Namwoo Jang
Building what people actually need

WelcomEye. I was a music major and once missed someone at the door because of my headphones — that gap stuck with me. If a hearing person with headphones already misses visitors, what about people who can't hear at all? I sat with deaf and hard-of-hearing users, built an intercom system around what they actually needed, and KOMIPO ended up backing it. The investment is a signal; the user research is what I'm proud of.

User first, then code. I don't start with the most elegant architecture — I start with the person who has the problem and what would make their day work. The technical choices fall out of that. If a simpler approach gets the thing into real hands faster, I'll take it over a clever one that ships in six months.

Long-term, I want to be the kind of founder who runs more than one company — building things people actually need. Right now I'm narrowing it down to one thing: ISEF 2026.

Honestly, not great — and I own that. My school doesn't really support deep research or competitions, so I built my own runway for them, and that came at the cost of schoolwork. I haven't checked out, though: I'm on student council, and my teachers and I are good.

I built WelcomEye because most service systems still ignore people with hearing or vision differences. That came first. My first IR was at KDB; I learned from the people I met there, sharpened the business model — and the investment followed. The money was a result, not the plan.

I didn't think about it for a long time. Now I want to go — not because everyone else is, but because I genuinely love learning in new environments and meeting people I wouldn't otherwise meet.