Disrupting Japan

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Creating Japan’s Open Internet – Kaneto Kanemoto Jan 18, 2016

Show notes

More than ten years before Quora and ZenDesk became famous, there was OKWave. Kaneto Kanemoto founded OKWave to address a massive problem that was unique to the Japanese internet in the mid-1990’s. Most of the country felt the situation was inevitable, even natural, but Kaneto knew it had to change. You see, a strict code of conduct governs almost all aspects of business and social behavior in Japan, and as a result, most Japanese are exceptionally polite in day-to-day interactions. However, when the anonymity of the Internet was introduced into the mix, a very different aspect of Japanese society came to the forefront. One that involved bullying, hostility and exclusion. Kaneto founded OKWave to address these problems on the Internet in particular and in society in general, and has succeeded remarkably at both. The Internet is a far more helpful and much more welcoming place thanks to Kaneto and OKWave. It’s a great interview and I think you’ll enjoy it.

The Happiest Company in the World – Yuka Fujii Jan 04, 2016

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Yuka considers Famarry to be the happiest company in the world, and looking at who her customers are, I think she just might be right. But behind this happy company is an aggressive plan to disrupt a cartel of photo studios that have dominated the market for decades. Changes in technology and demographics has opened up a small crack in the wall, and Famarry plans on using it to gain a foothold and then to change the entire industry for the better. We also talk about why so many foreign startups coming into Japan fail and why sometimes a Japanese market that looks ripe for easy disruption turns out to be far more resistant to change than you would ever imagine. Even when that change would benefit almost all players in the market. It’s a great interview and I think you’ll enjoy it.

How Startup Thinking is Changing the Japanese Government – William Saito Dec 21, 2015

Show notes

It’s hard to imagine an organization more resistant to change and disruption than the government of Japan. But today’s guest, William Saito has made it his mission to bring innovation to the way the Japanese bureaucracy operates. And more astoundingly, he’s actually having an effect. William is in a unique situation as a special advisor to the Japanese cabinet, and brings the perspective of a successful startup founder to solving beuqacratic problems. We talk about both the challenges and the strategic advantages that Japan has in the coming decades and discuss a few areas where new Japanese technology has a real change of soon becoming the global standard. Our discussion gives me hope that innovative change in Japan is is possible not only bottom-up from the startups but top-down from the government. And if the goals are aligned, Japanese innovation will be a truly unstoppable force. It’s a great interview, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

The Myth of the Successful Startup Failure – Hiroshi Nagashima Dec 07, 2015

Show notes

Startup culture has crazy and contradictory views about failure. As founders we are told to fail fast, but also to never give up. We are told to follow our vision, but be ready to pivot. Somehow this macho-bullshit culture of “I never really fail and ‘m not afraid of failure.” has become dominant amount founders. But it’s the result of denial. Trivializing failure is a way of not thinking about it’s effects. The truth is that failure sucks. Failure is painful. Failure ends friendships and marriages. I suspect that most who trivialize it are eager deeply afraid of failure or have never really failed at anything important. Today Hiroshi Nagashima tells a story of a startup gone very wrong. You’ll hear the red-flags start to appear as the story unfolds. There are important lessons to be learned here, but not just strategic ones. Hiro’s honest story about what it really feels like to have the company you love fall apart and what t’s like to try to put your life back together in failure-phobic Japan is something all startup founders need to understand. It’s a great story with no cliches, no feel-good rationalizations and no bullshit. I think you’ll get a lot out of this one.

