It's a really enjoyable drama or at least the company parts of it are if you can ignore some of details. I especially liked the (inter)personal relationships in Dream Pony and that they showed how people from very different backgrounds all have their strenghts with which they can contribute to a start-up company. I was asking myself however if the IT industry in Japan is kind of a lawless playing field. Doesn't anyone have employment contracts? Is it really that easy for people to just go from one company to another, without notice and with their research work, and then go back to the original company a few days/weeks later, again without notice? Isn't everything an employee works on property of the company they did their work/research for? Is it ok if potential employers just record the job intereview without the knowledge of the interviewee, especially if most or all the questions are about this particular research/work he just took with him? Well, like I said, details...
Anyhow, if the drama is a realistic depiction, it's not surprising that the Japanese economy is at it's lowest point since the 50s/60s, with established companies still sticking to their bygone era-thinking of "never trust companies that aren't at least 10 years old" and "my son has to inherit the company, even though there would probably be 20 more suitable candidates if I would place an ad in the local newspaper".

Why only 7.5 (or more like a rounded 7.26) if I really enjoyed the main part of the drama? Two reasons.
It's definitely the most Korean influenced Japanese production I've watched to date, which I found pretty annoying because everyone and everything was always styled to the max in every scene and I don't think Nagano Mei wore one single piece of "normal" clothing you could get in a department store (like a standard shirt/blouse and jeans for example). It really made the supposed "struggle" of being the owner of a small start-up company and even more so the part about her being a "binbou shoujo", a poor girl that had so little money while growing up she couldn't even get the education she wanted, rather unbelievable. She basically went from a girl that ran around in worn out hoodies and bleached out jeans to fashionista with almost haute couture style wardrobe and perfect makeup in three years while trying to get a company in a unlucrative field of business off the ground. Where did she get all the knowledge and time to change that much and even more pressing, where did the money come from to buy a complete wardrobe of seemingly designer clothes? Maybe I watched the wrong ones so far, but these are the same questions I always asked myself in every KDrama I watched, which is why I can't seem to get myself to like them.

But the most unnecessary part, and the main reason for the rather low score, was the romance, even if it came across rather natural and wasn't forced like in most dramas. Either make it the main theme or leave it out completely, but the half-baked and stereotypical scenario Unicorn ni Notte chose is basically the perfect example why I always think twice about watching JDramas with focus on (a) career minded female lead(s) these days. Because even though the "business" part is supposed to be the main theme and she's really competent at what she does, there's always some guy that lingers in the office next door that makes the FL waver if she should EITHER choose her career OR start a romantic relationship. This problem lingered around in most episodes from time to time until it was solved in two conversations that didn't even take 10 minutes combined. What made the romance part even more annoying was the FL's little sister with her "you should stop working all the time and get a boyfriend because my hobby is changing mine more often than my underwear" talk and the ex-girlfriend of the ML who was one step away from being a stalker that attacks all the women the ML looks at.

I don't really have anything to say about the main actors' and actresses' performances because everyone who knows the leads probably also knows they'll make the most out of their characters regardless of the content and this was no exception. I didn't really notice the music most of the time and there was no dancing or cameos from real or imagined KPop groups (I wouldn't know either way anyways) for a change, which was a rather big plus for me.

So, if you want a business drama about a start-up lead by a competent woman and a really likeable staff, give it a go. But only if you are able to ignore some details on the business side and only if you don't dislike that every JDrama with a female lead needs to have some kind of overcomplicated romance in it.