Disrupting Japan

Hardware is hard. In fact, sometimes the simplest and most straightforward ideas turn out to be the hardest to implement. Today I’d like you to meet Kyohi Kang the founder and CEO of Atmoph. Atmoph is a programmable window which can display the sights and sounds of hundreds of scenic places from all over the world. It's an exciting project, and the team attracted a great deal of early interest. They even ran one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns and a smaller, but still successful, Japanese campaign on Makuake. But this success almost bankrupted them. Kyohi and I discuss how this happened and how other startups can avoid falling into the same trap. We also discuss Kyoto and the fledgeling startup ecosystem that is just starting to spread its wings there. And we'll dive into detail about why, unlike most other startups, Atmoph has decided to remain a hardware startup rather than pivoting to software and licensing when presented with that option. It’s a great discussion, and I think you’ll enj