Profile Yoon Sung-won, CEO of Solfa Studio, YouTube PD Who Brought Lisenne to No. 1
Yoon Sung-won is the CEO of video production company Solfa Studio and the PD who created the YouTube channel 'Hello I'm Woni, Nice to Meet You' (Anwonjalbu) for girl group Lisenne member Woni. Born July 18, 1989, he graduated from Naksaeng High School in Bundang, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. After a year of test preparation, he enrolled in 2009 at Yonsei University's Department of Media Communication & Video Studies, where he first picked up a camera in the campus film production club 'The Dreamers.' He initially dreamed of becoming a film director but changed direction to YouTube, and is now more often called 'PD Nimu,' a nickname given by his cast members.
He started with the channel Solfa, which he opened in 2013 while still in university, launched ODG in 2019, and established Solfa Studio as a corporation in April 2020. In June 2021, he appeared on tvN's 'You Quiz on the Block' as a "genius video content planner with 400 million total views." 'Anwonjalbu,' which opened in February this year, is his third channel.
Lisenne's chart reversal is the scene that requires the most explanation in the Korean music industry this year. More than two years after debuting in March 2024, the group's song, which was unknown, topped Melon's charts in July not through broadcast music programs or the agency's marketing, but through a single YouTube channel. Subsequently, Geoje City and Gyeongju City appointed them as promotional ambassadors. But that channel wasn't made by the agency. It's a channel planned and directly operated by external production company Solfa Studio, and the PD behind it is as well-known among fans as the cast members. The 'Mimiminu' video featuring him exceeded 1.82 million views. And he's already done the same thing twice before at Solfa and ODG. Once is luck, but three times is a method. The question of what that method is forms the basis of this profile.
From 'Pocket Money' Channel to 400 Million Views: Solfa and ODG's 13 Years
The beginning was light-hearted. Coming from a film club background, he thought "I can film videos, so why not earn some pocket money" and opened Solfa in July 2013. While on an exchange student program in Japan, he conducted eight-hour interviews with students from some 20 countries, and his video "How to Tell Americans Apart" went viral. Of the 50 videos he later uploaded, five exceeded 10 million views. It was during this period that he also licensed the "Finding Your Ideal Type 1 vs. 40" format to the American YouTube channel Jubilee. His subscriber count grew to 1.25 million.
ODG, launched in April 2019, is the channel that introduced him to the general public. The name comes from how children mispronounce the Korean word "eodiji" (where is it) as "odiji." His representative works include "ODG Karaoke" where singers Shin Yong-jae, Baek Ji-young, Lim Chang-jung, and Kim Beom-soo perform four songs live in front of children who don't recognize them; "Odigi Broadcasting Club" featuring Bol Kim, OH MY GIRL, and Raise appearing in a school lunch broadcast; and a challenge where child actor Min-seo pretends not to know IU. The 'Hyun-ho & Carson' series reached No. 1 on YouTube's trending videos globally. In three years, his subscriber count surpassed 3 million; as of the 12th, it stands at 3.39 million, with a high proportion of overseas viewers. In November 2021, media commerce company Adapt acquired ODG and Solfa, but left operations under Yoon's management. At that time, the combined subscribers of both channels were 4.22 million.
"Today's Trendy People Don't Matter," Building the Stage Directly with Rejected Woni
'Anwonjalbu' started from a rejected proposal. Within Solfa Studio, there's an external projects team that writes proposals from client requests and bids for them. In an appearance on YouTube's 'Mimimi Noo' in July, Yoon explained: "When you bid, clients often want celebrity hosts. But I thought there's no great point in using people who are trendy right now." One employee recommended Woni, who had appeared on a driving lesson web variety show.
What he saw in Woni wasn't her fame but her personality. In an interview with Weverse Magazine, he said, "Woni is someone who does well when there's no stage set up," and "When she laughs with her mouth wide open, from that expression and action, you can see what she hides and doesn't hide." It was his judgment that "she's someone with the courage not to be swayed by any situation." He proposed Woni as the host. The result was rejection. "She wasn't famous then, so that had a big impact."
He turned the rejection into an opportunity. "Actually, I'm glad that project didn't work out. I was thinking, 'If this doesn't work, I'll have to do it myself.'" It was a frontal breakthrough—directly operating through his own channel the proposal that the client rejected because of lack of recognition. When the first video shot with comedian Lee Sun-min exceeded 200,000 views, that night he sent two proposals to the Lisenne agency's group chat. One was about Japanese language, the other about regional dialect content.
