Min Hee Jin's Next Act: Why a Boy Group Is Her Masterstroke in the Post-HYBE Era

The Lede

The protracted corporate battle between HYBE and ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin has been the defining K-Pop business story of the year. But with the legal dust settling, Min’s first move with her new independent label, OOAK, is not a continuation of the fight, but a strategic pivot. Her decision to debut a boy group, explicitly to avoid creating a “rival to NewJeans,” is far more than a simple creative choice. It is a calculated masterstroke in brand management, market positioning, and a powerful statement on the future of creator-led ventures in a consolidated industry.

Why It Matters

This move signals a critical shift in how top-tier creative talent navigates the post-corporate landscape. For industry executives and investors, Min Hee Jin’s strategy offers a compelling case study in mitigating risk and maximizing the value of a personal brand.

• De-risking Market Entry: The 4th and 5th generation K-Pop girl group market is a hyper-saturated red ocean. Launching a new girl group would mean immediate, direct, and brutal competition with her own monumental success, NewJeans, not to mention other powerhouses like IVE and LE SSERAFIM. A boy group enters a different competitive arena, allowing OOAK to build a foundation without the baggage of direct comparison.
• Preserving A Legacy: By declaring she won't create a “rival,” Min Hee Jin effectively canonizes NewJeans as a singular, lightning-in-a-bottle creation. This protects the group's legacy and her own, framing her as an artist who doesn't repeat formulas. It’s a shrewd move that builds immense brand equity for both her past and future work.
• The Ultimate Test of Vision: The success of NewJeans was attributed to Min’s holistic vision. Launching a boy group is the ultimate test of that thesis. If she can replicate that cultural impact in a different demographic, it proves her 'magic' is a portable, replicable system of creative direction, not a one-off success. This dramatically increases the value of her personal brand as a hitmaker.

The Analysis

To understand the brilliance of this play, one must look at Min Hee Jin's two-decade career. Her claim that a boy group is her “usual style” is not a throwaway comment; it’s a strategic callback to her legendary tenure at SM Entertainment.

A Return to Her Roots

Before NewJeans, Min Hee Jin was the creative force behind the visual identity of some of K-Pop’s most iconic boy groups, including SHINee and EXO. She built her reputation on crafting complex, high-concept visual universes for male artists. This decision is not a reaction to her dispute with HYBE, but a confident return to a domain she has already mastered. She is signaling to the market that her creative palette is far broader than the 'easy-listening' aesthetic of NewJeans.

Asymmetric Warfare Against a Titan

As the founder of an independent label, Min Hee Jin cannot compete with HYBE’s scale, capital, or marketing muscle. Therefore, she must engage in asymmetric competition. By launching a boy group, she sidesteps a direct battle in the girl group space where HYBE has multiple assets. Instead, she creates a new front, forcing the market to evaluate her work on its own terms. She is building a new fandom from scratch—one loyal to OOAK and her vision, completely decoupled from the HYBE ecosystem.

PRISM Insight

This saga is a microcosm of the creator economy's evolution, with significant implications for how talent and capital interact. Min Hee Jin is leveraging her personal brand equity into a direct-to-market pipeline. Her mention of being “flooded with applicants through my DMs” is telling. She is bypassing the traditional, costly A&R scouting system and using her own reputation as a magnet for global talent. This agile, direct-to-creator model allows for a faster, more authentic, and potentially more cost-effective talent acquisition strategy than incumbent giants can deploy. Investors are no longer just betting on a group; they are betting on Min Hee Jin as a platform.

PRISM's Take

Min Hee Jin's decision to launch a boy group is the most strategically sound move available to her. It is not an emotional reaction or a creative whim, but a cold, calculated business decision designed for long-term survival and success. She is deftly avoiding brand cannibalization, playing to her historical strengths, and creating a new, uncontested space to build her next venture.

She has turned the loss of control over her greatest creation into the ultimate asset: complete creative freedom. The entire industry will be watching to see if a singular creative vision, untethered from the corporate machine she helped build, can forge a new empire. Her first move suggests she is more than ready for the challenge.