovation Award," and "2023 will be a symbolic year for Gaudio Lab to re-enter the global market."
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