Disrupting Japan

Sometimes it seems like Japan is almost invisible in global e-commerce. Despite a dynamic domestic e-commerce market and a long tradition of global exports, Japan just doesn't seem that interested in selling to the outside world. But things are changing, and Kazuyoshi Nakazato of Zig Zag is working to make sure they change even faster. We talk about why Japan is unrepresented in global e-commerce, why that's changing, some things you should never try to sell online. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why even small e-commerce is global The bowling ball export experiment What are Japan's biggest export markets for e-commerce How acquire overseas e-commerce customers How to select overseas markets to target How fast are Japanese e-commerce exports growing? How to grow and thrive as a small e-commerce site How to get Japanese founders to think more globally Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Zig Zag and their World Shopping international or domestic in Japanese Check out a good video intro to World Shopping Shop in Japan from the rest of the world Follow Kazuyoshi on Twitter @nakazaty Friend him on Facebook Connect on LinkedIn Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan. Straight Talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Japan is missing out on the global e-commerce boom. Well, there is plenty of e-commerce going on in Japan, but it's almost all domestic and Japan is really missing out on the growing global market. However, Kazu Nakazato, founder of Zig Zag is changing that. Japan's e-commerce exports are still relatively small, but growing at 140% a year. And Kazu is looking to increase that even more. But as you'll hear, that's not easy. Kazu and the team at Zigzag are up against strong entrenched interests, language barriers, and one particularly frustrating aspect of Japanese business culture that we'll talk about in a few minutes. Kazu and I also discuss what COVID taught us about the resilience of global e-commerce. Some things you should never try to sell online. And Kazu also shares some really great advice about how to survive and grow as an independent e-commerce site. But you know, Kashi tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, we're sitting here with Kazu Nakazato of Zig Zag. Kazu: Yeah, Zig Zag. Tim: Who's helping Japanese e-commerce sites sell globally. So, thanks for sitting down with us. So, I explain really simply what you do, but I think you can explain Zig Zag much better than I can. So, what does Zig Zag do? Kazu: We offer a service called global base. Our eCommerce site can quickly transform into share site. It's very simple. All it takes is a single line JavaScript tag. It's provide marketing input forms, marketing our customer support and payments support. Tim: That's a lot for one line of JavaScript to do. So, it covers the translation, payments, logistics? Kazu: Yes. Shipping. Tim: Okay. Wow. And do you handle like returns? Kazu: Returns, yes. And there are 200 countries. Tim: So, tell me about your customers. Who's using Zig Zag? What kind of e-commerce sites? Kazu: Fashion, cosmetics, Anime and entertainment type. For example, Japanese apparel is Beams and Tower records about 2,500 website. Tim: So, that's quite a range. So, is it mostly the bigger sites like Tower Records and Beams or small independent sites also using it? Kazu: Yeah, for example in Fukuoka, very, very small apparel shop. And in Chiba, bowling maker site. Tim: Like bowling ball maker? Kazu: Yeah, bowling ball. Very, very heavy. Tim: I was going to say that’s really expensive to ship. Kazu: Yeah. FedEx or DHL, air or by ship. Tim: Exporting bowling balls. Are like Japanese bowling balls, like really high quality or something? Kazu: Maybe customer is living Saudi Arabia. Tim: Okay. Where are the biggest export market? Where are they exporting to? Kazu: Number one is USA. Number two is Hong Kong and Taiwan and China. Tim: That's interesting. Before we dive deep and talk about e-commerce in general, I want to back up a little bit and talk about you. So, before you started Zig Zag from like 2010, you were CEO of a company called Growbits, right? Kazu: Growbits, yes. Tim: A very similar business model. Kazu: Growbits is logistic only service. Tim: So, you left Growbits to start Zig Zag. So, what was the difference between like Growbits and Zig Zag? Because they're both focused on consumer facing exports for Japanese e-commerce sites. So, what's the big difference between the two? Kazu: Growbits is not my company. Tim: Well, that's an important difference. Kazu: And Growbits is broadening logistic only, Zig Zag is a customer support and payment and online support. Tim: Oh, okay. Yes. So, you left to form like a more full service company. And so y

This is our 200th episode, so I wanted to do something special. Everyone loves to complain about the poor quality of Japanese software, but today I’m going to explain exactly what went wrong. You'll get the whole story, and I'll also pinpoint the specific moment Japan lost its way. By the end, I think you'll have a new perspective on Japanese software and understand why everything might be about to change. You see, the story of Japanese software is not really the story of software. It's the story of Japanese innovation itself. The Elephant in the Room Japanese software has problems. By international standards, it’s just embarrassingly bad. We all know this, but what’s interesting is that there are perfectly rational, if somewhat frustrating, reasons that things turned out this way. Today I’m going to lay it all that out for you in a way that will help you understand how we got here, and show you why I am optimistic about the future. You see, the story of Japanese software, is not really about software. It's the story of Japanese innovation itself. The ongoing struggle between disruption and control. It’s a story that involves, war, secret cartels, scrappy rebels, betrayal, rebirth, and perhaps redemption. How This Mess Started So let’s start at the beginning. The beginning is further back than you might expect. To really understand how we got here, we need to go back, not just to the end of WWII, but to the years after the Meiji restoration, the late 1800s, back when the Japanese economy was dominated by the zaibatsu. Now, “zaibatsu” is usually translated as “large corporate group” or “family controlled corporate group.” While that is accurate, it grossly understates the massive economic and political power these groups wielded around the turn of the 20th century. Japan’s zaibatsu were not corporate conglomerates as we think of them today. You see, although the Meiji government adopted a market-based economy and implemented a lot of capitalist reforms, it was the zaibatsu, with the full support of the government, that kept the economy running. And the zaibatsu system was almost feudal in nature. The national government could, and did, pass legislation regarding contract law, labor reforms, and property rights, but in practice these were more like suggestions. In reality, as long as the zaibatsu kept the factories running, the rail lines expanding, and the shipyards operating at capacity, the men in Tokyo didn’t trouble themselves too much with the details. In practice, the zaibatsu families had almost complete dominion over the resources, land, and people under their control. They were the law. At the turn of the pervious century, there were four major zaibatsu (Sumitomo, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Yasuda). And each zaibatsu had its own bank, its own mining and chemical companies, its own heavy manufacturing company, etc. But it wasn’t just industry, each of these zaibatsu groups had strong political and military alignments. For example, Mitsui had strong influence over the army, while Mitsubishi had a great deal of sway over the imperial navy. At the start of WWII, the four zaibatsu families controlled over 50% of Japan’s economy. This fact, when combined with their political influence, quite understandably, made Japan’s military government very uncomfortable, and during the war, the military wrested away a bit of the zaibatsu’s power and nationalized some of their assets. After Japan’s defeat, the American occupation forces considered the zaibatsu a serious economic and political risk to Japan becoming a liberal, democratic fully developed nation. They targeted 16 firms for complete dissolution and another 24 for major reorganizations. Rising from Ashes Now, that was supposed to be the end of the zaibatsu. I say “supposed to” because those of you who know Japanese history understand that it never really happened. Of course, many things changed. Important political and social reforms were implemented, the legal system was greatly strengthened, a lot of zaibatsu assets were nationalized, and the zaibatsu themselves ceased to be. At least, officially. You see, the zaibatsu were quickly allowed to restructure in greatly weakened , but very familiar, forms, as keiretsu. This was permitted for two main reasons. First, as the cold war heated up in the 40s and 50s, America’s idealistic vision for a democratic and progressive Japan took a back seat to the more practical and pressing need to develop Japan into a bulwark against Communism. And that meant prioritizing economic growth over social reforms. With these new goals in mind, both the American occupation forces and the Japanese government, quite correctly, concluded that having something like the zaibatsu groups would to lead to faster, more predictable growth than tearing everything down and rebuilding from scratch. The second important, and kind of surprising, reason was that almost no one in Japan really wanted to see the zaibatsu bro

