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INTERVIEWProfound eyes top knowledge-sharing platform

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Seen above is a screen capture of Profound's main webpage. The Seoul-based startup operates consultant matchmaking services mainly in Korea. / Courtesy of Profound
Seen above is a screen capture of Profound's main webpage. The Seoul-based startup operates consultant matchmaking services mainly in Korea. / Courtesy of Profound

By Lee Min-hyung

Lee Yoo-kyung, founding CEO of business consultant matchmaker, Profound / Courtesy of Profound
Lee Yoo-kyung, founding CEO of business consultant matchmaker, Profound / Courtesy of Profound
Profound, a Seoul-based consulting agency, aims to become Asia's most renowned knowledge-sharing platform with a focus on its professional manpower.

The company, established last year, is not the first of its kind. Such overseas players as Catalant in the United States have offered broader business management consulting services since 2013.

But Profound preoccupies the Korean market as a first-mover in the paid knowledge-sharing ecosystem here.

The Korean market has not been considered rosy for the business, as people here are generally accustomed to gaining knowledge for free. But Profound founder, CEO Lee Yoo-kyung, found growth potential there.

"Such a perception is slowly fading away and a growing number of people here recognize content and knowledge as intangible assets worth paying for," Lee said in a recent interview. "I believe the view turned out to be true until now, as we have grown huge enough to become the nation's most successful online consulting matchmaker in about one year."

On the company's list of professional consultants are more than 65,000 in nine countries in various segments such as sales, marketing and purchasing, she said.

"We have so far run the Korean platform, but plan to launch its global version sometime next year," she said. "To be specific, our global business will begin from Japan whose annual online knowledge-sharing market is rapidly growing."

"A company called visasQ has successfully landed in the Japanese market," she said. "But we believe our global manpower does not lag behind our Japanese counterpart. On top of that, we are confident that our knowhow from our local success can be a great asset to achieve a first global leap-forward there."

Profound's major revenue source is a 10-percent commission from both knowledge providers and consumers, respectively. But the company also generates profits by launching other value-added platforms.

"We also run open lectures under contracts with experts from some industries whose demand runs high," she said. "Profound has also recently launched our new service, Wise 10, an open question-and-answer platform, which shares a format similar with Quora from the U.S., but we focus only on business-wise trends."

Positive outlook

She remained optimistic for the long-term outlook for the industry.

"The sharing economy is rapidly expanding its coverage, starting from transportation, accommodations, finance to knowledge," said the 38-year-old startup chief who also worked as a consultant at Deloitte. "In particular, the knowledge-sharing market is very crucial, as it can facilitate people changing their jobs and ways of working."

"We hope to successfully launch our service in Japan and expand into the Southeast Asian territories to become the leading business-only content provider and consulting platform operator."

She also shared advices for would-be entrepreneurs.

"Many successful startup founders often say that initial market research is the most important step before establishing a company. This is true to some extent. But there always remains a gap between reality and ideals."

"My advice is to form small hypotheses and test them on the market, and then continuously narrow the gaps between your ideal and reality under the goal of successfully fitting your company into the market."


Lee Min-hyung mhlee@koreatimes.co.kr


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