Category
- Band stories
Written by
Karl Shin (CEO)
Date
Empty
It is really hard to predict the future. However, there is one thing I can predict for sure about everyone in the world, including everyone reading this. It is that over time (although the period varies for each person), we will all grow old, get sick, and die. Thanks to human development, the absolute amount of this “time of growing old and getting sick” has actually increased. However, while this process of growing old and getting sick was related to the life cycle of an individual in the past, it is now becoming a problem for society as a whole, and the speed at which the problem is growing is exponential.
Let me explain with an intuitive example. As salaried workers know, the increase in health insurance premiums among the four major national insurances is quite steep every year. However, if you look closely at your pay statement, there is a section called “long-term care insurance” as part of health insurance premiums. The annual increase rate of this section is higher than that of health insurance premiums and any other national insurance. The purpose of this resource is to care for those who are 65 years of age or older (or those with geriatric diseases) and have been assessed as needing long-term care. It is clear that long-term care insurance premiums have skyrocketed and will continue to skyrocket in the future. We can already see from our pay statements that the “problem of aging and getting sick” is approaching us universally.
Let's go more intuitively. When defining the elderly population as those aged 65 or older, the elderly population ratio in Korea in 2021 will be 17.1%. In 25 years, the elderly population will exceed 10 million. The elderly population in 2050 is expected to be around 20 million, which is 40% of the total population. This is not a market growth rate forecast as is commonly said. It is a number that is "certainly" determined. It is a social problem that is growing exponentially. However, if we change this "social problem" to a "market", it is a market that VCs absolutely cannot miss. (I will explain our view on the senior market in more detail later.)
The beneficiaries of the aforementioned long-term care insurance system receive support for long-term care insurance services from the corporation in addition to their own out-of-pocket expenses (15% for home care and 20% for facilities). Of these, home care accounts for the largest proportion, and the scale of this home care has already exceeded 4 trillion won as of 2020, and the growth rate is bound to be explosive. However, despite the market size of trillions of won, small businesses that match and manage nursing care workers are operating in large numbers. There were no specialized companies that had secured the core capabilities necessary for strategy and scale-up to overcome the limitations of local businesses.
In this market where many corporate home care centers failed to expand beyond 200-300 recipients, Caring is a team that has recently achieved over 4,000 recipients in just 3 years since its establishment and is moving toward large-scale/structuralization. There are many things to talk about, such as automation of business systems, optimization of operational organizations, and DT approaches, but the driving force behind this was the team’s grit and mission to the market. I first met Caring’s CEO, Taeseong Kim, about 3 years ago, when he started creating the previously mentioned long-term care insurance-based home care service. It was a grateful opportunity to see how this business would develop as I visited him consistently for those 3 years (at the same time, during those 3 years, I made investment proposals twice and was rejected twice ㅠㅠ).
However, unlike the justification of the business I mentioned earlier or the rapid growth of the market, the process of making it that I observed was really difficult and painful. During that process, what CEO Kim Tae-seong often said was, "Difficult problems are solved in a difficult way." Rather than solving difficult problems with tricks or easy methods, he always prioritized solving them in a difficult way with a standard method. This business seems to be that kind of business.
Let's change the subject for a moment. In fact, this business has a very clear reference. It is Japan, which entered a super-aging society before us. In fact, the long-term care insurance system introduced in Japan in 2000 can be said to be its reference. It started with a structure where various small private businesses were proliferating like in Korea, but eventually it developed in the direction of maximizing efficiency through large-scale expansion. Individual companies grew to a sales scale of trillions of won. To put it simply, it is close to a "determined future" in terms of social structure and business direction. That determinable future is not necessarily a pleasant sight, but if providing what contemporary customers want most is a condition for a great company to universally and excellently provide, then Caring has a good chance of becoming that.
Subscribe to 'BASS Ventures'
Welcome to BASS Ventures, the mecca for entrepreneurs with crazy dreams!
By subscribing to the site, you will be the first to receive the latest updates, including new posts, via notifications and email.
Join SlashPage and subscribe to 'BASS Ventures'!
By subscribing to the site, you will be the first to receive the latest updates, including new posts, via notifications and email.
Join SlashPage and subscribe to 'BASS Ventures'!
