“Partnership with 20+ Franchises… Planning Vehicle and Driving Services Too”

[Startup Story - Music Curation APLAYZ]② Interview with CEO Bae Jung-jin

[Korea Construction News = Reporter Kang Juhyun] “When I visited a famous restaurant, the same song was playing repeatedly. It didn’t match the atmosphere of the place, and it felt uncomfortable. That’s when I thought it would be great to develop a service that plays the right music for each store.”

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Bae Jung-jin, CEO of APLAYZ (pictured), explained that this casual experience during a restaurant visit became the inspiration for founding the company. Although he was working at Hyundai Motor Company’s domestic business division at the time and didn’t start a business immediately, he began collecting information about music streaming and studying the technologies needed for such a service. He established music curation—classifying and distributing specific content based on purpose or interest—as the foundation of the concept, while researching market trends and potential partners in related industries.

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After about three years of preparation, APLAYZ set its milestone by being selected in late 2021 for Hyundai Motor Group’s “ZERO1 Company Builder” program.

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The Hyundai Motor Group ZERO1 Company Builder is a program designed to discover and support internal startups by selecting promising business ideas from employees and helping them spin off and commercialize. Although CEO Bae had also considered other options such as taking a leave of absence to start a company independently, he decided to take advantage of this valuable in-house startup opportunity to move forward with his idea.

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After about a year of initial development, APLAYZ officially launched its music curation service in the summer of last year. The company began providing streaming-based, space-optimized music at Hyundai Motor’s Yangjae headquarters and showrooms. Through beta testing and service refinement, APLAYZ enhanced product quality and user satisfaction, leading to the official launch. Recognized for its business potential, the company spun off and became an independent entity in January this year.

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CEO Bae said, “I founded the company together with colleagues who were part of the internal startup team, and later, the developers who had helped build the platform also joined us. Since music is at the core of our business, we also brought in music majors and professionals from the record industry to grow the company together.”

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Despite being less than a year old, APLAYZ’s performance has been remarkable. The company has formed partnerships with more than 20 well-known franchises, including Yeokjeon Grandma Beer and Kkanbu Chicken. It has effectively solved the problem for businesses that need in-store music but struggle to create playlists customized for different spaces and situations.

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In addition, Hyundai Motor’s nationwide showrooms—key customer contact points—are using APLAYZ’s music curation service, and it has also been implemented in major offices of Hyundai Engineering and other Hyundai Motor Group affiliates. CEO Bae added that the number of new subscribers has more than doubled in the second half of this year.

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As a company that started within Hyundai, APLAYZ also plans to offer services optimized for vehicles and driving environments. It will integrate information such as driver preferences, driving habits, vehicle location, destination, and weather to provide the most suitable music.

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CEO Bae said, “APLAYZ’s goal is to provide music services optimized for specific spaces and to ensure customers can use them effectively. The route to work and the route home may be the same, but the situations are completely different. Since the inside of a car is also a space, we want to provide music tailored to each situation to enhance the customer’s sense of satisfaction.”

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Reporter Kang Juhyun kangju07@dnews.co.kr

[‘Partnerships with over 20 franchises… Plans for vehicle and driving services’], The Korea Construction News, 2023-11-30