WeKorea CEO Geonmin Lee aimed to improve the very first inconvenience that foreigners face when they arrive in Korea.
Lee said, “As soon as you arrive in a foreign country, you have to obtain bedding and daily necessities. But from the perspective of a foreigner, it is often unclear where to go, what to buy, and how to buy it. In addition, online shopping is difficult until a Residence Card has been issued. With the idea of ‘let’s solve that inconvenience from the very first day,’ we launched LIVING KO.”
LIVING KO is a service that delivers a kit of daily essentials to a foreigner’s accommodation or dormitory before they arrive in Korea. Customers can select the items they need—such as bedding, hair dryers, towels, toiletries, and cleaning supplies—in the configuration they prefer. Since ordering is possible prior to arrival, the service provides an early-stage online shopping infrastructure that had effectively been absent for foreigners in Korea.
The service supports four languages—English, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese—and accepts overseas payments, meaning that customers can place orders without a Residence Card or Korean phone number. To support foreigners who are new to Korea, the company also operates a 100% refund guarantee for those who are not satisfied after receiving their items.
Through service expansion, WeKorea now offers nationwide delivery to general accommodations and has established customized logistics systems for each university dormitory.
“Because each school handles parcel delivery differently, we designed separate regional hub warehouses and logistics systems. This allows us to provide stable delivery that complies with each dormitory’s policies,” Lee explained.
The service’s reliability has also been recognized through its selection for government and university support programs, including the Chung-Ang University Campus Town Project and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups’ Pre-Startup Package.
The scope of the service continues to expand. WeKorea is collaborating with ‘Doklip Life’, a boarding house brokerage platform for foreigners, and ‘enkostay’, a housing brokerage platform for foreigners, building an ecosystem that supports not only international students but foreign residents throughout Korea. Additionally, through the online/offline community platform BiBim, the company is creating spaces where foreigners and Koreans can connect and form a community.
“Our mission is to create an environment where foreigners in Korea can enjoy a more fulfilling life,” Lee said. “Based on a deeply rooted understanding of our customers—almost to the point of obsession—we have built collaborative structures with university international offices, dormitories, and platforms serving foreigners. Our distinction lies in the fact that we are not simply selling products; we are building a partnership ecosystem that shares the goal of reducing the anxiety and inconvenience foreigners experience while living in Korea.”
WeKorea is currently operated by a team with diverse professional expertise, including Min-su Park (COO), Seon-u Kim (planning/marketing), Yu-jin Kim (design), Hyun-sung Kim (strategic planning), Su-kyum Ahn (frontend development), and Dong-young Kim (back-end development), along with the Logistics Team, who work together to deliver the customer experience. “Our team members leverage their respective expertise. Logistics, development, design, and planning must work organically together for the customer experience to be complete.”
Regarding future plans, Lee said, “We aim for LIVING KO to become an essential service for foreigners arriving in Korea, helping them begin a rich and comfortable daily life without inconvenience from the very start.”
Date of Establishment: July 2023
Main Business: Settlement support services for foreigners in Korea
Performance: 2024–2025 Chung-Ang University Campus Town tenant company, selected for SCOUT startup support in 2025, selected for the 2024 Pre-Startup Package, selected for the 2024 LINC startup support project, expanded collaboration with major universities in the metropolitan area and the Jeolla-do and Gyeongsang-do regions, established settlement support partnerships with companies supporting foreigners
reporter jinho lee
jinho2323@hankyung.com
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