2019 Underdogs Impact Story
Tags: Korea, Entrepreneurship, Social Impact, Social Innovation

about the effort we put and Impact we led in 2019

<Overview>

In 2019, Underdogs fostered 507 teams and 1,399 entrepreneurs in pre and early stage startups by delivering training programs based on Underdogs Social Innovation Startup Approach. We are not simply satisfied with the number of entrepreneurs, but with the outcome that many of these teams have continued to successfully sustain their business after the completion of our training programs. They also have promoted the growth of social impact and financial sustainability, following mainly the three next steps — 1) participating in the government initiative programs, 2) officially certified as pre-social enterprises, and 3) receiving more fundings and investment for their growth.

In 2019, 15 teams were accepted to government initiative programs to develop their businesses with financial supports. Some of these enterprises include Time Order that runs cafe platform business with hearing-impaired people, Carefit that provides comprehensive nutrition solutions to solve the nutritional imbalance of young people, Meplay that makes a safe parish for children from half-crushed rice and other enterprises spreading social impact in different industries. It is also our great asset to increase our experience in working with different industrial backgrounds and social impact, keeping up with the diversity.

To maximizing social impact, more than 15 teams were certified as the ‘pre-social enterprises’ by the government. Representative pre-social enterprises include Be Adventure that makes a game using cultural and historical locations in local, Silvist that offers one on one match with cognitive improvement tools and social welfare experts for senior’s emotional and cognitive health, and Mulnamoo that seeks Korean culture through analog black-and-white photos. This certification allows the enterprises to receive a range of supports from labour cost, business management, tax benefits and more.

Finally, 4 teams successfully led to following-up investment to grant their possibility for growth. Growing Mom, invested by Sopoong, runs online child care counseling, offline academy and childcare education platform for women with career breaks. PAPER POP, invested by New Black, makes practical paper products with new technology and design. LAMA SNACK, a healthy snack curation and delivery service for healthy office life, was also invested by NewBlack. OHMYROOM is invested by New Flight is a platform for improving the residence of foreign workers by offering housing information and automatic residence matching based on the automatic translation.

Over the past five years of experience, we discovered that the social problems young entrepreneurs have identified and are trying to address have diversified. However the ‘solutions’ haven’t changed much — most solutions involve digital platforms and innovative designs of an existing service. Such challenges between the diversified ‘issues’ and similar ‘solutions’ may be related to ‘profitability’. To guarantee the minimum profit business models and minimize financial risks, business models tend to develop with proven market theories and/or adapt approaches with visible profit model, leading to lack of diversity and creativity in their business models and solutions.

Underdogs has learned that for young and any impact entrepreneurs, the opportunity and environment to propose new innovative ideas and test them without fear of failure is a vital condition. The marketability of early startups may be low, but these may certainly be the ideas that will grow and create a wind of change in the world.

<Summary by Key Areas>

ud. Performance Summary

2019 was a meaningful year for Underdogs in developing our Underdogs Social Innovation Startup Approach further and adapting this in diverse context. Designed with full experience of training over 7,000 entrepreneurs since 2015 when Underdogs first began, we eventually defined the key areas where we are able to yield the best outcomes with the approach, and were able to prove its effectiveness through this year’s programs in those areas.

The key areas are divided largely by targets, young entrepreneurs and active seniors, and geographical conditions, local and global. In 2019, Underdogs successfully delivered 30 young entrepreneurs and active senior programs, 5 local programs, and 9 global programs, facing challenges and expanding our reach.