There has never been a better time to be raising money in Japan than right now. Founders ask me about fundraising more than any other topic, so this guide is long overdue. There are links that cover the basics in the Show Notes, and I will be keeping this page updated as new information becomes available and members of the community create new resources. Calling something "The Ultimate Guide" to anything is a pretty big claim, and I'll do my best to make sure this page lives up to it. Please enjoy. Show Notes Results of the "Why Meet a Founder?" survey Directories of Japanese VC firms Japan Venture Capital Membership Crunchbase's list of Japanese VCs The Bridge: not a directory, but a good source of Japanese funding announcements Kei Furukawa's master list of Japanese VCs Tyson Batino's list of foreign-founder-friendly VCs in Japan. How to pitch like a Pro Dave McClure's original guide to pitching VCs - Very much substance over style The same information in a more readable format Dave's deck redesigned by people who do care about style What you need to put in your pitch deck - an infographic Design advice for pitch decks - more geared towards pitch contents Advice from Japanese VCs James Riney talks about the VC business model and gives pitching advice Disrupting Japan's live show on fundraising in Japan Hiro Maeda on fundraising in Japan Ikuo Hirasishi provides an overview of Japan's VC landscape More from James Riney back when he was with 500 startups Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, I am going to answer the question that everyone seems to be asking. Or at least the question that everyone seems to be asking me. I am going to explain how to raise money as a new startup founder in Japan. You know, it’s funny how things work out. I originally planned to write this episode a few months ago as a short-take on a focused topic while I fished up my episode about the history of software engineering in Japan, but the topic kind of got away from me. My first draft and notes for the show came in at over 24,000 words, which by the time I fleshed it all out would have ended up as a four -hour podcast, and even I can’t stand to listen to me for four hours. So I’ve had to make some cuts, some painful ones. This episode should be under an hour, but it requires that I speak in generalities and make a few over-broad statements. There are a few really important topics that I will just mention briefly before moving on. So, if while you are listening to this episode, particularly my VC listeners, and you find yourself thinking that I would explain a particular point in more detail and with more nuance, or wishing that I would dive deeper into specific strategies and scenarios … Yeah. Me too. But we’ll save that for another podcast or maybe a conversation over a beer. Now, there are a few very important questions you need to ask before you even decide to seek VC money. Things like “How do you plan on using those funds?” and “Are you sure you understand the growth-driven management style you are signing up for here?” But, from my experience, relatively few founders really want to dive into those topics. No, what founders in Japan really want to know is how to raise money. So that’s what we are going to talk about. I’m going to give you a clear and actionable plan so that: You can decide which VCs you should approach You can set up meetings with partners at reputable Japanese VC firms You will know how to pitch in the most effective way possible You will have some strategies to help you actually close the round, and get the money in the bank. And you’ll be able to do it all in a reasonable amount of time without going absolutely crazy. Now, I’ll warn you. Each of these steps is significantly harder than the one before, but you’ll be building up your skills as you move through the process. Also, as part of my research for this episode, I not only had a lot of conversations, but I also created an informal “Why Meet a Founder” survey and sent it to many of my VC friends in Japan. The survey asked what factors influenced their decisions to meet with a founder and hear their pitch. We’ll talk about the survey a bit during this podcast, and the results available to you as a special bonus download in the show notes on the Disrupting Japan site. Alright, are we ready to go? Let's get started with Step 1 How to decide which VCs to approach. Creating your shortlist of VCs to Target Now, when I talk about creating a list of VCs, I’m not talking about finding the names and contact information for a bunch of VCs in Japan. That’s actually pretty easy, we’ll talk about that later and there are links in the show notes. I’m talking about creating the shortlist of VCs that you want to approach with your startup. So why a shortlist rather than a l

Police departments around the world are using this startup's AI to predict future crime. Mami Kajita, founder of Singular Perturbations, explains the success of their models, the public reaction to the technology, and how the physics models of glass transition lead to a crime prediction AI. We debate the future impact of crime prediction technology, and we also talk about how researchers and entrepreneurs can better connect and collaborate. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Telling police what future crime is likely to occur Who else, besides the police, can use these tools How the physics of glass transition lead to crime prediction How to sell software to the police (and other government agencies) Real world trials led to a 68% decrease in crime What data go into Crime Nabi's models The public reaction to future crime prediction Unintended consequences and and the future of crime prediction How founders can find mentors and advisors How researchers and entrepreneurs can better connect and collaborate Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Singular Perturbations Check out Mami's published research Connect with Mami on LinkedIn Friend her on Facebook Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today we're going to talk about predicting future crime, and not in terms of 1950s science fiction, but in terms of real software being used right now by police departments all over the world. We talk with Mami Kajita of Singular Perturbations about their Crime Nabi AI, and how this technology is starting to change policing. In real world use Crime Nabi has already resulted in crime reductions of over 50% in areas where it's been tested around the world. In our conversation, Mami and I dig into these numbers and we talk about the somewhat surprising inputs that go into training the Crime Nabi AI. And of course, we also talk about the very real potential dangers for misuse and what Singular Perturbations is doing to make sure this technology is a force for good. Along the way, we talk about how founders can find good mentors and advisors, the proper balance between research and sales, and some really good advice about how to sell to national governments as a startup. But, you know, Mami tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, cheers. Mami: Okay, cheers. Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Mami Kajita, the founder and CEO of Singular Perturbations, the AI for Crime Prediction. So, thanks for sitting down with me. Mami: Yeah, thank you so much. I'm very honored to be here, and thank you so much for this opportunity. Tim: I'm glad to have you here. In the intro, I explained a little bit about what Singular Perturbations does. But I think you can explain it much better than me. So, what does Singular Perturbations do? Mami: We predict future crimes in using AI technology and we provide operation management services for police departments and local governments. And the name of our product is Crime Nabi. Tim: So, you are telling police departments where future crime is likely to occur? Mami: Yes. Using this technology we can provide the area where the risk is higher than the other area. Tim: Okay. And how do they use this information? What do they do with it? Mami: We provide operational management services in the police department, and there is a team who patrols outside and in Japan, and many police departments doesn't use crime prediction technology before patrols. They have not so much established plan. Tim: So, the police departments are using this predictive technology to decide where to send patrols? Mami: Yes, yes. Tim: Okay. What kind of predictions does it make? Does it predict the type of crime or just the level or…? Mami: Our crime prediction technology predict future crimes, when and where, which crime type likely to occur. Tim: Looking at your website though, you also have an app that individual citizens can download? Mami: Yeah. This mobile application have users of citizens and in Japan, in local governments, they have a team who patrols outside using blue patrol car, and we provide our crime prediction mobile application for them. Tim: Oh, okay. So, it's not individual citizens, it's still the government? Mami: Yes. Tim: It's just not police? Mami: It's not police department, but many of blue patrol cars are operated by local governments or citizen. Tim: So, it's similar to in America we have neighborhood watch. Mami: Yes, neighborhood watch. Tim: It's a similar program to that. Mami: Yes. Yes. Tim: Let's dive deep into the technology, the business model a little bit later. And let's talk a little bit about you. So, you founded Singular Perturbations back in 2017. And back then you were a researcher at the U

Today's episode is about trust; trust in technology and trust in each other. Very few startups experience what LPixel went through and far fewer survive it. Today we welcome Yuki Shimahara, founder of LPixel, back to the show. The last few years have been a roller-coster for LPixel, and despite the chaos LPixel managed to created Japan's first certified medical AI device and roll it out into hospitals around the country. And despite his success in Japan, Yuki also explains why smart medical AI startups are all looking to Southeast Asia. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes How LPixel was certified as Japan's first AI medical device The transition from diagnostic support to full medical diagnosis Why it's not technology holding back medical AI The nature of trust in Japanese business Japanese health insurance is now paying for AI diagnosis What happens when an employee steals all your funds? The advantages (and disadvantages) of full transparency How investors reacted and their new demands Why more doctors are founding startups Why research is easier at startups than at universities Why developing countries will see more advances in medical AI than the developed world Going global does not mean going to the US (yet) How the Japanese government should (and should not) foster Japanese innovation Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about LPixel LPixel's medical diagnostic support system Eirl Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Japan is often described as a high trust society, but it's hard to explain exactly what that means and why it matters. Well, today we sit down to talk about trust and about medical AI with Yuki Shimahara, CEO of LPixel. Now, a lot has changed since Yuki was on the show four years ago. And by all metrics, LPixel is a stronger and more successful startup today. But one unfortunate event really put that level of trust to the test. Well, Yuki will give you the details, but the level of trust that existed between investors and clients and employees resulted in saving a startup that no one could reasonably expect to be saved. And we also talk about why medical AI is going to be adopted so much faster in Southeast Asia, why more and more doctors are starting startups in Japan and why Yuki thinks it's more productive to do deep research at a startup than at a university. But you know, Yuki tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: I'm sitting here with Yuki Shimahara, the CEO of LPixel. So, welcome back to the show. Yuki: Yeah, thank you for having me. Tim: LPixel a cloud-based AI image analysis for life sciences and medical research. And well, you can probably explain it much better than I can. Yuki: I'm very honored to be back here. LPixel is a startup company from Research Lab of Tokyo University, which is a pioneer bio image informatics. We combine life science and imagine analysis including AI, but also we do are the two main business. So, we developed the AI for medical misdiagnosis and then developing AI for accelerating the pharma research. Tim: And wow. Last time we talked, I think you were still a PhD candidate at that point. Yuki: Probably. Tim: Yeah. Because I do remember we were running around into different rooms at the University of Tokyo campus at Hongo trying to find a room that didn't like echo. So, much has changed since then. You're a lot bigger and more successful than before. So, how many people do you have working at LPixel now? Yuki: Now, 60 or 70. Tim: Tell me about your customers. So, last time most of your customers were research institutions, people working on medical research and it seems like you've expanded a lot since then. Yuki: I think the last time is just developing the AI but three years ago we got the AI as a medical devices. It is said that it is a fast AI got approval as medical devices using deep running. So, our stage changed the last time. Maybe I focusing on R&D, but we do the sales and marketing now. Tim: And just to clarify, so when you say it's a medical device, does that mean it is a diagnostic tool? What is the certification of being a medical device mean? Yuki: Our AI is supporting the diagnosis, the medical doctor even the professional mistakes sometimes. So, misdiagnosis is very big problem for patient. The AI support the diagnosis. For example, by using our AI, the accuracy increase 10%. So, we can claim that it is good for not misdiagnosis and improve accuracy. Tim: Okay. So, just let's walk through a typical example. So, LPixel technology works on, for example, imaging from a CT scan. And it would analyze the image. And what would it suggest to the doctor that there's a high chance of this disease? How does it help the doctor? Yuki: So, very simp

