Minister's SNS becomes direct complaint window — 786 comments in three days

"Please leave a comment telling me what you want from the minister."

Lee So-young opened a direct public feedback channel the moment she took office as minister of SMEs and Startups. The day before her first day, she turned to social media to ask small and medium-sized enterprise owners and small business operators what they needed — and the response exceeded expectations. Within three days, 786 comments had poured in. Lee compiled them into a document, made it public and said she would "find what needs fixing and fix it right away."

According to Lee, she posted the request on Sunday asking the public to share what they wanted from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, and by 10 a.m. Wednesday had received a total of 786 responses. Facebook drew the most, with 316 comments, followed by YouTube with 207, X with 134, her blog with 67 and Instagram with 62.

What stands out is that the minister effectively set herself up as a one-person complaints desk from day one. Government ministries typically gather industry feedback through roundtables or business associations and federations, and site visits are another common channel for ministers to hear from entrepreneurs and small business owners. Lee added social media as an additional avenue, allowing individual business operators and members of the public to bring their concerns directly to her.

SME policy is a field where ground-level voices are considered especially important. Conditions vary widely depending on a company's size, sector and region, and the difficulties businesses face — from financing and staffing to distribution and regulation — are equally diverse. Even the same policy can land very differently for a startup, a manufacturer and a neighborhood shop owner.

The comments Lee received covered a wide range of issues — policy financing, distribution channels, regulation, public procurement, working hours and Onnuri gift vouchers, among others. Requests ranged from calls to simplify the complex procedures for government support programs, to appeals from business owners struggling to find markets for their technology after development, to pleas for lighter financial burdens on small operators.

The summary document Lee released contained the full text of 537 comments as of Wednesday. Breaking them down by topic, feedback on the minister's attitude and communication style was the most common category, accounting for 120 comments. On policy, support for small businesses and self-employed workers led with 75 comments, followed by cooperation between large and small companies and fair trade with 56, and financial and tax issues with 51.

Also notable is that Lee published all of the comments she received. Rather than simply collecting the responses, she compiled feedback scattered across multiple social media platforms into a single document and posted it for anyone to read — ensuring that the demands directed at her were not confined to internal review but could be verified from outside as well.

"I have compiled every piece of feedback into a document so that nothing is missed — the vivid suggestions, the sharp criticisms and the creative policy ideas from people working in the field," Lee said. "My staff and I will review them whenever we get a moment, take to heart what needs to be taken to heart, and find what needs fixing and fix it right away," she added.

However, for the direct feedback channel to amount to more than a one-off event, the key will be translating the comments received into actual policy. Accommodating all 786 requests is not realistic, and many of the issues involve competing interests or require coordination with other ministries. Demonstrating consistently which suggestions were reviewed and which led to concrete improvements will be the challenge going forward.

There is also interest in whether any of the 786 comments will become the first to actually move policy. Lee said she believes "the way to repay the interest and affection of so many people is to work with sincerity and steadily produce real changes, big and small."