A young man who graduated from Konkuk University's Department of Film Studies failed in a series of startups, ranging from a content platform and a furniture shopping mall to mobile app development. However, with every failure, he gained 'one' thing. This is the story of Nam Seong-hoon, CEO of I Am Box.
“Initially, I had a deep interest in the content and media industries. I naturally started a content platform business, but I developed an even greater interest in the structure and spaces of the platform industry.”
I realized how significant an impact urban space and real estate have on lifestyles and industrial structures. That is why I enrolled in the Graduate School of Real Estate at Konkuk University.
The first was a content platform, the second was an online furniture shopping mall, and the third was mobile app development. In particular, while operating mobile and online businesses, I keenly felt the importance of cash flow. That led me to find a business model that combined online and offline operations to generate stable revenue. This experience later became the catalyst for starting the self-storage business.
Looking back, the common causes of failure were a lack of understanding of market structure and inadequate capital structure design. I realized that it is difficult to sustain a business with just a good idea.
“The reason I didn’t give up despite that was that ‘starting a business’ suited my personality. Although there were failures, I was convinced that my perspective on the industry and my ability to design business structures were growing.”
Nowadays, when starting a business, we always consider whether the industry is structured to grow even 10 years from now. I Am Box also approaches this not as a general storage service, but from the perspective of an urban infrastructure business that utilizes idle spaces in the city center.
When I Am Box was founded in 2015, the concept of self-storage was virtually unknown in Korea. However, overseas, it had already established itself as a major sector of commercial real estate. In the United States, the market is large enough to warrant the listing of self-storage REITs. Urban personal storage services are also rapidly expanding in Japan and Singapore.
While researching overseas cases, I discovered a commonality: the larger the city, the smaller the living space becomes, and people live with more belongings. Within this structure, the demand for personal storage services is bound to arise naturally.
CEO Nam emphasized, “In Korea as well, the increase in single-person households and the shrinking of living spaces are progressing rapidly,” and “therefore, we judged that this market has sufficient potential for growth.”
IAMBox did not simply import overseas models but localized them to suit the domestic market. In particular, they chose a model that creates urban storage facilities by utilizing vacant commercial spaces and knowledge industry centers. At the time, the issue of vacancies was becoming severe in the commercial real estate market. They determined that these spaces could be utilized for new purposes.
The first storage facility started in Seoul. Initially, we rapidly expanded our branches by handling direct leases. Since 2023, we have been expanding through a 'non-traditional lease' model utilizing vacant spaces. At the time, the concept of self-storage itself was unfamiliar. Although it was necessary to explain the service to customers and landlords, landlords were highly receptive to the industry, recognizing that a large market existed overseas.
With the issue of vacant spaces emerging as a social problem, a rapid market response emerged from landlords struggling with empty rental spaces.
The core values of IM Box are to improve the quality of life for residents in urban areas with poor living conditions and to resolve the issue of vacant properties, which is escalating into a social problem. The problem of vacant commercial real estate in Korea is serious. Beyond individual investment failures, it is causing various social issues, such as increased household debt and family breakdowns. Landlords struggling with vacancies have no clear alternatives. They are left with only two options: leaving the vacant spaces neglected or utilizing them for self-storage. Building owners can gain several advantages by converting vacant commercial spaces or knowledge industry center areas into self-storage facilities.
The first benefit is stable rental income. While general commercial rentals are heavily influenced by economic conditions, self-storage enjoys relatively stable demand. The second is increased space utilization. Spaces that were previously difficult to rent out can be utilized efficiently by converting them into storage facilities. The third is an increase in building value. In fact, there are cases where previously vacant buildings have seen their asset value rise as they generate stable revenue following the opening of an I Am Box.
In fact, there are cases where I Am Box moves into buildings that had been abandoned for a long time, generates revenue, and is subsequently sold at a favorable price. It is a successful example where the value of a building increases and a sale is finalized thanks to a high-quality tenant like I Am Box.