The way we get our food is changing. Many are discussing how to make modern farming more sustainable, but this startup working to end it entirely. Ikuo Hiraishi is a serial entrepreneur and the Japan head of Infarm Japan, an urban-farming startup growing food at supermarkets. In fact, as Ikuo explains, a lot more of your food is grown indoors than you probably imagine. The future of food will look nothing like its past. t's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes What is Urban framing, and why do it? Why Japanese consumer's first resisted urban farming The true value proposition for the supermarkets. The biggest costs in indoor farming are not what you think. Why, after 40-years. urban farming is finally taking off in Japan The two challenges to scaling indoor agriculture Three reasons Japan might be the perfect market for urban farming and one reason it may not be Why it's better to grow cheep veggies with expensive tech Is it better to be a founder or a VC? Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Infarm METI visiting the Infarm Growing Center in Berlin Follow Ikuo on Twitter @ikuoch Friend him on Facebook Check out Ikuo's article about the Japan startup & VC landscape More about Ikuo Ikuo's consulting company Dreamvision and blog He's also a Professor at Entrepreneurship Department, Musashino University ... and an AsiaBerlin ambassador Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Food is complicated. That's why successful food related startups are so rare and so important when we do find them. Today, we sit down with an old friend after almost eight years. Ikuo Hiraishi is running Infarm Japan, an urban farming startup that is actually growing vegetables in supermarkets. Now, indoor farming or hydroponics has been fairly common since the 1980s, but the combination of rising global cost of food and the plummeting cost of technology and some innovative machine learning has resulted in urban farming not only becoming commercially viable today, but providing a very interesting value proposition for the supermarkets. And a pretty interesting value proposition for you and me as well. We talk about the future of food, why you need expensive technology to grow inexpensive vegetables, and whether it's better to be a founder or VC in today's world. But, you know, Ikuo tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview. Interview Ikuo: Cheers. Very nice to see you. Tim: I'm sitting here with Ikuo Hiraishi, a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and new urban farmer. Ikuo: Thank you. Tim: So, thanks for sitting down with us. Ikuo: It's honor to be back here, to have a chat with you. Tim: It's been a while. It's been around eight years. Ikuo: Yes. I was kind of like test interviewee of Disrupting Japan. That was eight years ago. Tim: I think you were episode number four. Ikuo: Yes. A very early episode. Tim: Very early. And we're closing in on episode 200 now. Ikuo: Oh, cool. Congrats. Tim: But yeah, we're here to talk about urban farming. So, just so I can make sure I understand it correctly. So, the types of farming we have, like rural farming, which is just vegetables out in the field, like just farming. Ikuo: Yes. Soiled based farming. Tim: And then we have indoor farming, which is like plants and warehouses and things that are usually in the suburbs or in the outskirts of cities. And then we have what you and Infarm are doing, which is urban farming, where the veggies are grown like in the supermarkets themselves. So, what's the big advantage of urban farming overall, the other types of farming? Ikuo: So, of course there are lots of advantages, but so we can minimize the food mileage meaning delivery distance. So, it all depends on countries or markets and regions. For example, Europe, Germany actually Infarm originated out of Berlin. So, Germany is very cold country in general. And farming is possible only a four, five month a year. So, that's why they have to import lots of vegetables. Tim: So, when we're talking about food mileage, is the underlying concern cost? Is it CO2 emissions? Is it…? Ikuo: Transportation around Distribution has to consume lots of gasolines, lots of CO2 generated. So, meaning very big impact to global warming. So, urban farming can reduce those kind of energy consumption. And also the CO2 emission. Tim: And what type of vegetables is it good for? Is it good for growing just about anything? Are there certain types of vegetables that are better for this kind of farming? Ikuo: Technically, almost all of the other vegetables can be grown as indoor farming, LED and hydroponics. But however, some vegetables, and they're not really good as they are the current technologies. For example, roots vegetables, like radish, carr

We need to get the health care revolution right. Artificial Intelligence promises to reduce bottlenecks, improve quality of care, and allow our over-stretched healthcare systems to scale to meet the needs of the aging global population. But it's not going to be easy. Today we talk with Kota Kubo, founder of Ubie about the opportunities and challenges involved in the coming wave of healthcare innovation. And since Ubie just raised $27 million to fund their global expansion, you'll be hearing a lot more about them in the future. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The right way to use and AI symptom checker Is founding a 50/50 startup with an old friend a good idea? How you can manage 150 employees without managers Why the team designed Ubie's UI in Hibiya Park The "karaoke interface" for medical data Why you should ignore your customers and listen to your users about design Why it's so hard to sell to doctors (and how to do it right) How to better support orphaned diseases Ubie's strategy for going global. Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Ubie Check your symptoms with Ubie's AI Symptom Checker AN overview of Teal Management Follow Kota on Twitter @quvo_ubie Connect on LinkedIn Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Even if AI can't give us the right answer, sometimes it can help us to ask the right questions. It turns out, that's a lot more important than you might think. Today, we sit down with Kota Kubo, the co-founder of Ubie, an AI based symptom checker and hospital check-in tool that is being used at over a thousand hospitals and clinics across Japan. And as you'll see in this case, the questions, the AI raises are more important than those it answers. And since Ubie just raised 27 million to fund their global expansion, you'll be hearing a lot more about them soon. We also talk about how Ubie manages 150 staff with no managers, why it's so hard to sell to doctors and how to do it right. How to bring attention to orphan diseases and why you really need to ignore your customer’s ideas about UI and listen to your users. But, you know, Kota tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: Cheers. Kota: Cheers. Tim: So, we're sitting here with Kota Kubo of Ubie, who is disrupting digital health here in Japan. So, thanks so much for sitting down with me. Health tech is so important in Japan. And so you've got two different products you offer. Kota: Yes. Tim: So, let's do just a real quick introduction to what those products are and then we'll dive deep. Kota: Yes, we have the two side of product. First, is for the patient product. It's our AI symptom checker Ubie and the users input their symptoms like headache or stomach ache or something. So AI asked some of the sort of questions. And after that AI suggest a disease name so their users can get to know their symptom, condition and disease. And after that, we also suggested the clinics or hospitals. Tim: Okay. You know, one thing I'm curious about that, because I've used it. It's really interesting, but so like some sites like WebMD, for example, they have a really famous problem where someone will go on with like, I don't know, a runny nose and they'll start searching and asking questions. And 10 minutes later they're convinced they have like rabies or some brain eating parasite or some horrible disease. How do you stop that kind of unhealthy interaction at Ubie? Kota: Yeah, it's very difficult. I think so our end the point of the suggestions guide people to the appropriate clinics and hospitals and we suggest a specialist created to their symptom. So, I think their users feel they're safe. Tim: So, and again, you're really focusing on providing information, not diagnosing anything. Kota: Yes. Yes. It's a very important point. Tim: And your other product is the monshin, the check in functionality, right? Kota: Yes, exactly. So, second product is Ubie, health assistant it's called AI Monshin in Japan. The objective is to reduce the burden of their medical doctors. We save the time of their making the clinical record because our AI also ask a lot of questions about symptoms and AI summarize their medical record. Tim: This is really cool. So, let's take time to walk through the process. So, if someone's got an appointment at the hospital or at a clinic, they can check in and fill out the symptom forms at home on a mobile phone, right? Kota: Yes. Tim: And where does the AI come in? Kota: There a lot of questions from the AI and the AI is changed the question according to their patient answer. So, AI selected the question and also calculates their disease probabilities. Tim: So, what the AI&

World-changing trends can start anywhere in the world today. Because the social media platforms evolved differently in Northeast Asia, e-commerce developed differently as well. And because of recent shifts in regulation and social attitudes, Western social media is going to start to look a lot more like it does in Aisa, and e-commerce trends will follow. Today Masa Shimizu, founder of Zeals, explains the origins and structure of chat-commerce and how it might lead to a friendlier, more enjoyable, and more profitable internet. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes An introduction to chat commerce How to teach a support chatbot to sell What the death or retargeting means for chat commerce Why some university startups get support, mentoring, and funding but and others do not $39 M fundraise in equity and debt, and why that's becoming a popular model Why Asian social media evolved differently Why Facebook and Instagram are about to become more chat-like How Japanese VC discourage startups from going global Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Zeals Zeals on LinkedIn Coverage of Zeal's $39 M fundraise Follow Masa on Twitter @masa_zeals Friend him on Facebook Connect on LinkedIn Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, we are going to talk about a 290 billion eCommerce trend that is sweeping through Northeast Asia, but hasn't taken off in the US or Europe. Well, at least not yet. You and I are going to sit down with Masa Shimizu, founder and CEO of Zeals. And we're going to talk about Chat Commerce. Now Masa will explain this structural reasons that this has been so popular in Japan, China, and Korea, and why it's about to take off in the West. And it's not just Masa and me saying so, Zeals just raised 39 million to fund their US expansion. So, this is a trend you need to know about. We also talk a lot about the Japanese concept of Omotenashi, which is usually translated as hospitality and yeah, kind of, I mean, that's probably the closest word we have for it in English, but there's more to it than that. It's kind of obsession and a giving of yourself honestly and wholeheartedly to make your guests comfortable and satisfied. It's kind of a satisfaction and happiness that you get from making your guests happy. So, Masa and I talk about Omotenashi, about a structural change coming to global social network platforms. How we can get more Japanese startups to go global and why the third party cookie ban means the death of retargeting and the birth of the Chat Commerce boom. But Masa tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: I'm sitting here with Masa Shimizu the founder and CEO of Zeals, who is a driving force behind Chat Commerce. So, thanks for sitting down with us. Masa: Thank you for reaching out. Tim: To start out with, what is Chat Commerce? Masa: Chat Commerce is next eCommerce innovations. So, on eCommerce website many people feel concerned to purchase online, especially expensive items or complex items. We can support through communication experience and we believe this is Omotenashi experience. Omotenashi is Japanese word which means hospitality. It's very exciting and helpful experience I think. Tim: So, when you're talking about Chat Commerce is this interaction over social media? Is this interaction over like chat at corporate websites? What's the main channel where this conversation is taking place? Masa: Mainly is SNS. In Japan case, line platform is most important because many people use this platform. And as a country, other channel is very important. The example, WhatsApp, Facebook Messengers, WeChat and Instagram and so on. Tim: Okay. That makes -- and its funny people coming into the Japanese market often underestimate the importance that line plays in social media in Japan. It's huge. Masa: Yeah. Yeah. Tim: So, yeah, let's walk through an example from the customer's point of view. So, would a consumer start out by just saying, you know, I'd really like a new pair of shoes. Does anyone have any advice? How does the interaction start? Masa: Start point is website or Instagram case, Instagram story, if it a post or advertisement. So, user watch advertisement and click list, typical eCommerce experience, jump website. But Chat Commerce case user watch advertisement and the click list, jump chat experience and communication and understand item and buy item from chat. Tim: Well, that makes sense because in that way it's maintaining this social network experience rather than having to transition to a eCommerce experience or a website experience. Masa: Yes. Yes. So, this Chat Commerce experience have been invented and spread from Asia market. It very unique progress I think. Tim: Later o

