CNTTECH: Global Market Success Strategies (Jeon Hwa-sung's Startup)

The YouTube program 'Startup Morning Coffee', hosted by CEO Jeon Hwa-sung, communicates live with viewers every day at 8:40 AM on the 'Jeon Hwa-sung's CNTV' channel, serving as a valuable information platform that deeply illuminates the core competencies and market potential of startups. In this 1111th special broadcast, CNTTech's dynamic overseas expansion and the successes, frustrations, and overcoming processes experienced within it were introduced in detail. Around 2020, CNTTech ventured into overseas markets with a food tech software business model. They championed innovative technology that standardized and digitized the entire food service process, from ordering to delivery. During its initial expansion into Mongolia, it faced harsh cold of -40 degrees Celsius and hardware issues, but persistently improved them and even met the demanding requirements of KFC headquarters, demonstrating its strength by securing a global vendor partnership. Building on its success in Mongolia, it rapidly expanded its kiosk-based food tech business across Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Thailand, and even into the European market. However, the unexpected COVID-19 pandemic brought a sudden halt to CNTTech's relentless overseas business. With maintenance of overseas kiosks becoming impossible, the business could no longer continue, ultimately forcing a complete halt to its overseas expansion, incurring losses of billions of won. In this crisis, CNTTech made a bold decision. It reallocated and retrained its overseas business personnel, redirecting its focus to the accelerating business. This painful experience, paradoxically, gifted CNTTech with the insight and know-how to discover promising startups, and as a result, it has now established itself as the most active company in Korea for discovering and investing in startups. It has achieved unparalleled success in this field, including ranking first in the number of accelerator investments over the past five years. CNTTech's case provides a profound lesson that startup growth is not always smooth sailing, and how to respond and create new opportunities when unexpected crises arise. Their story of overcoming setbacks to achieve a successful rebirth will provide great inspiration and insight to everyone involved in the startup ecosystem.