Disrupting Japan

Those of us who spend our lives working with startups live in a bubble. Whether you spend your days programming at a startup or investing in new ventures, you and I see things differently than “normal” people. It happens to everyone to some extent. We all tend to interact with people who are like us, who care about similar things and who work in similar industries, so of course, we frequently hear the same ideas and opinions.  The startup bubble, however, is particularly strong and particularly opaque. We founders have a bad habit of believing our own bullshit. Well today, we step outside our bubble and sit down with Mone Kamishiraishi, the star of the new film Startup Girls. We talk about what she learned as an outsider interviewing startup founders to get ready for her role, what most Japanese find surprising about founders and startup culture, and what Japan can do to to make starting a company more mainstream and accepted. It's a great conversation, and I think you will really enjoy it. Show Notes

I’ve got a special bonus episode for you this week. Last month I was part of a panel discussion hosted by Stanford University and the Japan Society of Northern California. It was part of this year’s Japan-US Innovation Awards, and it was a great conversation, so I thought I would share it with you. The panel was moderated by Dr. Richard Dasher and was a discussion between me and Allison Baum who is an investor and a prolific writer about startups and innovation. We talk about a surprising source of innovation in Japan, discuss why there are not more Japanese unicorns, and peer into our crystal balls to predict what Japan’s startup ecosystem will look like in three to five years. It’s was a great discussion, so I packaged it up for you as is, with no editing or commentary. I think you’ll really enjoy it. Leave a comment

Startup founders claiming their company is going to “change the world” has become a cliche. But rarely do we see a product that could clearly and significantly make someone’s life better. D-Free is one of those products. However...

Japanese university and government venture funds play a much larger role in Japan than in the West. I've always considered this difference to be, on balance, neutral, today's guest makes a convincing case that these funds are actually hurting the startup ecosystem here. Today we sit down and talk with Hiroaki Suga, co-founder of PeptiDream.  PeptiDream is now a $7 billion biotech company, but it started out as a couple of university faculty members funding operations out of their own pockets. PeptiDream succeeded by using a very different model than that used by either the current generation of university spin-outs or biotech startups in the West. It's an interesting blueprint that other biotech firms might want to copy, but only if they are really sure that their technology will actually work. It's a great conversation, and I think you will really enjoy it. Show Notes Japanese Univstities' problems with applied research The challenge in moving from academia to startup operations How to hire a CE

Startups and venture capital work differently in Japan. The rounds are smaller, the priorities distinct, and while the same terms are used, people quickly discover that the definitions are often subtly different. The game is played differently in Japan. Today we get a chance to clear up a lot of the confusion as we sit down with James Riney, founder of Coral Capital and head of 500 startups Japan. We talk about some of the most significant changes that Japanese venture capital has seen over the past five years, and we look at how things are going to develop going forward. James and I also break down the business model behind venture capital funds themselves. It's something that all serious startup founders should understand, but few do. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes How venture funds raise funds Why Japanese banks and corporates are changing their attitudes towards Japanese startups The tradeoff between sector-specific and general VC funds What the hell is a

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 ...

I’ve got a special bonus episode for you today. Last month, I moderated a panel discussion at Coral Capital’s “Bilingual’s and Gaijin in Startups” event.' Our panel focused on what foreigners should expect when working at Japanese startups and what Japanese startups should start doing to better support their international employees. It was a great conversation with four amazing people from four of Japan’s most interesting startups. Tetsuya Sawanobori of Connected Robotics Jordan Fisher of Zehitomo Takanori Sato of Shippio Tatsuo Kinoshita of Mercari This is a bonus episode, so the recording is straight off the board. There is no editing, no transcription, and no witty summary at the end alluding to the larger significance of the discussion. But a lot of good ideas were shared on stage, so I really wanted to share it with you. If you’ve ever thought about working for a Japanese startup, I think you’ll really enjoy this. Leave a comment

