Jin-woo Lee, an employee of South Korean search giant Naver Corp, the parent company of Line, was the first person to bring Line messaging to Thailand seven years ago, before the 3G network was even launched in the country. He had come a long way.
Forty years ago, when South Korea was not advanced like it is today, most Korean families were poor. The government's export-oriented policy, however, was a key factor in turning South Korea into a developed country.
Like many other households, Mr Lee's family struggled to get by. "We had meat once a week, the day that the family gets together for eating meat -- a meat soup, not grilled meat like you see today," recalls Mr Lee, who back then had only one jacket for the five-month winter season.
After working at an international trading company for three years, Mr Lee became a beat reporter for The Korea Times before moving to Naver Corp (formerly NHN Corp), an internet colossus that operated its search engine through an online Q&A platform.
At Naver, his journalism and trading experience advantaged Mr Lee. Back then, everyone was learning that South Korea couldn't thrive with a sole focus on the domestic market.
"Our founder thought that Japan is a very good country because it has a very good domestic market," Mr Lee says. "The size of domestic Japan is even larger than Korea."
In South Korea, more than 500 media outlets provide service via Naver. "Sometimes we have service operations, service design, engineering, everything on one thing," Mr Lee says. "Sometimes we change, put the engineering department to support foreign, or sometimes a person who is your boss becomes your colleague. We don't have any hierarchy. Internally, the organisation has always changed, a very dynamic company."
Mr Lee just followed his boss's mission, focusing on the users. Naver wanted to develop services that users love.
Naver and Line have dealt with a lot of content. Mr Lee's first job at Line was in the PR department, a posting that gave him an opportunity to learn a lot about marketing.
The Naver group has 15,000 employees, and Mr Lee was one of the first 1,000. "I have done everything except engineering," he says.
With the teams trying their hand at many different services, there were a lot of failures. One of the many services of Naver Japan is Line, which became a huge hit.
After success in Japan, Line expanded to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia.
Towards the end of 2011, Mr Lee was the first emissary sent from the company's headquarters to Thailand for the Line project.
He had no idea about Thailand, and the first year was difficult because there was no 3G in the market. Some people had 2G phones, mostly BlackBerry. Very few had an iPhone.
One of his colleagues told him that it was too early to introduce the Line service in Thailand, but he didn't give up.
Student movement
Mr Lee took a motorcycle to Siam Square and sat at Starbucks, where he saw a small group of university students doing their work. He and his translator introduced themselves and asked the students for a quick interview.
"We asked them if they knew about Line, and three of them already used Line," he says. "They didn't use an iPhone, but they used an iPod. With a small screen, they used Line. Back then some people used WhatsApp. I was so surprised. Because they didn't have a smartphone, but they used Line with an iPod."
When Mr Lee asked them to compare Line, WhatsApp and BB Messenger, everybody was excited about Line, which they felt was much more innovative.
Another story involved Boyd Kosiyabong, the singer-songwriter.
"We had to have a celebrity, but we didn't have a marketing budget, so my boss told me we had to go and get a Thai celebrity who used Line," Mr Lee says. "I was at a loss, but I just sought information."
He phoned Love Is, GMM Grammy, BEC Tero, Sony and RS. During a meeting in the Thong Lor area, Mr Lee sat down with Love Is officials and was introduced to Boyd, who hadn't planned on joining the meeting.
"I was just trying to explain things to his marketing team when he passed by and asked what we were doing," Mr Lee says. "I was so excited and explained it to him. He was using an iPhone, so I showed him the Line stickers and Line camera. After that he posted on his Facebook showing the sticker feature. He did the promotion for free. We were so appreciative.
"The teenagers that I met at Siam Square and Boyd, they all helped us. They liked the app and they used it."
By the end 2012, BlackBerry was all but gone and Thailand announced the 3G launch in December 2012. The market changed dramatically in 2013. The use of Line exploded.
"Line had been in Thailand prior to the launch of 3G, so we were ready," Mr Lee says. "We had a lot of growth. In December 2013, we were selected the app of the year, we were selected the most popular app."
Naver forever
Line has furthered the DNA of Naver and keeps providing new services from Naver through localisation. Naver has many different content areas: Naver Economy, Naver Parents, Naver Food, Naver Laws, Naver Job, Naver Book, Naver Marriage, Naver Music, Naver Movie.
The company applies these models and selects some to introduce in Thailand, like Line TV (patterned after Naver TV). Others form locally, like Line Man. Line Pay is a global service, but the company has localised it to suit Thailand.
Three years ago, Mr Lee moved to Line Pay. In the beginning, he took care of operations in Japan, Taiwan and Thailand.
The first joint venture for Line Pay was in Thailand, where three partners (AIS, BTS and Line) hold 33% each. Mr Lee is now based in Thailand.
The company recently launched Rabbit Line Pay, with features billed as secure for linkage with bank accounts and credit or debit cards.
There are 5 million registered users for Rabbit Line Pay, and Line plans to add 500,000 more. "We continue to grow and keep partners first, AIS, BTS and Line," Mr Lee says, noting that more and more merchant partners are signing up with the network.
Rabbit Line Pay is preparing some big campaigns with one of the major banks, and another campaign with a different bank next year. Banks want to provide more value to their customers, but they know it's hard to connect everything.
"We try to bridge the local banks and other partners with users, and you will start to see Rabbit Line Pay more often," Mr Lee says.
As a Korean working in Thai and Japanese contexts, he finds Line apps helpful. "With Line group chat we can collaborate, communicate with HQ every day," he says. "Real-time communication through Line is key for us and for Thai associates.
"Many companies are using group chat and Line messaging. We have to grow our user base. Compared with seven years, I think we have been very good."
When he first came to Thailand alone, Line had no office space. "Nowadays, when I come to this room, I always think we are so lucky, we have our own meeting room in the centre of Bangkok," he says. "From a small space, we expanded. So far, so good. We have been lucky. But how much further we can go, we don't know. Without Line Pay, Line Man, Line TV, we could not go further."
Bursting the bubble
The key, Mr Lee says, is continuing to add value and offer localised services for Line's 45 million users in Thailand.
He made a comparison to bubble tea, which became so popular that vendors quickly saturated the market, generally offering an identical product.
Line tries to disrupt the market by providing new and unique services to users.
When Line TV was launched in Thailand, Mr Lee says, people wondered what it would offer that YouTube didn't already have, but Line anticipated that users would appreciate exclusive content not found elsewhere.
It's the sort of foresight that Line will count on to prolong its success.
