Park Soo-man, CEO of But Beautiful, who pioneered Korean social media with Me2day, has returned after a decade with the social app "truloop." With Instagram and Facebook, both of which have completely transformed from friend-centric to content-centric, could he seize the opportunity to reestablish "real friendships"?
"It's hard to see content from friends on my Instagram feed. They're just stories. I moved the Instagram icon to the second page on my iPhone."
CEO Park Soo-man emphasized the "defriending of social networks." According to Meta-related reports, the proportion of content from friends on Instagram feeds has dropped to single digits. CEO Mark Zuckerberg also officially stated that Meta's overall service has shifted from a focus on friendships to a focus on interests and creator discovery.
"TikTok has fundamentally changed the game, and its impact on all social media services has been so profound. There seems to be no going back. It's become a creator-centric economy."
What AI assistants solve isn't technology, it's emotional labor.
The core of Churup is coordinating meeting schedules through an AI assistant. However, the problem it seeks to solve isn't a technical challenge, but rather people's "emotional labor."
"We've all been in situations where people keep asking about our schedules, and it's really awkward to say no because they always ask about a day we have a prior engagement. Even if there are three or more people, or even as few as five, a group naturally develops an invisible hierarchy based on age, seniority, and social status. Everyone knows who should make the first move, but they also want to avoid it."
Churupp designed an AI assistant character to handle this subtle tension and burden. Asking someone, "When will you be back?", urging them to respond when they don't respond, and pushing decisions without anyone noticing—all these tasks were addressed through structures and processes, not individuals.
"The value Churup creates isn't about 'scheduling more quickly,' but rather 'creating a structure that saves people from unnecessary stress.' Technology serves as a tool to enable this structure, but the real problem it seeks to solve always lies closer to the human emotions."
Churupe defines each meeting as a "Loop," a completely different approach from traditional social structures centered on feeds and timelines.
"The downside of recapturing meetings via AirDrop and group chats is that everything gets lost. The only way to see when Seongjun and I played rounds last year was to look at the calendar, and searching the calendar to see what we had was quite awkward."
It's a hassle to leave a group chat created after a dinner gathering with new people, let alone leave it. Churupp's answer to this problem is Loop.
A "super lean organization" with a six-person development team that updates at least once a week.
Churup's six-person development team updates its native iPhone and Android apps at least once a week. He likens it to "a band without middlemen, where everyone has their own voice and plays their own role, creating a full sound."
"Working on this now, I'm realizing that I love creating things and that's when I get the most out of my work. I also have a desire to avoid managing a team of over 200 people. With the advent of the AI era, I'm reaping the benefits of the ever-evolving tools that enable this, and I'm incredibly grateful to be able to work like this."
“Beautiful to take a chance”
The company name, "But Beautiful," is taken from the jazz standard of the same name, a familiar one to jazz fans. CEO Park Soo-man is particularly fond of the lyrics: "On the path of life, contradictions exist simultaneously, like joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, but when you take a step back, they're all beautiful."
"In my career, there were moments of joy from success and moments of pain from failure. Looking back, I think they were all beautiful moments that made me who I am today. There's a line in the lyrics that says, 'Beautiful to take a chance,' and I think it's beautiful to be given an opportunity, to jump at it without hesitation when you think it's a chance."
This is his first time establishing his headquarters as a US corporation. He has also been selected for the Global TIPS program, and his pre-A round is expected to close soon.
"Just the thought that if Churup succeeds, it will become a social app with a population larger than Korea's makes me excited. I'm working towards becoming the first B2C internet service created by a Korean founder to reach over 100 million users in the United States."
He said, “The awkwardness of expressing ‘summoning’ in the Me2day era has become a natural way of communication for the current generation,” and asked, “Isn’t it strange in a way that writing a mention on Instagram or Slack has become a daily routine?” He hopes that the communication method in which AI secretaries permeate people’s daily lives and act as agents that coordinate each other’s schedules will become popular.
CEO Park said that after 390 days with Duolingo, he's been getting ideas for addictive language learning apps powered by AI and user engagement. However, he concluded the interview by saying, "For now, let's focus on Churu."
Park Soo-man, who started with Me2day and returned to the essence of social media, is drawing attention to what changes his challenge will bring in the era of "defriending" on social media.
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