The idea of computers capable of reading our emotions and responding to them is both fascinating and terrifying. Will this technology serve us or manipulate us? Well, the speculation is ending because the technology not only exists, but it is being rolled out commercially. Today I'd like you to meet Hazumu Yamazaki, co-founder of Empath. Empath is a web-based API that detects human emotion from audio data, and its initial use in call-centers has shown a significant increase in sales. But as Hazumu explains, the potential effects are much larger. It's an enlightening conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes How emotion detection is being used in commerce How easy is it to emotionally manipulate us into buying something? The hardest thing to get right about corporate spinouts Why detecting emotions at scale will make money The true killer app for emotional recognition How startups can use pitch competitions & accelerators strategically How Japanese startup founders should act wh

We've been talking about smart homes and smart cities for a long time. However, it turns out that we are not willing to pay very much for simple convenience, so the technology is coming into our homes bundled with different agendas. We've seen this happen with the success of Alexa and Google Home, and we are now seeing it here in Japan with Nature Remo. Today we sit down and talk with Haruumi Shiode, the founder and CEO of Nature, and we discuss not only what the future of home automation will look like, but who will be paying for it. It's an enlightening conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The real motivation behind smart home purchases How hardware entrepreneurship went mainstream The one way in which crowdfunding is still relevant Why Nature decided to launch English-first How to outsource hardware production without going bankrupt Nature's real business model for the future The importance of demand-response in Japan The growing significance of corporate alumni netw

Selling services in Japan is very different than selling products or software. Everyone knows that relationships are important in Japan, but not many people understand why they are so important, and how you can use that understanding to build a successful business here. Today Sriram Venkataraman explains how he grew InfoSys Japan from a one man operation to over 1,000 employees and how understanding why Japanese enterprises must trust their vendors far more than companies in other developed countries. And we dive into what that means for the new generation of SaaS startups. Our conversation is basically a blueprint for how to grow a startup from nothing to thousands of people in Japan, and I think you’ll enjoy it. Leave a comment Links & Resources Follow Sriram on Twitter @japansriram Connect with him on LinkedIn Transcript Welcome to disrupting Japan straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. I’ve got another great Disruption Japan Sel

This is a rather personal episode. We have no guests this time. It’s just you and me. New listeners might not know that for about one year, Disrupting Japan was sponsored and was my primary source of income. So today, rather than diving deep into a specific aspect of startups in Japan, I thought I would share the history of Disrupting Japan itself, about my decision to go pro (and then go amateur), my visions of a podcast empire, and how it came crashing down. I'd like to tell you the story behind the stories. Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan. Straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I’ve got a special show for you today. There will be no guests, no beer, no playful banter about making, marketing or monetization.  For the next 20 minutes, it’s just you and me. It’s been a while since I’ve done a solo show, and these solo shows tend to be some of the most popular. So today, I thought it would be a good idea to share with you some of my thoughts about podcastin

The promise of renewable energy has always been alluring. Now that the technology has caught up to the promise, record amounts of wind and solar are coming onto the grid both in Japan and throughout the world.  But so far startups, especially Japanese startups, have been playing a very limited role in this transformation. But that's starting to change. Today we sit down with Ken Isono, founder and CEO of Shizen Energy, and we talk about what it takes to succeed as an energy startup in Japan, and since Shizen Energy is rapidly expanding globally, what it takes to succeed as a startup in the global energy markets. We talk about which renewables are working in Japan and which are not, what the real bottlenecks are, and more important, how we can fix them. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why startups struggle in the energy market How solar plants get built in Japan How to find wind projects worth building The importance of going local in a global market Why the

It's a great time to be a programmer in Japan. Everyone is hiring and there simply is not enough talent available. But why is that? The truth is that until about 10 years ago, programming was considered kind of a blue-collar, low-skill job. It was OK to start your career as a programmer, but if you had not moved into management by the time you were 30, clearly you weren't that bright. The startup boom has changed that, and developer salaries (and respect) has improved significantly. But the education system has not caught up, and far too few people know how to code. Today we sit down with Masa Kato, founder of Progate, and discuss how Japan got herself into this situation, and what Progate is doing to fix it. The problems run deeper than expected. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why Japanese elementary students are learning Javascript The problem with computer science in Japan Why Japanese universities resist change - even when they know they need it The fla

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 sales are made in Japan from the bottom up.

