Analysis of the Korean Financial Investment Advisory Market

Market Background

South Korea has the seventh largest number of listed companies in the world, with a total of 2,262 companies and a total market value of US$1.74 trillion , and a growth of nearly 14% in Q1 2023. South Korea has a total population of 55 million , the number of active stock accounts exceeds 60 million , and the total UV (effective users without duplication) of cryptocurrency platforms exceeds 5.5 million .

In the traditional financial sector, there is no incremental market, and seizing customers from the existing market has become the core value of development. The traditional financial investment advisory market is currently highly competitive, and there is no so-called industry benchmark. Improving product user experience and professional guidance of content, and differentiated content can gain a leading position in the market.

In the field of cryptocurrency finance, from the bear market in 2022 to the present, 10% of the population in South Korea are cryptocurrency users, and there is still a lot of room for incremental market. Before the next bull market (BTC) in the currency circle arrives, providing the entire cryptocurrency investment advisory service will gain a market advantage.

2. Competitive product research

According to the research and analysis of various Korean investment advisory platforms, Korean retail investors have the following characteristics

1. Retail investors tend to be more academic in their investment habits

Investment courses have a greater impact on retail investors, and stock investors are more willing to pay for investment courses.

2. KOLs and investment managers have a decisive influence on the investment decisions of retail investors

Investors will pay close attention to the various developments of KOLs and investment managers (expert stock selection, investment strategies, audio and video information, and social interaction with them), and are willing to pay for certain information.

3. There is no hierarchical definition of content and KOLs among the investment advisory platforms.

Retail investors have different investments based on their financial management habits (short-term risk investment, long-term capital allocation, etc.) and experience (new investors, old investors, etc.);

KOLs and investment managers should also have differences in their rank and ability . The differences in the ability values of investment managers on the current platform are not intuitive and visual enough.

4. Unable to hit accurately

Retail investors are unable to find content that matches their needs among the massive amount of information, courses and KOLs.

Financial investment advisory platform analysis

Through the analysis of several financial investment advisory platforms in South Korea , the following representative platforms are extracted:

• Each platform has its own content system, and the payment model includes VIP membership system and content purchase mode. Content purchase mode includes course system and single-point paid content. The business logic behind the two payment modes is mainly to drill down to the portrait of the paying group and dig deep into its investment value in stocks and foreign exchange.
• https://toptv.co.kr and https://hankooktv.co.kr/ are more oriented towards beginners in stock investment, while the other three platforms are aimed at customers with a certain stock investment foundation;
• https://www.paxnet.co.kr is all directed to the financial lending platform https://www.capital.co.kr/ .
• Each platform investment manager/KOL has his or her own coffee shop (based on a community centered around a single KOL).

Through the analysis of the above five financial investment advisory platforms , we can see that they are differentiated due to their different underlying content service resources. The core keywords are information,experts, courses, live broadcasts, and communities.Other modules and gameplay are internally connected through these keywords.

3. Operational Model

2B 2 C dual-wheel drive

Stockholders come to the platform hoping to find valuable analysis content, find value investment stocks and the best time to invest and withdraw. KOLs (investment managers) also need more stockholders to make wedding clothes for themselves. The platform uses various incentives and means to let KOLs Create as much valuable content as possible, so that KOLs can gain private domain traffic through these contents and enhance industry reputation and influence.

KOL Operation (TOB)

1. Traffic-type KOL

This type of user has accumulated a certain reputation and stock popularity in the industry, but the stickiness and loyalty of this type of user to the platform are not high. In the early stage, the platform can use market BD to find influential KOLs in the industry to quickly promote traffic, give a certain fee as a return on traffic, and let these KOLs serve as honorary guests to support and endorse the platform.

2. Growth KOL

This type of user is in the initial stage of the industry, with limited industry awareness, and is willing to grow with the platform while gaining more stockholder customers and personal traffic. This type of user has high stickiness and is willing to grow with the platform. The platform needs to incubate more KOLs through investment manager tasks and achievement systems, develop them into industry bigwigs , and achieve low-cost, high-traffic investment return value.

User Operation (TOC)

1. New stock investors

Define user tags, high-quality stock class recommendations, tutor recommendations, and coffee shop operations (platform self-operated ) .

2. Old stockholders

Define user tags (long-term, short-term, venture capital, stable capital preservation, etc.), mechanism for old customers to bring in new customers (platform invitation rebate), personalized KOL recommendation (based on user tags), coffee shop operation (KOL ) .

3. Cryptocurrency users

Based on off-site crawler technology, cryptocurrency information is obtained to form platform PGC content and obtain cryptocurrency user traffic.

4. Core functions of the product

Product positioning: The best investment strategy analysis service platform on the entire network

1. User side

the user- side product are as follows:

1. Information Difficulty of implementation:⭐

The source of content for this function module is relatively simple. UGC content can be obtained through crawlers. Platform operators or writers can generate some high-quality PGC content , such as industry KOL live broadcast schedules or free courses on external platforms, and attach links and introductions to transfer traffic to external platforms without involving infringement. In the future, financial reports or company dynamics disclosed by various listed companies in South Korea can also be placed in this module to fill its content.