You never hear the names of some of the world's best SaaS startups. Why waste money building awareness among consumers when you can quickly and steadily grow your B2B business across Japan then across Asia? Today Yu Taniguchi founder of TableCheck returns to the show and answers that question. TableCheck is rapidly expanding their table-management system business by throwing out a lot of the traditional SaaS playbook, and Yu lays out a model for sustainable, scalable SaaS startups. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes How the TMS market has changed in the last five years Why the first mover advantage is not really an advantage Maintaining differentiation in an increasingly competitive market The huge flaw in the current generation of SaaS "best practices" Demand-side vs supply-side startups Why you should only take the VC investment that you actually (desperately) need Why Japanese (and otter) startups need to be thinking about global markets from day 1 Concrete (and sad) examples of what's wrong with Japan's education system Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about TableCheck TableCheck Twitter @tablecheck LinkedIn Page TableCheck on Facebook Follow Yu on Instagram Friend him on Facebook Connect on LinkedIn Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Some of the most important and successful B2B startups fly under the radar. And that makes sense when you think about it. When success depends on dominating a specific business niche, who really cares if most consumers have never heard of you? In fact, as we'll see, that can actually put your whole startup at risk. Today, Yu Taniguchi, old friend and founder of TableCheck joins us again on Disrupting Japan. Now, TableCheck makes a table management solution for restaurants, and Yu and the team have taken a very different approach than most of the competition in this space. The last time Yu came on the show, we talked about his business model and how to expand globally with very little capital. There's a link to the episode in the show notes, and I strongly recommend you listen to it because it was really a good one and we'll be covering a hundred percent new ground today. Today, as we catch up with Yu, we find his strategy has worked with some refinements, and TableCheck is expanding rapidly across APAC. This is a great real world case study of how Japanese startups can go global. Yu and I also talk about how the current generation of SaaS business models is broken, how to protect your startup from market downturns, and some really good advice about the two kinds of fundraising plans you need to have to survive. But you know, Yu tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: We're sitting here with Yu Taniguchi of TableCheck, who is making integrated reservations, CRM billing and more for restaurants. Yu, it is so good to have you back again. Thanks for sitting down with us. Yu: Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm very honored and excited to be here. Tim: It's been four and a half years since you were last on the show and so much has changed since then. You were growing fast then, you've continued to, so tell me about your customers today. Who's using TableCheck and how many are there now? Yu: We have roughly 7,000 restaurants using our solution both in Japan and overseas. Back then when we did the interview, I think it was around 2,000 restaurants. Roughly we've more than tripled since then and taking in consideration that out of the four years, two years have been during the COVID. Tim: Let's talk about what's changed in the market. Four and a half years ago, you were saying that your biggest competition was paper and pencil. Most of your customers were using these manual processes, but over the last four years we've seen this huge SaaS boom in every market. How was your market and your competition changed in that time? Yu: It depends market-by-market, but the Japanese market back then most of the restaurants were managing their reservation and customer data by paper and pencil. Nowadays, we have two, three competitors in the Japanese market. Globally we have, let's say, 10 major competitors. Now more and more restaurants are starting to use table management system, TMS. So now the market is becoming more mature and the restaurants are starting to use TMS as a standard restaurant operation. The competition is becoming more fierce, but at the same time rather than trying to educate the restaurants to switch from paper and pencil to TMS, convincing that our solution is better than whatever TMS they're currently using is, I would say, easier. Tim: That is so true. And I think so many startup founders misunderstand the first mover advantage. On one hand, it&#03

Manga is one of Japan's best known exports, but it's surprisingly hard to make money here. Today we dig into exactly why this is. We sit down with Sho Ishiwatari, founder of Mantra, who explains how is company is trying to expand the global market by streamlining the translation and global marketing processes. We also talk about why manga is so much harder than books for AI to understand and a few ways Japanese universities are trying to develop and inspire the next generation of Japanese founders. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The surprisingly complex manga translation process The real problem with fan-translated manga How to think about getting a 10x( or 100x!) improvement How the University of Tokyo supports startups and what other schools can learn from them Why translating manga is so different from translating novels The downside using contextual hinting wit AI/ML How to expand the global manga market What every Japanese university should be doing to encourage startups Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Mantra Connect with Sho on LinkedIn Friend him on Facebook Follow him on Twitter @mantra_ja (Japanese) Sho's published academic research on machine translation of manga Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for listening. Manga and Anime have been two of Japan's most visible and influential exports. Japanese manga has earned its own section in US bookstores. And in the movie industry today, many of the world's most successful directors and cinematographers cite Japanese manga and anime artists as some of their biggest inspirations and influences. But surprisingly, despite manga's global popularity and influence, the global market is pretty small. There's not a lot of money in manga. A And today, we're going to dig into that. We're going to sit down and talk with Sho Ishiwatari, CEO of Mantra. And we're going to find out if a startup can disrupt or even survive in the manga industry. Mantra has created an AI that can translate manga. But, as is the case with so many startup stories, the journey is far more interesting than the destination. You see, before the AI could translate manga, Sho when the team had to teach it to understand manga. Not just read the words but understand the context and the layers of implied meaning. Sho and I talk about the nature of human understanding, how Japanese universities can better inspire the next generation of startup founders, and AI's role in helping people understand each other. But you know, Sho tells that story much better than I can. So let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So we're sitting here with Sho Ishiwatari of Mantra, who's bringing Japanese manga to the world. So thanks for sitting down with us, Sho. Sho: Yeah, thank you for having me, Tim. Tim: In the introduction, I give a really high-level description of what you guys do. But can you explain what Mantra is? Sho: Yeah, sure. So what we are doing is to deliver comics, deliver manga, across language barriers. So we are building two products. The first one is a manga translation tool that is based on our machine translation technology. And another product we're making is Langagku, which is a language learning tool based on manga. Tim: That's two really different lines of business. Sho: Yeah. Tim: Let's dive into both separately later on. But the core tool, do you just translate Japanese into English or do you support other languages as well? Sho: We currently support for language peers, Japanese to English, and English to Japanese, and Japanese to Chinese, and Chinese to Japanese. Tim: Well, that's interesting. So far, most of your business has been Japanese to other languages. But do you also have companies bringing in English or Chinese language manga to Japan? Sho: So previously, almost all the Japanese comics read in Japan are made from Japan. But recently, there are more and more comic platform also in Japan, for example, from Korea or from China. They are having more and more content that have super high quality, so there are several contents coming in from outside Japan. Tim: So tell me about your customers. You mentioned that you're working with publishers and creators, but walk me through your use case. How would a publisher use this tool? Sho: Basically, Mantra Engine, it works on browser. Before Mantra Engine, people has to use Photoshop and Excel and Adobe Acrobat to create the translated manga. And there are several people are involved in the project, like translator, checker, and then designer, who put the characters on the images. So the process will be very complicated and you need to connect to others by using email and send the files to everyone who are involved in the project, which takes time. And the translation and desig

