Craftie Inc.Yonggum Kang

Tell us about "Craftie".

Craftie inc. runs the website “Craftie,” a reservation service for craft workshops, and provides other online services related to art, craft and creative activities.

The workshop reservation website Craftie provides matching services for users wishing to participate in workshops and instructors wishing to hold workshops. Users can search and make reservations for workshops in various genres, from traditional crafts and embroidery to more recent trends like candle, accessory and herbarium (bottled flowers) creations. Our website also helps instructors wishing to hold workshops to do so without extraneous effort.

For corporates, we provide workshop services for companies and commercial facilities wishing to hold workshops at their stores. For example, we are currently holding Craftie creation workshops at Nakameguro Tsutaya Books. We will also be holding various workshops at shopping facilities and retail shops in the coming days. Spaces in cafes, restaurants and shopping malls, which are recognized only as mere leads to the main facilities, are turned into spaces for workshops with Craftie’s service packages. Our services are also beneficial for the host companies in terms of effective space utilization, increased customer acquisition opportunities (especially female customers), and maximized promotional effects.

Tell us what made you start your own business.

Since I loved art from before, I continued painting and making accessories as my hobbies even after I started working. I worked for a consulting company after graduating from college until I later switched to an IT company. Looking back at my hobbies after experiencing working for companies, I noticed that there was no excellent service for creation although the potential market was huge. I felt that there was an untapped market for such services, so I tried making a business plan myself.

I never wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I started a project with volunteer members that I solicited from my previous workplace to try out my business plan. As a result, the business went well and I could see concrete outcomes. So, I left the company three months later to devote myself to starting my own company.

Tell us about the future developments.

We are working on the development of a social app/service as a project to fulfill the need for sharing with others, which lies beneath all creative activities. Specifically, we are planning on a Facebook-like app for creative activities where users can post photos of their creations and share workshop information. While our existing services are subject to area restrictions, I believe we can look at a global offering of this social app/service.

Also, I hope to expand services for companies with needs for experience-based contents, since more and more people are seeing more value in experiences rather than objects. As many of our workshop instructors are women, I believe we can contribute to more stable employment of women through business expansion.