Things You Must Know Before Receiving Your First Investment
Startup Glossary
For aspiring/early-stage founders and newcomers to the startup ecosystem
Glossary of Essential Terms
This glossary was created to assist prospective and early-stage entrepreneurs, as well as newcomers to the startup ecosystem, in smoothly understanding business and quickly adapting to practical work. Please feel free to share it with anyone around you who might find it useful. However, the use of this file for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.
You can search for keywords by pressing Ctrl+F. Due to page loading times, searching after 'Hangul [ㅅ]' may not work initially. You can search quickly by scrolling all the way down and then pressing the keyword again.
English (A~Z)
A/B Testing [Marketing/Advertising]
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This is a method of experimenting to determine which of two or more variations (Option A, Option B) yields higher performance by comparing them, and selecting the optimal strategy through the analysis of user responses using data.
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Usage Example: "We conducted an A/B test with payment button colors divided into blue and red, and the conversion rate for red was 15% higher."
API (Application Programming Interface) [IT/Development]
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It is an interface that connects software to enable seamless data exchange, allowing for easy functional expansion by integrating external services.
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Usage Example: "I integrated the Naver Pay payment API into our online store to add a feature that makes it easier for customers to make payments."
B2B / B2C / B2G [Business Strategy]
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Transaction forms based on target customers refer to Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Consumer (B2C), and Business-to-Government (B2G) transactions, and sales strategies are established accordingly.
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Usage example: "Our startup is focusing on developing B2B SaaS targeting corporate HR teams rather than general consumers."
BM (Business Model) [Business Strategy]
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An overall business structure systematically designed to determine what value a company provides to customers and how it generates revenue.
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Usage example: "In this pitch deck, I need to clearly show investors whether our company's business model is a subscription model or a matching fee model."
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) [Market/Metrics]
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It is the total cost of acquiring one new customer, serving as a standard for measuring marketing efficiency and optimizing the cost of customer acquisition.
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Usage Example: "With the recent rise in performance marketing costs, our service's CAC has surged from 20,000 won to 30,000 won, so we need a solution."
CMS (Content Management System) [IT/Development]
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A system that helps marketers or operators easily create, modify, and manage website content without developer coding.
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Usage Example: "Let's introduce a WordPress-based CMS so that the marketing team can directly manage blog posts and event pages."
CPA (Cost Per Action) [Marketing/Advertising]
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A marketing billing method in which costs are paid only when the user completes a specific action, such as signing up or installing an app, beyond a simple click.
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Usage example: "To quickly acquire new members, I am actively running CPA campaigns that pay out only when a sign-up is completed."
CPC Campaign (Cost Per Click) [Marketing/Advertising]
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An advertising method in which a fixed cost is paid each time a user clicks a banner or link, regardless of the number of ad impressions.
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Usage Example: "I registered our main keyword on Naver Powerlink and set a budget based on CPC at 500 won per click."
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) [Marketing/Advertising]
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A management strategy that analyzes existing customer data to provide customized services and maintains continuous relationships to increase repurchase rates and lifetime value (LTV).
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Usage Example: "I used a CRM tool to send a 10% surprise discount coupon text to customers who abandoned their shopping cart."
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) [IT/Development]
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It is a language that styles the visual design (color, font, layout, etc.) of web pages, providing users with a more intuitive and attractive UI.
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Usage example: "I applied CSS to a button that the publisher structured in HTML to turn it into a stylish, rounded, blue button."
CTA (Call To Action) [Marketing/Advertising]
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Phrase or button that intuitively guides users to perform specific actions desired by a business, such as purchasing, subscribing, or signing up.
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Usage Example: "To reduce the landing page bounce rate, I placed a strong CTA button at the bottom that says 'Try 14 Days Free Now'."
DAU (Daily Active Users) [Market/Metrics]
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The number of unique visitors who actually used a specific service or app during the day, a key metric for evaluating the daily activity and customer retention of a service.
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Usage example: "After running a massive push notification event yesterday, the app's DAU jumped by more than 20% compared to usual."
DNS Server (Domain Name System Server) [IT/Development]
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A system that converts human-readable internet domain names (e.g., www.google.com) into computer-recognizable numeric IP addresses.
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Usage example: "To connect the newly purchased domain to our server, you need to change the DNS server settings on the Gabia admin page."
EBITDA [Finance/Accounting]
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Operating profit before deducting interest, taxes, depreciation, etc., and is an indicator that evaluates how much cash a company generates solely from its operating activities.
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Usage example: "Although our net profit is still in the red due to capital expenditure depreciation, our company has already successfully turned a profit based on EBITDA."