Subscription boxes can be a tough business. Most of these startups shine brightly as they burn through investor capital and flame out well before becoming profitable. But there are exceptions. So today we sit down with Danny Taing, the founder of Bokksu, to learn what he and the team did differently, how they obtained substantial VC funding, and where they are going from here. We also talk about Japan's unique snack culture and the surprising insight is has to offer about Japanese culture in general. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why the world needed one more subscription box startup What Japanese snacks (and food in general) are different Strategic storytelling: aka "When you are talking about snacks, you are not really talking about snacks." Meet the world's happiest QA team Why Bokkusu could succeed when so many subscription-box startups ad failed Growing from zero to 1,000 and then 1,000 to 10,000 What really goes into the box Which Japanese snacks are most loved overseas The strategic expansion to Bokksu Market and Bokksu Grocery How a food startup can raise real money in a world of software-focused VCs Why "Japanese culture" startups almost always fail Links from the Founder Everything you evert wanted to know about Bokksu Check out some amazing snack pictures Follow Danny on Twitter @dannytaing Bokksu's amazing Maker Videos (seriously, these are great) Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for listening. Now, I'm going to warn you in advance. This episode is going to make you hungry. Danny Taing founded Bokksu to sell unique Japanese snacks to the world. And we spent a lot of time talking about sweet and savory snacks and all of the unique cakes and the baked goods so be ready for it. Now, both subscription boxes and e-commerce from regional foods are both very hard business models for startups. They're popular but almost all of them fail and fail fast. Danny explains that when he started, almost everyone was highly skeptical. And by the way, that includes your humble narrator as well. I knew Danny when he was just starting. Well today, Danny explains what he did differently. How he evolved from skirting the law as a snack smuggler to growing a trusted consumer base to receiving $22 million in investment to building $100 million dollar company. This episode is a masterclass on how you need to change not only your strategy, but also change who you are at every step of your journey. But you know, Danny tells that story a lot better than I can so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So we're sitting here with Danny Taing Bokksu, who is delivering tasty Japanese snacks to the entire world. So thanks for sitting down with us, Danny. Danny: Thanks for having me, Tim. It's a pleasure to be here. Tim: That was a really simple introduction of Bokksu. I'm sure you can explain it much better than I can. So what exactly is it that Bokksu does? Danny: Yeah. So our mission is to kind of bridge cultures through authentic Japanese food and snacks and products. We do this by, as you just mentioned, delivering these delicious Japanese snacks worldwide in our monthly curated snack subscription box. We have a whole lot of products from there but I'm happy to get into that later. Tim: Yeah, and I do want to dive into it. You guys have come a long way. It expanded a lot since you started, and you've delivered over a million boxes of snacks, which is awesome. So what exactly is a subscription box? Danny: Many people already know about subscription boxes out there. But what makes box really special is that we directly partner with the centuries old family snack bigger businesses throughout Japan, everything from Hokkaido red bean buns to Kyoto matcha cakes and Okinawa chinsukos. These are products that are all Japan-exclusive, and a lot of times they're even region-specific. We sourced them all there, curate them into monthly themes, and then ship them directly from Japan to about 100 countries around the world to our customers. And what really gets customers excited besides the delicious snacks is the fact that we always include what we call a culture guide magazine that explains that month's cultural background, why these snacks are important, where in Japan they're from, interviews of the makers, there's just like a little discovery travel in a box that people love. Tim: This is something I wanted to get in later but we might as well get into it now. How long did it take you to realize the importance of that storytelling and that cultural explanation? Danny: So it was always something I actually sawed off to do from the beginning. For example, I founded the company in late 2015 and I solo bootstrap launched it in like early 2016. Actually, it was April, so it's our six-year annive

There is a very good reason B2B SaaS is huge in Japan right now. Today we sit down with Chiemi Kamakura, co-founder and CEO of Agatha, and she explains why. Agatha is a Japanese SaaS company that has been global from Day 1, but is leveraging some unique strengths developed in Japan. We talk about how Japanese SIs have responded to SaaS, why Japan is likely to see a lot more female founders soon, and the fact that Japanese managers and regulators actually hate paper just as much as the rest of us, but there is one thing that keeps them from going digital. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The real reason Japanese hospitals can't get away from paper Why it's hard to innovate from inside a company Can Japanese SIs survive in the SaaS era Agatha's commitment to being global from Day 1 How global and Japan SaaS markets are different (and how they're not) How SaaS can thrive in highly regulated industries. The importance of a personal network in high-trust products How to develop more female founders in Japan Some good advice on going global with a SaaS product Links from the Founder Everything you evert wanted to know about Agatha Connect with Chiemi on LinkedIn Friend her on Facebook A good Forbes article about Agatha Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for listening. Today, I'd like to introduce you to Chiemi and to Agatha. Actually, Agatha is the startup created by Chiemi Kamakura and her co-founders to solve a global problem in the record-keeping required for clinical trials that are run by pharmaceutical companies. Chiemi tells a great story, and one that illustrates why SaaS is slowly taking over the business world. We talk about the challenges of launching a SaaS startup in a highly regulated industry, the advantages of thinking global from day one, and selling to Japanese customers who always seem to want customization. And Chiemi also explains that contrary to the stereotype, most Japanese workers and regulators don't really like having to rely on mountains of paper. For the most part, they hate it just as much as the rest of us. And today, we'll explain the two things that are actually keeping them from going digital. But you know, Chiemi tells this story much better than I can. So let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So we're sitting here with Chiemi Kamakura of Agatha, who makes clinical and regulatory document management for small early stage clinics and life sciences companies. And Chiemi, thank you so much for sitting down with us today. Chiemi: Of course, thank you for inviting me to this opportunity, that's a great honor for me. Tim: The honor is all ours. So I gave just like a really brief explanation of what Agatha does, but can you flesh that out a little bit? Can you explain in more detail, what is it Agatha does? Chiemi: We are offering Document Management Cloud Service for clinical trial for hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. Tim: So is it just for the research stage, just for the trials themselves, or is it more for operational support as well? Tim: Yeah. So main target is clinical trial business, but not only that, it's from research and also marketing and manufacturing. So we are covering all stages. What we do, especially in clinical trial, for clinical trial is operated between pharmaceutical company and hospitals. There are many, many communications on trial, those communication still paper is used. Tim: Okay. Well, let's get into some specifics. So maybe tell me about your customers. If you're improving the communication between the hospitals and the laboratories doing the trials, walk me through an example. How does that work? Chiemi: Yeah. In hospitals, that people who are managing clinical trials, so that's our user, and in pharmaceutical company side, also people in clinical trial department, they are our users. Let me explain what happens between pharmaceutical companies and hospitals. First, pharmaceutical company visit hospitals, and then request to conduct clinical trials at this hospital, and then send applications and other documentation. So there are really a lot of documents. I researched how much document is used in one hospital, two ton of paper are used in one hospital every year. Tim: The medical industry is famous for generating huge amounts of documents and huge amounts of paperwork. But I'm sure there's still a lot of actual paper being used, but it's 2020, how are these companies solving these problems now? They can't really be doing everything on paper now. Chiemi: After COVID, it's moving a little bit, but still, paper is used, because I think doctors and people at hospitals, they are really concentrate on patients and their family, so they don't have enough time to think about IT system or new technologies. They are

Coming up with ideas is easy. Spotting the bad one early is a rare skill. Today we talk with Yo Shibata serial entrepreneur an investor about how you know if you really have a great startup idea. We chat about what it was like being acquired by Rakuten, and what can be done to improve M&A in Japan. Yo also talks publicly for the first time about is new startup and why the current B2B SaaS trend in Japan might have peaked and might be about to completely reverse itself. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The advantage of launching early on a new platform The reason for Japanese consumers' love for points systems What it's like to be acquired by Rakuten The birth of the Tokyo Founders Fund The weakness almost all Japanese VC Funds have How to know when you ave a good startup idea Te importance of "Founder-Market Fit" Is this new "anti-SaaS" platform the way forward Why most Japanese enterprises are bad at M&A The most important difference between Japanese and US startup culture Why the ecosystem is more important than the startups themselves Links from the Founder Check out Tailor Yo's big bet against the SaaS trend. ... and they are hiring Follow Yo on Twitter @yoyoshibata Be sure to give a listen to Yo's podcast START/FM Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. So, how do you know if your startup idea is any good? After all, coming up with ideas is easy, knowing how to evaluate them before spending a lot of time and money, well, that's that' a real skill, and we're going to get to that. Today we sit down with Yo Shibata, serial entrepreneur, investor, and well-known figure in Japan startup ecosystem. We talk about where Japanese startups are heading and the big bet Yo is making on his next startup. A big bet based on the idea that the current B2B SaaS boom in Japan has got it all wrong. Now, Yo's theory flies in the face of all common knowledge about the Japanese market, but as long-time fans of disrupting Japan know, I am a hopeless contrarian. Anyone who can make a compelling case about why conventional wisdom is wrong always has my full attention. I just love those stories and ideas, and I love bringing them to you. So Yo and I dive deep into why Japan's current SaaS trend might be about to reverse itself, and what might take its place. We talk about what it's like to be acquired by Rakuten, how corporate Japan is getting better at M&A, and of course, how to know if you actually have a good startup idea. But you know, Yo tells that story much better than I can so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So we're sitting here with Yo Shibata, serial entrepreneur and investor. So thanks for sitting down with us, I really appreciate it. Yo: Thank you for having me. Pretty excited. Tim: I'm excited to have you here. And I mean, Yo, you've done so much here. You've started a number of companies, you've started your own fund, you even have your own podcast. It's a great opportunity to really dig in. Yo: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Tim: Just for background, let's talk about your startups. There's been a lot of them. Yo: Right. Tim: Your first one you started in college, right? Yo: Yes, that was when I was 19 or 20 years old. I started a small company with my friend. It was SEO consulting firm. That was back in 2005 or something like that. Tim: Was that something you planned on like scaling into a big company or was that just beer money for you and your friend? Yo: Back in 2005, in Japan, there was no venture capital, especially like seed stage, very rarely saw angel investors. They usually took majority stakes with like, $50,000 or something like that. Tim: Yeah. And back then, angel investors, they were all doctors or lawyers, they weren't startup people at all. Yo: Exactly. And startups didn't have any bargaining power. And so if they offer $50,000 with half of the company, the only choice is to accept. So that was the situation back then. We had ambition to become big, but there were no knowledge on how to scale a startup. So I don't know if SEO company is sufficient to go public or not. Tim: Yeah, I could see that. That's the kind of, as you know now, I mean, that's the kind of startup that's really hard to scale. It scales linearly. As you get more clients, you need more experts. Yo: Exactly, exactly. Tim: So after you shut that down, you started Code Start. Yo: Exactly. So after I left the initial startup, I joined McKinsey, and spent three years as a consultant. And then around 2010, so iPhone launched in Japan and I saw a lot of startups in the US. The AWS was available, iPhones taking off, so there were platform. So it became really easy to start a web service. I left McKinsey and started a small app that