How Japan Can Get Her Innovation Mojo Back – Sorato Ijichi Nov 23, 2015

Show notes

Japan was once home to some of the most innovative companies on the planet, but those companies lost their innovate edge a long time ago. Today, many are betting on startups to change the course of the Japanese economy and to some extent, that’s already starting to happen. Ijichi Sorato of Creww, however, is betting on a different approach to win out, that of Open Innovation. The future Ijichi envisions, involves not large, old companies being pushed aside and replaced by newer, more innovative firms, but that of innovative smaller firms being co-opted and absorbed into larger firms, either via M&A or via exclusive partnerships and supply chain integration. We talk a lot about the challenges large Japanese companies face in working with startups and why hackathons rarely produce value for either sponsor or participant in Japan, and the one thing that needs to change before Japanese enterprises can work conformable with startups. It’s a great discussion, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Why Japanese VCs are Losing Out – James Riney of 500 Startups Nov 09, 2015

Show notes

500 Startups has been one of the driving forces behind the utter disruption of how seed funding is done. That shift is one of the reasons we have seen such large and diverse startup ecosystems emerging around the world. Japan, however, often changes more slowly than other nations. Today we sit down and talk with James Riney, the new head of 500 Startups Japan, about why Japanese venture capitalists have been so slow to change, and exactly what James and 500 Startups plans on doing about it. Things are already changing for the better in Japan -- at least as far as startups are concerned -- but if Japan's traditional venture capitalists don't change their ways, they are going to find themselves locked out of the most important deals. Seed stage investment is increasingly a sellers market, where quality startups pick between competing investment firms. It's a new dynamic that many VCs here are struggling with. We talk about the most important things a VC can offer its portfolio companies, and I'll leave it to you to decide if Japanese investors are ready for it. It's a great show, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Why Japan Will Thrive on Disruption Oct 26, 2015

Show notes

Too many things that are labeled as "cultural differences" have much simpler explanations. There are perfectly rational (and even mathematical) reasons why we have not seen a lot of entrepreneurship in Japan over the last 50 years, why we are starting to see a lot more of if now, and why we are likely to see an explosion of Japanese startups in the coming decade. In this episode, we look what happens in Japan when the gatekeepers who stand between the creative people and the broader public are removed.

How to Sell Without Salesmen in Japan – Daisuke Sasaki Oct 12, 2015

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Corporate accounting is not usually the first thing the comes to mind when you think of disruptive technology, and for the most part, that’s a good thing. Daisuke Sasaki of Freee, however, is changing the way accounting is done in Japan from the bottom up. Bringing change to a conservative industry, however, is not easy. The fact is that in the accounting industry almost all users and stakeholders would rather muddle though with a painful system they know than try something new. Daisuke’s solution, of course, was to expand the market by growing the user-base. To go after new customers who have never used any of the existing accounting software products, and would be horrified by them if they tried. Daisuke also took the radical (for Japan) step of relying almost entirely on inbound sales, focusing on marketing and social media to generate demand and often simply refusing requests for sales calls. That strategy is paying off. Freee’s user base is booming and the incumbents are now scrambling to catch up. We also talk a lot about how Japanese industries are particularly susceptible to stagnation and technological dead ends, and what might be a huge change coming in the way Japanese companies run their HR department. It’s a great interview and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Turning a Toy into a Data Platform – Akinori Takahagi Sep 28, 2015

Show notes

The Internet of Things is becoming so commonplace that it is almost almost invisible. About a year ago, Moff launched an extremely clever IoT toy called the Moff-band that allows kids to add sound effects to their every-day play. They toy had been successful, but for Moff to take the next step they need to create a platform around the toy. Akinori Takahagi explains how he bootstrapped up Moff while receiving a steady stream of rejection from so-called experts in the field and how a successful Kickstarter project and enthusiastic children changed the industry’s opinion. Aki is based in Japan, but he explains the importance of launching overseas. There is a lot of good advice in here about how to build a hardware startup, how to get international attention and how to make the big jump to nationwide (and international) retail distribution. There is a lot to unpack in this interview, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Live & Unleashed – Our One-Year Anniversary Sep 14, 2015

Show notes

Disrupting Japan is one year old, and ready to party. To celebrate , we gathered some of the leaders of Tokyo's startup community together in front of a live audience, had a few drinks, and talked about the future of startups in Japan. Our panel included perspectives from software, IOT, and venture capital, which led to some interesting discussions.

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