Moglue, an Ebook Startup from Korea, Tries to Go Global

Kira M. Newman Nov 11, 2012 Tweet

TaeWoo Kim, the CEO and founder of Moglue, speaks with a thick Korean accent. But it seems to have gotten better since last year, when I met him in Korea. It’s probably because he’s been doing so much practicing.

With a team of 12, Kim is trying to reach an international audience from Korea. And he seems to be succeeding: of the 35,000 users who have downloaded his ebook-building app, 90 percent come from outside his home country.

They are using Moglue’s easy animation tool to create animated ebooks, like children’s books or cookbooks. Moglue is easy to use, with drag-and-drop functions to move images around, resize them, and add effects. The idea is to allow anyone, not just people with technical skills, to create animated ebooks. And with a recent update to the platform, publishers can choose from a variety of free images and sounds, and sell their books as apps in the Apple or Android store.

Kim has positioned Moglue as an international company starting with his team, which includes an American cofounder and a French developer. His website is only in English, and he’s attended a slew of global conferences and events: TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing, Silicon Valley’s G-Startup Competition, the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, and Japan’s Mobile Content Forum.

In the future, Kim wants to find partners in Japan and China to expand the business, and open an office in New York City. It won’t be easy for a 23-year-old from Korea, but he doesn’t expect it to be.

“It’s dynamic. Every day is new,” he says. “I like challenging things.”