Once the disruptors become the incumbents they are ripe for disruption. Uber, Grab and rest of the ride-sharing startups have clearly disrupted the global taxi industry, but that doesn't mean they got it right. That doesn't mean their market position, or even their business model, is secure. Today we sit down with Sota Kimura, founder of SmartRyde, a Japanese startup focused on getting airport ground transfers right. We talk about building a business based on quality and brand in a traditionally price-sensitive, low-margin market, what Japanese universities are doing to support startups, and how getting ripped off at the airport inspired Sota to start a startup. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why airport transfers are ripe for disruption & what Uber is missing Pivoting from B2C to B2B during the pandemic How getting ripped off at the airport inspired a startup Japan's University startup support outside the majors Entrepreneurship share-houses How to compete on quality in a low-margin business Can ridesharing work in Japan Why Hiroshima was an ideal launch market How to create more university startups in Japan Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about SmartRyde The SmartRyde video Coverage of recent fundraising Follow Sota on Twitter @kimura5008 Friend him on Facebook Connect on LinkedIn The Entrepreneurial Sharehouse Fespa Kyoto Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, we're going to talk about how to disrupt a fragmented market. I mean, that's a startup founder's dream, right? You find a market with low quality, confusing products, and no global coverage, and then disrupt it with an innovative business model and establish a trusted global brand. That's the dream. But as you'll see today, sometimes markets are fragmented for a reason. Today we sit down with Sota Kimura, founder of SmartRyde, who's trying to solve the problem of airport transfers and of foreign travelers being ripped off at local airports, and Sota's up against some strong competition, not only from business challengers but from human nature itself. Let's face it, ripping off travelers has been a popular custom for a long time. Herodotus was complaining about it 2,500 years ago. We talk about why Uber is not a threat, the new entrepreneurship share houses popping up in Japan, and how Japanese universities can better support founders. But most of all, we look into the question of whether quality can win if quality can act as a differentiator in a market traditionally focused on price competition. But you know, Sota tells that story much better than I can so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So I'm sitting here with Sota Kimura, who is the founder of SmartRyde, who is changing the nature of airport transfer and ground transport service. So thanks for sitting down with us. I really appreciate it. Sota: Yeah, I appreciate too. Tim: So that's a really brief explanation of your company. But can you tell us a bit more about what SmartRyde does? Sota: We are operating airport transfer service around the world, mainly business-to-business sectors. For example, we integrated with online travel agency OTA, such as booking.com, and Expedia. And also, we are connected directly local transportation company like taxi and limousine and buses. Tim: So fundamentally, this is the airport transfer when you get off a plane and you need to get into a cab. Sota: Yes. So we focus on the airport transfer. So from airport to hotel, or hotel to airport. Tim: I agree, like, airport transfers, the ground transport, it's a messy process right now. But is your main competition rideshare companies like Uber and Grab? Sota: Similar business model. Transfers are a very fragment of business. And also, our company, all professional drivers, and also various model is business-to-business. So very different from ride-sharing companies. Tim: So what's the biggest difference there? Because I think a lot of people, when they hear this business model, they might think, yeah, getting off an airplane in a new city is just a pain. You don't know who to trust, you don't know the local vendors. It's all a bunch of, I don't know, SEO competition. And a lot of people say, oh, well, like Uber's a strong brand or grabs a strong brand. So what's your real value proposition to the customer? Sota: Yeah. When someone book through the travel, so airline sched and accommodation and activity, so something like that, at that time, customer can book airport transfer service. Tim: Okay. So they can just get everything done beforehand, have everything arranged. Sota: Correct. Tim: All right. And tell me about your customers. You mentioned it was mainly b2b, but who's using SmartRyde? Sota: Now it&#03

NFTs are easy to understand if you examine their core utility. Unfortunately, there are thousands of NFT promoters spending millions of dollars to make sure you never look at that. This episode is a departure from our standard format, but it's an important topic. I want to explain what NFTs actually are and how you can best make money with them -- if you really want to. Our Japanese founders will be back next episode. So let’s get right to it. Transcript This is it, gentlemen. This Queen of Hearts is the winning card. Watch it closely. Follow her with your eye as she moves. Here she is, and now here, now here, and now—where? The Queen of Hearts. My hand is quicker than your eye. If you find the lady, you win, and I pay; if not, I win and take your money. Who will go me twenty dollars? Yes, this is in fact, Disrupting Japan. Straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs, but today we are going to be talking about Three-Card Monte, or more specifically what Three-Card Monte teaches us about NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. You all know three-card-monte. Even if you don’t know it by that name. The dealer places three cards on the table, flips over one to reveal the queen. He flips the queen back over and begins shuffling the three cards around the table. He does this quickly, but not too quickly. You can just follow his movements. You confidently point to your card, and the dealer flips over a seven. You lose your money! Of course, you never really had a chance. The dealer slipped the queen up his sleeve when he started the shuffle. All that patter and shuffling is just there to distract you. The three cards you see on the table are all decoys. The important card had already been taken off the table. And you see, just like in three-card-monte, the key to understanding NFTs is looking at what’s missing. In this podcast we are going to grab the dealer by the wrist, dispose of the distracting patter and decoy cards, and take a hard look at exactly what’s been taken off the table. And to be clear, I have absolutely no opinion as to whether you should invest in NFTs or if you personally will make money from them. Today we’ll just be talking about what they are; their reason for existence. In startup terms, we’ll be defining NFT’s true value proposition. However, by the end of this episode it will make perfect sense to you why a jpg of a robot with a green mustache is worth $2 million, while the same robot with a red mustache is only worth $50. In fact, you’ll understand why NFTs could not possibly work any other way. And before we dive in, I want to let you know that although I spent a lot of time checking my facts and making sure what I am about to explain to you is accurate. I am most emphatically not a lawyer or a financial advisor. I am a founder, podcaster, author, hacker, picker, grinner, lover, sinner, and if you are even thinking of taking legal or financial advice from me, you are being an idiot. Stop it! OK, with that out of the way, let’s flip over these decoy cards. Misdirection & the NFT Decoy Cards Card #1: NFTs Prove Ownership NFTs are usually described as something like “digital certificate of ownership” or “a digital receipt” or “virtual goods with the blockchain providing proof of provenance and authenticity.” NFT promoters love to claim that they are a “permanent, distributed, publicly-auditable, tamper-proof record” of ownership. But no. They are not any of that. That’s misdirection, that’s one of the decoy cards. NFTs absolutely provide a “permanent, distributed, publicly-auditable, tamper-proof record” that you gave your money to a crypto promoter, but purchasing an NFT gives you absolutely no copyrights, usage rights, or ownership rights to the artwork. It’s not a receipt because you haven't actually bought anything but the receipt itself. The terms of service a some NFT marketplaces hint at such rights, and some NFTs are sold with legal-sounding jargon that promises them. However, the whole idea that copyrights and usage rights can be transferred anonymously between wallets not tied to any specific legal entities is ... well, let’s just say it’s untested legal ground. Particularly when there is no way to know if an anonymous NFT creator owned the artwork in question and when there is no recourse if they are lying. You’ll find that most promoters quickly toss aside the ownership card when you challenge them. They then fall back to the second decoy card. Card #2: NFTs Provide Bragging Rights “Well, they say, NFT buyers are not really interested in the legal minutiae of copyright law. To buyers NFTs are more about bragging rights. NFTs provide a “permanent, distributed, publicly-auditable, tamper-proof record” that they have bragging rights to a specific piece of art.” OK, let’s flip over this decoy card as well. Unlike copyrights, bragging rights don't seem to have any basis in law, so I can’t address that specifically. However, it’s important to realize that the art