GDN (Google Display Network) [Marketing/Advertising]
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An extensive display advertising network that is displayed in the form of banners or videos on millions of websites, apps, YouTube, etc., affiliated with Google.
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Usage example: "There were limitations to increasing awareness with text search ads alone, so I decided to run GDN ads using visual banners in parallel."
GTA (Google Tag Assistant) [Marketing/Advertising]
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A browser extension tool that checks in real-time whether Google-related tracking tags (GA, GTM, etc.) installed on a website are functioning correctly and catches errors.
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Usage example: "I embedded a conversion tag on the payment page, so I'll launch GTA on Chrome and thoroughly check if it's working properly."
GTM (Google Tag Manager) [Marketing/Advertising]
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Google's system that allows marketers to directly insert and manage various tracking codes or scripts on a website without the help of a developer.
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Usage example: "It is cumbersome to ask the developer every time we need to track the number of clicks on a specific button, so let's adopt GTM and manage it ourselves from now on."
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) [IT/Development]
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The most standard markup language that defines the basic structure and framework of a webpage, such as text, images, and links.
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Usage example: "As soon as the plan was finalized, the publisher quickly finished the HTML work to set up the overall layout of the main page."
IP (Internet Protocol Address) [IT/Development]
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A unique numeric address assigned to identify computers or devices on an internet network and to exchange data with each other.
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Usage example: "To prevent malicious external access, I allowed access to the server administrator page only from specific IPs in the office."
IR (Investor Relations) [Investment/Financing]
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Promotional activities in which a startup successfully attracts investment by communicating its vision, growth potential, financial status, etc., to investors and persuading them.
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Usage example: "I have to give an online IR pitch to key VC investors next week, so I've been refining my presentation materials all weekend."
IRR (Internal Rate of Return) [Finance/Accounting]
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A discount rate that makes the present value of an investment project equal to the present value of future expected earnings, used as an indicator to evaluate the profitability of a fund or project.
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Usage Example: "We are setting a target IRR of over 15% for our newly established venture fund and plan to invest primarily in deep tech companies with clear growth potential."
J-Curve [Market/Indicator]
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The unique growth curve of a startup, which initially incurs deficits due to technology development and labor costs, but then sees profits explode exponentially after achieving market fit.
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Usage example: "Right now, runway shows are shrinking and the deficit is large, but once the subscription model takes hold early next year, it will grow explosively, drawing a full-fledged J-curve."
JavaScript [IT/Development]
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A programming language that adds dynamic interactions, such as animations, popups, and data synchronization, to static web pages.
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Usage example: "I implemented it in JavaScript so that a 'Too short' warning popup appears in real-time if the user enters a short password."
KPI (Key Performance Indicator) [Market/Metric]
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Specific and quantitative key performance indicators established to evaluate whether an organization or team has successfully achieved core business objectives.
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Usage example: "Our marketing team's most important KPIs for this quarter are 'acquiring 10,000 new subscribers' and 'maintaining 30% retention.'"
LLC-type Venture Capital [Investment/Funding]
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An agile venture capital firm where a small number of key investment experts establish a Limited Liability Company (LLC) to directly manage funds, rather than operating in a complex corporate structure.
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Usage example: "We established an LLC-type venture capital firm instead of a corporation to maximize our partners' expertise and execute investments quickly and flexibly."
LTV (Life Time Value) [Market/Indicator]
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The total revenue or net profit (customer lifetime value) that a single customer brings to a business from the time they first enter the service until they completely churn.
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Usage Example: "For the business to be sustainable, the Lifetime Value (LTV) a customer brings us over their lifetime must be at least three times higher than the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) for bringing in a single customer."
M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) [Business Strategy]
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The act of acquiring another company (acquisition) or merging two companies into one (merger) for the purpose of expanding market share, entering new businesses, or recovering an investment (exit).
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Usage example: "The acquisition of Baedal Minjok by Delivery Hero is the most dramatic and massive M&A case in the domestic startup ecosystem."
MPS (Master Production Schedule) [Business Strategy]
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A master production schedule established in manufacturing or hardware startups to determine how much and when to produce a product over a specific period based on demand forecasts.
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Usage Example: "I completely revised the MPS to increase factory utilization rates to ensure there is no inventory shortage in the logistics warehouse in preparation for explosive demand during the year-end peak season."
MVP (Minimum Viable Product) [Planning/Design]
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It is a prototype with minimal features implemented to verify only the core value of the business, released to conserve resources and quickly test market reaction.
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Usage example: "I'm going to deploy an MVP with a rough design but working core functions to a select group of customers first to check their reactions."
OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) [Business Strategy]
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Contract manufacturing, in which products are produced on behalf of clients without a proprietary trademark or brand, and then delivered with the client's trademark attached.