A few years ago, shiny new startups were using their marketing dollars to tell the world that chatbots were going to change everything. Those marketing dollars have now been spent and most of those startups are no more. But for the past few years, one company has been quietly making chatbots useful, and they are now starting to make some noise. Today we sit down with Akemi Tsunagawa, founder of Bespoke and creator of the Bebot chatbot. In several important ways, Bespoke is one of the most successful chatbot companies in the world, and you'll be hearing a lot about them in the years to come. Today, however, Akemi explains how she and the team managed to succeed where so many better-funded companies failed, and she gives some great advice about how to get consumers to try out new technologies. We also talk about why you should absolutely never build your business around Facebook or WeChat. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why most travel websites are doomed to failure

Everything about employment in Japan is changing. Lifetime employment is gone.  Skilled workers are discovering that they have job mobility and large Japanese companies are increasingly confused by the fact that many new graduates don't want to work for them. Wantedly has been one of the companies that has changed the way corporate recruiting works in Japan, and today we sit down and talk with the founder and CEO Akiko Naka. We first talked with Akiko a few years ago when Wantedly was starting to gain traction, but since then Wantedly has grown, IPOed and become of the most highly valued public companies in Japan. We talk about her journey, of course, but we also dive into how the nature of work is changing in Japan, the best way to promote yourself and your company in Japan, and the one terrible piece of advice that women founders need to stop listening to. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why Japanese companies can’t hire creative employees How to deal with star

Uber and Airbnb represent a new very kind of startup, one that could not have existed twenty years ago, and the very thing that make these companies so transformative in the United States ensures they will never succeed in Japan. You see...

The developed world is facing a severe programmer shortage. Around the world, coding boot camps have stepped into this gap to teach newcomers basic programming skills quickly. But in like so many other areas, Japan is different. Coding boot camps have been slow to take off here, and programmers are taught by a patchwork of academic degrees, on the job training, and informal meetups and study sessions. Kani Munidasa, the co-founder of Code Chrysalis, is changing that. He's started one of the first Western-style coding boot camps in Japan, and the ecosystem is already seeing the results. Code Chrysalis has an amazing placement rate with grads receiving above-average starting salaries, but there is something more going on here as well. Kani and I talk about how the job market for programmers is changing in Japan and, more important perhaps, how their place in society is changing as well. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why Japanese engineers don’t participate in open

For decades, Japan has been struggling with the economic need to attract more foreign residents to the country and the general social reluctance to do so. Over the years there have been some well-publicized failures and a few quiet successes, and Japan retains her image as a generally closed nation. But reality changes much faster than perception in Japan. Things are already changing and that change is about to accelerate. Today I'd like you to meet Nao Sugihara founder of MTIC, who is going to explain these trends in detail. Nao runs a recruiting platform called GaijinBank that deals exclusively with blue-collar, foreign labor, and he'll show you not only that Japan's has opened up far more than most people acknowledge, but that this trend will likely accelerate over the next 20 years. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Which companies hire foreigners for blue-collar work n Japan The biggest misunderstandings between Japanese companies and foreign staff The overtime

The aerospace industry has been particularly resistant to disrupting in Japan. In the rest of the world, launch vehicle and spacecraft technology has made incredible gains over the past decade, but here in Japan its still mostly the same government contracts going to the same major contractors. Naomi Kurahara of InfoStellar, has come up with an innovative way to leverage existing aerospace infrastructure and to collaborate globally by renting out unused satellite ground-sataion time, Airbnb style. You see when an organization launches a satellite, they also build a ground station to communicate with it. The problem is, that as the satellite obits the Earthy, it’s only in communication range of the ground station for less than an hour a day. The rest of the time the ground station just sits there. By renting out that unused time ground-station operators earn extra income, and the satellite operators are able to communicate with their satellites as often as they need. It’s a great interview and I think you’