Aul Society and CoachMe Achieve Results as Female Startups
Realizing DX Transformation and Creating New Business Models through Innovation
Expanding Business Areas and Advancing into Global Markets
Aul Society and CoachMe are recently recognized 'female startups' in the industry. These companies, led by female CEOs, have shown concrete results and share one more commonality: they have enhanced their solutions through the 'Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Smart Service Support Project.' This project serves as a stepping stone for promising startups to adopt IT technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, enabling them to grow to the next level.
On the 16th, the Women’s Enterprise Comprehensive Support Center announced that it has supported 170 companies over four years since 2021 through the SME Smart Service Support Project. This project, initiated by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups in 2020, aims to increase productivity and create new businesses by integrating advanced ICT into the SME service sector. The Women’s Enterprise Comprehensive Support Center has participated as an executing agency since the following year.
Through this project, the Women’s Enterprise Comprehensive Support Center has supported the establishment of solutions necessary for creating new business models (BM) for service development, logistics and supply chain management, marketing, sales, advertising, and improving customer service quality. Aul Society, which operates the K-Indie fashion resale global marketplace 'Shakaraka,' received support for two consecutive years in 2023 and 2024. This enabled them to enhance the functionalities required for their mobile shopping application service and build a global commerce app that is user-friendly for overseas users. This resulted in efficient inventory management and significantly lower out-of-stock rates compared to existing Dongdaemun wholesale fashion commerce services, thereby increasing customer trust and satisfaction.
Sales also increased by 72%, from approximately 615 million KRW in 2023, the year after its founding, to 1.058 billion KRW last year. They also achieved export results worth 170,000 USD. Shin Ji-hee, CEO of Aul Society, said, "We have evolved from simple inventory distribution to a service-based recurring revenue structure that enhances operational efficiency." She added, "Through this enhancement, we plan to continuously work to reduce the inventory burden of small domestic fashion brands and make K-Fashion more accessible to resellers worldwide."
CoachMe, which operates a coaching platform for job seekers in their 20s and 30s, also built an online coach matching and content management and operation system last year with support from this project. They created a community to facilitate communication, resource sharing, and networking between users and coaches. With the addition of new technologies such as AI-based matching, CoachMe’s page views reached 36,000 over three months since January this year. Time and costs related to operation and management were also reduced. Jung Yu-ri, CEO of CoachMe, explained, "In a situation where the Fourth Industrial Revolution and related tasks are increasing, the advantage is that users in their 20s and 30s can be matched with top global coaches in the required job fields." She added, "We improved the matching suitability between mentors and mentees so that they can receive coaching from career coaches and mentors from Harvard, MIT, and Silicon Valley."
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will conduct recruitment for the SME Smart Service Support Project from next month 12th to 23rd. The evaluation and selection of supported companies will take place by July, and solution development is scheduled to be completed within the year. Park Chang-sook, Director of the Women’s Enterprise Comprehensive Support Center, said, "It is a reality that early-stage female startups face limitations in responding to digital innovation due to constraints in funding and technical personnel." She added, "We will continue to cooperate with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups to support female startups in growing into high value-added service industries and achieving meaningful results in global expansion."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
