where should've the love triangle ended? and how?

Hello! 

since the main complain for this drama was dragging the love triangle, Im curious about the possible solutions that could've eliminated this issue! 

either you are TeamJipyeong or TeamDosan or neither , I wanna know how you would seal this FAIRLY in a reasonable way that could possibly satisfy both sides. 

where should've the love triangle ended? and how? 

you are now the writer, user-nim! 

Remove hjp and his relationship with grandma.

Make NDS an orphan.

Make hjp mentor for nda. Who looks down on nds because he is an orphan. And is harsh with nds. Make nds meet sst in sandbox and allow them to grow and help nds gain confidence.

Eventually nda and hip form bromance

Keep sdm and wij story the same.

Nds meets sdm in sandbox and hjp feels jealous of his protege. And starts putting nds down in front of sdm and splashes money towards sdm.

Bromance over for now.

Around ep. 6 or 7 hjp and nds reconcile and bromance continues.

Love triangle over by ep. 8

Hjp, sdm, nds and wij form a startup together to compete with morning group. 

Remaining episodes show startup process in more detail and start of wij and hjp romance

Sst startup is so succesful that they are offered position in us company. Some dilemma as some want to go others are loyal to korea

Eventually hjp and wij go to the us while the rest stay in korea. Everyone succeds

The end.

I will rewrite this clearer later.

• retain everything from ep1-4
• but when they meet in Sandbox in ep5, they reveal *the WHOLE truth* not just the fact that NDS is not a hot-shot CEO
• show how SDM struggles to forgive NDS and HJP and Haelmoni for lying to her the whole time
• but eventually, she decides to work with SST still (it's not like she has a lot of choices lol) and she develops a normal friendship with the NDS that we love. (the nerdy naive cute geek)
• HJP never pursues SDM 
• HJP remains as SST's mentor and we get to see some conflict of interest here and there but eventually, HJP finds a family in SST and sees their true worth. SST finds their footing in HJP's solid advice and eventually sees the true worth behind HJP's harsh-ness. They blossom in their family-ship
• Flesh out on HJP-NDS dynamics. Not as a love triangle. I think both of them would represent really interesting perspectives in the start-up world. A competent dreamer versus a competent realist. You need both in a start-up world. And they would make a good balance. 
• Flesh out NDS' growth to be a holistic entrepreneur with rationality and realism instead of mere "fluffy dreams" as he learns from HJP. flesh out HJP's growth as he learns from NDS in being open to possibilities and taking risks, and also finding a family in NDS's family as they open up to one another (the small scene between HJP-NDS in ep14 showed potential in their bromance)
• Show how SDM and NDS grows and learns a lot under HJP's mentor-ship. Show how they work great together as business partners. Write better scenes that show their intimate, outside-of-office scenes talking about life and growing up as a millennial. 
• Flesh out SDM-SIJ sismance. (I think they did it pretty well in the show but it was quite rushed and it was only in the last eps. more screentime would be better) after the twins betray her company, she leaves her company and goes to SST (in my start-up alternative SST is not broken up and sold off to 2STO, so they are still a company). She finds a family in SST, her wall breaks down and she begins staying with SDM.
• We see a conflict of interest between SDM and NDS when NDS starts pursuing her (say, in ep 11) bcs SDM still struggles to forgive him and forget her first love in her letters. SDM rejects him gracefully and asks him to give her some time to think about it.
• after the Demo Day (say in ep 14) she begins to see just how well she works with NDS. She begins to see just how much she has grown ever since meeting NDS. Without NDS, she was stuck in her cafe job, but SDM misses the chance to confess her feelings to NDS (in good ol' kdrama fashion)
• NDS is sad and emo and crying, he thought that SDM would never move on from the letter-NDS. and with an ill-fated timing, NDS accepts 2STO's offer to go SF alone to forget SDM. 
• 3 years later NDS comes back after the contract ends. Not for SDM, but for himself. He has moved on from SDM, and SDM has moved on from him. but they are still single bcs they have been busy with start-up work. We see that SST still has a vacancy for a CTO and invites NDS to return. 
• NDS and SDM meet in "A Twosome Place" cafe for the first time after 3 years and reminisce about their good old days. They reconcile and we see some cheesy clips of NDS reunitng with SST and working on Tarzan
• The ending is open-ended. It may be controversial and anti-climatic to some, but i personally think open-ended endings are the most mature endings. Start Up ends with a closing scene of SDM and NDS receiving a reward or somtg for Tarzan. And at the end of it, we see them walking out to the HanRiver bridge (which was where they first met and talked about Tarzan). The camera pans out and we see them talking to each other positively (but they're not holding hands) 
• it suggests that they might get together- but it is open-ended. 