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Usage Example: "We handled product planning and marketing exclusively, and reduced fixed costs by entrusting the actual cosmetics production to a professional OEM factory equipped with the necessary facilities."
PMF (Product-Market Fit) [Market/Metrics]
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A state in which our products properly meet the demands of the target market, customers voluntarily seek out the products, and rapid growth occurs.
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Usage Example: "Seeing the user return rate exceed 40% and the viral spread naturally, I think our service has definitely found its PMF!"
PMS (Project Management System) [Business Strategy]
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Software for systematically managing and sharing schedules, task assignments, progress, etc., of projects involving collaboration among multiple teams.
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Usage example: "I set up a PMS called Jira so that the planning, design, and development teams can communicate smoothly without losing work history."
PRD Document (Product Requirements Document) [Planning/Design]
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A product requirements definition document that details and clearly outlines the planner's intentions regarding what functions the product should have and how it should operate.
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Usage Example: "I provided the detailed policies and exceptions for the payment process in a PRD document so that the development team could code immediately without confusion."
QA Deployment (Quality Assurance Deployment) [IT/Development]
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A quality assurance process of deploying the product to a dedicated test server to check for bugs in functionality before uploading it to the production server used by actual customers.
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Usage example: "I will conduct a QA rollout before the launch of the new event feature tomorrow to thoroughly check if coupon discounts are applied correctly in the shopping cart."
ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) [Market/Indicator]
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A figure representing the percentage of sales generated relative to advertising costs, serving as a key metric for evaluating the direct profit efficiency of a marketing campaign.
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Usage Example: "I spent 1 million won on Instagram ads and generated 4 million won in sales, so the ROAS for this campaign is 400%, which is quite good."
RCPS (Redeemable Convertible Preferred Stock) [Investment/Financing]
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It is the most widely used stock in startup investments, featuring a 'redemption right' to receive the investment back at maturity, a 'conversion right' to convert it into common stock, and priority in the distribution of remaining assets.
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Usage Example: "In this Series A investment round, we consulted with institutional investors and decided to issue equity in the form of RCPS to provide risk protection."
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) [IT/Development]
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A format that allows users to collect and subscribe to new content from frequently updated websites, such as news sites or blogs, in one place without having to visit them individually.
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Usage example: "I've linked the RSS feed to a competitor's tech blog so I can get instant Slack notifications whenever a new post is uploaded."
SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) [Investment/Financing]
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A simplified contract method in which an early-stage startup does not determine a valuation at the time of investment, but instead receives equity based on the value determined in a subsequent investment round.
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Usage Example: "Since it is still too early to determine the company valuation, I raised 100 million won in seed funding using the SAFE method, where the equity stake is decided later with angel investors."
SaaS (Software as a Service) [Business Strategy]
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A service provision model in which software is used via the internet cloud by paying a subscription fee only for what is needed, without installing it directly on a server.
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Usage example: "Instead of building a complex in-house server for internal email and document work, we subscribe to a proven B2B SaaS called Google Workspaces."
Single Featured MVP [Planning/Design]
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A prototype implemented by stripping away all diverse and complex additional features, containing only the single most core function that solves the customer's pain point.
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Usage Example: "A prime example is how early KakaoTalk broke into the market with only a single feature (Single Featured MVP) of 'fast, free text messaging.'"
SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) [Investment/Financing]
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A type of paper company listed on the stock market first for the purpose of acquiring and merging (M&A) a blue-chip unlisted company to list it.
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Usage example: "Our company is considering a faster path to listing by merging with an already listed SPAC instead of the time-consuming direct listing process."
SPC (Special Purpose Company) [Finance/Accounting]
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An independent company on paper temporarily established for the purpose of financing or diversifying risk for a specific project.
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Usage Example: "We established a separate SPC in the form of a 100% subsidiary to raise the funds needed to build a large-scale factory without parent company risk."
TAM, SAM, SOM [Market/Indicator]
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A method of logically explaining business size to investors by dividing it into Total Market (TAM), Effective Market (SAM), and Market for Share (SOM).
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Usage Example: "In the pitch deck, let's clearly present not only the Total Healthcare Market (TAM) but also the realistic size of revenue we can capture next year (SOM)."
Time-bound Principle [Business Strategy]
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The principle of goal setting that setting a clear deadline for when to achieve a goal increases execution power.
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Usage example: "Instead of simply saying 'Let's increase sales,' I set a deadline like 'Let's achieve 100 million won in monthly sales by December 31st of this year.'"
UI (User Interface) [Planning/Design]
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Visual screen composition design, including fonts, colors, buttons, and layouts, that users directly interact with on a web or app service.
