Cho Young-bong on the professional network behind Minkrappa

Minkrappa’s Display Portal combined an online community with an incorporated café organization. It carried current technology, product and international news across solar energy, LEDs, semiconductors, PDPs and OLEDs, while also enabling business networking.

The community depended on the time and information contributed by its manager, operating team and professional members. Minkrappa was also the nickname of manager Cho Young-bong, who began collecting information for his work in PDP-related sales before expanding into public-interest information exchange and business networking.

Cho said his initial blog attracted between 10,000 and 20,000 daily visitors, with one day exceeding 190,000. The volume of requests and questions became too large for one person, prompting the transition to a community.

At the time of the interview, the café had 35,803 members, including researchers, sales and marketing professionals, business owners and students. The blog and café together had accumulated approximately seven million visits over five to six years, and the number of posts exceeded 90,000.

Around 100 active members attended offline meetings, while professional profiles from roughly 3,000 to 4,000 people provided a resource for business networking. Offline gatherings included technical seminars and exhibition participation for member companies.

At the renewable-energy exhibition held from 17 to 19 March at the Kim Dae-jung Convention Center in Gwangju, Minkrappa operated a community pavilion featuring products from Senbul, Solarnux and Solarhome. Senbul’s energy blocks using piezoelectric technology attracted visitor interest. Cho expressed his hope to develop forward-looking business models while preserving the community’s original purpose.