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That said, Start-Up is not unlike how previous Korean dramas like Hotelier or Midas employed similar tropes to great effect. Amidst the #MeToo movement and numerous sexual harassment scandals in Silicon Valley, Western viewers may find this conflation of romance and entrepreneurship more disturbing than touching. While startup cofounders sometimes date each other in real life ( nor is it uncommon for investors to romantically pursue female founders), Start-Up seems to center around these romantic relationships rather than the startups themselves. Nam Do-san and Won In-jae also both have disapproving parents to prove wrong, while Han Ji-pyeong stumbles upon childhood linkages with the other characters. Without revealing too much, the drama’s first four episodes already build the foundations of love triangle centered around Dal-mi. While this will please stalwart K-drama fans, it limits the show’s ability to attract more diverse audiences.
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Victim of K-drama Tropes?ĭespite all this, Start-Up struggles to distance itself from the typical tropes that plague Korean dramas. While these inaccuracies will make Silicon Valley insiders cringe, at least Start-Up generally gets the spirit of tech entrepreneurship right.
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Some characters incorrectly refer to Amazon as a venture capital firm, and the series considerably simplifies the process of applying to enter an accelerator.
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However, the drama still chooses artistic license over accuracy in many cases. Viewers who actually work in the tech industry will find these references mildly amusing, while viewers from outside the industry will appreciate recurring text overlays that explain concepts like “ angel investor.” Beyond the realistic portrayal of Samsan Tech’s circumstances, the drama also explains how accelerators work, through the fictional “Sandbox.” Audiences also see Dal-mi’s father pitching his idea (essentially, UberEats) to investors, while Dal-mi herself pitches a concept not too different from cloud kitchens to her grandmother.
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Nam Do-san and his two co-founders work out of a cramped room with spare furnishings and poor lighting, not unlike the mythical “garages” that many Silicon Valley startups spawn from.Īt least in its first four episodes, Start-Up makes a good effort to introduce audiences to various tech industry concepts. Samsan Tech’s shabby headquarters also capture the essence of many startups’ first offices.
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True to how image recognition software sometimes experiences flaws in real life (or in American TV shows about startups), Samsan Tech’s computer vision platform labels Nam Do-san’s father’s face as a “toilet,” resulting in a humorous beat-down. Nam Do-san’s company, Samsan Tech, works on image recognition software. At least at a high level, the series correctly portrays basic facts about how startups work, and accurately uses technical terms to portray software development.
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Let’s start with what Start-Up gets right. What’s an accelerator? Is it the pedal that makes your car go faster? So what exactly does this series look like from a tech insider’s perspective? Yet, it lends prominence to a growing part of South Korea’s economy, and a world that offers South Korea’s youth better opportunities than a traditional chaebol career may afford. However, despite the drama’s name and the promises its synopsis makes, Start-Up doesn’t stray too far from stereotypical Korean drama tropes. Kim Sun-ho‘s investor character Han Ji-pyeong rounds out the main cast.
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Alongside her, Nam Joo-hyuk plays Math Olympiad champion and fellow startup aspirant Nam Do-san Kang Han-na plays Dal-mi’s older sister Won In-jae, who also aspires to break free of her stepfather’s controlling grasp by founding her own company. This Netflix original K-drama stars Bae Suzy as Seo Dal-mi, a hopeful entrant to the startup world. Accelerators, venture capitalists, and founders-K-drama Start-Up‘s synopsis enthralled me, since I’m a Silicon Valley native who’s worked for actual startups like Uber and Stripe.
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