Startup Interview with Tony Park and Daniel Cho, co-founders of Stipop

HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background.

Tony: My name is Tony, and this is my friend Daniel, and we were high school roommates. We spent a lot of time after school talking and brainstorming ideas about what we can do after graduation.

Daniel: We were always passionate about communication technologies and online communication in general, and this is how we decided to start our tech start-up.

What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?

Tony: Our startup is called Stipop, and it is a sticker platform. We partner with artists from different parts of the world to create stickers for chats. Then we help to integrate these stickers into messengers through SDK and API, so their users can share them while chatting.

We know that developing a feature like this takes a lot of time and resources, so we are taking over and making it easy for apps to introduce new features to their users. It is like those stickers you see on Facebook, but with one difference - you don't have to be the size of Facebook because Stipop stickers are available for anyone for free. We also help brands to advertise their products with stickers.

Daniel: As you can see, many things are going on, but they all are based on the same idea - we want to make stickers available to any app and any brand through accessible technologies.

What is the origin story?

Tony: Some people are more comfortable meeting in person, but others (including ourselves), would rather send messages instead. But unfortunately, expressing emotions online is not quite the same as in person. And this is exactly where stickers come in handy.

Daniel: We grew up in Korea, and the most popular app to chat was KakaoTalk, and it was one of the very few apps that had stickers back then. Those stickers were in that app only, so communication on other platforms was still rather bland. Back then, even Facebook had 10 sticker packs only, so communication tools were very limited. So this is how the big idea got born, and we teamed up to find sticker creators, make stickers, spread them around the world, and help users express themselves better online.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?

Tony: We love solving problems, are passionate about what we do, and understand users. We are also heavy learners - what we build is fairly new, so we don't have any example to follow or success story to rely on, so we learn a lot to enhance our product.

If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?

Tony: Hard to say, but I think eventually, we would end up building something similar. I always loved creating things, which influenced my interest in stickers and tech and helped connect the passion for both in what we do now.

At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?

Daniel: We have two major metrics: the number of apps integrating our API and SDK - we track API calls, sticker sends, etc., and the number of brands advertising with stickers. We also closely monitor user satisfaction because, at the end of the day, every product is built for real users.

What’s most exciting about your traction to date?

Daniel: We hit 650M sticker views in one month, and it was exciting to see that so many people needed stickers in their life. We also partnered with Google and PubNub, and it was great to get noticed and supported by companies like them. It helped us to push forward and expand our services.

What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why?

Tony: We are excited about machine learning and image recognition. The whole image processing and the accuracy you can get with the recent technologies like CloudVision API by Google or NEC face recognition is truly fascinating. We, in turn, are working on tag suggestions for stickers search through image recognition right now, so we are closely monitoring industry trends like these.

What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?

Daniel: HackerNoon is one of a kind community, and we are happy to be part of it. We like that so many knowledgeable tech professionals share their experience and expertise and how you support startups.

What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?

Tony: Don't be afraid to start a company - tech or not. There are no age restrictions for that. If you feel stuck, ask for help. Be sincere. Be agile.

Daniel: You can accomplish anything if you work hard and put your mind and heart into it.

What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?

Daniel: The world needs problem solvers. Knowledge is power, but only applied knowledge makes the real difference. So if you have a chance to take action, take it!