[Sungkyunkwan University Campus Town Startups 2025] 'BALLALINBIZ,' a startup that specializes in business development and provides business feasibility verification and infrastructure environments

Seock Won Hong, CEO of BALLALINBIZ

Promoting projects by matching business development experts with requests from demand organizations
Reducing unnecessary trial and error for foreign companies seeking to enter the Korean market

"We are on the verge of conversion as we embark on IT product development, leveraging the customer experience we have accumulated by promoting business development projects requested by B2B customers. We are in a position where we can expand based on the pool of industry demand companies and supply business developers while focusing on the initial MVP function in the fourth quarter of this year. Through data-driven business development status diagnosis and solutions, we expect to develop the largest business development ecosystem in Korea in terms of content and community. In particular, we plan to expand our customer and partner companies globally, mainly in Vietnam and Japan, and launch service products for B2C and B2G customers with demand."

BALLALINBIZ is a startup that specializes in business development and has a team consisting solely of business developers. The company was founded in May 2024 by CEO Seock Won Hong (37).

"I have experience planning and managing new businesses in various industry domains. About ten years ago, I co-founded a startup. I achieved results while supporting the commercialization of startups at an early stage at a public institution. At a private company, I was in charge of business development, covering both the core business and new business areas as a team reporting directly to the CEO. I left the company this year to start my own business."

BALLALINBIZ receives requests from organizations facing difficulties in business development and matches them with business development experts to promote projects. The company discovers high-quality business development experts and operates a training program for business developers.

"Our customers can be individuals, companies, or organizations. However, our main customers are companies that are either growing rapidly as startups or are SMEs with a stable business. Through our brand, GritBD, we match these companies with business development experts, who are discovered or trained by BALLALINBIZ, to work together on projects and solve the business development problems they are currently facing. Our main services include customized business development services that identify business development issues and derive solutions, as well as project management (PM)-type business development services that provide commercialization services to calculate and achieve target KPIs in the form of projects for corporate customers and programs for institutional customers. Customers who struggle to develop a business with internal resources due to their situation and environmental constraints require BALLALINBIZ's services."

Hong said, "We see our biggest competitive advantage and differentiation as the ability to expand beyond the domestic market. This allows us to reduce unnecessary trial and error and provide an infrastructure environment for verifying marketability and business development for local and foreign companies that seek to enter the Korean market."

"At the end of last year and the beginning of this year, we visited Vietnam and Japan to meet with organizations and experts with whom we could collaborate and confirm demand. We are currently developing our service product and securing related revenue."

BALLALINBIZ is renewing its content and community and preparing to launch new products. In line with this, we are creating an environment that exposes our service products to our target customers, attracting them to us while conducting direct discovery and proposals. The company is expanding our business online and offline, focusing on establishing branded products while pioneering new markets.

"From the time we were a pre-startup team, our partners and customers reaffirmed the business value of our work by joining us as angel investors at a higher valuation than our original valuation at the end of last year and on July 1, 2024. In the second half of this year, we are preparing to receive our first investment based on TIPS. In line with our B2G2B business strategy, we are open to attracting investment, primarily from public accelerators (AC). We plan to begin full-scale IR proposals based on the MVP we are currently developing.

Regarding future plans, Hong said, "In the second half of the year, we will open our training course for business developers based on the original GritBD brand content as a paid product, utilizing the business development experience and know-how we have accumulated over the years. Following the conclusion of negotiations with a university in Seoul, we will collaborate with middle-standing enterprises to implement a business developer employment/entrepreneurship program linked to academic credits. The program will span approximately four months."

Founded: May 2024
Main business: promotion and execution of B2B business development projects (BD matching-oriented); B2C business developer training program (BD content community-oriented); and planning and operation of B2G business development programs (incubating companies' commercialization and KPI achievement-oriented)
Main business: promotion and execution of B2B business development projects (BD matching-oriented); B2C business developer training program (BD content community-oriented); and planning and operation of B2G business development programs (incubating companies' commercialization and KPI achievement-oriented)

reporter jinho lee
jinho2323@hankyung.com