“I learned how Finland took off from the failure of Nokia, a company which was once competitive but collapsed in a short time, landed on an advanced country in startup business.”

Chang-Hoon Lee, a 25-year-old senior in the Department of Management at KIU, was selected as a participant in Startup Garden 2017, a Korea-Finland startup exchange program, and experienced Finland’s startup environment for a month during summer vacation. Having passionately dreamed of starting his own business, he grabbed at the chance to expand to the world stage.

Finland is famous for its entrepreneurship education. The world’s top universities also visited Finland to benchmark its startup education. While Nokia, Finland’s representative firm in the past, collapsed as it failed to adapt to the rapidly changing smartphone market, many adventurous startups have stepped up to fill in the vacancy. In the meantime, startups have become very popular in universities and entrepreneurship education has increased in the field of education in general. Here in Finland, Lee, himself an aspiring entrepreneur, met other entrepreneurs-to-be who came from other countries and learned about the startup environment.

Lee visited Finland’s startups such as Rovio and Supercell, and participated in several programs which included lectures, workshops, and global networking. He said that the most memorable experience were the interviews with the local people. The participants designed startup items which can be applied to Finland, conducted a survey, and interviewed people in Finland. Lee, finding out that Finnish saunas lack entertaining factors, suggested an idea to add Korea’s Jimjilbang culture to Finnish saunas. He expected that the locals would like his idea, but the result was the opposite. They firmly opposed his idea, saying that their saunas do not need entertaining factors. Lee later found out that a Finnish sauna is a place of meditation and rest, where people purify their mind and body. This happened because Lee did not understand cultural differences between the nations.

“Through this program, I understood that a brilliant idea is no use if local people do not like it,” Lee said. “I personally realized that historical, cultural, and social differences are extremely important when starting a global business.” He also added his opinion about Korea’s startup environment. “In Finland, a startup environment was as well-constructed as the country is recognized for its startup business. I hope entrepreneurs-to-be in Korea can have a networking party and also be supported by many organizations.”

Studying Venture Startups as an interdisciplinary major, Lee took courses related to startups, such as “Techno Management and Startup Strategies” and “Entrepreneurship and Venture Startup.” Since then, he has been fascinated by starting his own business and has prepared for it. Recently, he obtained advice from startup CEOs in a course about patent and copyright and also from a startup camp. Although he missed several opportunities, he still has many startup ideas.

When applying to Startup Garden 2017, he suggested “an application for finding a lost item and an attachable chip.” If a chip is attached to frequently lost items such as keys, glasses, and wallets, an application will help find them. His idea was acclaimed for its versatility as it also features GPS and notification functions.

Being asked about his future plan, Lee answered, “I improved my English while I studied English in the U.S and Canada. Thanks to my improved English, I could participate in Startup Garden 2017 which selected students who can communicate in English. I will enrich my experiences with many challenges as I have done before, and I will succeed in my own business.”

Startup Garden 2017 is jointly run by the Small and Medium Business Administration (SMBA), Korea Entrepreneurship Foundation (KEF), and Aalto University in Finland. The program is an international exchange program which aimed at; experiencing advanced entrepreneurship education and the startup environment in Finland, expanding entrepreneurship mindset, and building a global network through mutual exchanges with local entrepreneur-to-be and startups.