We have been dreaming about flying cars (and startups have been promising them!) for over 70 years, and it looks like we might almost be there. Orders have been placed, and delivery schedules set. Today we sit down with Tom Fukuzawa of SkyDrive, and we talk about the development of their flying car and their recent contract with the city of Osaka for air-taxi services. However, we also talk about the real difficulties of turning a group of passionate volunteers into a passionate startup. I don't want to spoil anything for you, but it did not turn out like it was supposed to. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why the word is experiencing a boom in flying car research and prototypes The cool concept vehicles of the Carivator project How to bing young innovators in an industry together Why driven, committed people rarely "volunteer" Why just asking for money can be easier than getting investment. Why aircraft innovation is slow and why aircraft startups are rare The size of the future flying car market How we will integrate flying cars and traditional infrastructure Why the enterprise to startup revolving door is so important Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about SkyDrive Friend them on Facebook Follow them on Twitter @Skydrive_Global Check out SkyDrive's LandCare Robot SkyDrive's Vision Video Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. You know, we seem to be in a bit of a flying car startup boom right now. Of course, the flying car has been a symbol of the future for over 70 years now. And for that whole time, we've always been just 10 years away from saying goodbye to traffic and taking to the skies. Well, today we sit down with Tomo Fukuzawa, founder of SkyDrive. And he explains how he plans to have his flying cars on the road or rather in the skies in three years. And while there are many startups making such claims today, SkyDrive recently signed contracts with the City of Osaka to deliver an air taxi service. And last month SkyDrive began the final stage of government certification for their vehicle. So yeah, there's something here that deserves a closer look. Oh, and by the way, Tomo was at their testing facility so there's some background noise in this interview. The drones and flying cars themselves weren't flying around so just some cars passing by. It's not too bad. But at one point, it sounds like a tractor trailer drives between us and knocks over our table. You'll know it when you hear it, trust me. Anyway, Tomo shares some really important lessons about running a moonshot startup, how partners and collaborators and people you've known for years begin to treat you differently. Many of these lessons apply to anyone following their dreams, but the startup experience makes everything so much more intense. But you know, Tomo tells that story much better than I can. So let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So we're sitting here with Tomo Fukuzawa of SkyDrive, who is making flying cars and cargo drones. And thanks for meeting with us today. Tomo: Thank you very much for inviting me. Tim: It's my pleasure. I love the whole aerospace and aviation sector. I love what startups are doing in here. I want flying cars to be real so badly. Tomo: Thank you. Tim: So tell us a bit about your current prototype. It's currently a one-seater model, right? Tomo: We started SkyDrive three years ago. And last summer, we studied manned test flight of a flying car or eVTOL. And this was the first time in Japan to show manned flying car, and we have one-seater and eight propellers. And now we are flying 5 to 10 minutes by one charge. Tim: I want to get into the details of the technology in the future in just a minute. But it seems like in the last, let's say, two years or so, there's been this huge interest in flying cars startups, not just in Japan but all over the world, what's driving this? Tomo: Yeah. There are about 400 project of flying around the world, and about 10 project have already studied manned flight. Those project started 3 to 10 years ago. So, movement of flying car is coming for the last two or three years, but they have already started years ago. And the biggest lesson is that the sensor or controller is very, very smaller size and high spec but reasonable price. Tim: When you say the controller, do you mean like-- Tomo: Okay. That means CPU or flight controller or motors are used and how much electricity to produce the controller. Tim: Okay. So despite all this recent global interest in flying cars, I mean, you've been very involved with this for a long time now, right. So, you started out at Toyota and you were part of a project called Cativator. Tim: Yeah. Cativator is a volunteer group. It was found eight years ago when I was in

Cloud visionaries promised us unlimited scalability, but they greatly underestimated the amount of data we would start producing. Today we sit down with Michael Tso, the co-founder of Cloudian, and he explains why some systems are just too big for the cloud, and how the industry is adapting. Mike also shares his advice for selling via channel partners, and we talk about the competitive advantages and disadvantages of being a Japanese startup on the global stage. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The real reason we are "drowning in data" The missing link in connecting cloud and local storage What kind of apps really need 100's of petabytes of storage How to pivot successfully in Japan, and why it's so hard to do so Using Japanese culture as a competitive advantage The most important difference between Japan and US startup culture Why US companies hesitate to buy from Japanese software companies How to expand globally using channel partners and systems integrators What everyone gets wrong about failure Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Cloudian Friend Mike on Facebook Follow him on Twitter @MichaelTso Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. As a society, as a species, we have way too much data on our hands. A decade ago, our data got too big for our local systems and so we moved it into the cloud. And now, well, our data has gotten too big for the cloud and we're moving it back on premises. Now, I promise this will make a lot more sense in a few minutes, when we sit down with Michael Tso, co-founder of Cloudian. Cloudian makes massive scale storage systems, massive as an hundreds of petabytes of storage that can run on site and seamlessly integrate with Cloud Storage. Cloudian is also interesting, because they're one of only a handful of Japanese startups that have really succeeded in the US and European markets. And Mike and I talk a lot about how they made that happen. We talk about the challenges and the necessity of pivoting in a Japanese startup, how Cloudian's Japanese identity and culture both helped them and hurt them in their global expansion. And Mike gives some really great advice about how to sell software through channel partners and what you should really expect from those relationships. But you know, Mike tells that story much better than I can. So let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: I'm sitting here with Michael Tso, the co-founder of Cloudian, which provides object storage for the enterprise. And Mike, thanks for sitting down with us. Mike Tso: Yes, happy to be here, Tim. Tim: Now, object storage for the enterprise is something that gets talked about a lot. But what does that mean exactly? Mike: Yeah. So I think I need to just rewind a little bit and just kind of talk about why are we drowning in data? Why is there so much data? Well, because actually, if you think about the process of innovation and the process of invention, it's data-based, right? You need to have data to know where you're at, and you can draw inspiration from analyzing your data. And then you go try some invention, and then you have to measure the outcome. And then you go back and kind of either fix it or improve it. So it's a continuous process. Tim: But, I mean, if you look at kind of like human history, we humans will fill up as much data, well, we've always had data, it's a question of how much we can store. And the easier it is to store, the more of this information we will. So it used to have to be engraving on cuneiform, clay tablets and creating vellum now it's just, oh, we'll automatically just save everything. Mike: Well, I think about this a lot, right? It starts with how easy it is to create the data. So if you have to chisel away on a rock, you're not going to create a lot of data. But these days, we have sensors with cameras, when people think about data, people think about, oh, how many emails am I sending? How many pictures are you taking? But actually all these are very small in the grand scheme of things. What is generating what the big data that we're seeing these days are mostly machines, because we have automated data curation, we've automated data movement, we've automated data storage. So, the whole thing is becoming very easy. And now we have AI, which has just a unsatisfiable appetite for more data, because the more data you have, the better your AI becomes. Tim: We've got this perfect circle. So we've got machines generating the data, the machines storing the data and the machines analyzing the data. Mike: That's right. And thankfully, humans are still needed in a process to make sure everything works. But exactly, the more value you're able to get out of your data, the more people are keeping all

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 CEO What most professors don't know they don't know about business How to land large sales contracts as a small startup How to sell new technology to Japanese pharmaceutical companies Why biotech investment is so hard in Japan Why you want to step away while you are on top Japan's next biotech unicorn Why most Japanese government startup money is misused Links from the Founder Dr. Suga's Lab Everything you ever wanted to know about PeptiDream Hiroaki's new project MiraBiologics Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, I'd like to share some amazing insights about the startups being spun out of Japan's universities, because what's going on here is very different than what's happening in e US or the EU. This is a special selects show, and I first spoke with Hiroaki Suga co-founder of PeptiDream a few years ago. The points he made in that conversation, however, have only become more important since then, and I'll be back with an update after we talk. So here we go! --- We’ve talked a lot before about how there are not many life sciences startups in Japan and what can be done to change that. But there are, of course, some and some incredibly successful ones. PeptiDream is one of those startups. Founded by a small team at a university lab, PeptiDream has grown from nothing to a $6 billion company. Today, we sit down with the founder of PeptiDream and fellow guitarist, Hiroaki Suga, and he’ll explain how they’re working with pharmaceutical companies all over the world to discover new drugs and new treatments. We also talk about the rather unusual business strategy that allow them to scale up with relatively little financing and to land deals with global drug companies a lot sooner than most biotech startups can. And I’ve got to say, my conversation with Dr. Suga really changed my mind about the role the Japanese universities and the government should play in fostering startups and innovation here. It’s a fascinating and unique perspective from inside the system, and I guarantee you, it’s not what you think it is. But you know, Hiroaki tells that story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview. Interview Tim: I’m sitting here with Hiroaki Suga, the cofounder of PeptiDream. So, thanks for sitting down with me today. Hiroaki Suga: Sure. Very welcome. Tim: PeptiDream is a peptide discovery platform but what is that exactly? Hiroaki: So, the technology started from over 25 years ago. I had idea. Is that okay? I want to develop RNA catalyst. The so-called ribozymes. I did a post doc with Professor Jack Szostak in Harvard Medical School. I run the techniques for the in vitro selections but I didn’t really get major success, but I was fortunate enough that I get an academic position in State University in New York Buffalo. So, I succeeded in developing we call “flexizimes” so that the first two patents are owned by SUNY Buffalo, but it wasn’t really quite useful yet. Tim: So, you were working on this for 20 years plus? Hiroaki: Pretty much, yeah. Tim: Did you have an end target in mind saying, “This is how I’m going to commercialize it, this is why it’s useful”? Hiroaki: Right, right. I already envisioned that we can apply this to the in vitro transition system. Once we have this in hand, we can do a lot of things, a lot of interesting things, right. So, I developed this flexizime prototype in the US. I came back to Japan by the invitation of the University of Tokyo. I got back to Japan and immediately we succeeded in real practical version of the flexizime. Tim: That’s interesting because Japanese universities have a reputation of really prioritizing pure research over applications. Hiroaki: Right. But this is actually pure research stage. Tim: Okay. Hiroaki: It’s really pure research but I was reminded to make it very p