Cryptocurrency information Babbitt, Golden Finance, Linkpoint, Feixiaohao, etc.

2. Viewpoint Difficulty of implementation:⭐⭐

The opinion module mainly comes from the voices of KOLs inside or outside the site (articles, audio and video, diagnostic analysis). In the subsequent iteration process, this module can be changedinto a courseso that these contents can be disseminated and operated in a more systematic way within the site. This content can also be obtained through crawlers earlier, and this content must be connected with KOLs.

3. expert Difficulty of implementation:⭐⭐⭐

The expert module is the core of the investment advisory platform and is the most critical module. It needs to collect a lot of expert content. It can aggregate content to become an external expert and serve as a portal for investment experts. It can also be used as a backend portal to allow experts to become internal experts on the platform and share traffic and paid revenue from expert content. The online status of experts can become a key point to improve user stickiness.

4. Community (coffee shop) Difficulty of implementation:⭐⭐⭐⭐

As a follow-up to the experts, the community module can, in the early stage, use some industry tags and keywords to shape some topics through platform operation specialists, and regularly provide certain reward mechanisms to aggregate the early 1.0 version of C-end seed users.

As traffic gradually increases, KOLs can be added to create communities, forming a KOL fan management model.

A KOL Supports an operation model that interacts with multiple communities. The community module also plays a key role in whether the platform can gain momentum.

5. mine Difficulty of implementation:⭐⭐

Mine belongs to the personal center module. Except for the invitation rebate, the rest are essential functional modules of the platform.

In the early days of the platform, some pricing strategies were introduced for high-quality courses on the site, which could unlock paid courses or gain access to course experience areas through invitation registration to increase traffic on the site.

2. KOL side
3. KOL Certification System Difficulty of implementation:⭐

There are two types of platform KOLs: officially certified and third-party platforms. Those who have passed the KOL certification system can become KOLs on the platform. Platform KOLs can edit personal information, industry labels, stock operation habits, etc. KOLs on the platform can obtain traffic/paid content sharing, or priority display of platform advertising space.

2. Content Management Difficulty of implementation:⭐

KOLs who join the platform can independently create/delete/edit graphic and video content on the platform, and can also publish external course schedules to the platform, which can be displayed after review by the platform management backend staff.

3. Marketing Tools Difficulty of implementation:⭐⭐⭐

Number of fans, content views, number of communities and members, community marketing, and message push mechanism.

KOLs can create different communities within the site. Based on the communities and fan groups, once the content published by the KOL passes the platform review, the content will be pushed to the community/fans’ internal mailbox.

4. KOL achievement task system Difficulty of implementation:⭐⭐⭐⭐

Based on the investment returns of individual stocks recommended by KOLs and the assignment of expert tasks, such as weekly online time, the number of PGC contents on the site per month, the number of live broadcasts on and off the site, etc., a KOL achievement system is built and displayed to stockholder clients.

5. Billing sharing system Difficulty of implementation:⭐⭐⭐⭐

Design a billing and profit-sharing system based on each KOL’s content views, number of fans, number of payments, etc.

3. Management Backend

The management backend is the business support system of the investment advisory platform . Based on their importance and difficulty, the main modules are as follows:

1. User Management

User basic information, user tags, User behavior (number of favorites/traffic content, number of KOLs followed, number of in-site communities joined, payment records, etc.)

According to research and analysis, Korean listed companies are currently classified according to industry

2. KOL Management

Add/edit KOL, review KOL.

3. Content Management

Create, modify, and delete graphic/audio/video content, and establish connections with KOLs.

Review content submitted by KOLs.

Top, on-site and off-site promotion content

4. Order Management

User VIP purchase records and paid content purchase records

This module needs to be iterated synchronously with content payment and VIP

5. Operation Module

Including invitation rebate, in-site message, APP message PUSH mechanism, off-site marketing landing page

Traffic analysis funnel and more.

6. Community Management

Community management based on industry or user classification labels created by the platform

Civic traffic community management created by KOL.

7. Statistics Module

Based on the number of users, number of KOLs, number of content, UV, PV and other dimensions Timeline-based statistics (daily, weekly, etc.).

5. Execution plan
6. Team size increase: 7 people

1 Product Manager (also PMO and Tester) , 1 Product Operations Person, 1 UI Person

1 front-end developer , 1 APP developer , 2 back-end developers

If a paid module is involved later, a new test manager will be required.

Marketing and business for existing team

2. Implementation Path

• Step 1. Complete the establishment of the R&D team before June 30 , 2023 , select KOLs and collect their core demands, and simultaneously complete the writing of product requirements documents ;
• Step 2.Recruitment of operation positions will be completed before July 20 , 2023 ;
• Step 3.On August 20, 2023 , the alpha version of the product will be released (PC and APP management background) and trial operation will be carried out ;
• Step 4.September 20 , 2023 : Product operation and advertising ;
• Step 5.November 20, 2023 Product operation , introduction of paid content and KOL , KOL end is online, KOL community module is online, and advertising is launched;
• Step 6.On February 20, 2024 , the platform UV will reach 200,000 , and paying users will account for 20% .