Team Dosan: after the revelation about the letters DM needs space so she leaves BOTH men. JP doesn't confess. DM is able to figure out her feelings and see who she really likes (not Dosan by default but Dosan because he is kind, loving and not violent) and DS grows as a person and realize his own dream: the self driving car.  JP starts his bromance with Dosan and gives DM up. DS and DM together, JP gave up on Dalmi long ago and finds new interest (IJ or another girl from the Startup world, maybe an orphan from that startup and they start their romance). Ending: family together + JP and his love (IJ maybe, they have so much potential)

Team JP: till episode 14 it could have still happen, so I'll take the first 14 episodes and change the last two.  JP gives up the plant and coach DS. JP telling DM he's leaving to US. DS asking DM for the reason why she likes him, she saying "because it's you". DS asking his mum why she and her dad got together and she gives him reasons: your dad this and that, making him reflect.
DS asks DM again, and citing the letters and the "sailing without a map". DM telling him that "sailing without a map" broke her heart 3 years ago and that she is not anymore the girl in the letters and ask DS why does he like her. He doesn't find reasons either and both break up.
When they break up for good DS realize DM's dream was never meant to be his and his worth cannot be based on another person and he finds his dream: the self-driving car and making a startup with his friends.
JP is leaving. In one moment of growth DS gets over his pettiness and tell DM the truth: JP is the one that saved Noongil. DM realizes what she loves JP and goes to the airport to stop him. She finds him and apologize for realizing it too late. She also tells him even if the letters comforted him, she loves the actual him because he understands her and helps her grow. JP stays.
DS and DM end up business buddies working toward a better goal along SST. DS meets a nerdy girl at the Sandbox café that tells him that rainbows are only light reflected in water and he starts to like her (perfect match as they share same values). JP is like a big brother to him. JP finds his home in DM's family and gives money to the startup that helps orphans offering his time to mentor the CEO.

Reasons for the bad ending:
The ending is rushed and I would say different from the original. Two option of what could have happen:
Option 1. The writer changed the script to a Dodal endgame because of the popularity of HJP as Soop didn't like it (I checked it on Google Trends, it's crazy how popular KSH got in Google search along episode 5-6 of the drama). Considering both MLs are from Soop Entertainment and KSH mentioning a plot twist that never happened, it's a good possibility. Also the writer was quite coherent in the past, I still can't explain DS "Dad, I don't want to be your pride" to "DM, I want to be your pride as the real me". Or JP's Noongil help and the mysterious call he received. Or how HJP went from understanding DM's letter (the one about the map) to DS understanding it and HJP almos yelling lol The fact that only the last episodes felt so disconected, make me thing they didn't have time to "fix" most of them resulting in a rushed ending with no sense. The only thing that made sense to my logical mind is the Jidal ending, as HJP was written as a main lead (and he even got the revenge plot). Also my favourite: taking all the symbolism away as they stopped to make sense in the last episodes. Even the posters were hinting at a Jidal endgame (in psychology you learn that usually when a person is attracted to another their feet point to that person. Even the individual pics were hinting that and in that individual pics IJ have a broken gold spoon hinting her breaking her relationship with her rich dad, which was true). The writer loves symbolism, so I thing Jidal was supposed to be endgame.

Option 2. The writer got too creative and created a not that good ML. She realized her mistake after HJP's popularity and tried to drag the love triangle as no one would have watch the rest of the drama without him. She changed DS's personality (he went from an adorable nerd to a vampire alike confident man, like two different people. Went from not understanding metaphors and life to almost earning a degree in philosophy).

I'm more inclined to believe option 1, as the writer genuinely looked like she wanted to talk about deep things like imposter syndrome, pressure, expectations, etc.

To me probabilly when they go to USA so in the middle time HJP try to make his move in SDM and her comfess that she loves the real NDS not the one from the letters. And when they come back from USA it's take just a while to realize the love from eachother but finally they become together.

When HJP stop NDS in the elevator scene after the ransomware i jut turn around my eyes and think "OMG just stop it!!!"