[Life Act 3 Companies] After Dropping Out of Medical School, Became a First-Generation Long-Term Care Entrepreneur... Platform Created by 'Nochiwon' Expert

Cha Giho, CEO of Haengbokhan Sal

"I am a first-generation entrepreneur who has been establishing, operating, and consulting long-term care services for 15 years. While advising on long-term care businesses for large corporations, I have been contemplating how to create an integrated package service that can improve the quality of care facilities."

On the 26th, I met Cha Ki-ho, CEO of Haengbokhan Salm (Happy Life) (44), at his office in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. He has a unique background, having dropped out of medical school in his twenties, then graduated from law school before entering the care business. Cha, who founded care facilities himself and also worked as a consultant, runs an online weekly care center and nursing home startup information sharing cafe with nearly 10,000 members.

The senior care startup 'Haengbokhan Salm' operated by Cha officially launched the integrated long-term care service platform 'Yoyangeul Itda (Yo-it)' on the 17th. Having established the corporation last May, he expressed his desire to leverage the expertise he has accumulated in the long-term care field through his company. Cha said, "Honestly, nursing homes 15 years ago are not much different from those today. The day I become a caregiver is not far off, and after that, I will have to enter a care facility myself, so I thought the challenge of improving service quality must be solved."

Cha Ki-ho, CEO of Happy Life. Photo by Yujin Park

- I am curious about your journey from school days to entrepreneurship. What did you do before?

▲ I entered university in 1998. I scored well on the college entrance exam and was admitted to a regional medical school. However, as I studied, I realized this path was not for me, so I dropped out during my first year of medical school and served in the military. Although I had the chance to re-enroll, I did not. It really did not suit me. Later, I retook the entrance exam and entered law school but did not pursue the major professionally.

Then in 2008, the Long-Term Care Insurance Act for the Elderly was passed. With my parents' support, I established a social welfare corporation and started a home care center business the following year. In 2013, I also opened a nursing home in Haeundae. I operated welfare facilities for nearly 10 years. In 2019, I founded a day care center, which I ran until last year when I handed it over to someone else.

- Why did you stop?

▲ After running welfare facilities for nearly 15 years, I felt that what I could do alone had reached its limit. For several years, I consulted people who wanted to start day care centers while running an online cafe sharing startup information for day care centers. I wanted to utilize this know-how more widely. I thought that by establishing a company, I could demonstrate my capabilities on a larger scale.

Basically, I have always been interested in healthy living itself. Especially, I constantly thought about how I could contribute. Before deciding to drop out of medical school, I was fascinated by the essence of 'saving lives,' so I looked for things I could actually do immediately. These included blood donation and registering as a donor for posthumous organ and cornea donation. I have donated blood over 60 times.

Yoitt application image. Source=Haengbokhan Salm

- Please explain Haengbokhan Salm's business model. Many care-related platforms are increasing; what differentiates yours?

▲ It is a B2B (business-to-business) model. It provides an integrated solution to improve the quality of services so that partnered long-term care institutions can receive more selections from consumers. Fundamentally, it acts as a platform connecting caregivers, seniors, and institutions from institution search to service use. It offers institution information, consultation, and personalized health alert functions. For seniors lacking care, additional care services are provided, and for caregivers, a group care service that can send interest and support is also open. Currently, we are in the stage of gathering users.

- Could you explain the service in detail?

▲ First, when seniors and caregivers click the 'Find Facility' menu on Yo-it, they can search not only nearby but all long-term care institutions nationwide and check the current status such as staff information of each institution. Also, if they are beginners in using long-term care services, they can click the 'Care Information' menu containing long-term care insurance policies and health information to better understand the service. Institutions can post messages or photos to provide more detailed information to potential customers.

This year, we plan to add various additional services such as 'Yo-it Care,' which provides free additional care services for seniors and caregivers, and 'Yo-it Partner,' which offers differentiated solutions to long-term care institutions partnered with Yo-it. We are also planning integrated marketing support and consulting from startup to operation.

- Is there demand from institutions?

▲ About thirty institutions have already signed preliminary partnerships. The representatives of these institutions have the mindset that "I am running the institution well now, but there is no guarantee I will continue to do so in the future." Their goal is to preemptively enhance the quality of their institutions to differentiate themselves. We currently receive partnership fees from these institutions, which serve as seed money for our company.

- For IT platform-based startups, attracting investment is important. The startup investment market has not yet recovered, though.

▲ We are actively preparing for investment attraction and plan to participate in many investment competitions. However, we must consider that the investment market focused on the care market itself is not very large.

- What long-term social impact do you hope the Yo-it service will have?

▲ The number of long-term care insurance benefit recipients has exceeded one million and will continue to increase. However, the government’s resources available for them are expected to decrease. As the working population declines, the government will need to spend more, but can it manage? Various studies show that an additional 15 trillion won will be needed in 10 years. Ultimately, the private sector will have to take responsibility from a certain point onward.

However, the differentiation of long-term care insurance services depends entirely on the capabilities of institution heads. Since the market has fixed fees, there is nothing that can act as 'competitiveness.' Our goal is to create competitiveness that institutions miss. We want to play a role in restructuring the market so that many people can experience high-quality care institutions universally.

- Please share your performance goals.

▲ Currently, we have about 30 partnered institutions, and we want to double that number within this year and expand to about 150 to 200 next year. After that, I think the business can expand in a J-curve. We plan to focus mainly on day care centers as partnership targets.