Douglas Guen, CEO of Primer: the Godfather of the Korean Start-up Industry

CEO Guen, who founded Primer, Korea's first accelerator to invest in early startups in 2010, is known as a pioneer of start-up incubators in Korea and the godfather of the Korean start-up industry. 

He now plays a role in investing and supporting newly started startups, but originally as an engineer and a well-known entrepreneur, he is a positional figure who started five companies, including Initech and Inis, in 1997 and 1998 and listed them on the KOSDAQ. 

When Internet commerce was just starting, an electronic payment relay service was created so that customers could pay online.

In 2008, he sold the two companies and became an asset worth 100 billion won, but he entered the path of nurturing junior entrepreneurs.  Primer not only finances early start-ups, but also assists in management mentoring and networking. Over the past eight years, he has worked with 161 start-ups. 

Representative examples include fashion platform "StyleShare," travel platform "My Real Trip," and real estate brokerage platform "Hogunono."