Three high school CEOs make waves in Korea

Young Korean business leaders who embarked on startup ventures as high school students are garnering attention. CEOs of startups such as Pens, Horang Edu, and Expand have diverse founding stories, but collectively advocate that success is achievable for all with a rational approach, staying calm and being undeterred by failures.

Pens CEO Hong Jin-sol

Developed by Pens, ‘Law Chat’ uses artificial intelligence (AI) to aid in legal case searches. CEO Hong Jin-sol envisioned creating a litigation guidance site upon learning that 72 percent of all domestic civil lawsuits involve individuals representing themselves in court. Drawing from user feedback, he devised an AI service facilitating easy case searches by contextualizing entered sentences rather than relying on keywords.

Pens was selected for a university-industry cooperation project in 2023, placing first place in the SAGE World Cup Korea Regional and second place globally. After being chosen for the 2023 Promising Student Start-up Team 300, Hong went on to compete in the K-Startup Grand Challenge and even pitched at Stanford Law School in September 2023.

“I hope the domestic legal tech industry can grow,” Hong, who is about to graduate as a third-year student at Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies, said. He emphasized Pens’ role in potentially becoming a bastion for self-represented litigants.

CEO of Horang Edu Ryu Do-hui

Horang Edu conducts easy coding education through the Korean programming language. Ryu Do-hui, CEO of Horang Edu and a senior at Korea Digital Media High School, highlighted the gap that has existed between block coding and text coding in the mandatory curriculum since 2015. Addressing the difficulty students face in learning coding through “computer language” and English, he developed a coding education service employing the “Korean programming language” to break this “language barrier.”

Ryu applied for a yearly startup support program for aspiring entrepreneurs at the beginning of 2023, and also secured about 50 million won ($38,000) in government funding by being selected for the 2023 Lifetime First Youth Entrepreneurship Support Program by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. Ryu founded the company in June 2023, and Horang Edu was recognized as a 2023 COMEUP STARS company by the ministry, presenting at the COMEUP event held at Seoul Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in November 2023.

The company partnered with OPENKNOWL, a Kosdaq-listed company in the education sector, in July 2023 and the Ansan Youth Foundation a month later to improve its coding education content. Horang Edu has conducted classes utilizing Korean coding for over 150 students to date, and an anonymous survey revealed high satisfaction rates averaging around 8 out of 10, with 90 percent of students finding the classes both easy and enjoyable.

CEO Kim Chang-hwan of Expand

CEO Kim Chang-hwan of Expand has admired corporate executives like those at Hyundai and Samsung since childhood, studying their entrepreneurial stories and believing “I can do it too.”

Expand runs a specialized trading platform for K-pop goods, which was developed to streamline the cumbersome process of trading goods across various platforms. The platform ensures safe trading of used goods through a secure trading system, preventing secondary goods buyers from experiencing quality issues. Kim also established a system whereby secondary goods creators can promote and sell their items conveniently. Founded in June 2023, Expand began its journey with the selection in the ‘Lifetime First Youth Entrepreneurship Support Program.’ The company actively participated in various external activities and continued providing SI solutions to secure company funds, which led to steady growth.

A senior at Gyeongbuk Software High School, Kim advised aspiring entrepreneurs as he reflected on his own startup journey, “I missed a lot by rushing into entrepreneurship,” and emphasized the importance of a rational approach to item creation when venturing into startups.