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Usage example: "We revamped the UI by enlarging text boxes and making button placement more intuitive so users wouldn't get lost during the sign-up process."
USP (Unique Selling Proposition) [Marketing/Advertising]
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A unique and powerful differentiation point that only our brand can confidently present to customers amidst countless competing products.
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Usage Example: "Our service's USP isn't that it's 50% cheaper than our competitors, but that AI completes the design in just one second."
VC (Venture Capital) [Investment/Funding]
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A specialized investment institution that invests large sums of money in early-stage ventures with high-speed growth potential and generates profits through the increase in equity value.
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Usage example: "I need more funding to expand my business, so I plan to meet with investment managers from major VCs in Silicon Valley starting next month."
Hangul (ㄱ~ㅎ)
[Go]
Private Investment Partnership [Investment/Funding]
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A fund formed by individual investors pooling capital for the purpose of investing in promising venture companies and distributing profits, serving as a financing channel for early-stage startups.
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Usage example: "In this seed bridge round, not only existing angel investors but also a private investment syndicate of local angels has decided to participate."
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) [Marketing/Advertising]
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Strategic work to improve content and system structure so that our website appears at the top of search results when searching for specific keywords.
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Usage example: "To save on advertising budget, I wrote blog posts focusing on high-volume keywords to significantly increase organic traffic (SEO) performance."
Proprietary Account (Company Account) [Investment/Financing]
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An account used when a venture capital (VC) firm invests directly using its own capital, rather than through a fund created by raising capital from external LPs.
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Usage example: "This investment was fully funded from the VC's proprietary account to execute capital quickly and flexibly without fund maturity regulations."
Public Offering [Finance/Accounting]
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A method of publicly soliciting newly issued stocks or securities from an unspecified public of 50 or more people and raising a large amount of funds.
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Usage example: "Our company is going to conduct a large-scale public offering for retail investors after undergoing institutional demand forecasting for its KOSDAQ listing."
Exchangeable Bonds (EB) [Finance/Accounting]
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A bond that grants the right to be exchanged for listed shares of another company held by the issuing company.
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Usage Example: "Due to an immediate lack of cash liquidity, we issued EBs to investors that can be exchanged for high-quality shares of other companies that we hold, instead of the principal."
Growth Hacking [Marketing/Advertising]
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A methodology for analyzing data to identify user patterns, continuously improving products, and driving explosive business growth at low cost.
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Usage Example: "I analyzed the data to understand why the dropout rate in the sign-up funnel was high and simplified the UI, and the sign-up conversion rate doubled in just one week."
Initial Public Offering (IPO) [Finance/Accounting]
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A series of processes for officially listing on the stock market by transparently disclosing a company's financial status and shares to external investors and the general public.
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Usage example: "If our startup achieves an overwhelming market share, we will eventually make a successful IPO on the KOSDAQ market our ultimate goal."
Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) [Investment/Funding]
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Venture capital established by large corporations to invest in promising startups through separate subsidiaries for the purpose of discovering new businesses or securing technology.
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Usage example: "Attracting investment from a CVC, going beyond simple financial investors, has the advantage of allowing you to leverage the parent company's massive infrastructure."
[You]
Nudge [Marketing/Advertising]
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A strategy that naturally guides people toward the direction desired by the brand or positive behaviors through gentle intervention, without forcing their choices.
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Usage example: "We used a nudge strategy of making the annual subscription button on the payment page selectable by default in a prominent color, and the number of long-term subscribers increased."
No Coding [IT/Development]
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A development method that allows a website or app to be completed using only a visual UI that places elements on the screen, without complex programming knowledge.
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Usage example: "I completed the main landing page in 3 days using no-coding tools like Imweb or Webflow, without hiring an outsourced developer."
Niche Market [Business Strategy]
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A niche market targeting small groups with specific tastes or clear demands, rather than the mass market dominated by large corporations.
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Usage example: "Initially, instead of targeting the mainstream beauty market, I gathered loyal customers by targeting the niche market of 'professional makeup brushes for the left-handed.'"
[Do]
Data Literacy [Market/Indicators]
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The ability to go beyond simply viewing vast amounts of data, read and interpret its trends, and utilize them for actual business decision-making.
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Usage example: "Data literacy—the ability to analyze GA data and extract insights—is essential not only for performance marketers but also for planners and designers."
Database [IT/Development]
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A systematically structured system designed to efficiently store large amounts of data, such as member information and payment history, and to quickly search and modify them when needed.
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Usage example: "The list of participants for yesterday's pre-registration event was successfully saved to our server's database without any omissions."
Demo Day [Investment/Funding]
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An event where startups that have completed accelerator incubation present (pitch) their products and business models to investors and the public.
