Profile Yoon Sungwon, CEO of Solfa Studio, the YouTube PD Who Put RICINNE at No. 1

Yoon Sungwon is the CEO of video production company Solfa Studio and the PD who created the YouTube channel "Hi, I'm Won'i, Nice to Work With You" (安원잘부) for RICINNE member Won'i. Born July 18, 1989, he graduated from Nakseong High School in Bundang, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, and after repeating a year of high school, entered Yonsei University's Department of Journalism, Broadcasting, and Visual Studies in 2009. There, he first picked up a camera in the film production club "Dreamers." He initially dreamed of becoming a film director but changed course to YouTube, and nowadays is more often called "PD Nimu," a name given to him by his cast members.

He began with the channel Solfa, which he opened in 2013 while still in college, launched ODG in 2019, and established the corporation Solfa Studio in April 2020. In June 2021, he appeared on tvN's "You Quiz On The Block" as a "genius video planning director with 400 million total views." "Hi, I'm Won'i, Nice to Work With You," which opened in February this year, is his third channel.

RICINNE's chart comeback is the most explanation-requiring scene in this year's music industry. After their debut in March 2024, the once-unknown group's song was brought to No. 1 on Melon in July not by a broadcasting company music show or the agency's marketing, but by a single YouTube channel—and Geoje City and Gyeongju City subsequently appointed the group as honorary ambassadors. However, this channel was not created by the agency. It is a channel planned and directly operated by external production company Solfa Studio, and its PD has become as well-known among fans as the cast members themselves. The video featuring him on "Mimimi Nu" surpassed 1.82 million views. And he has already done the same thing twice before with Solfa and ODG. Once is luck, twice is coincidence, three times is a method. Understanding that method is the question this profile seeks to answer.

From a 'pocket money' channel to 400 million views: 13 years of Solfa and ODG

The start was modest. Coming from a film club background, he thought, "I can shoot videos, so let me earn some pocket money," and opened Solfa in July 2013. During his exchange student days in Japan, an interview with students from 20 countries over 8 hours—"How to Distinguish Americans"—went viral, and of the 50 videos he uploaded afterward, 5 exceeded 10 million views. It was also during this period that he licensed the "Finding Your Type: 40 to 1" format to American YouTube channel Jubilee. Subscribers grew to 1.25 million.

ODG, which launched in April 2019, is the channel that introduced him to the mainstream public. The name came from how children mispronounce "어디지" (where) as "오디지" (ODG). Notable works include "ODG Karaoke," where singers like Shin Yong-jae, Baek Ji-young, Lim Chang-jung, and Kim Bum-soo perform live in front of children who don't recognize them; "ODI Broadcast Club," where Polkagubmul, Oh My Girl, and RIIZE appear on a school lunch broadcast; and a challenge featuring child actress Min-seo pretending not to know IU. The "Hyun-ho & Carson" series topped YouTube's trending videos in the United States. In three years, subscribers surpassed 3 million, reaching 3.39 million as of the 12th, with a high proportion of overseas viewers. In November 2021, media commerce company Adapt acquired ODG and Solfa, but kept Yoon Sungwon in charge of operations. At that time, the combined subscriber count of the two channels was 4.22 million.

"Trendy people don't matter," laying the foundation with rejected Won'i

"Hi, I'm Won'i, Nice to Work With You" began with a rejected pitch. Within Solfa Studio, there is an external project team that receives corporate requests, writes proposals, and bids. In an appearance on YouTube's "Mimimi Nu" last July, Yoon Sungwon said, "When we bid, many clients want celebrity hosts. But I thought using trendy people right now doesn't have much meaning." One employee recommended Won'i, who had appeared on a driving school web variety show.

What he saw in Won'i was not fame but personality. In an interview with Weverse Magazine, he said, "Won'i is someone who does well even without a setup," and "When she laughs, she opens her mouth wide, and from that facial expression and action, you can see what she's hiding and what she's not." He judged her to be "a person with the courage not to be swayed by any situation." He proposed Won'i as the host. The result was rejection. "Since she wasn't famous back then, that had a big impact."

He turned the rejection into an opportunity. "Actually, I'm glad that project didn't work out. I was already thinking, 'If this doesn't work, I'll do it myself.'" It was a frontal assault—a pitch that clients rejected on grounds of fame would be directly operated by Solfa as a channel. When the first video filmed with comedian Lee Sun-min exceeded 200,000 views, that night he sent two pitches to RICINNE's agency group chat. One was in Japanese, the other in dialect.

