Campfit: The one-stop camping platform redefining your lifestyle

Category

Band stories

Written by

Son Yang (Director)

Date

Empty

New terms like 'bulmeong', 'don-mahawk', and 'cam-linie' have become familiar even to those who aren’t used to camping. Since the surge in camping popularity triggered by the pandemic, the enthusiasm hasn’t died down—even with relaxed overseas travel restrictions and the end of social distancing. This is because camping isn’t just an alternative to travel; it’s become a lifestyle in its own right. In fact, in advanced countries like the US and Canada, over 50% of all households go camping regularly, and many campers call it a lifelong activity.

Reflecting these changes, the domestic camping market has seen explosive growth over the past five years, now totaling over 6 trillion won, and the number of campers has surpassed 7 million. Buying stylish gear, escaping the city’s hustle and bustle, cooking good food with loved ones, and having cozy conversations under the stars have all become part of everyday life. And as camping emerges as a major trend, various new services targeting camping-related commerce and communities are being launched one after another.

Amidst this flood of various services, Base Investment chose to join hands with Campit. The reason is that Campit is building a one-stop camping platform, starting with campsite reservations—the biggest pain point and first hurdle every camper faces. While you might think, 'How different can booking a campsite be from booking a hotel?', campsites all have different space and facility setups, most are run by just one or two owners, and demand far outstrips supply. Because of this, campers are forced to wage a 'reservation war' in very inconvenient ways—through Naver Cafes, individual websites, and phone calls.

Since the market lacks standardization, onboarding every campsite at once is nearly impossible. To bring them onto the platform, you have to visit each site in person, introduce who you are, explain the service, convince them of what’s in it for them, and then customize the system for every unique situation. At first glance, it doesn’t seem scalable at all, and getting turned away at the door feels like an expected part of the process. To some, it might even look like something a startup shouldn’t attempt.

But Campit’s CEO, Dongsoo Kim, has been carrying out this tough mission with remarkable ease. After many years as a military officer, he took up camping himself. Experiencing the same frustrations as a user and witnessing the inefficiency that campsite operators faced in management, he decided to address both sides. He visited hundreds of campsites thousands of times and started building the best solution. As a result, within just a year after launching in 2021, Campit became a platform known and used by nearly every camper and campsite owner in the country.

There’s a famous article by Paul Graham called 'Do things that don’t scale.' While this may seem contrary to the startup mindset of blitzscaling and rapid growth, it really means that in the beginning, you have to start small, get out there and bring in users yourself, and be almost obsessed with every little detail that will make them happy. We believe CEO Dongsoo Kim perfectly embodies the essence of 'Do things that don’t scale.'

There’s still a lot of road left for campsite reservations, but Campit is also pushing forward to create the best user experiences in both commerce and community. And as camping takes firm root as a way of life, we truly believe that Campit’s influence on our society will only grow stronger.

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