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Usage Example: "I have successfully completed a 6-month incubation program and am practicing my presentation to secure follow-up investment at the Demo Day next week."
Death Valley [Business Strategy]
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The most critical period of financial hardship faced by early-stage startups that have nearly exhausted their seed funds but have not yet generated stable revenue in the market.
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Usage Example: "Product development is finished, but since we haven't found PMF yet and aren't generating any revenue, our company is right now passing through Death Valley."
Daily Scrum [Business Strategy]
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A meeting in an Agile organization every morning where a short amount of time is allocated to quickly share with team members what was done yesterday, what will be done today, and obstacles to the work.
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Usage example: "We have a daily scrum for 15 minutes at 10 a.m. every day to share work progress."
Decacorn [Investment/Funding]
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A privately held startup valued at over $10 billion (approximately 10 trillion won), ten times larger and more overwhelming in scale than a unicorn.
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Usage example: "OpenAI, having built an ecosystem beyond simple text AI, rose from unicorn to decacorn in a flash."
Domain [IT/Development]
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A unique internet address made up of letters and numbers to help users easily remember and find a website on the internet (e.g., www.google.com , www.pitchmound.kr ).
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Usage example: "Before launching the service, we preemptively reserved all .kr and .com domains with our brand name on them through Gabia."
Stone Bridge Theory [Marketing/Advertising]
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The theory that consumers gain confidence by going through multiple stages of verification, such as reviews and certification marks, to resolve doubts before making a purchase decision.
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Usage Example: "To increase customer conversion rates, I applied the 'Stone Bridge' theory by placing patent certificates and actual customer reviews throughout the detail page."
Design Thinking [Planning/Design]
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A mindset that goes beyond simply making things pretty; it involves thoroughly empathizing with the user from their perspective, identifying real problems, and coming up with creative solutions.
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Usage example: "The entire team gathered to conduct a design thinking workshop to find the real cause of the sales decline in customer behavior."
Decoding [IT/Development]
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The process of restoring data that has been encrypted or encoded for computer processing back into its original language or form that can be read and understood by humans.
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Usage example: "I used a decoding tool to convert the broken special characters in the URLs recorded in Google Analytics and identified the original keywords users searched for."
Default [IT/Development]
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The default value applied to the system or program when the user has not separately changed or touched the settings.
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Usage example: "I increased the initial recipient acquisition rate by setting the default consent for event notifications to 'Agree' during sign-up."
Drag & Drop [Planning/Design]
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A method of operation in which a specific element on a computer or smartphone screen is pressed and held with a mouse or touch and dragged to a desired location.
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Usage example: "Our service's admin page allows you to rearrange banners or text blocks simply by dragging and dropping, without any complex code."
Dropdown [Planning/Design]
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A UI menu that allows multiple hidden options to unfold downwards and be selected when the user clicks.
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Usage example: "Instead of having users type their job directly into the sign-up form, I implemented a dropdown menu displaying 10 job categories to save space."
Deep Tech [Business Strategy]
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Technology with high entry barriers based on advanced scientific source technologies such as AI, quantum computing, and aerospace, rather than general apps or platform services.
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Usage example: "The VC that led this round of investment is recently focusing on deep tech startups with a clear technological gap, such as AI drug development, rather than O2O platforms."
[ㄹ]
Library [IT/Development]
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A collection of frequently used and useful functions or code snippets created in advance to prevent developers from having to write software from scratch.
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Usage example: "Coding charts or graphs directly takes too long, so I used the open-source D3.js library to implement them quickly."
Learning Curve [Business Strategy]
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The amount of time and effort required to fully master and become proficient in a new technology, tool, or work system when first encountered.
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Usage example: "This data analysis tool is overwhelming in terms of features, but the learning curve is too steep for beginners, so it will take quite a while for team members to adapt."
Runway [Finance/Accounting]
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The remaining number of months a startup can survive solely on its current cash balance, without attracting additional investment or revenue.
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Usage example: "Thanks to drastically cutting unnecessary marketing costs recently, we secured 10 months of runway shows to last until we receive our next bridge investment."
Reference [Planning/Design]
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Best practices or materials from other companies that are referenced for benchmarking or inspiration when planning, designing, or developing new marketing campaigns.
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Usage Example: "Before drafting the app design renewal, I scrapped a ton of UIs from popular fintech apps on Pinterest and Behance as references."
Layout [Planning/Design]
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An overall structural framework that arranges various elements such as text, images, banners, and buttons within a website or app screen for visually appealing and user-friendly layouts.
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Usage example: "The screen looked too cluttered, so I reduced the amount of text and completely revamped the layout to be image-centric."