IMBox is pursuing a strategy that combines real estate acquisition and asset management, in addition to its unconventional lease model. It is striving to establish a real estate asset acquisition fund worth 300 billion won this year and a fund of over 1 trillion won by 2028. With this fund, it plans to acquire many buildings in Seoul's central business district.
One of the common pieces of feedback we heard while operating I Am Box was that moving belongings to the storage facility was a hassle. The essence of self-storage is a convenient storage service, but in reality, customers had to personally arrange their own vehicles and move their items.
“To solve these problems, we introduced a ‘direct delivery service.’ It works by having customers send their belongings from home, where I Am Box collects them, delivers them to a storage facility, and then returns them to the customer’s home when needed.”
There are two reasons why we operate our delivery service in-house rather than outsourcing it. The first is service quality management. If storage and delivery services are separated, the customer experience can be disjointed. The second is due to our long-term business strategy. We believe that I Am Box has the potential to expand beyond a simple storage service into an urban space-based logistics infrastructure.
I Am Box is a service designed from the outset based on an unmanned automated system. Customers reserve and pay for storage space via mobile or online platforms, and access to the storage facility is also managed through digital authentication.
In terms of security, the system operates by combining CCTV and access control systems. Since a record is kept every time a customer enters the storage facility and all spaces are monitored by CCTV, the facility is managed safely. Additionally, it is covered by two or three layers of insurance covering security, crime prevention, and fire. He explained, “We built all the systems ourselves,” adding, “Even if branches expand rapidly, efficient and stable operations are possible because no additional resources are required.”
IMBox was selected as a pilot project operator under the 2024 ICT Regulatory Sandbox. Through this, the company is conducting various technology demonstrations related to unmanned storage services and has established an environment to test new service models. According to the company, IMBox is not a franchise business; it is a simple lease business. It is an unconventional lease business model where the lessor pays the initial facility costs and the rent is paid as a variable rate based on revenue. It has the same lease structure as Starbucks.
I Am Box operates over 200 storage facilities nationwide. He says, “While operating hundreds of storage locations, what I consider important is trust.”
Our goal is to operate over 400 branches by the end of the year, and in the long term, we aim to build a storage infrastructure connecting major cities nationwide.
IMBox won the Minister of SMEs and Startups Award in 2023 and the Minister of the Interior and Safety Award in 2024. These awards were the result of recognition that it is not merely a storage service company, but an innovative service model that solves urban problems.
In particular, the issue of vacant commercial spaces is a problem faced by many cities. I Am Box is enhancing the efficiency of urban space by utilizing idle spaces in new ways. Furthermore, the fact that personal storage services are establishing themselves as a new lifestyle infrastructure amidst social changes such as the increase in single-person households and the shrinking of living spaces has been positively evaluated. In fact, the company is collaborating with the local government of Pyeongtaek City with the shared goal of solving housing issues for single-person households.
Korea is rapidly transitioning into a society of single-person households. At the same time, urban living spaces are shrinking. These changes are significant factors driving the growth of the self-storage industry. Particularly in large cities like Seoul, the ratio of housing costs to income is very high, making it difficult to expand living space. In this context, self-storage can serve as a realistic alternative for expanding living space.
“Although the domestic market is in its early stages, I believe it has significant growth potential. Changes such as the increase in single-person households, shrinking living spaces, and the expansion of online commerce are expected to continue driving up the demand for self-storage.”
In five years, I Am Box hopes to grow from a simple storage service company into an urban space infrastructure enterprise. It aspires to evolve into a platform that connects logistics, data, and various urban services based on its storage network. CEO Nam expressed his hope, stating, “By 2028, we aim to contribute to the development of smart cities with a vision of creating a large-scale fund for asset acquisition and developing mixed-use urban complexes based on station area revitalization projects.”
A young man who gained insight after failing three times built a company operating 200 storage facilities nationwide. Attention is focused on how the entrepreneur's tenacity to transform empty spaces into urban infrastructure will change the real estate market.
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