Who says gaming is only a waste of time? If managed properly, it can be a huge source of money. Just as Itemku has proven. The Indonesian startup with a Korean root is having two million people on its platform per month.
Kim Sung-jin, one of the member of Five Jack who stands behind Itemku is a former employee at NHN Games Korea. His experiences in the company taught him which users of what countries play the games the most.
He found Indonesia is one of them. He underestimated the market, bravely moved to the foreign country with almost zero knowledge of it. The result was disastrous. Kim had to live on ramen for a couple of months when he was yet to find investor.
His hard days help him understand the country more as well as maturing his business skill. Together with other friends from Korea, Kim established Itemku.
So what is Itemku?
Itemku is a content e-commerce platform for game items. It connect game players to online game shop that sells specific items. You see, item in game is a very crucial thing, it can help gamer reach a higher level of the game.
With huge amount of gamers in Indonesia, Itemku soon attracted many investor. Since 2014, it received a total of $1.9 million with 500 Startups as the main investor in the company.
Initially, Itemku focuses on the market of avid gamers or those so-called maniacs. But now it is reaching the casual gamers, those who spend less time in gaming.
There are 40 kinds of games in the platform list. For instance Mobile Legend, Point Blank, Arena of Valor, and Tencent’s Player Unknown Battle Ground. There are more than 2 million of gamers visiting the platform each month. And the number keeps on increasing by 10% per month.