Layer [Planning/Design]
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A feature in design tools like Photoshop or Figma that allows text, background, and images to be separated into distinct layers, like transparent cellophane, and modified independently.
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Usage example: "If you combine the background image and ad text on the same layer, it will be difficult to change only the text later, so please make sure to work on the text layer separately."
Robots TXT (Robots.txt) [IT/Development]
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A document listing the rules regarding which pages Google or Naver's search robots (crawlers) are allowed to collect and which pages they are not allowed to access when they visit our website.
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Usage example: "I have set strong access blocking settings in the robots TXT file to prevent the admin page containing customers' personal information from appearing in Google search results."
Low Coding [IT/Development]
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Unlike non-coding, which omits 100% of coding, this method dramatically increases development speed by writing only the minimum framework code directly and combining the rest with platform modules.
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Usage Example: "It would take three months to build an in-house approval system from scratch, but by adopting a low-coding platform, I completed it in just four weeks by adding custom features."
Loyalty Strategy [Marketing/Advertising]
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A strategy to increase brand loyalty by providing points, tiered benefits, and exclusive events to prevent existing customers from leaving and switching to competitors.
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Usage Example: "It has become more important to increase the average transaction value of existing VIP customers than to attract new ones, so I am planning a loyalty strategy to double the point accumulation rate."
Resources [Business Strategy]
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All forms of resources, such as funds, available personnel, time, and technical capabilities, that must be mobilized to execute a specific project or business without disruption.
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Usage example: "Our internal development team is woefully inadequate to launch a new app service right now, so we've decided to outsource some modules."
Retargeting [Marketing/Advertising]
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A technique that uses cookie data to track customers who entered our shopping mall, browsed, and left, and then shows them advertisements for our products again when they view Instagram or other sites.
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Usage Example: "I successfully completed a purchase by retargeting users who had added expensive clothes to their carts but were hesitating to pay, showing them a banner containing a 10% discount coupon."
Retention [Market/Metrics]
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Customer retention rate refers to the percentage of users who installed the app today and continue to access our service and maintain payments even after a week or a month without deleting or dropping out.
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Usage Example: "No matter how much we increase sign-ups through marketing, if first-month retention drops below 10%, it is like pouring water into a leaky bucket, so let's drastically improve the onboarding process."
Refixing [Investment/Financing]
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A condition that lowers the initially promised stock conversion price to match the market price to prevent losses for investors who have invested in convertible bonds (CB), etc., when the stock price of a listed company falls.
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Usage Example: "As the entire stock market recently crashed, our company's stock price also fell, so we received a request from fund investors to refix the conversion price in accordance with regulations."
Lean Startup [Business Strategy]
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An agile startup approach that does not waste time building a perfect product, but instead rapidly launches a core Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to gather customer feedback and make modifications.
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Usage Example: "Instead of pouring 100 million won into design and add-ons from the start, let's reduce risk by using a Lean Startup approach to verify demand with only Google Forms and Notion Pages."
[Grave]
Milestone [Business Strategy]
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In a massive project or business journey, symbolic and pivotal short-term goals that must be achieved and passed, such as attracting investment or launching a product.
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Usage example: "Our most important milestone to achieve within six months with this seed round investment is 'acquiring 10,000 paying customers.'"
Markup Language [IT/Development]
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A language that helps the browser understand the structure and visual meaning of a document by adding tags such as bold headings, paragraph breaks, and hyperlinks to a document that consists solely of text (e.g., HTML).
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Usage example: "The frontend publisher has finished structuring the received planning document text using a markup language so that it can be viewed cleanly in a web browser."
Matrix [Business Strategy]
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A visualization tool that intersects complex text-based data in the form of a grid (table) with horizontal and vertical axes to compare and analyze the correlations of each element at a glance.
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Usage Example: "To understand our position relative to competitors, I drew a positioning matrix with 'price' on the horizontal axis and 'convenience' on the vertical axis, and I saw an open market."
Matrix Organization [Business Strategy]
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A flexible organizational structure in which members belong to their original departments, such as the marketing or development teams, while simultaneously belonging to a specific new business TF project team, allowing for dual reporting and collaboration.
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Usage example: "To immediately incorporate customer feedback into our products, we are trying out a matrix organization where planners and designers work together in one team, eliminating silos between job functions."
Machine Learning [IT/Development]
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Artificial intelligence technology that enables computers to learn patterns and predict the future on their own by feeding vast amounts of data into them, without humans having to code rules one by one.
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Usage example: "We trained a machine learning model on what late-night snacks users primarily searched for at 10 PM, and are displaying the most likely personalized delivery coupons based on their access time."
