The persisting COVID-19 made many spend more time at home. So far, home has been a place of rest or unproductive leisure. But the disease turned it into a place of productive hobby as people get more time to invest for themselves.

The trend begun with reading classes, online lectures or other forms of instructional contact-free educations. However, growing number of lectures are opened with interactive formats these days because people have longed for more lively education.

ChaChaFriends(CEO: Cha, Young-eun) aspires to make piano lessons easy and enjoyable for everyone. The company has a Youtube channel with 180-thousands subscribers, “ChaChaPiano” that teaches how to play the piano. It also works hard to let people be familiar with music by operating Piareno, an online piano lesson service and selling music-related goods such as “music diary”, “music file” and customized music.

We met CEO Cha, Young-eun of ChaChaFriends at Startup Campus in Pangyo Techno Valley and listened her description of Piareno, a contact-free piano lesson platform.

Q1. Please introduce your company

Ms. Cha: We opened our first Youtube channel in 2017 with the name of ChaChaFriends before officially launching the online lesson-matching service. Our online lesson-service Piareno offers one-on-one lessons with affordable fee which is more reasonable than conventional off-line lessons.

Piareno is designed to deliver easy and enjoyable piano lessons to everyone via online. Being better than other internet lessons, its services are as effective as conventional form of piano classes.

Q2. What makes Piareno so special?

Ms. Cha: Most of internet lessons offer ready-made clips and address multiple people at the same time. In contrast, ours are one-on-one format. Our lessons focus on the needs of learners reflecting their competencies and expectations for assigning teachers. Its lessons are delivered via the “open chatting” format where learners, teachers and managers participate. Managers are to monitor the quality of lessons.

Piareno matches one learner with one teacher via online. Learners can watch lesson clips specifically recorded for them whenever and wherever they want.

The service is welcomed by various age groups. Children between the age of 7 and 13 find it an alternative to offline classes that let them stay away from COVID-19. Those with jobs or with caring responsibilities and seniors also use the service as they have fixed schedules. People live in regional areas or overseas particularly find it delightful. Students majored in music also use the service to experience various styles of piano lessons.

ChaChaFriends explore what learners need with its questionnaires and assign right teachers for them. The lesson provider also maintains its service quality with monitoring efforts of managers that cover feedbacks and overall lectures.

Q3. What made you launch the business?

Ms. Cha: I’ve run a Youtube channel named ChaChaPaino 차차와피아노놀이 since 2017. It was to upload piano-related materials such as music of piano and clips of music performance. Many asked me about one-on-one piano lesson. I wondered how I can meet such demands and COVID-19 broke out in the early 2020. Seeing the disease made more people want online lessons, I launched Piareno to meet the trend and demand.

Q4. Any plan for more musical instruments?

Ms. Cha: I would prefer to focus on piano this year. This year will be mainly spent for jazz and applied music. Maybe I can add other instruments like guitar or drum one by one reflecting their demand from next year.

Q5. What’s your plan for overseas market?

Ms. Cha: In fact, we have quite a lot of demand from foreigners. We’ve used translation services to extend our lessons to them. The demand made us confidence for overseas market. We aim to enter the U.S., China, Japan and European markets.

We are going to launch our service in Japan with a Jazz pianist Jimin Dorothy this year and in western countries, the home of jazz and classical music, next year.

Q6. Why did you chose Pangyo to begin the business?

Ms. Cha: Startups face daunting challenges including lack of room to work and personnel and issues of patent. Pangyo city helps startups solve those difficulties by letting them work with many supportive institutions. I could join various programs meeting other CEOs in the city which gave me useful insights.

Source: Pangyo Techno Valley Official Newsroom

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