Unbound Lab CEO Yongmin Cho gave a session on the topic of ‘Survival Strategies for B2B Business in the AI Era’ at ‘B2B Roadmap 2025.’
The following is a summary of CEO Cho Yong-min’s presentation.
AI should be approached as a tool to reduce inconvenience.
In the AI era, it seems that everyone should quickly adopt AI. However, AI is also a tool, so rather than blindly adopting it, it is important to identify your own problems. It is better to use tools that are appropriate for the problem, and explore whether the most annoying, inconvenient, and inefficient of these can be solved with AI. 99% of places that said, "Let's adopt AI too," without considering this, failed.
B2B business enterprises need to redefine their customer RFPs (Request for Proposal).
Typically, B2B business is conducted according to the customer's RFP (request for proposal). However, a good company reinterprets this request according to the customer's mission and vision. In the case of AI image retouching solution, the customer request says, "Please make the photo pretty." A good company does not write in the proposal, "I can make it pretty."
In line with the customer's mission and vision, we write and execute proposals that focus on 'increasing order volume', which is what the customer essentially wants. This goes beyond making the photos pretty and increases actual order volume and sales.
Invest in your customers' thinking partners.
I invest in companies that define customers and problems well, rather than companies that say, "AI technology is the best." I prefer companies that do business by considering even the parts that customers miss and don't think about. I invest in companies that redefine problems from the customer's perspective behind AI and become a thinking partner for customers who make decisions.
When a team receives an investment request, we do not invest right away, but track it over time and check its growth process. We are looking for a gem team, rejecting 364 days out of 365 days a year. We are looking for a company that knows how to draw value beyond RFP. We are currently investing about 8-9% in early-stage startups, and the rest in listed companies and mid-sized companies.
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