Startup Services Supporting New Year's Resolutions Rise
Study App 'Orzo' Users Increase by 40% This Year
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] It has been ten days since the new year began. Lunar New Year is just around the corner. More people are revising the plans they made at the beginning of the year. They are trying to stick to plans they often gave up on quickly, such as exercise, dieting, studying, and quitting smoking. In particular, among the MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z), the trend of ‘Gat-saeng (God + Saenghwal)’, meaning living a diligent and exemplary life, has emerged, leading to increased interest in startup services that help with this.
Edu-tech startup Sling announced on the 11th that the number of users in the first week of this year for its college entrance exam study application (app) ‘Orjo’ increased by more than 40% compared to the last week of last year. Compared to 2021, when the service was launched, daily users have grown sharply by over 800%, and sales during the same period have increased more than fivefold. Orjo is a tablet app that offers various college entrance exam questions, including past exam questions and private mock tests. It features efficient and systematic study management functions such as automatic grading, question-specific timers, error notes, and study planners. These features have gained strong support from students who started preparing early for this year’s college entrance exam, with downloads surpassing 200,000. An Kang-min, CEO of Sling, said, "Orjo is focused on providing better services so that examinees can plan and carry out their studies this year."
Health app ‘Challengers’, operated by White Cube, also attracts attention every early year. Challengers is a service that helps users set their own challenge goals and complete related missions to form healthy habits. Among various challenge goals, ‘morning wake-up’ has recently gained popularity. It involves waking up around 6 a.m. to start the day and investing time in self-development. With ‘certification relays’ continuing on social media, the cumulative number of participants has reached 500,000. In a survey on this year’s goals, 55% of Challengers users answered ‘dieting/weight loss’. Choi Hyuk-jun, CEO of White Cube, said, "We will continue to provide various solutions that make it easy to take care of health this year."
The monthly users of Delightroom’s wake-up mission app ‘Alarmi’ have also exceeded 4.5 million. Alarmi helps users quickly overcome ‘sleep inertia’, a state where physical and cognitive functions are impaired immediately after waking up. It is popular for its wake-up missions such as squats, puzzles, and math problems that help users fully wake up right after getting up.
‘MyShipDan’, a healthy meal recommendation and delivery service operated by Bunker Kids, has also seen an increase in users interested in health management and dieting since the new year. The cumulative number of subscribers has surpassed 50,000. The repurchase rate within two weeks after purchase is over 50%. Bunker Kids uses data and algorithms to provide optimized solutions for achieving individual health goals. It helps manage personalized diets by utilizing AI algorithms that create the most effective and sustainable meal plans for each person. Based on this, Bunker Kids recently secured a Series A investment worth 2 billion KRW from Kakao Ventures, Spring Camp, and Rising S Ventures.
The reason these services are rising is that ‘Gat-saeng’ is a hot topic among the MZ generation. In a survey conducted by the growth management app ‘Grow’, created by Hunet, targeting the MZ generation for the new year, the most desired ‘Gat-saeng’ challenge areas (multiple responses allowed) were ‘exercise’ (71.4%), followed by ‘studying’ (68.8%), ‘reading’ (67.9%), ‘hobbies’ (46.4%), and ‘miracle morning (morning wake-up)’ (41.1%). To achieve these, the digital-native MZ generation actively uses various apps and solutions. An Kang-min, CEO of Sling, said, "For the MZ generation, planning, recording, and sharing routines using various apps, services, and social media has become a daily habit. The trend of practicing this through startup solutions will continue."
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