Marketon is a South Korean startup specializing in hologram-based solutions that combine 3D hologram technology with AR, VR, and interactive displays. Its products are used across events, exhibitions, retail, advertising, entertainment, and educational or museum environments to create immersive, visually compelling experiences.

This project was not a typical “overseas exhibition” story.

Marketon did not send its team to New York.

Instead, a New York–based execution team studied the local market, designed and operated the booth, represented the company at a major industry conference, conducted follow-up meetings, and visited potential partners—effectively testing a remote market entry model.

The goals were:

New York Build Expo is the city’s largest construction, design, and real estate exhibition, officially supported by New York City. It brings together architects, developers, contractors, government stakeholders, and technology providers.

The event was used as a market scanning platform:

The next step was the BOMA New York / Fordham Real Estate Institute Proptech Conference, a more focused, decision-maker–driven event centered on building owners, operators, and proptech leaders.

If New York Build was about breadth, BOMA was about depth—real adoption, real constraints, and real buyers.

Instead of flying the founding team to New York, the project adopted a different structure:

In short:

This transformed the conference from a marketing activity into a market experiment.

The BOMA event took place at Fordham Law School, Lincoln Center, New York, bringing together leaders from real estate, building operations, energy, security, and building technologies.

Marketon’s booth was positioned as:

The on-site team consisted of:

This structure made it possible to handle both high-quality conversations and lead volume at the same time—especially important when the actual product team was not physically present.

Before entering the market, three main use cases were identified:

However, local consulting sessions and on-site conversations quickly revealed deeper layers of reality:

This shifted the project from the question:

to a more fundamental one:

One of the most important strategic discoveries was about how business development actually works in New York.

Many startups unfamiliar with the local market tend to focus almost entirely on direct customer acquisition—chasing end users, building owners, or buyers as their primary targets.

But the local team learned that New York often does not operate through a purely direct path.

Instead of focusing only on end customers, they introduced Marketon’s solution to consulting firms, engineering partners, and industry organizations—the players who design, recommend, package, and deliver solutions to building owners and operators.

In practice, this meant:

This adjustment significantly improved the quality of conversations, the relevance of follow-ups, and the long-term viability of the business development pipeline.

After the BOMA conference, the work did not stop at lead lists.

The team:

Key insights included:

This feedback fundamentally reframed how Marketon should think about the New York market.

This was not simply a conference participation project.

It demonstrated a different way for international startups to enter complex markets like New York:

For global startups, this case suggests that market entry is not a trip.
It is a system—and that system can be built locally, intelligently, and strategically.