A fascinating trend emerged from our company’s inaugural “Zero to 100” pre-startup education program. The behaviour of the 50+ participants, ranging from their 20s to 40s, signals an emerging paradigm shift in Korea’s startup ecosystem. Most notably, we’re witnessing the dissolution of the traditional “full-time entrepreneurship” model.
A significant portion of employed participants expressed their intention to launch startups part-time while maintaining their current positions. Even more striking was that over half preferred co-founding ventures rather than shouldering all responsibilities alone.
They sought collaboration with individuals possessing complementary expertise. As one participant explained, “While entrepreneurship is my dream, I realistically can’t abandon my livelihood. However, we can certainly share our expertise.”
This approach aligns with the global “fractional entrepreneurship” movement, where individuals participate as co-founders or executives across multiple startups. Similar to specialists practising part-time at various hospitals, these professionals distribute their expertise across different ventures. As the concept of “lifetime employment” fades, experts are allocating their time and capabilities more flexibly across organisations.
Our “Zero to 100” graduates exemplify this evolution. One team developing a startup-focused YouTube channel comprises a video production CEO and a startup event company executive who utilise their spare time for the project.
Another team preparing to enter Singapore’s F&B market consists of industry specialists and a spatial designer collaborating with our venture studio team. They initially chose to collaborate virtually without physical space, sharing their expertise on an hourly basis.
This approach proves particularly advantageous for international expansion strategies. The traditional method of establishing overseas subsidiaries by dispatching staff from headquarters is becoming obsolete in the startup sector. Instead, minimising trial-and-error through fractional collaboration with local experts is gaining prominence.
A team preparing for Singapore market entry noted, “Efficiently leveraging local experts’ time is far more effective than learning everything from scratch.”
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Artificial intelligence is accelerating this transformation. As AI increasingly handles middle management and administrative tasks, spatiotemporal constraints are dissolving.
We’re entering an era where product planners from Korea, IT developers from Vietnam, and marketers from Singapore can form virtual entrepreneurial teams. This represents a significant shift from vertical, rigid organisational cultures to horizontal, flexible networks. Pyramid-like hierarchies are transforming into web-like collaborative structures.
For mid-career professionals with 10-20 years of experience in their 40s and 50s, this presents both challenges and opportunities. While the lifetime employment era allowed focus on a single domain, today’s professionals must accumulate diverse experiences across multiple fields. Though seemingly unstable, this approach may actually provide greater security.
These changes promise to revitalise the startup ecosystem by facilitating the free circulation of expertise previously confined within corporations and enabling diverse experimentation. One participant articulated, “We’re no longer pursuing ‘my company’ but rather ‘our projects’—gathering expertise as needed and dispersing when new opportunities arise.”
The transformation has already begun. As the “lifetime employment” framework crumbles, we’re entering an era where careers are designed around “multiple roles” rather than “single workplaces.” Entrepreneurship and global expansion are evolving from “all-in” to “piece-by-piece” approaches. We stand at the inflection point of transition from “all-in” to “smart-in” strategies.
This article was originally published in Korean here.
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