[Power K-Women] "I will make mom and dad's lives easier and create a different starting line for children"

Lee Jung-yoon, CEO of Village Baby
App 'Babybilly' Records 1 Million Downloads
Driving Expansion in E-commerce and Fintech with Content Competitiveness

"We discussed the company's vision and concluded that the service Babybilly (application) should create different starting lines for children before and after its existence. Our goal is to provide accurate information to make parents' lives easier. In the past, there used to be posts on internet forums saying 'Pregnant women, don’t eat peaches,' but we informed people that there was no scientific basis for that. Now, after seeing those posts, moms can enjoy delicious peaches without worry, and life becomes easier."

A 27-year-old consultant who was involved in corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A) due diligence became fascinated by the growth stories of well-known companies that started from internet cafes and was driven by the desire to try it herself. This is the story of Lee Jung-yoon, CEO of Village Baby, who created the childcare application Babybilly, which has recorded 1 million downloads. While searching for an 'item' to start a business with a designer colleague from her previous company, Lee found answers around her. She noticed that seniors and colleagues preparing for pregnancy and childbirth struggled with decisions like 'which products to choose, what to buy, and what to eat.'

"When smart women analyzing the entire industry at a consulting firm became mothers, they found items by reading comments on mom cafes. I realized this market was underdeveloped, so I decided to start this."

"Choosing this business was a strategic decision, but I was nervous when I got pregnant around the time of launching the item. I worried whether the service I created would seem inadequate when I became a pregnant woman myself. Fortunately, it wasn’t bad."

Although Lee is the CEO of a company with 60 employees including interns, she is also a mother. The Babybilly application was launched in July 2020, and she gave birth in March 2021. During her pregnancy, she received seed investment, and one month after giving birth, she participated in the startup accelerator SparkLabs’ demo day. The company name Village Baby actually started from the saying that it takes a whole village to raise one child.

"Raising a child, I truly realized that it really takes a whole village. Although I can’t spend a lot of time with my child, I consciously try not to feel guilty. Working moms often feel like sinners at work. They feel sorry to their child and also to their team if problems arise because of the child. But dads don’t rush in saying ‘sorry’ when their child is sick. I think this is learned guilt among moms. I try to be strong. I try to spend quality time with my child, even if it’s a short time. Even if we play for an hour, I make sure to look into their eyes and give my best during that time."

Babybilly’s success secret was its content competitiveness. From the app’s launch stage, about 1,000 pieces of content were prepared in advance, and editors provided reliable information related to pregnancy and childbirth. As a result, it became an important support for those going through pregnancy and childbirth.

Lee Jung-yoon, CEO of Village Baby. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

"Last year, when it was said that pregnant women could get the COVID vaccine, who would get vaccinated just because the government said so? Everyone would look into this issue, so we created content summarizing data from tens of thousands of pregnant women worldwide who received the vaccine and any side effects they experienced. This content spread through mom cafes, with people saying, ‘I saw on Babybilly that it’s like this.’"

The content competitiveness not only increased app users but also extended app usage time. Former CEO Lee explained, "Compared to similar applications where users stay about 16 minutes per month, ours is about 60 minutes."

"We always had special growth periods, and those were when our content went viral. When we first exceeded 10,000 monthly active users (MAU) and 10,000 daily active users (DAU), it was when our content became a hot topic."

Village Baby has dedicated editors for content. Journalists and nurses participate in content creation, but the essential requirement is that they must be 'mothers.'

"When we had only four people in the company, we prepared content about postpartum hair loss. At that time, I thought hair loss happened immediately after childbirth, so we programmed the algorithm to recommend postpartum hair loss content right after childbirth. But after experiencing it myself, I realized hair loss starts about three months later. This is something you easily know if you’ve been through it; otherwise, you have to study it. So I believed editors must have children."

Babybilly’s user base grew significantly thanks to the community called ‘Babybilly Peer Group (Bedong).’ Initially, this service was not provided, which was also due to deep consideration about content.

"Because there was a lot of unrefined information, our competitive edge was that experts created our information, so we didn’t open a community. But about a year after launching the service, when users reached 100,000, we opened the community, and since then, all indicators started to show a J-curve."

Low birth rates pose a threat to childcare-related companies like Village Baby. Lee is seeking breakthroughs in two directions. Domestically, they aim to offer users more diverse services to establish the site as a place not only for pregnancy and childbirth but also for growing up with children. At the same time, they plan to expand users by entering overseas markets.

"In the past, 700,000 to 800,000 babies were born annually, but now it’s about 250,000. If Babybilly users spend about four years on the app, our market size is about 1 million. Since we attract about 200,000 new users annually, there aren’t many new users left to bring in. So, while expanding into e-commerce, fintech, and healthcare, we have also been pushing for overseas expansion."

Village Baby currently aims to grow together with its subscribers. They envision remembering precious memories of pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare together with parents.

Lee Jung-yoon, CEO of Village Baby. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

"Although not many, children are still being born. Our goal is to hold firmly to this narrow alley of pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare. Ultimately, we want to be an app that once downloaded, users cannot delete."

Overseas expansion is also being actively pursued. However, since pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare are closely related to culture, they are considering providing country-specific tailored information.

"Christmas is coming soon, but in Indonesia, where the majority of the population is Muslim, Christmas-related content must be excluded. In Vietnam, this year is the Year of the Cat, not the Year of the Rabbit. If such details aren’t adjusted, it would seem strange. So rather than increasing the number of countries we enter, we focus on providing thorough services for each country. Our goal is to nurture users up to half the number of Korean users. Currently, the total global users are about 150,000."

"We want to reach a status globally where most moms and dads know our app by the time they prepare for pregnancy and childbirth, just like in Korea. We plan to maintain users in Korea and increase awareness globally."

▶ Lee Jung-yoon, CEO of Village Baby,

born in 1991, graduated from Korea University with a degree in Public Administration. She worked as a consultant specializing in corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A) at L.E.K. Consulting from 2015 to 2018. In October 2018, she co-founded a startup with a designer of the same age who resigned together. In July 2020, she launched the pregnancy and childcare application ‘Babybilly.’ The app surpassed 1 million cumulative downloads last October, establishing itself as a leading childcare application in Korea. Currently, it serves as a helper for those concerned with pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare in four countries besides Korea: Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and Japan.