For the Korean 'Crazyones' who dream to beat Steve Jobs, Elon Musk

Many young entrepreneurs around the world dream to become the next Steve Jobs or Elon Musk -- industry legends who dramatically changed our daily life with novel, innovative ideas and technologies. Crazyoneskorea is the home for those crazy enough to aim to upend the world even more than those icons.

“We strive to build companies that can beat Tesla or Meta,” said Kim Jinu, the founder of Crazyoneskorea, where young entrepreneurs live together to share ideas to nurture them into real businesses with staying power that can change people's lives.

“We are different from those who seek to cash out of their inventions to live a comfortable life a few years after they set up their companies.”

In a three-story building on a narrow alley packed with trendy restaurants and cafes in Yeonnam-dong, northwest Seoul, eight young men in their 20s and 30s share rooms to work on their businesses. These members of Crazyoneskorea, founded by Kim in 2019, have lived together for years to share ideas, some which have given birth to their current businesses. 

Kim is also the founder and CEO of his own company Liner Inc., an artificial intelligence (AI) search engine platform developer that has attracted 16 billion won ($12.6 million) in investment since its inception.  

BROTHERS

Crazyoneskorea initially opened the door for five resident members, and later three more entrepreneurs moved in. It also has 11 outside members who don’t live there.

They are not shy about calling each other “brother” after spending years giving each other full support to set up their businesses.   

The requirement to join the startup base camp is an earnest desire to become an entrepreneur who is passionate about his or her own business and does not fear failure, Kim explained.

The residence name in Korean is Gwangin Hoegwan, with "gwangin" meaning a crazy person and "hoegwan" meaning hall. It welcomes members who will stay long enough to support the other members' dreams and cheer on their new pursuits. 

Its current members include Lee Seyoung, CEO of Wrtn Technologies Inc., which was named a CES Innovation Awards Honoree at this year’s electronics trade show in Las Vegas for its AI writing practice software Wrtn Training using Generative AI technology. Ji Hyunjune, the developer of HAU, a Korean accommodation curation and booking app, is another member.

INSPIRATION FEEDER LIKE APPLE, TOKIWA-SO

Kim and his buddies had the inspiration for the name from Apple Inc.’s iconic commercial campaign "Here’s to the crazy ones," said Kim.

Kim hopes that Crazyoneskorea can last long enough to offer young Korean entrepreneurs a place like Tokiwa-so, a pre-war two-story apartment building in Tokyo, Japan, where Japanese cartoon and animation artists lived together in the 1950s and 1960s to share ideas and support each other.

Japanese manga master Tezuka Osamu, the creator of Astro Boy, was the original member of Tokiwa-so.

Kim got the idea of opening Crazyoneskorea from the Japanese manga artist colony when he struggled with burnout symptoms after years of hard work alone to start his own business when he was a sophomore in university. 

Tenants at Crazyoneskorea want to turn the place into one chased after by big tech moguls like Kakao Corp. founder Kim Beom-su and Naver Corp. founder Lee Hae-jin for new ideas and investment.

“I hope Crazyoneskorea can become the next Tokiwa-so for startups with big dreams a decade later,” said Kim.

DREAM EDGES CLOSER TO A REALITY

When it first opened about four years ago, the total enterprise value of the tenants’ companies was less than 10 billion won. But that is estimated at more than 200 billion won now. The total number of employees grew to more than 140 from 25, with monthly active users (MAU) of their platforms estimated at nearly 13 million.

In the local blockchain industry, none offers similar shared house/office places like Crazyoneskorea, with an aim to be a base camp for future rebels with blockchain technology. It has about 100 tenants including blockchain startup founders, developers and artists. DSRV Labs and Haechi Labs were born at nonce.

Write to Jong-Woo Kim at jongwoo@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.