• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.15-34
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• 2022

Many countries, including Korea, have established and operated various startup supporting programs to revitalize youth entrepreneurship. This study aims to identify the current status and characteristics of the major startup supporting programs currently operated in Korea and propose development plans for future startup supporting programs through analysis of the startup supporting systems of major countries. By analyzing the success factors of domestic and foreign startup supporting systems, we suggested improvements that can be operated more effectively in the areas of financial support, selection process, education and mentoring, networking, publicity and branding, and follow-up management by operated startup supporting programs. In addition, improvements for performance evaluation indicators of startup supporting programs were suggested and limitations of the study were presented.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.95-114
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• 2023

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution progresses, the importance of startups is becoming more prominent. Additionally, the role of accelerators in ensuring the sustainability of startups is also being emphasized. Therefore, in this study, among the services provided by accelerators to startups, the mentoring service, education service, funding service, and networking service tried to empirically analyze the structural relationship that affects startup performance through the dynamic capabilities of start-ups. To achieve this, we conducted a survey in February 2023 targeting startup CEOs and executives who had experience with accelerator program services. A total of 238 valid responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling with Amos 24. The results of the empirical analysis were as follows. The accelerator program services, including mentoring, education, funding, and networking services, had a significant positive effect on startup dynamic capabilities. Among the accelerator program sub-factors, networking services had the highest impact on startup dynamic capabilities, followed by mentoring, funding, and education services. Furthermore, startup dynamic capabilities were found to have a significant positive effect on startup performance. On the other hand, startup dynamic capabilities were found to mediate the relationship between mentoring, education, funding, networking services, and startup performance. Dynamic capabilities are a critical factor for startups, and the finding that accelerator programs can have a significant impact on startup performance by mediating these dynamic capabilities is significant both academically and practically.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.189-201
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to analyze the ICT startup investment status in Korea and examine the relationship between startups and venture capitals by network analysis. In this study, the Gephi was used to analyze network attribute values and to compare the results of each centrality. As a result of the analysis, IMM investment, Altos Ventures, and Smilegate Investment were located in the top ranks in each centrality. It can present that venture capital companies ranked high in betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, eigenvector centrality have continuously invested in growing startups into unicorns from 2014 to 2019. These results can be used as data for startups want to receive funding from venture capital in the future in consider to the relation of startup and invest industry. This study provides information to develop strategies for the sustainable venture investment environment in Korea of stakeholders such as startups, venture capital, consumers, and the government; as a result, it can help various follow-up studies in the field of startups and venture capital.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.53-63
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• 2017

With increasing the importance of venture startup in the national economy, a trend shows that the government's policy support for venture startup is not only strengthened, but also entrepreneurial enthusiasm is increasing. In order for this trend to continue as an ongoing phenomenon, not a temporary phenomenon, venture startups should continue to grow with survival competitiveness. In this respect, there is a time when it is necessary to study the factors affecting the success of venture startups more than ever. There is a limit to seeing main factors, which affect the entry into the growth stage with survival competitiveness for the success of venture startups, as only 'entrepreneur capacity' and 'differentiation strategy' claimed by existing previous studies. As a more fundamental factor, entrepreneurial behavior is important in terms of opportunity discovery and opportunity utilization, but research into this falls short of expectations. This study is intended to look into success factors of venture startup. To achieve this, a survey was empirically carried out to CEOs in 100 small and medium venture startups through AHP analysis. The results are as follows. As stated above, entrepreneurship of success factors in venture startups is considered most critical, followed by innovation, economics, and technology. And 'entrepreneur's competency', 'positive entrepreneurial motivation', 'creative technology utilization', and 'continuous investment in technical development' are considered most critical for 'entrepreneurship', 'innovation', 'technology', and 'economics' as sub-factors, respectively. Consequently, entrepreneur's entrepreneurship that has been required in general startups is a critical factor to be also in common required in venture startups. This means that they can secure the competitiveness of venture startup along with continuous investment support in business startup with a positive mindset and their own technological competence as innovators to overcome the risk and uncertainty of business startup as entrepreneurship that marks the start of a new enterprise.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.47-64
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• 2017

Three years after establishment, companies are said to face a period of risk called the "valley of death." To start a venture company and make it sustainable, the chance of failure must be minimized. According to an in-depth assessment report on special taxation in 2015, the one-year survival rate of Korean companies was about 60 percent and the five-year survival rate about 30%. These rates are low compared to those of major OECD member countries. Worse, such rates in Korea are decreasing year by year. The purpose of this study is to classify the success factors behind venture companies into human capital, social capital and financial capital, and verify through empirical analysis the factors influencing the success of venture companies based on the mediating roles of capability of the startup team and that for innovation. To find the success factors behind venture companies, this study first examined the theories derived from previous studies. SPSS 21 was used as the study method, while descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis and CMB test were conducted. In addition, SmartPLS 2 was used for confirmatory factor analysis, hypothesis test, mediation effect. The results of this study can help efforts toward job creation and economic revitalization pursued by the creative economy policy of the incumbent Korean administration. They can also be used as the cornerstone for venture companies in their pursuit of success.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.141-155
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• 2014

