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Every company talks about the importance of data for its growth. However, it is rare for companies to have a dedicated team solely focused on this imperative goal. Lee Min-sun, who has been involved in various tasks in the IT industry, from service marketing to business planning, chose to join NAVER WEBTOON's Growth team for her next step, and the reason lies precisely in this point. She was sure that her own growth would be possible if she were part of a company like NAVER WEBTOON, which is equipped with a separate growth team while currently experiencing an explosive growth trend.

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With 13 years of experience, she finds meaning in her work by defining it herself. "I think our team’s job is to gather small pieces. It's about collecting repetitive daily experiments and executions to establish the foundation for service growth." Through agile execution skills and persistent determination, experiments to find the pieces of growth are still ongoing. Special efforts are always required to achieve the most crucial goals.

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Tell us about the work you are doing at NAVER WEBTOON.

I’m Lee Min-sun from the KR Growth team of NAVER WEBTOON. Our team is responsible for the growth of the Korean webtoon service. We analyze daily service indicators and user data to identify key indicators directly linked to the service's growth and we also establish hypotheses that could address problems and execute them.

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Tell us more about your team.

I have been working in NAVER WEBTOON’s Growth team for about two and a half years. Our team's role extends beyond a typical planning or operations team. We conduct strategic planning to establish the basis to determine the direction of the service's business. Additionally, we handle tasks related to data, such as extracting and processing vast user indicators on a daily basis. Furthermore, we are also in charge of tasks related to service operation including banners and promotions that are displayed in the app. It’s a team where I can take part in all the things I enjoy.

As a result, the career backgrounds of our team members are very diverse. For instance, I have a background in service marketing while others have experience in managing KPI indicators in business teams. We also have team members who have worked with customer data in card companies or financial institutions. It's great to have a team with such a variety of career experiences, as it inspires and motivates each other even more.

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What data do you usually look into?

There are deep contemplations about how to score the abstract value of "fun" in contents. As the Growth team of NAVER WEBTOON, this is a point that we in particular, put a lot of thought into.

Currently, there are nearly 600 works being serialized on NAVER WEBTOON across different days of the week. Among this abundance of content, it becomes important to predict which works will receive a positive response in advance. To do so, we use leading indicators to identify potentially successful works and ensure the sustained popularity of top-ranked works.

To determine what would be fun, we at times score data such as early reader retention or preview purchase rates for new works. When examining whether the fun experience is being maintained, we also look at the trend of users who continue to follow the weekly series and those who drop off, especially for popular works in the top rankings.

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Tell us about what work you do in the execution stage.

Based on the insights obtained from such data analysis, we design actions within the webtoon app to encourage readership. For example, for works that signal positive indicators of early interest but lack new inflow, we can display targeted banners recommending the work to users who are likely to enjoy it. We also conduct read events where users are rewarded with cookies for reading just the first episode. This action helps because once this work is discovered and users are encouraged to start reading, there is a certain level of validation that the subsequent indicators will be positive. It is great to see the popularity ranking escalate and maintain as a result of these actions. Additionally, when we come across reader comments like, "Why did I only discover this webtoon now? I baked all remaining cookies to see the previews of all episodes,” it brings us a great sense of accomplishment.

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What do you find most challenging when it comes to work?

There are many times when it becomes challenging to figure out the causes through indicators. This is because numerous internal and external factors can influence service indicators. Therefore, I make an effort to break down the indicators as much as possible. For instance, if there is a significant drop in webtoon readership on a particular day, I examine whether it is due to a decrease in existing users or a decline in new inflow. I analyze various user groups based on factors such as gender, number of webtoons read, payment amounts, and reading frequency to understand which user group's departure contributed to the overall decline in the indicator. If there is an increase in departures, I also isolate those users to examine the webtoons they were reading before leaving and the ones they had made payments for. Many times, the cause is not evident from internal indicators. When it becomes too frustrating, not knowing the reason even after spending the whole day searching for it, our team comes together, and we consider external factors such as academic schedules, weather conditions, and we even go as far as searching to see if there was a soccer match on that day.

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What does it mean to be good at your job?

I believe that being good at work means providing solutions. If there is someone who identifies problems, another who goes further to analyze their root causes, and someone else who proposes actionable plans that may not be the definitive answer, I consider the last person to be the most competent one. In order to present actionable plans, one must understand the essence of the problem and identify which aspect holds the most crucial key to the solution.

In terms of attitude, it’s someone who can “adjust the level of expectation”. It's about sharing and aligning my expected level with my colleagues, communicating at what point and to what extent I can deliver my output. We cannot accomplish everything alone. Being able to define and share what I can contribute and becoming someone whose colleagues can predict "what level of output this person will deliver and when" are important. I consider someone who can flexibly adapt these expectations to be highly skilled in their job.

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➡️ View the full interview

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