Multiple [Investment/Financing]
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A multiple indicating how many times the return an investor generated upon final exit compared to the principal invested in a venture company (exit multiple, return on investment), or how many times the company's value is relative to the sales or profits of peers in the same industry (sales/profit multiple, valuation).
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Usage example: "That venture capital firm invested 1 billion won five years ago during the early days of a delivery app, and recently exited after selling its stake, pocketing a whopping 30-fold return multiple." (Exit multiple)
Mezzanine [Investment/Financing]
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A financial investment product at an intermediate risk level (CB, BW, etc.) that combines the characteristics of safe 'bonds' and high-profit 'stocks' in equal measure, much like a lounge between the first and second floors of a building.
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Usage example: "Since it was difficult to secure a bank loan and I didn't want to sell the stock at too low a price, I raised funds using a mezzanine financing method that guarantees the principal to investors and allows them to convert it into stock later."
Momentum [Market/Indicator]
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The driving force and momentum of a service that goes beyond simple upward growth, gaining uncontrollable traction triggered by specific issues or viral trends and surging explosively.
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Usage Example: "A video of a famous influencer voluntarily reviewing our product hit 1 million views, creating momentum for an exponential surge in app downloads."
Fund of Funds [Investment/Funding]
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A massive parent fund established under government leadership to provide large-scale seed capital to investment funds formed by private venture capital (VC) firms, rather than investing directly in individual startups.
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Usage example: "As the Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced a large-scale fund-of-funds investment program this year to foster deep tech, VCs are scrambling to secure funding."
Fund of Funds [Investment/Funding]
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A top-tier fund established solely for the purpose of distributing capital among multiple sub-funds (including parent funds) without investing in general companies or projects.
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Usage example: "To revitalize the startup ecosystem, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has established its own fund of 50 billion won and is distributing funds to the funds of promising local accelerators."
Mockup [Planning/Design]
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A precisely drawn mock-up designed to show investors or customers the actual design and screen flow of the completed app, even though no coding or actual functionality is connected to the backend.
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Usage Example: "The developer hasn't started coding yet, but I used Figma to create a mockup that looks convincingly like it works on a real smartphone and took it to an IR meeting."
[Hundred]
Bottom-up Hypothesis Formulation [Business Strategy]
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A method of establishing highly reliable hypotheses by systematically gathering customer data and small behavioral patterns collected from the service field, rather than relying on top-down directives from management or speculation.
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Usage Example: "We revamped the payment page UI by meticulously analyzing log data to identify customers abandoning their shopping carts and applying bottom-up hypothesis formulation."
Viral Marketing [Marketing/Advertising]
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Marketing that makes consumers voluntarily spread word-of-mouth and share content like a virus on social media, even without spending massive advertising budgets, because the content itself is so entertaining or useful.
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Usage Example: "I planned a workplace survival psychological test that reveals personality traits like the MBTI, and it went viral on Instagram Stories in just one day."
Buyout [Investment/Financing]
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An investment method in which venture capital or private equity funds acquire a majority stake of 50% or more to take over management control, then aggressively innovate the company's value and resell it at a high price.
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Usage Example: "As the competitor ranked second in the industry is being bought out by a global private equity fund with massive capital, it looks like the CEO will be replaced and aggressive management will begin."
Deployment [IT/Development]
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The process of uploading code for websites, apps, servers, etc., completed in the development team's internal test environment to a live production server that general users can actually access and use.
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Usage example: "After conducting multiple stability tests to prevent the server from crashing due to traffic overload, we completed the deployment of the major update at 3 AM, when user traffic is lowest."
Backlink [Marketing/Advertising]
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Hyperlinks placed on popular external blogs, news articles, and third-party sites to allow traffic to our website are a criterion by which the Google search engine evaluates a website's credibility highly.
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Usage Example: "As backlinks to our service website consistently appeared in columns by famous IT media and posts by influencers, the site's organic search ranking rose to page 1."
Valuation [Investment/Financing]
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The process of evaluating the total current value of our company in monetary terms by comprehensively assessing factors such as the company's technological capabilities, future profitability, and market size when attracting investment.
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Usage Example: "Although we are not generating significant revenue yet, we successfully secured investment with a pre-money valuation of 5 billion KRW, thanks to the recognition of our core development team's capabilities and patents."
Burn Rate [Finance/Accounting]
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The rate at which a startup consumes cash on fixed monthly expenses such as office rent, developer salaries, and server costs, while failing to generate revenue from operating profits—much like burning cash.
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Usage example: "We have 1 billion won left in investment, but the monthly burn rate is 100 million won, so if we don't find a new breakthrough, our runway will effectively end in exactly 10 months."
