Environment for Startups
There is a mix of both worries and expectations in how Korean startup founders look at the domestic startup environment.
According to the result of the survey conducted on startup founders and major company employees, which was carried out by startup support organization Startup Alliance and mobile research firm Open Survey on December 15th, startup founders gave 55 out of 100 on the overall confidence of the domestic startup environment.
Thirty-one percent of the respondents said that the conditions became better compared to last year, which was slightly higher than last year (28 percent). Among factors that contributed to the more favorable atmosphere, the improvement in social recognition towards startups was pointed out the most.
In the survey targeting employees of large companies, 41 percent of the total respondents said they were “in favorable consideration of establishing new business on his own.” Thirty-five percent said that they are “positively thinking of career shift to startups,” which was more than twice the figure of those replying they are “not in such thought.”
Founders told that their marking on the government endeavor to grow the startup environment reaches no higher than 43 (out of 100). Forty percent of the respondents, who said that their startup confidence had worsened since last year, said that the poor situation mainly attributes to the failure of the policies driven by government.
Aspiration for advancing into foreign markets was significantly high, supported by the fact that 45 percent of the survey participants answered that they are considering going abroad. Among the most favored regions were the United States, followed by China, Southeast Asia, and Japan in order of preference.
Founders preferentially selected Google, Samsung, and SK as companies that are active in supporting startups. The most popular and most wanted venture capital firm among founders was SoftBank Ventures.
Regarding the companies or services coming to their minds when mentioning startups, 85 percent of the participants said they cannot think of anything, revealing that there are hardly a few startups that are well known among general population so far.
The research was conducted from Oct. 30 to November 1 targeting 174 startup founders and 800 employees working in large businesses.