A considerable number of people gathered in Woo Sang-won’s development room, which had turned into a sort of situation room, and the atmosphere grew increasingly joyful with the team’s continuous updates.
“What? Someone is buying all the songs!”
“The Candy Boy songs?”
“No, the songs uploaded on 【Jungle Music】! It’s already the 500th song.”
“What?”
“……!”
“Downloading all that will take a while, won’t it?”
“So they’re just purchasing them without downloading.”
“What? That’s unbelievable…”
“Who would spend money like that?”
“Exactly. Unless it’s a chaebol… Huh?”
At the mention of “chaebol,” Oh Min-woo turned to look at Lee Hyun-woo. A certain chaebol’s daughter came to his mind suddenly.
Aware of the gaze, Lee Hyun-woo clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“How far are you going to stretch that weird logic? There are plenty of people who waste money in this world.”
“If they were a fan of Candy Boy or Clones, they might buy all their songs. But there’s no fan who buys every song on 【Jungle Music】.”
It was a logical point, so no one could argue against it this time.
“So? Who do you think it might be?”
“Well, the CEO would know best. Or should we check the ID now?”
“Don’t you know we have a duty to protect personal information? You know I hate that!”
“Yes, yes. I understand. We’ll just leave it as a mystery for now.”
Lee Hyun-woo emphasized the need to protect personal information, just in case someone might dig into Nostradamus later.
He too had someone vaguely in mind at that moment.
‘Could it really be Ah-young…?’
Even though it was relatively cheap at 300 won per song, it was still a large number of songs.
Only a rich person could dare to buy them all.
‘But I can’t just go and ask Ah-young.’
Though he had a hunch, he could pretend not to know.
It seemed like she was buying these songs to help a friend’s company, but…
Ultimately, even without Kim Ah-young’s help, 【Jungle Music】 was destined to succeed.
Lee Hyun-woo, who was virtually from the future, knew this for sure.
The music service was bound to be a success.
So, as the team’s voices died down from counting the download numbers, he said,
“I need to meet CEO Jung Sung-woo.”
It was time to sell the MP3 player called 【Alpha Cast】.
Before heading to Jeju Island, he sought out Jung Sung-woo to see how the preparations were going.
A little later, Jung Sung-woo personally greeted Lee Hyun-woo, who arrived at 【Alpha Cast】.
“I could have come to you…”
“No, I wanted to take a look around.”
“You’re welcome anytime. We’ve just made a breakthrough in reducing its size.”
“Already?”
“Making the impossible possible is our company’s strength. This way, please.”
Lee Hyun-woo followed Jung Sung-woo to the location.
It was 【Alpha Cast】’s research lab, built with the first round of investment.
As soon as he entered, he saw many researchers.
They recognized Lee Hyun-woo, who had been in the spotlight all year, and looked at him with admiration.
“Here it is.”
Jung Sung-woo blocked their view and held a device that made Lee Hyun-woo’s eyes sparkle.
‘Wow, it’s even smaller than the first MP3 player in my past life!’
Lee Hyun-woo marveled at the size of the MP3 player, which was smaller than expected, and defined his second life this way.
‘You never know what the future holds.’
But it’s not all foggy.
No matter what the future looks like, the fact that platform companies will succeed remains unchanged.
Thinking this far, he smiled at Jung Sung-woo, the CEO of 【Alpha Cast】, who was waiting for his response.
“This looks ready to sell.”
“Really?”
“As long as it works properly.”
“Of course, it works perfectly.”
“And the factory? How far along is the preparation?”
“It’s not large, but we have a decent facility. We scaled down the car stereo facility to produce this.”
“Then, what’s the daily production capacity… Sorry for asking so many questions.”
“No problem. It’s a natural question for an investor. We think we can produce about 100 units a day. So, if we work through the weekends, that’s 3,000 units a month.”
“That’s good for now. But you’ll need to expand the factory right away.”
“Pardon?”
“3,000 units won’t be enough.”
To be honest, he couldn’t help but think that 3,000 units were insufficient.
In his past life, the first MP3 player sold 2,000 units a month right after its launch.
That was just for a quarter, and sales exploded the following quarter.
5,000 units a month.
And then 20,000 units the next month, so if you’re not prepared, supply won’t keep up with demand.
“Don’t worry, just expand the factory. I’ll handle the investment. I can invest more than we previously discussed. As you know, 【Jungle Music】 is doing well, so I have more resources now.”
Moreover, he was about to make several billion won by distributing modems from Belgium.
Even investing that money alone would make factory expansion feasible.
