Paending: Fandom Business Strategy Conference

Opening a new horizon for the creator economy! Fanding's 'Creator Venture Seoul 2025 (CVS 2025)' heated up Gangnam, drawing attention as a venue where some 400 industry professionals discussed the future of fandom business. Co-hosted with Korea's leading accelerator Primer, this conference went beyond simple content creation, focusing on the essence and expansion strategies of creator businesses based on fandom. In other words, it declared an era where creators transform into 'one-person business owners' and 'entrepreneurs'. Lee Seung-yoon, CEO of Story Protocol, emphasized that "content creators are virtually all one-person business owners" and advised that content must be branded and developed into IP to be sustainable. Lee Sung-gyu, CEO of Hair Make-up Lab (known as YouTuber Giwoo쌤), highlighted the importance of 'team capability' beyond individual sense, while Jo Sung-woo, CEO of Subingsusan, presented successful cases of 'entrepreneurial creators' who solve consumer inconveniences and improve products based on data, gaining significant resonance. Notably, Uhm Se-hyun, CEO of Fanding, emphasized that "the rhythm of emotion, not content," is key for the sustainable growth of fandom-based memberships, providing deep insights into the fandom business. Kim Hyung-il, former CEO of Naver Webtoon, presented 'the ability to transform quantity into quality' and 'building a trust-based ecosystem' as the role of platforms in the AI era, while Kwon Do-kyun, CEO of Primer, likened corporations to 'independent entities,' suggesting entrepreneurial strategies to enhance scalability and speed. Starting with this conference, Fanding plans to regularly host creator business conferences to foster and support a continuous growth environment, enabling the domestic creator economy to gain competitiveness on the global stage. The ambition is for Fanding to establish itself as the central platform in this field by building a healthy industrial ecosystem where creators, startups, and investors converge. Seol Eun-seo, Partner at Primer, emphasized the synergy between fandom, startups, and the investment ecosystem, adding that she expects 'CVS 2025' to become a venue for continuous cooperation to collectively create innovative business models.