At an investor conference in Seoul last week, Hana Park, CEO of the South Korean tech start-up PayBridge, stood up and made a bold promise. She did not talk about what the company hopes to do. She talked about what it will have done — using the future perfect to show investors exactly when each goal will be complete.
By the end of year one, PayBridge will have launched its mobile payment app in South Korea, Japan, and Australia. The team will have hired forty employees across three offices. 'We move fast,' Hana says, 'but we do not cut corners on quality.'
By the end of year two, the company will have expanded to the US and UK markets. It will have raised a further ten million dollars in investment, and will have opened its first European office in London.
The ambitions grow from there. By the end of year three, PayBridge will have reached one million active users — a number Hana describes as 'the point of no return'. The company will also have established partnerships with three major international banks, giving it the financial credibility it needs for the next phase.
By the end of year four, the team will have developed a second product. They will have trained one hundred members of staff in data security, which Hana calls 'non-negotiable in our industry'.
By the end of year five, PayBridge will have achieved profitability. The team will have grown to two hundred people. And — perhaps most importantly to her original investors — the company will have repaid its initial funding.
'By year five,' Hana tells the room, 'we will have built something lasting. We will have proved that innovation and responsibility can go together. That is the plan. We intend to keep it.'