Feature Stories

Many people become entrepreneurs because they want to be the difference that they hoped to see. Jovy YU (MARK & MGMT, Minor in Entrepreneurship, Class of 2023), the co-founder of Metamory, shares her story of how Metamory came about as part of her entrepreneurship journey.

Entrepreneurship is Life 

Metamory is an online platform that “bridges the gap between life and death” to commemorate both pets and humans. By empowering individuals irrespective of where they live to create a personalized digital memorial for their loved ones in the Metaverse, preserving memories and honoring legacies. Its app Petamory, currently tailored to pet owners whose pets have passed away, recreates an AR3D model of the pet(s) so owners can see another version of their pet living in the metaverse. Users can also connect with each other on the app, providing support through the grieving process. 

Fascinated by entrepreneurship since secondary school, Jovy tried many different ideas and products to sell before Metamory. From selling stickers and celebrity card portraits to running a party room business, she found the road of discovery and going through new experiences in the entrepreneurship process fulfilling. “I joined several entrepreneurship programs in secondary school. One of these was to start a small-scale company selling cushions and blankets with other like-minded students. We ended up achieving a 300% ROI for the company and I felt great starting from scratch and seeing the product selling well to people around us.”

With this success fresh in mind, when Jovy joined HKUST she grasped every opportunity to experience entrepreneurship experience by joining different case competitions – a hallmark of business school life -- and taking the entrepreneurship minor. It was during these experiences that she met her first business partner. Building on their similar experiences with grief, loss and distance, they came up with the idea of establishing a start-up for commemoration through an online platform. “I was abroad in the UK when one of my family members passed away, but I couldn’t be there physically to help out. I felt like there was a gap in this experience that could be enriched. My first business partner and I soon discovered that our opportunity lay in bringing the commemoration business into the digital world, so that everyone can commemorate their loved ones, no matter where they are." Gaining two more business partners from the United Kingdom and Taiwan during a marketing project, the co-founders hashed out and integrated their ideas into a working business model to launch Metamory as a real start-up.

Gaining Entrepreneurial Knowledge 

In preparing Metamory to go beyond its mere commercial value, Jovy found the Marketing and Information System courses impactful in deepening her understanding of the latest market trends and needs. “Our start-up deals with the social needs of our customers, which is beyond CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). Through MARK4290F Brand Activism in Strategic Marketing, I learned how brands can rely on social value-added marketing to create short and long-term impacts in the business markets. This also inspired us to incorporate social purpose in our brand to make a difference in society, and not just about being commercial anymore.” She also added that the knowledge of cryptocurrency and blockchain she gained from the course ISOM 3350 FinTech and Cryptoventures gave her a more concrete idea of the industry.

Besides acquiring entrepreneurial knowledge in class, Jovy found the university’s resources included platforms to gain important exposure for funding and feedback from experienced industry leaders. “We took part in a lot of case competitions and hackathons in the university, such as the HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition and the HKDAS Hackathon, to pitch our ideas and gather opinions from judges and industry experts. With these we were able to fine-tune our business model and make it applicable to the real marketplace. We also got the chance to showcase our start-up in the HKUST Startup Runway and the Hong Kong Computer Festival, a citywide conference held in the Hong Kong Exhibition Centre once a year, to determine how the market feels about what our start-up is offering and further improve our service and platform.” Together with the support offered by the HKUST Entrepreneurship Center, Jovy and her partners were also able to receive funding from the Hong Kong Science Park (HKSTP) and the Cyberport Incubation Programme, one of the largest in Hong Kong, and established connections with other venture capital funds.

In addition to joining different competitions and events, Jovy found that the strong alumni network of HKUST offered her chances to receive advice for growing her own business and expanding her entrepreneurial network. “I joined an internship in a start-up through the SBMT 3200 Corporate Project, where one of the founders of that start-up is an HKUST alumnus. His passion really inspired me a lot and he gave me insight into the entrepreneurship world that further cemented my interest in starting my own business. We are still in touch now and I get a lot of useful advice from him.”

Towards a Bright Future

In the short-term, Metamory will focus on R&D and building sales relationships for its first product. They plan to build more business partnerships to officially launch the product to the market and even potentially move base to chase the opportunities to become the go-to memorial platform for both pets and people. “We want to build an ecosystem that people would know that their memories, history and legacy will live effectively forever on the blockchain and the metaverse.”

According to Jovy, the best part of the entrepreneurship journey was working with co-founders who are passionate about the same things and able to agilely navigate problems and challenges together. “There are lots of uncertainties and problems to be solved, but they are all very interesting problems and you have to take ownership and accountability for them. I enjoy this part when I can work with all these amazing people in an environment that challenges me. As half of us are from technical backgrounds while the other half are from business backgrounds, we do a lot of communication and alignment to strike a balance between our personal visions for Metamory and the approach we will implement, and that’s how we sync different ideas and work in harmony together.” She added that multi-tasking in a fast-paced environment, being agile when facing the unexpected situation, and the exposure unique to the start-up industry are other aspects she enjoys about working in the start-up environment.

For those looking to start their own business, Jovy advises entering different case competitions to receive feedback, gain collaborators, and gauge the response from the market. “Ideas are cheap, execution is everything; so you have to execute. Stop just doing proposals or pitching. Once you have your first round of funding, just use all of those resources to build your first product and continue from there.” She added that resilience and perseverance are essential for undertaking a start-up. “Running a business is a long marathon. It is a road with a lot of uncertainties because you have to deal with different challenges and adapt to the ever-changing environment. You have to power through and come out of that each time to learn from your challenges and thrive.”

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