The two pitches became the two pillars of the channel. Regarding Japanese member Minami, he said, "There's almost no information even if you search, so on the first shoot I asked, 'Can you speak Japanese?'" and "After filming, I realized, 'This person is remarkable.'" With Won'i from Geoje, when suggesting they film in Geoje, he initially asked her to wear "three-striped slippers" so the feeling of being a local would show intuitively, calibrating the tone accordingly. The agency The Muse Entertainment received the pitches; the production company was the one designing the framework. It was the moment the steering wheel that determines an idol's fate shifted from the agency to the YouTube production company.

Response becomes format, the design method of 'zero subscribers'

His methodology is compressed into several sentences. First: "Think of it as zero subscribers." He said, "If you approach it with the premise that people don't know the cast from the start, you create content that's entertaining even without context." That's why the dialect episode introduces not "Jena, Won'i" but "idols who speak dialect," and season 2's first video introduces cast members as "an idol who came up from Gyeongju." When creating content with Jon Park at a Berlin club, he told team members, "Less than 1% of South Korea knows about Berlin clubs." It's about designing for those who don't know rather than riding on those who do. This principle dated back to the ODG era. By stripping away the rapid subtitles and editing typical of Korean and Japanese variety shows to make it watchable without knowing the language, ODG attracted overseas viewers.

Second: "Response becomes format." Rather than demanding predetermined answers or exaggerated reactions, he sets only a starting point like "going to Seongsu" and lets members drive the video. Fast editing is replaced by an observational, flowing pace, film OST production, and titles and thumbnails that simply describe the situation. Third: the decision to step back from a peak. When "Geoje Yaho" became a catchphrase, he ended Minami's gyaru concept. "I felt we'd already shown everything there was to show as a gyaru," and "Minami has so many charms that I thought it would be good to reveal her true self quickly," he explained. He called gyaru "too high a peak," saying, "People might get tired of it someday and feel hurt."

His perspective on algorithms is also clear. "Saying there's a secret to algorithms is frankly nonsense," he states flatly, "If content is good, that's it." There's no separate new material. "There's nothing new, only things people feel are fresh," he said, adding that he watches media heavily as a consumer and that all he does is "chase the emotion people feel as new."

2.3 million in seven months, a two-year-old song rises to No. 1

Numbers tell the story. "Hi, I'm Won'i, Nice to Work With You" surpassed 100,000 subscribers on May 4, 40,000 on May 26, and 2 million on September 5, reaching 2.3 million as of the 12th, after launching February 4. A single episode of "Gyaru and We Came to Geoje" has 13.39 million views. RICINNE's "Love Attack," released in August 2024, reached No. 1 on Melon TOP100 on July 8, and the remake "Pretty Girl" earned its first music broadcast win on "The Show" on July 14, going on to win three major music shows, beating IOOI and aespa on "Inkigayo." Geoje City appointed RICINNE as honorary ambassadors on May 22, and Gyeongju City on June 29. The channel ended season 1 on July 18 and returned with season 2 on August 7, expanding appearances to Silla Jena and actress Go Yoon-jung episodes, with subscribers continuing to grow after the return.

The company grew with it. Solfa Studio's 2024 revenue reached 2.88 billion won, a 115% increase from the previous year, with operating profit of 540 million won. It operates brand channels for Lotte Chilsung Chilsung Label, Naver NOW, and CJ OnStyle, and added original channels like "Is It John or Bak?" (540,000 subscribers) and "Yang Hong-won's Parenting Diary" (520,000 subscribers).

There was a trade-off. ODG, the flagship channel, halted uploads indefinitely from the third quarter this year as personnel concentrated on "Hi, I'm Won'i, Nice to Work With You." The choice was to set aside a channel with 3.39 million subscribers that surpassed 3 million in three years and go all-in on a 2.3 million-subscriber channel. While the reality is that a 16-person production company cannot simultaneously operate around eight original channels, it was also a decision to use a seven-year-old channel as fuel for a new one. He described ODG and Solfa as "formats where the cast and concepts continuously change on a video-by-video basis." "Hi, I'm Won'i, Nice to Work With You," which builds narrative with fixed cast members, is the opposite experiment, and the decision to step back from a peak was applied not only to Minami's gyaru concept but also to his own flagship channel.

"I'm a professional," where is the next move?

He does not call himself an artist. When Weverse Magazine asked if he still believes Akira Kurosawa's statement that he is a "professional filmmaker, not a writer or artist," he answered, "That's right, I'm a professional." But there is one thing he does not compromise on: "Autonomy. 'I make what I want to make'—I want to maintain that sense." In a 2022 interview with YouTube's official blog, his long-term goal was "the production company that makes video the best in Korea."

The method of choosing unknown people, laying the framework, stepping back when response comes, and standing them before the unknowing has worked for the third channel as well. The camera he turned on 13 years ago to earn pocket money has now become a device that changes girl groups' chart rankings. Who he next chooses as a person "who does well without a setup" is a question the content industry watches.