As a student in Singapore over a decade ago, Jay Lim was frustrated by the shortcoming to purchase pizza only for himself. The lack of “personal pizza options” prompted him to found the startup Gopizza upon returning to South Korea in 2016.
Gopizza caught the eye of hungry Koreans with its fast service and bite-sized pizzas. But just three years after founding the corporate, Lim was already looking abroad. The Gopizza founder went first to India after which to Southeast Asia to present his company the most effective probability of survival.
The reason? South Korea’s record low birth rate. “The fertility rate is no joke,” says Lim. “Every year 300,000 people disappear, so that’s a huge problem.”
South Korea has the bottom birth rate on this planet, with 0.72 births per woman in 2023. This signifies that the Korean consumer market will shrink unless something changes.
To make matters worse, South Korea’s food industry is under enormous competitive pressure. “We have a rapidly shrinking market and at the same time, statistically speaking, the highest competition in the world. This leads to investors being doubtful or skeptical about our industry. This means that we cannot get investment and cannot grow fast enough,” explains Lim.
Gopizza is expanding worldwide
Gopizza claims to be South Korea’s eleventh largest pizza brand, citing its own research based on data registered with the Korean Fair Trade Commission. The startup also says it’s the world’s leading South Korean pizza brand by way of the variety of outlets.
Gopizza first expanded to India in 2019, just three years after its founding. The startup now has over 50 branches within the country and a menu tailored to the Indian market.
Gopizza also has a presence in Singapore, the corporate’s second-largest global market after India. Lim says the expansion into Singapore was done with investors in mind: Success in Singapore, a small country with a competitive market, would prove to investors that Gopizza has potential.
Courtesy of Gopizza
According to Lim, Gopizza is now Singapore’s third-largest pizza brand. The founder attributes the startup’s success in Singapore to a $10 million investment by Thai conglomerate CP All in June.
Gopizza also desires to expand to Indonesia and Thailand. Lim hopes to have his pizzas available within the country’s 7-Eleven stores, that are operated by his backer CP All.
Start Gopizza
The idea for Gopizza was born out of Lim’s frustration with the dearth of options for individual pizza while studying at Singapore Management University.
After returning to Korea, Lim worked part-time at a pizzeria and got here to the conclusion that waiting for the dough to rise and making the pizza was a waste of time.
To save time, Lim opted for partially baked dough. Gopizza now has its own dough, which Lim calls an “important part” of the business.
Gopizza can also be investing in an AI-powered oven called Goven. The oven rates pizzas based on their toppings, allowing Gopizza officials to watch the consistency of pizzas in numerous stores all over the world.
Lim argues that the AI oven could possibly be a brand new revenue stream for Gopizza if the startup can persuade other pizza chains that the “Goven” delivers results. “That’s the next chapter. It’s going to be something like a technology company,” he says.