But Lee Hyun-woo was thinking of a factory that could produce 500,000 units annually.
‘Should we only sell in our country?’
Absolutely not.
Of course, he planned to sell MP3s overseas, especially in the well-developed music markets of the U.S. and Japan.
For that, 【Jungle Music】 had to enter those countries first.
‘I’ll need to discuss this during the upcoming Jeju Island workshop.’
Although 【Jungle Japan】 was in preparation, he decided there was no need to delay entering other countries.
As he wrapped up 1996 and prepared for 1997, he engraved a new goal in his heart.
That goal was “global.”
At that time, in Silicon Valley, USA.
Tim Connor, CEO of 【AltaVist】, was accessing 【Jungle】 from afar.
He had already promised business cooperation with 【Jungle】 and made it a habit to check in daily.
Though he couldn’t understand Korean, he observed 【Jungle】’s development by roughly interpreting the page designs.
In fact, the progress was astonishingly fast.
It was like compressing multiple tech companies in Silicon Valley into a short time.
The auction or shopping pages showed increasingly sophisticated graphics, and the portal site area kept adding more content for netizens to enjoy.
Today was no different.
“Oh?”
He clicked a hyperlink and was taken to a specific page.
As he looked around the page, Tim Connor’s eyes started to shake.
‘This is…’
It seemed to be a website related to music.
More accurately, it appeared to be a business selling records.
He clicked without thinking, and a window popped up asking him to charge 【Jungle】 coins.
Of course, he couldn’t understand the Korean, but he could later proceed with downloading using a credit card.
‘Ah, it’s not records but individual songs.’
Tim Connor was even more shocked.
Any business that starts selling in smaller units lowers prices and increases accessibility for buyers.
But online, it faces technical challenges.
Had any place in Silicon Valley, or anywhere in the world, not discussed and attempted to download individual songs?
But theoretical discussions always ended there due to technical constraints.
Even now, you don’t know when a song download will finish.
‘But they dared to attempt this?’
What on earth was happening in Korea?
Curious, Tim Connor eventually gathered his executives.
“Just now, 【Jungle】 created a new website.”
“Again?”
“Didn’t they create a portal site not long ago?”
“I heard they started with auctions. Then they moved to shopping and a portal site. What’s born now?”
“Music.”
“Music?”
“Yes, I confirmed there are even American pop songs. But you can download individual songs.”
“……”
“……”
Everyone fell silent.
They, too, had worked in 【AltaVist】 and Silicon Valley with Tim Connor.
Therefore, they knew the challenges of downloading and selling individual songs.
“What’s the size per song?”
“Around 4MB.”
“Then they’ve developed compression technology!”
“Technology aside, it also means Korea’s internet infrastructure supports this!”
“Yes, so to confirm everything, I hope someone can visit Korea.”
“I’ll go.”
“I’ll go too.”
“Please send me.”
Most executives raised their hands.
Developers in the information and communication field naturally love challenges against the impossible.
The more curious and creative they were, the more so.
Even now.
“I’ll select who to send to Korea after talking with Mr. Lee.”
Hearing Tim Connor’s words, everyone’s eyes sparkled.
It showed their eagerness to go.
They wanted to confirm as soon as possible.
How much audio quality could be maintained with 4MB per song, and how fast it could be downloaded and stored on their computer hard drives.
“CEO, you should take this call.”
“Who is it?”
“Well… it’s in English…”
Recently, Yoo Jin-young had been attending an English academy.
But just attending classes couldn’t break the language barrier.
She had almost temporarily taken on the secretary role and felt like she would continue doing it, so she chose to learn.
However, she increasingly felt the need to return to her original position.
On the other hand, Lee Hyun-woo, who believed in supporting and developing anyone who wanted to learn, thought nothing of it and took the call.
“Yes, this is Hyun-woo Lee, CEO of 【Jungle】.”
(Hello, I am Tim Connor, CEO of 【AltaVist】.)
“Oh? Hello?”
The two, who had only communicated via email, seemed to be talking for the first time.
That was because, after a few initial email exchanges, the actual work was left to the staff.
But what did it mean that he called directly like this?
‘Did he see 【Jungle Music】?’
Lee Hyun-woo’s guess was correct.
As Tim Connor lightly approached the topic during the initial call, he mentioned that he had stumbled upon the music site and downloaded a song.
(I have a question. Compressing the audio to 4MB with minimal quality loss is impressive, but it took a long time to download.)
“That’s true. But in our country, ADSL is being installed. So, downloading a song in a few minutes has become possible.”
(……!)
