From VR Films to Dance Auditions Software: Jaehee Cho’s Journey of Reinvention
When I first met Jaehee Cho at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center back in 2018, he was immersed in the world of VR and filmmaking. Years later, when I reconnected with him, he had already lived through multiple entrepreneurial chapters: from running a VR studio, to searching for funding, to shutting down, and then beginning again.
This is the story of how Jaehee, a filmmaker with no background in software, built Danceapply, a platform now used by the world’s leading ballet companies and schools, including Miami City Ballet, Boston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, San Francisco Ballet School, Philadelphia Ballet, and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater.
VR Dreams
In 2018, Jaehee’s VR company was selected as one of the awardees of a grant from the Tribeca Film Institute and Google. His idea was to document the haenyeo, Korea’s female divers, carrying on a centuries-old tradition that was disappearing.
“I always wanted to do a project with Korean culture,” Jaehee told me. “The competition theme was nature, and I thought maybe I could tell the story of the haenyeo. We pitched the idea, got accepted, and they funded us.”
He spent a week in Korea filming the divers, then returned to edit the project. But the broader company vision, building interactive VR tools for “choose your own adventure” films, proved too early for the market.
“Looking back, we didn’t talk to many potential customers. We just assumed they would like our product. But VR was unstable, the market kept changing, and eventually, we couldn’t sell our software. That’s when we decided to end that chapter.”
Meaningful but Not Scalable Projects
After the VR startup, Jaehee kept creating. He founded an interactive studio producing projects for universities and museums, focusing on digital humanities. One project took him to Fort Lauderdale, where he worked with the Jewish Community Center on interactive media for their new learning center.
The work was meaningful. But it wasn’t scalable.
The Spark: A Pile of Cash and Paper
The turning point came not in a lab or studio, but at the ballet. Jaehee happened to help his wife, who was a ballet instructor, and was surprised to see how auditions were conducted. Everything was done manually with paper forms, headshots, printed applications, and cash collected in envelopes.
“I remember sitting next to my wife, organizing paper applications and cash. We carried envelopes of money across cities during audition tours. It was 2017 or 2018, and I thought, this can’t be the best way.”
He took a photo of the pile of paper and cash, determined not to forget. Years later, during COVID, when all his client work evaporated, he scrolled past that photo on his phone.
The problem came back, sharp and clear. And this time, he had the time to solve it.
Building DanceApply
Jaehee first turned to his wife, then to a friend from CMU with a background in computer science. At first, he only asked for a recommendation. Instead, his friend said, I want to do this project with you.
Together, they began building. Neither had direct experience in UI/UX or full-stack web development. So they learned: Jaehee by teaching himself Figma through YouTube tutorials, his co-founder by shifting from computer vision to web apps.
The first year was slow. They listened, asked questions, and showed rough prototypes to dance organizations. Even with only ten schools in the beginning, the pain points were obvious:
Manually typing handwritten applications into Excel
Carrying cash across audition tours
Printing headshots and application packets by hand
By the second year, schools were eager. “Once we had a clickable prototype,” Jaehee said, “directors told us, oh my god, this is amazing, we want to use this.”
Scaling Without Funding
Like most founders, Jaehee tried the investor route. He spoke to VCs and angels, and applied to accelerators. Almost all gave the same feedback: the market is too small, too niche.
Instead of stopping, he decided to bootstrap.
It took nearly three years to launch, but once they did, momentum followed. First seven partners, then twenty-six. They are expecting forty organizations this year, including Miami City Ballet, Boston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, San Francisco Ballet School, Philadelphia Ballet, and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater.
The sales cycle was short, often less than three weeks. Onboarding took only a few hours. Without upfront fees, adoption was simple.
“Every year we set new goals,” Jaehee told me. “The first year was about finding product–market fit. The second year was about scaling. And this year’s goal is international expansion, reaching organizations in Europe and Asia.”
Lessons in Focus
When I asked Jaehee what he had learned, he didn’t hesitate.
“As a founder, it’s so easy to get distracted. You see other startups winning grants, getting PR, raising money, and you feel like you’re missing out. I thought I had to do everything: marketing, competitions, PR.
One of my mentors asked me, are you closing deals because of PR? The answer was no. She said, Forget all that. Just focus on sales. That was the turning point.”
The advice stuck. “For a B2B company, sales is everything. You have to focus only on what moves the needle.”
Looking Forward
Today, DanceApply is still growing. From VR filmmaker to niche startup founder, Jaehee’s path has been full of pivots and lessons. His story reminds us that sometimes the most transformative ideas come not from grand visions, but from small, persistent problems: a pile of cash, a stack of paper, and the realization that there must be a better way.