Benchmarking [Business Strategy]
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An excellent imitation strategy that, instead of blindly jumping in, closely analyzes leading companies in the same industry or innovative cases from other sectors, absorbs only their strengths, and optimizes them to suit our business.
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Usage Example: "We benchmarked Toss's innovative UX flow, which enabled money transfers without complex digital certificates, and revamped our app's payment process to make it much simpler."
Venture Investment [Investment/Funding]
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Venture capital investment involves providing large sums of money to early-stage startups that are expected to grow tremendously due to innovative items, even if they are not generating immediate profits, while willingly assuming the high risk of principal loss.
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Usage example: "As interest rates have recently risen and money has flowed into safe assets, the aggressive venture investment market has frozen, and many startups are struggling to raise funds."
Venture company [business strategy]
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Small but powerful high-growth SMEs that pioneer new markets using cutting-edge IT technology or novel knowledge-based ideas, rather than traditional manufacturing or wholesale/retail businesses.
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Usage example: "Our company finally passed the Korea Technology Guarantee Fund's rigorous innovation technology evaluation and received venture company certification, which allowed us to enjoy various tax benefits."
Bootstrap [IT/Development]
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A framework tool that provides pre-made layout templates, such as frequently used button, table, and card designs, so that developers do not have to write CSS code from start to finish when creating web pages.
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Usage example: "Even without a dedicated frontend developer, a single backend developer created a clean and responsive in-house admin page by combining UI elements provided by Bootstrap."
Brand Identity [Marketing/Advertising]
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A consistent and unique identity designed so that consumers clearly sense "this is the character of this brand" when they encounter it, through elements such as name, logo, main color, and tone.
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Usage Example: "To create a minimalist and sophisticated feel like Apple, we redefined our service's brand identity guide by using thin fonts and maximizing whitespace."
Broad Ads [Marketing/Advertising]
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An advertising technique that bombards brand awareness by leaving it to the media algorithm to expose it to the widest possible unspecified audience, rather than specifically targeting specific interests such as women in their 20s or office workers.
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Usage example: "Immediately after the app launch, I plan to run large-scale broad ads to collect data so we don't get stuck in narrow targeting, and then retarget specific segments that are responding."
Blind Fund [Investment/Financing]
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A fund that does not raise money by pre-determining specific companies or projects to invest in, but rather one in which investors (LPs) entrust large sums of money first based on their trust in the venture capital (VC) firm's capabilities, after which the firm subsequently identifies and invests in promising targets.
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Usage example: "Since that major VC house recently completed raising a large blind fund worth 100 billion won, it is expected to aggressively scout for promising early-stage startups starting in the second half of this year."
Business Model Canvas [Business Strategy]
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A strategic tool that allows you to intuitively view the nine blocks essential for a business to operate—such as key target customers, revenue models, channels, and cost structures—summarized on a single canvas table, instead of writing a vast business plan.
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Usage Example: "To verify if this startup idea would be profitable, my team members and I drew a large Business Canvas on a whiteboard and looked for gaps in the revenue structure by attaching sticky notes to nine elements."
[Cow]
Private Equity [Investment/Financing]
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A method of raising funds by privately soliciting the acquisition of newly issued securities or stocks from a specific minority of investors numbering fewer than 50.
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Usage Example: "We have decided to proceed with this fundraising as a private placement, focusing on existing investors who share our vision, instead of going through the complex public offering process."
Private Equity Fund (PEF) [Investment/Financing]
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A fund management company that raises private capital from a small number of large investors to participate in the management of a company or acquire a stake, then increases its value and resells it at a high price.
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Usage example: "As a mid-sized domestic franchise company was acquired by a large PEF, a massive restructuring and a profit-oriented reorganization began."
Side Project [Business Strategy]
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A separate project started casually for interests, additional income, or to validate new ideas, in addition to one's main job or business.
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Usage example: "I am testing offline market demand by running a space rental business as a side project in Daejeon while maintaining my main job."
Sitemap [IT/Development]
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An XML document that lists all pages and category structures within a website at a glance, enabling search engine robots to crawl the website smoothly.
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Usage example: "I submitted the latest sitemap to Google Search Console so that all pages of our homepage are well-exposed in Google search results."
Server [IT/Development]
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A computer system that stores, processes, and provides data requested by a client (user) through an app or the web 24 hours a day.
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Usage example: "I tripled my AWS server capacity in preparation for the traffic surge when course registration opens tomorrow at 9 AM."
Server-side Script Language [IT/Development]
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A backend language that runs on a server behind the scenes, rather than on the user's computer (browser), to generate dynamic web content such as database integration or login processing.
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Usage example: "I decided to build the frontend with React and use Node.js, a server-side scripting language, for the backend that handles sign-up and payment."
Segment [Marketing/Advertising]