This study examines the effect of previous work experience on the long-lived venture firm called 'Good Quality startup'. The research explores entrepreneurs of 16 mobile application startups that were invested by the venture capital, 'K-ventures', through the resource-based view. The results show that all of entrepreneurs had previous experiences of their business domain. They accumulated human resources such as technology capabilities, knowledge of domain, know-how, networking through learning-by-doing. Entrepreneur's human resources are the key factors for opportunity recognition and realisation process; and it is also on the ground that venture capital determines investment. Venture capital provides financial resources, management support and strong network for venture firm. Technology resources, financial resources, know-how and networking are the core managerial resources to be a long-lived venture firm called 'Good Quality Startup'. This research is an exploratory case study based on previous experience and 'good quality entrepreneurship'. The empirical study hereafter is needed.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.39-47
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• 2015

"Series A Crunch"problem has become worse off as funding gap between angel seed investment and traditional VC Series A investment is getting the larger due to big boom over early startup investment both in Korea and US. The strong needs for new concept of fund alternative such as bridge fund is outstanding to fill up the funding gap in the early stage of venture investment. This research is brought to define the concept of 'Series A Crunch' problem and to diagnose its causes, eventually, popping up 'the concept of Micro VC Fund' to come up with this problem in Korea. Also, this paper suggests the policy alternatives to introduce Mivro VC Fund and accommodate its successful performance.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.185-193
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• 2015

This paper is brought to introduce best practice case of promoting startup raising seed investment out of university startup program. In specific, Innopolise Startup Item Market Validation Program running in Hanbat National University have shown the appropriate way of cooperating between experts in university and early stage venture investors in incubating and accelerating promising startup for last three years. This paper shall be expected to provide benchmaking ground of helping other similar project teams and core networking points of future cooperation among similar entities.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.97-117
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• 2022

Amid the growing importance and growth potential of venture firms worldwide, this study aimed to figure out the effect of new product development capabilities (NPDC) on the internationalization of Korean venture firms and the moderating impact of founders' human capital. NPDC is a core competency that can cope with the rapidly changing market environment and is required when entering multinational markets. Therefore, we subdivided founders' human capital into professional experience, startup experience, education level, and marketing capacity and examined each moderating effect on a venture firm's internationalization. As a result of empirical analysis of 1,362 Korean venture firms using the Tobit model, this study found that venture firms with excellent NPDC tend to achieve a higher level of internationalization. In addition, among the founder's human capitals, professional experience, education level, and marketing competency moderated the positive relationship between NPDC and internationalization. In contrast, the founder's startup experience was insignificant. The results of this empirical analysis explain the factors that trigger the internationalization performance of venture firms from the perspective of dynamic capabilities and suggest that the founder's human capital played an essential role in the internationalization.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.81-88
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• 2014

Purpose - Entrepreneurship promotion is emerging as an important economic growth agenda. However, in Korea, entrepreneurship has weakened because of the collapse of the venture bubbles of the 2000s and the global economic recession in 2008, which have induced the business community to choose stability over risk. The Korean government has been implementing several support projects to inspire and promote youth entrepreneurship through various means including financial assistance; however, the perpetuation rate of young entrepreneurship is still low as compared to advanced economies such as the US and EU. This case study focuses on the Youth Start-Up Business Support Program of the Small & Medium Business Corporation, and explores practical alternatives. Further, it aims to suggest managerial factors and a conceptual model for change management factors affecting the business performance creation of a startup company, based on the Small and medium Business Corporation's young venture startup fund. Research design, data, and methodology - Many studies examine the current progress and issues of startup firms, for example, a lack of systematic cultivation of entrepreneurship and startup business training, lack of commercialization funding for youth startup businesses, lack of mentoring, and inadequate infrastructure. From prior research, we address four factors, namely, personal managerial capabilities, innovative business model, sufficient cash flow, and social network, affecting startup companies' business performance. This study involved a sample survey of 200 young entrepreneurs to investigate casual relations between the four factors and business performance. A regression analysis was used to verify the hypotheses. Results - First, in relation to differences in the founder's personal characteristics, age, sales amount, and number of employees significantly impact business performance. Second, regarding the causal relation between the four factors for creating business performance, an innovative business model and social networking have supported the hypotheses, revealing that the more that a start-up founder has an innovative business model and social networking, the more the start-up firms are likely to have better performance (e.g., sales volume, employment, ROE, ROI, etc.). Although the founder's competency and sufficient cash flow have no significant relationship with business performance, the mean value was higher performance for high founder's competency and sufficient cash flow. Conclusions - This study provides basic data on policy support strategies of the Small and Medium Business Corporation, to help young entrepreneurs achieve their start-up business goals. It shows that young entrepreneurship startup firms should strive to explore ideas to satisfy customers' needs, and that changes in customer value and the continuous innovation of business model differentiation are required to actively respond to change management. Moreover, at the infant startup stage, they should activate social network programs to share information, thereby offsetting resource scarcity and managing business risk. Further, the establishment of a long-term vision and the implementation of training programs in related specific fields should be supported to strengthen founders' personal capabilities.