[2025 University of Seoul Campus Town Startup CEO] ‘Dimate Company,’ Developer of ‘Ditote,’ a Platform that Helps Anyone Publish Their Own Book

Minhwa Cho, CEO of Dimate Company

Competitive, all-in-one platform that brings creation, communication, and sales together in one place
Focus on non-literary content such as essays, how-to books, etc., to accurately meet the needs of creators in these fields

With the belief that ‘anyone can become a writer,’ Dimate Company hopes to tear down complicated and difficult publishing barriers to create a world where anyone can quickly and easily weave their knowledge, experience, and imagination into a book and communicate it to the world. It was founded in June 2024 by CEO Minhwa Cho (35).

Ditote is a webbook publishing platform specializing in non-literary fields. For people who have accumulated posts on a blog or social media, or who want to write consistently about a specific topic, Ditote provides convenient editing tools that make writing a book easy. Completed texts can be serialized on the platform as webbooks for real-time communication with readers, while completed books can be published as e-books and sold directly through the platform to generate revenue. Various additional features for creators are also planned, such as AI-based cover creation and reader data analysis.

Ditote’s biggest competitive advantage is its all-in-one platform that brings creation, communication, and sales together in one place. Most existing domestic services only convert completed manuscripts into files. But Ditote provides a comprehensive experience, from the writing process of turning an idea into a book, to the communication process of receiving feedback from readers and completing the writing, to the process of selling the completed book and generating revenue. It is differentiated by its focus on non-literary content, such as essays and how-to books rather than web novels, to accurately meet the needs of creators in these fields.

CEO Cho has completed basic marketing preparations by launching official social media channels on Naver Blog, Instagram, etc. Full-scale marketing will begin with the official launch of the service in October. In the initial stage, the company plans to secure ‘writer customers’ to publish books on Ditote, and has set its key target as micro influencers in their 30s and 40s who consistently generate content in their fields of expertise. These are people who already have quality content and a potential readership, so the company believes they’ll have a strong desire to expand their influence by publishing books through Ditote.

What made CEO Cho decide to start a new company? “The startup idea came from my personal experience. I spent about three years as a micro influencer and wanted to turn the online content I’d created into a book, but there were no suitable services in Korea. Sensing a need in the market, I decided to do some research. I discovered that the global publishing market had already begun a rapid shift towards an era of self-publishing. In fact, one-third of e-books on Amazon are self-published. There were services overseas that had seen a rapid increase in users in line with this trend, but I couldn’t find any in Korea that were supporting this market shift. To seize this opportunity, I approached CTO Jaeyoon Lim, who has over 10 years of full-stack development experience. We had dreamed of starting a business together since college and so we joined forces once again. The initial funding came from personal capital and funds secured through various support projects. We haven’t received any external investments and are operating through government support and our own capital. At the moment, we’re focusing our efforts on perfecting our product and proving its initial marketability. Our primary goal is to successfully launch the service on our own and generate appreciable sales by the first half of next year. After that, we’ll be open to strategic partners that can help accelerate Ditote’s growth and join us as we expand globally.”

Following the launch of the startup, said CEO Cho, “For me, the greatest reward comes from personally realizing our dream of making a positive impact on the world.”

“When we were preparation stage, I met with dozens of potential customers who said, ‘I really needed this service,’ or ‘Make sure to let me know when you launch.’ The most rewarding thing is helping people achieve their dream of ‘publishing a book,’ something no one was able to do on their own, and just the knowledge that we are on the right path.”

Dimate Company is composed of CEO Cho and CTO Lim. Our director of development is an expert with over 10 years of experience who has independently developed multiple apps that have together achieved over 560,000 cumulative downloads. We’re maximizing the strengths of our two-person team by discussing every process in detail, without rigid work boundaries, and making decisions rapidly for swift execution.

Regarding future plans, CEO Cho said, “Our short-term goal is to successfully launch and stabilize our domestic service this year,” and added, “Based on this, we hope to generate actual sales in the first half of next year. We plan to begin entry into the Japanese market by the end of this year and then expand our service to ASEAN countries next year.”

“Our ultimate goal is to grow Ditote beyond Korea and turn it into a global content hub where writers and readers from around the world can read, communicate, and inspire one another, without the barriers of language and national borders.”

Date of Establishment: June 2024
Main Business: E-book platform ‘Ditote’
Performance: Selected for the 2025 K-Unicorn Academy, selected for the 2024 Pre-Startup Package, selected for the University of Seoul Campus Town, received the Excellence Award in the Pre-Startup category

이진호 기자 jinho2323@hankyung.com