M&Wise CEO Jo Jong-cheol aims for 10,000 global clients by 2030

"Our goal is to build solutions and services used by 10,000 companies worldwide by 2030."

Jo Jong-cheol, CEO of M&Wise, shared that ambition in a recent interview. Jo founded the company alone in 2004 and has since grown it into a messaging specialist with annual sales approaching 40 billion won ($29.5 million). The plan is to expand the current base of roughly 1,000 direct-contract clients to 10,000 by 2030.

M&Wise provides integrated messaging solutions and services that help businesses manage the emails, text messages and KakaoTalk notification messages they send to customers. According to Jo, the company supplies its integrated messaging solution suite, wiseU, to 95 percent of banks in South Korea, and roughly half of all insurers, securities firms and credit card companies also use M&Wise products.

Jo moved into the messaging business in earnest in 2007. Drawing on his experience co-founding a personalized email marketing solution company in 1998, he set up a one-person firm in 2004 that initially provided systems integration consulting to banks. He later acquired his former co-founded company and pivoted to messaging, having noticed the growing variety of channels — text messages, mobile push notifications and others — through which businesses were reaching customers.

"Starting from email technology suited to personalized marketing, I saw the potential of a unified messaging system that could bring together text messages and mobile push notifications," Jo said. "I wanted to develop the messaging technology businesses needed and carve out the market myself."

The turning point for M&Wise came in 2016, when the company moved beyond its solution-sales model and expanded into Kakao business messaging services, establishing a more stable revenue base. "Our existing solution business was highly dependent on whether we landed large projects, which made earnings volatile," Jo said. "We expanded into service businesses such as Kakao business messaging to secure steadier sales."

The company now supplies solutions to more than 150 businesses and institutions, including SK Telecom, the National Health Insurance Service, Korea Post and Korail. Corporate accounts using its Kakao-related services have surpassed 15,000. Sales last year reached 35.5 billion won, and the company expects to break through 40 billion won this year.

Jo cited the company's proprietary technology as the core of its competitiveness. Projects with KB Kookmin Bank and SK Telecom stand out as proof of that capability, Jo said, noting that meeting the demanding requirements of financial institutions and telecoms — which must send messages to vast numbers of customers — validated the performance and reliability of M&Wise's products.

M&Wise is looking to mobile electronic documents as a new growth engine. The business involves converting the paper mail that financial institutions and companies send to customers into electronic documents and mobile registered mail.

"A single insurer can send out 300 to 400 different types of postal mail," Jo said. "This year we began working with banks, securities firms and insurers on digitizing their paper correspondence."

The company is also weaving AI into its operations. It recently used AI to conduct legal reviews of mobile messages that a bank sends to customers, and has launched a service that uses AI to create image and message templates.

Jo also acknowledged that AI could reshape the existing solution market. "As AI makes development easier, the market for traditional solution providers could shrink," he said, adding that adapting to technological change is essential.

Jo identified enterprise cloud services as another pillar of future growth. M&Wise already offers its messaging solutions as a cloud service, though that business remains small. "Building out the enterprise cloud market could become the foundation for future growth," Jo said, expressing his intention to expand through partnerships with large companies such as KT Corp.

Jo also spoke about what he calls "happiness management" — creating a workplace where employees want to stay for the long term. M&Wise runs a "Happy Workplace Committee" through which staff can voice opinions on welfare and company events. "My goal is to build a company that shares results with its employees and grows together with them," Jo said.