KaKao

The days when I took the initiative to play my part

 

Behind the birth of KakaoTalk lies Kakao’s unique culture. Roy (the current CEO of Kakao Brain) and Torea(the current head of KakaoEnterprise Service Impact Part) played their parts in Kakao’s history. They point to the 'horizontal relationship between colleagues' and 'self-directed working' as two critical factors behind Kakao's current level of success. The two provided us various anecdotes about their corporate culture that were as innovative as KakaoTalk’s service.

 

# Culture

How did Kakao's 'horizontal culture' take root? Here's Roy's answer.

"Suppose there is no vacancy in a conference room. In that case, latecomers sit on the floor. Position and age are highly valued in Korea, but not at Kakao. Ten years ago, Dean, the eldest Krew member, was a bit late for a meeting. The room was already full. Without hesitation, he sat down on the bare floor and jumped into the discussion. The meeting was not interrupted at all."

 

However, not everyone quickly acclimated to this 'awkward' situation. Some people even objected, saying that it was appropriate to give their seats to the older colleague. Likewise, referring to each other by English names encountered objections. Many employees were reluctant to call Brian by his English name. They called him 'president' or 'chairman,' while Brian continually reminded them of his English name, again and again.

 

Whenever people habitually showed unnecessary courtesy, seniors and management demurred their authority. Thanks to them leading by example, employees eventually felt comfortable and adapted to their 'horizontal culture.' Still, in Kakao of 2020, you can't guess a person's position by his/her seat. Imagine a typical office floor plan. Higher-level employees sit behind monitors on the innermost side - roomier and more private. But that is not the case at Kakao; almost all office space is evenly shared by all colleagues.

 

Horizontal communication between workers has yielded another asset of 'Shin-Chung-Heon Culture'—the abbreviation for "Confidence-Challenge-Commitment" in Korean. 'All employees should confidently challenge themselves, have heart-to-heart conversations in trusted relationships, and faithfully follow and show commitment to decisions.' It is the code of conduct that all Kakao employees should comply with.

 

"Brian believed that trust between colleagues serves as a vital driving force for companies to advance. He said that trust and confidence come from mutual understanding. We were a small startup in the early days; therefore, we spent time asking and hearing about personal stories rather than project plans at workshops. Shared personal histories helped us better understand each other, which naturally led to professional confidence," recalls Roy.

 

The belief that Krews would commit to more consideration than other companies, that Krews’ decisions would be based on actionable goals, such confidence made it possible for Kakao to be creative in its business ventures. One of them was KakaoTalk Notices.' Torea, who joined Kakao in 2011, worked as the so-called ‘KakaoTalk Noices Lady’ along with Chloe and Jess. (Back then, people who wrote the KakaoTalk notices were called by this nickname regardless of gender in numerous online communities.) It was a time even without pageview systems, and Torea began to reconsider the meaning and role of notifications.

 

"I tried to write what users wanted to know in their language, such as when this updated feature is needed or when a particular feature is available. Should we insist on following the formal and authoritative tone and manner typically used in large companies' notices? I thought about these types of things over and over again."

After much consideration, Torea decided to remove unnecessary formality and rhetoric and focused content on what should be delivered and what users were waiting for. He blended buzz-phrases (i.e., Who raises a cow?) into the text for fun and removed organizational authority. KakaoTalk's notices were perceived as funky and rule breaking. Users enjoyed reading and sharing its content. Service notifications became enjoyable.

 

“I’m eager to know who writes the KakaoTalk notices." "This is the first time for me to wait for a such notice." Users highly acclaimed KakaoTalk notices, which were on everyone's tongue, increased brand affinity. An attempt to narrow focus on a task's essence eventually bore abundant fruit in the open and trusting Kakao culture.

 

Sometimes, however, the intent to make eye-contact at the users' level brought about unintended consequences. 'Project Barn' is a case in point. It announced KakaoTalk’s security enhancements and was seen as lacking seriousness. Inevitably, there were small and large successes and failures and resultant acclaim and complaints. Based on all of them, KakaoTalk relentlessly held firm to its principles about what needed to be corrected or discarded. That is how KakaoTalk advanced incrementally, expanding its userbase.

 

 

# Self-directed working

One end of Kakao's growth axis is its 'freewheeling, horizontal culture.' At the other end, 'self-directed working.' There were days when TV was the only medium broadcasting dramas. Whenever an episode of a popular drama ended, surging traffic often clogged up the KakaoTalk server. As soon as mid-program ads began, people resumed chats with friends on KakaoTalk. It was at that point that KakaoTalk developers voluntarily took initiative. Roy described the situation.

"No one had ever forced anyone to get ready for a traffic surge. But everyone was on standby in front of a computer the moment dramas ended. Someone was tuning the server settings; another was tuning databases; the rest were pondering how to fix shutdowns fundamentally."

 

An organization, not an individual, was voluntarily prepared to correct the day’s flaws and take precautions for tomorrow's uncertainties. That was a significant reason why Kakao, a tiny startup, was able to cope with skyrocketing growth.

 

Aside from drama-related traffic issues, adult-oriented spam emerged as a new headache. Whenever a marked man was detected, we took measures and verified whether they were effective. Troubles happen at the most inopportune moments. One dilemma began in the middle of a mountaineering workshop. In response, some developers perched on the mountainside, reacted to the failover mode under car headlights. Anyway, those developers were the envy of the rest of the Krews who had to keep climbing, since they would drive up to the mountain workshop venue after troubleshooting and solving the issue. We often encounter troubles. What we can do is to act on our initiative. It is the ownership mentality that motivates us to work.

 

 

 

At Kakao, everyone proactively works. That is why our company can flexibly deal with situations, trying quick approaches. Another example is the very familiar sound alert of an incoming KakaoTalk message.

 

"In those days, the popularity of sound alerts was at its highest due to , one of the famous Korean dramas. Someone suggested that we should make our own sound alert. Typically, the next step would be casting voice actors, finding a studio, and then recording. The reactions from our Krews? They all shot back, "Too grandiose, isn't it?" While seeking other ways, developers who had young children turned on the recorders on their mobile phones. They recorded dozens of their children's voices for our sound alert and we put them to an in-house vote. Voices that received the most votes were finely tuned afterward." Torea revealed how Kakao worked in those days.

 

The widely-known sound alert, "KaTalk-Owa-Sshong" (It means that you have a KakaoTalk message in cute Korean), is Brandon's daughter's voice, who was then 30 months old. She is now a sixth-grade elementary student.

 

'No update is ever able to satisfy all users, but it's worth giving it a try.' From such a carefree attitude, Kakao Lab was created. It would be OK without any ambitious features nor eye-catching results. "Just try it out!" - that is what was intended. The main object of Kakao Lab is manifest in its notifications. Kakao and its users can use novel features from the Lab without any burden, but those features are experimental and may be removed at any time.

 

This year marks the 10th anniversary of KakaoTalk. "Still, 'self-direction' is in Kakao’s DNA and must remain there for another 10 years" Roy added. What has made today's Kakao and what will lead tomorrow's Kakao is the course of time where all Krews act on their initiative and ponder better directionality. Torea emphasized the 'will to communicate.' He thinks seamless communication between teams and users and Kakao will build long-lasting and rock-solid trust.

 

'Leading by example' from the top, 'horizontal communication' between colleagues, and 'self-directed' working through initiative - these are the vital factors behind Kakao's birth and growth against countless odds.