The secret behind a founder who failed 7 startups over 15 years creating a service with 300 million won in monthly revenue
Date
Nov 29, 2025
Classification
- Startups
LeanX / leanX, CEO
We help entrepreneurs execute their plans to create products that the world needs.
Removed Features, Yet 300 Million Won in Revenue? The Secret of an Entrepreneur Who Stakes Their Life on 'Simplicity'
🫑 3-Line Summary
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Anton, a developer who failed 7 times over 15 years, achieved a monthly revenue of 300 million won with his app Letterly, which focused on 'removing features' and 'simplifying' instead of constantly adding features.
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Despite the abundance of free alternatives like ChatGPT and Naver Clova, the reason users open their wallets for Letterly is the 'Frictionless Experience' that reduces a 7-step process to just 4 steps.
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You must keep in mind that having more features than competitors is not a competitive advantage but merely technical debt, and that true innovation lies in boldly removing all superfluity except for core values.
🥦 Insight
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Put the product suffering from 'functional obesity' on a diet.
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Is the service you are currently building suffering from "feature obesity"? The features you have haphazardly added with the excuse, "Our competitors have this too..." are actually driving customers away. Customers are not buying a feature specification sheet; they are buying an "experience" that will save them time.
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Look at Anton's case. Even if the technology is available for free, customers are willing to pay for it if it reduces their inconvenience (friction) by even one second. Do you think it won't work because the Korean market is small? No, Korean users are more demanding and impatient, so they are even more enthusiastic about 'simple and fast' services.
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Discuss "What to subtract?" right now, not "What to add?" Getting paid from Day 1 and making things 10 times simpler in an already proven market—this is the $300 million lesson learned after 15 years of failure.
— View original —
Introduction.
Today, I have a story to share with entrepreneurs who say, "If we just add one more feature...", "Competitors have this too...", or "Users requested this!"
There is a developer named Anton.
I founded 6 or 7 startups over the past 15 years, and they all failed .
Then, two years ago, I changed something.
And now? We are recording monthly sales of 300 million won ($250,000).
What did I change? The technology stack? Marketing channels? Fundraising?
No. The feature has been removed.
"An app that converts speech to text" — that is all there is to it.
You're asking if you can do it for free with ChatGPT? That's right. Or there's Naver Clova.
However, people pay money for this app . 20,000 people are paying subscribers every month.
Today, we will delve into the secret behind this paradoxical success, and why Korean entrepreneurs should take this lesson to heart.
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