The two proposals became the two axes of the channel. Regarding Japanese member Minami, he said, "There was almost no information even when I searched, so on the first filming day I asked 'Can you speak Japanese?'" and "After filming, I learned 'This person is someone remarkable.'" When he suggested filming Geoje with Woni, who is from Geoje, he initially asked her to wear 'three-line flip-flops' to match the tone so that the feeling of being a local would be instinctively visible. The agency The Muse Entertainment was on the receiving end of proposals, while the production company was the one setting the stage. It was the moment when the steering wheel determining 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 a few statements. The first is: "Just think there are zero subscribers." He said, "If you approach it with the premise that people don't know the cast from the start, content that's fun even without context gets created." So the dialect episode introduced the cast not as 'Jena, Woni' but as 'idols who speak dialect,' and the Season 2 premiere introduced them as 'an idol from Gyeongju.' When creating content about Jon Park at a Berlin club, he told team members, "Less than 1% of Korea knows about Berlin clubs." He constructs it so those who don't know can watch, without relying on those in the know. This principle dates back to his ODG days. By removing the fast subtitles and editing typical of Korean and Japanese variety shows to make content viewable without knowing the language, ODG attracted overseas viewers.
The second is: "Response becomes format." Rather than demanding predetermined answers or exaggerated reactions, he sets only a starting point like "we're going to Seongsu" and lets members drive the video forward. From here come the flowing, observational editing rhythm instead of quick cuts, film OST sound design, titles and thumbnails that capture the situation as-is. The third is the decision to descend from the peak. When 'Geoje Yeah!' became a catchphrase, he ended Minami's gyaru concept. "I felt we'd already shown all there was to show with the gyaru concept," and "Since Minami has so many charms, I thought it would be good to reveal her true self quickly," was his reasoning. He calls the gyaru "too much of a peak" and said, "People might get tired of it someday and could get hurt, right?"
His thinking on algorithms is also clear. "It's actually nonsensical to say there's a secret to algorithms," he flatly states, "if the content is good, that's it." There's no separate new material. "There's nothing new, just things people feel are fresh," he said, and that watching media as a consumer and "chasing the feeling people have of newness" is all there is to it.
2.3 Million in Seven Months, A Two-Year-Old Song Reaches No. 1
Numbers tell the result. Anwonjalbu passed 100,000 subscribers on May 4, 400,000 on May 26, and 2 million on September 5, reaching 2.3 million as of the 12th, after opening on February 4. The single episode 'Gyaru and We Came to Geoje' has 13.39 million views. Lisenne's 'Love Attack,' released in August 2024, topped Melon's TOP100 on July 8. The remake 'Pretty Girl' started with the group's first music show win on The Show on July 14, followed by three consecutive wins including Music Core and Inkigayo, beating AOA and aespa. Geoje City appointed Lisenne as promotional 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 include Silla Jena and actress Ko Yoon-jung episodes, with subscribers continuing to grow after the return.
The company grew together. Solfa Studio's 2024 revenue was 2.88 billion won, up 115% from the previous year, with operating profit of 540 million won. It operates brand channels for Lotte Chilsung Chil Sung Label, Naver NOW, and CJ OnStyle on consignment, and added original channels like 'Jon is Jon' (540,000) and Yang Hong-won's Parenting Diary (520,000).
There's a cost. ODG, the flagship channel, stopped uploads indefinitely from the third quarter this year as it concentrated manpower on Anwonjalbu. It's the choice to put on hold a channel with 3.39 million subscribers—one that surpassed 3 million in three years—and go all-in on a 2.3 million channel. There's the reality that a production company with 16 employees can't simultaneously operate about eight original channels, but it's also a decision to use seven years of channel-building as fuel for a new channel. He described ODG and Solfa as "formats where cast and planning constantly change on a video-by-video basis." Anwonjalbu, which builds narrative with fixed cast, is the opposite experiment, and he applied the decision to descend from the peak not just to Minami's gyaru but to his own flagship channel as well.
"I'm a professional," Where's the Next Stage?
He doesn't call himself an artist. When Weverse Magazine asked if he still believes the words of director Kurosawa Akira, "not a writer or artist but a professional who makes films," he answered, "Right, I'm a professional." But there's one thing he won't compromise on: "Autonomy. I want to keep this sense of 'I make what I want to make.'" His long-term goal revealed in a 2022 YouTube official blog interview was "Korea's best video production company."
His method of picking unknown people to build a stage for them, stepping down from the peak when response comes, and putting unknowns in front again proved effective for his third channel too. The camera he turned on 13 years ago to earn some pocket money has now become an instrument that changes a girl group's chart rankings. Who he next chooses as "someone who does well when there's no stage set up" is the question the content industry watches.