Founder

I’ve built two companies.
COVID shut down the first.
A single email sparked the second.

In 2019, my first startup Dinify — a multilingual restaurant ordering platform for European hospitality — won 1st place at the UNWTO Gastronomy Startup Competition in San Sebastian.
Then March 2020 happened.

The Pivot

That failure taught me a hard lesson.

As a non-technical founder, I didn’t truly control my product.
Every change, every iteration depended on others.
Speed wasn’t mine.

Never again.

I spent the following years building custom platforms for real businesses — learning workflows from the inside, identifying operational pain points, and developing the ability to ship fast and iterate even faster.

The Email That Started DocsPiper

Last year, while working with lawyers on document review, I received a familiar email:

“Please send us the following documents.”

What followed was chaos.
Endless email threads.
“Did I send this already?”
“Which version is correct?”
“Wrong format.”

I bui

20여 년 전, 상사맨으로 무역 실무를 처음 접했습니다.
놀랍게도 지금의 무역 업무 프로세스는 그때와 거의 달라지지 않았습니다.
20년 전의 20년 전과도 크게 다르지 않았다는 점을 떠올리면, 이 정체는 더 선명하게 느껴집니다.

여전히 무역 현장은 엑셀, 이메일, PDF, 그리고 사람의 기억과 주의력에 의존하고 있습니다.
그 결과는 반복되는 문서 작업, 끝없는 확인 요청, 그리고 한 글자 차이로 발생하는 치명적인 디스크리펀시(discrepancy)입니다.

TradeSynx는 이러한 문제의식에서 출발했습니다.
무역을 “관리”하는 도구가 아니라, 무역이 흘러가는 방식을 근본부터 다시 설계하는 플랫폼으로 탄생 했습니다.

현업 무역 실무자들과 함께 설계·개발한 TradeSynx는
견적(Quotation)부터 P/I, L/C, 선적, 인보이스까지 하나의 데이터 흐름으로 연결하여
불필요한 업무 낭비를 90% 이상 줄이고,
무역에서 가장 치명적인 문서 정합성을 99.99% 수준으로 끌어올리는 것을 목표로 합니다.

우리의 미션은 분명합니다.
중소 무역인들이 문서 뒤치닥거리에 시간을 쓰는 대신,
전 세계 시장을 누비며 바이어를 발굴하고 오더를 수주해
무역의 본질인 ‘거래와 성장’에 집중할 수 있도록 돕는 것.

TradeSynx는 무역의 방식 자체를 바꾸고 있습니다.

I started my career in international trade over 20 years ago.
What still surprises me today is this: the way trade works has barely changed since then.
Considering that even 20 years before that looked much the same, the stagnation is striking.

Global trade still runs on spreadsheets, emails, PDFs, and human vigilance.
The result is endle

We build apps using Bubble.io to help startups bring their ideas to life fast and affordably. Do you have a changing-the-world idea and wish to take it to the market asap with minimum investment? Talk to us.

Founder & CEO

Building the cognitive persistence layer for heavy AI users and developers. 

Cognibase eliminates "Token Bloat" and the fragmentation of conversational intelligence by turning disposable AI interactions into permanent, searchable, and reusable knowledge assets.

Key Responsibilities & Focus:
• Product Strategy & Architecture: Designing a cross-platform context management engine that bridges the gap between separate LLM sessions (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.).
• Core Feature Shipping: Developed and deployed our killer feature, 'Context Injection,' allowing users to seamlessly teleport historical context layers directly into fresh, lightning-fast chat tabs with a single click.
• Growth & Partnerships: Spearheading our closed/open beta launch and establishing the Cognibase Ambassador Program with top-tier AI power users and builders.

Building from real, bleeding workflow friction. Making sure what you learn from AI never evaporates.

AI-native builder

Know about John Rhee's work experience, education, bootcamps, certifications, and much more. John Rhee