Daehee Park of Penn State pointed me to this article (in Korean) introducing Rebi, a new search engine venture founded by Seoul National University students. They are already a 29-people company, and are being mentored by 8 University professors.
Having followed the link, all information I could find was Rebi's algorhythm ranks search results in terms of the author's reputation, quite unlike (and supposedly much superior to) Google's Pagerank. Obviously that's far from being specific enough and I don't know how their technology stands out from that of Techmeme or Technorati's authority search option, which both already rank content based on the author's reputation/authority. Looks like Rebi is a stealth startup and doesn't want to disclose too much information at this stage.
Anyhow, my key question arises from this quote from the arcticle. They don't have any service up and running yet (so at this phase they are essentially a piece of technology rather than a company with a commercially viable service), but they are setting up a Silicon Valley office soon and will start the service first in the US, not in their hometown Korea.
This brings me to the question about what's the good strategy for globalization: showing a J-curve (or the neck of the hockey stick, however you call it - the rapid initial market uptake) in Asia first, and then launch into the US market with the track record, versus, setting a foot in the Valley and learning the lessons hard way from day 1.
Let's think about Cyworld. It's a hugely popular service in Korea, and when they had announced their plan to launch into the US, everyone noticed and even contemplated a duel with Myspace (like the Shaq-Yao thing, you know). But Cyworld didn't impact the US market as strongly as expected. So this is an example where even a hugely popular service in Korea or possibly other parts of the world might not work well in the US, and therefore you gotta go global from day 1.
On the other hand, services like Skype didn't come from the Valley but have done fantastic. Meanwhile, the Valley should have its own unique cultures etc (and the language barrier for the key foreign management people might factor in somewhere along the way too), therefore your service, which could potentially be a smash hit in your local market, might not even get a chance in the Valley.
So what do you think is the better strategy?
a) Show the J-curve in your local market, which you are familiar with, first and then bring the track record to the US - the "Hideki Matsui way", so to speak
b) Go to the valley, take the heat, and come out as a winner no matter how hard it might be - by the time your service becomes a hit in your local market, it would then be too late to globalize it
Having followed the link, all information I could find was Rebi's algorhythm ranks search results in terms of the author's reputation, quite unlike (and supposedly much superior to) Google's Pagerank. Obviously that's far from being specific enough and I don't know how their technology stands out from that of Techmeme or Technorati's authority search option, which both already rank content based on the author's reputation/authority. Looks like Rebi is a stealth startup and doesn't want to disclose too much information at this stage.
Anyhow, my key question arises from this quote from the arcticle. They don't have any service up and running yet (so at this phase they are essentially a piece of technology rather than a company with a commercially viable service), but they are setting up a Silicon Valley office soon and will start the service first in the US, not in their hometown Korea.
This brings me to the question about what's the good strategy for globalization: showing a J-curve (or the neck of the hockey stick, however you call it - the rapid initial market uptake) in Asia first, and then launch into the US market with the track record, versus, setting a foot in the Valley and learning the lessons hard way from day 1.
Let's think about Cyworld. It's a hugely popular service in Korea, and when they had announced their plan to launch into the US, everyone noticed and even contemplated a duel with Myspace (like the Shaq-Yao thing, you know). But Cyworld didn't impact the US market as strongly as expected. So this is an example where even a hugely popular service in Korea or possibly other parts of the world might not work well in the US, and therefore you gotta go global from day 1.
On the other hand, services like Skype didn't come from the Valley but have done fantastic. Meanwhile, the Valley should have its own unique cultures etc (and the language barrier for the key foreign management people might factor in somewhere along the way too), therefore your service, which could potentially be a smash hit in your local market, might not even get a chance in the Valley.
So what do you think is the better strategy?
a) Show the J-curve in your local market, which you are familiar with, first and then bring the track record to the US - the "Hideki Matsui way", so to speak
b) Go to the valley, take the heat, and come out as a winner no matter how hard it might be - by the time your service becomes a hit in your local market, it would then be too late to globalize it
