Lee Seong-ro, the CEO of TexTory, is creating a new paradigm of communication-based on text and story.
About the business, he said, "All conversations we have with people we meet and communication by phone calls and text messages are expressed as the word "text," and making the text as a story to provide services is our business."
Ten years ago, Lee was in the broadcasting industry, and he made a radio show listener management service called MN Studio. He said, "Nowadays, most broadcasting stations use the listener management service to check the stories sent by the listeners in the past and communicate in real-time. I founded TexTory with the assurance that this technology can be used to start a new business." TexTory automatically saves communication details with all customers, such as phone calls and texts, in the cloud with an app on the smartphone, and when communicating with the customer, such information is popped up on the phone to easily check customer information and history at a glance.
There are many types of customer management programmes such as sales management programs and marketing programs, but there are not many programs that integrate all customer information into one and provides big data analysis and automated AI service with a platformed business model like TexTory. Lee says the service with the most similar concept which TexTory provides is CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and TexTory that provides platform-based service specialized for each industry that has a similar business model as Salesforce, the global leader in the CRM market. Knowing that Salesforce is targeting large companies or mid-sized companies, TexTory is targeting small businesses for small and medium-sized businesses and startups.
CEO Lee said, "The biggest strength of TexTory is that it serves as a "customized customer center" that saves and manages information and history of communication activities with customers, and it even supports marketing. "TexTory's service is useful in the way that it can provide marketing and correspondence services tailored to the industry." Currently, TexTory has 140,000 users worldwide, has 10,000 foreign users from about 100 countries, not including Korea. Lee said, “We are getting the most requests from sales and marketing people. And, people from community gatherings and SMEs like cafes and real estate agents are increasing steadily as well.”
CEO Lee served as the vice president of the corporate accelerator Infobank's research center, and he located himself in Pangyo as he started TexTory as an in-house venture of the company. Pangyo's corporate ecosystem, where researchers who have participated in specific research projects such as TexTory, provides a useful environment for TexTory as well.
“There are many IT companies, and influential companies such as Kakao are in Pangyo, especially in the same building as our company, so we can meet and discuss immediately if there is a need for cooperation, and we can even make business alliances,” said Lee. He added, “Pangyo Techno Valley’s regional specificity makes it easier for us to gather excellent human resources as well.” Another strength of Pangyo is that startup support organizations such as Pangyo Startup Campus or CCEI are systematically supporting companies and expanding the opportunities for startups to participate by discovering various tasks.
Planning to make services optimized for each type of small business, Lee ended the interview by saying, “To develop TexTory with this potent business platform into a global company like Salesforce, we need the attention from the investors. We are welcoming the people who want to grow with us and make a challenge with open arms.”/.