It's hard to get paid to do what you love. Perhaps no one understands this better than dancers, but Taku Kodaira and his team at Mikro Entertainment are on a mission to fix that. But this conversation, and Mikro Entertainment itself, is about much more than dance. Mikro's marketplace for dance moves is just the first application of Mikro's new motion-capture technology, and things are just getting started. Today, Taku and I talk about the surprising economics of dance moves, the adoption curve of disruptive technology, dance-move lawsuits. and one very important law that looks like it is about to change. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes How you sell a dance move Making a market - who is buying dance moves Why growing up international made it easier to start a startup How copyright law needs to expand One danger in allowing dance moves to be copyrighted Lawsuits against Epic Games over Fortnight dances How big is the motion capture industry The adoption curve for disruptive technology Why it is impossible for any startup ecosystem to have enough engineers Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know Mikro and GesRec Friend Taku on Facebook Mikro coverage in Wired (in Japanese) How to use GesRec models in Unity Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Truly disruptive technology is usually hard to spot when it first shows up. Sure, after the IPOs and the mass market success, everyone claims that they knew it all along. But in the early days, disruptive technology is usually shrugged off as being too simplistic or unprofitable or most often, just a solution looking for a problem. When Kodak invented the digital camera, they dismissed it as a toy with no real commercial applications. LED light bulbs were first written off as impractical. And in 1911, the military brass dismissed the airplane as, quote, "a scientific toy with no military value." All of these seemed like, well, solutions looking for problems. We'll pick up that thread later. But I want you to keep it in mind as we sit down today and we talk with Taku Kodaira, the founder of Mikro Entertainment, who's developed technology that can create full 3D motion capture models for mobile phone videos. Now, Taku's initial and current application of this technology is the world's first global marketplace in dance moves, and he has some of the world's most famous dancers signed up on the platform. But this is a conversation that will take us on a journey of how digital dancing is already being monetized in gaming and social media, about copyrights in dance and plagiarism and choreography. And we'll also explore the new uses and new markets that this technology will open up in the future. But you know, Taku tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So I'm sitting here with Taku Kodaira, the founder of Mikro Entertainment and GesRec motion capture marketplace. And thanks for sitting down with us. Taku: Thank you very much, Tim. Tim: Now, what you guys are doing, it's really amazing tech, but you know, you can probably explain it a lot better than I can. So what does it do and what are you selling? Taku: Right. So just starting about the name GesRec, we tried to combine two words gesture and recognition and tried to create like a one word. My wife is a dancer, and I've been talking to her and she told me all the difficulty dancers are facing, and we just realized, okay, these people are doing so much stuff out there. Is there any way we can try to support them? Right now we are utilizing our technology to capture 3D motion and turn it into the data from the 2D video. And we are creating a marketplace that we sell and trade those 3D motions that's actually coming from a lot of people, mainly right now dancers and choreographers. Tim: Okay. So I mean, I totally -- I mean, in another, what seems like another life I used to be a professional musician, and I completely understand that even compared to musicians, dancers have a really hard time making money and supporting themselves. So anything that supports that is good. Taku: Exactly. Tim: So the dancers, the choreographers, they take videos of themselves using just a regular cell phone camera. You guys can extract the 3D modeling from this and put it up on the on the website. Taku: Yes. And what's amazing is they don't really need to take the video again, because throughout their careers they have a lot of videos already on their hands, they can just hand us the videos they have. Tim: So we have these dancers uploading their videos to the marketplace and you guys rendering this into 3D models. So tell me about your customers, who's on the other side of this, who are buying these dance moves. Taku: We are actually looki

Disrupting Japan turns seven years old this week! Unfortunately, because of current conditions in Japan, we won't be able to sit down over a beer and talk about startups live as we usually do. Today, I'd like to share a story in three acts. We'll talk about the podcasting industry, what Disrupting Japan really is, and the likely future of Japanese startup founders. Please enjoy. Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. This week is Disrupting Japan’s seventh anniversary. Normally we mark each anniversary with the Disrupting Japan live show. We invite a few guests on stage. We gather a few hundred of our biggest fans and our closest friends. And we spend the evening talking about Japanese startups and innovation over a few beers. Well, because of the pandemic, like so many other things, that’s not happening this year. I was hoping to do something creative, and I talked with some friends about maybe doing some kind of online gathering, but it just would not have been the same. So next year. Next year for sure. It’s hard to believe how much things have changed in the past seven years. This podcast, Japanese startups, the podcasting industry, and, well, even me as a person, have all gone through some pretty radical changes in recent years. And a strong case can be made that these have all been changes for the better. Every episode of Disrupting Japan is focused on a new aspect of Japanese startups and innovation, but today we are going to talk about Disrupting Japan itself and how it fits into the future of podcasting and Japan. Because, well, it’s our birthday, and we get to do that on our birthday. And I promise, that by the end, you’ll see how this all gives you a unique insight into the future of Japanese founders themselves. 1. The Future of Podcasting So first, let’s talk about podcasting. Podcasting has changed a lot in the past few years. And from the perspective of a startup founder, it’s been amazing to be a part of it and the future looks incredibly bright. Podcasting is growing up. Podcasting is becoming a real media business with large buyers and big rewards for the creators of the most popular shows. Of course, this rocket-like growth is enabled by the fact that the podcast industry is streamlining. It’s consolidating. And that brings other changes as well. Long-time listeners know that Disrupting Japan has had several monetization strategies over the years. At one point we were in negotiations to become an official Nikki podcast. We didn’t quite come to terms, but we’re still good friends with the Nikki’s podcast team. For about a year, Disrupting Japan was independent, ad-supported and my primary source of income, and about four years ago I was putting together a podcast advertising network startup, which I then decided to spin down in order to join TEPCO and then Google. So as you see, as a startup founder, I’m a big fan of monetizing podcasts. Now, it was right after I shut down my podcast advertising project and returned Disrupting Japan to being ad-free that the podcasting industry really began its explosive growth phase. Because of this, a number of my startup and podcasting friends have told me “Tim, you got out too early! You missed your big chance!” Well, no. I mean, I understand why it might look that way, but I knew what I was doing. Let me explain. It was clear back then that podcasting was becoming a serious media business, but I knew enough about the media business to know that’s not what I wanted to do — at least not as talent — at least not for this show. Disrupting Japan is something special. I don’t particularly want to attend meetings to see if the show is hitting this quarter’s growth objectives. I never want to be put in a situation where I’m being told “Interest in robotics is down now. You need to do more gaming content.” Or “Corporate decided to go in a new direction this year.” Or “You need to make sure the guests on your show have at least 10,000 Twitter followers.” And, none of that is necessarily bad advice. In fact, that’s how you scale a podcast. Butt even in my podcast network, I was not planning on telling podcasters what kind of show they should run. I would simply provide the hard data on what advertisers are willing to pay for and which of their topics get the most traction. But if you are relying on advertising dollars to run your show, you are almost certainly going to follow that data. It’s the nature of the business. It’s the nature of any business. It is awesome that some talented creators and savvy entrepreneurs are making serious money podcasting, and I think smaller creators can still make good money using the same strategy I used for Disrupting Japan — and I’ll put a link in the show-notes that explains that strategy in detail. But that kind of mass-market scale has never been what Disrupting Japan has been about, a

We speculate a lot about our future "robot servants" or "robot masters", but that whole metaphor is wrong. It's not going to happen that way. This is a very personal and rather speculative episode. No guests this time. It's just the two of us. In past episodes, you have already met some of the founders at the center of an amazing cluster of startups that have the potential to redefine the way humanity interacts with machines. Evocative Machines is a uniquely Japanese approach that has universal appeal, and I guarantee you that it's not what you expect. So let’s get right to it. Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know Evocative Machines Some evocative machines mentioned in this episode The GrooveX Lovot and Kaname's interview Yukai's Bocco and Shunsuke's interview Gatebox's Hikari (We'll have to get these guys on the show!) Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Once again, I’ve got a special show for you today. There will be no guests no playful banter with someone speaking English as a second language. Today, it’s just you and me. Today we’ll be diving deep into a specific and unique area of Japanese innovation. There is something interesting happening in Japan, a cluster of startups working on something new. You’ve heard parts of it on past episodes, but today we are going into new and unknown territory, and I for one *love* being in new and unknown territory. It’s a trend I first talked about on Disrupting Japan a few years ago as Evocative Machines. Evocative Machines is a unique Japanese technology emerging from the nexus of artificial intelligence, robotics, and healthcare, and it is something that could utterly transform our world. It’s a technology that could birth a dozen Japanese unicorns, but we are at such an early stage and this is such a moonshot, it might not result in any at all. But a lot has changed since I first talked with you about Evocative Machines, so today I’ll explain the technology and its importance, bring you fully up to date, and then we’ll pull out our crystal balls and predict how evocative machines might actually change the world. Now, at the end of this podcast, I predict that 50% of our listeners will find what I am about to explain as interesting, but not important, another 40% will consider it important, but unlikely and impractical. And maybe 10% of you will understand that this is going to change the world and will want to be a part of it. And for those10% of you, I’ll provide a way for you to get in touch. There are amazing things about to happen. Building an Evocative Machine So what exactly is an “evocative machine”? Machines are unquestionably becoming smarter, and recently there is a lot of good work being done on creating empathetic machines. But an “evocative machine” is quite different from an empathetic machine. The distinction is that empathetic machines are those that can understand our emotions and empathize with us. Evocative machines, on the other hand, are those which evoke emotions in us. Evocative machines are machines that cause us to empathize with them. So why is this useful, let alone disruptive or transformative? The whole point of automation is to get things done more simply. I don’t want to feel sorry for my refrigerator when it breaks down. I don’t want to sympathize with my microwave about how hard it’s working when it heats my dinner. Life is stressful enough. Why waste our emotional energy on inanimate objects? Well, when you focus on a single task, that line of thinking is absolutely correct. But you know something? The Western approach to automation, AI, and robotics is hurting society. It’s grinding us down without us even realizing it, and Japan’s newly emerging evocative machines are the solution to this problem that we haven’t completely realized we have, and it’s going to change the world. The history of industrialization and of modern prosperity is very much the history of automation. We would much rather use an ATM, or better yet an app, rather than a stand in line, and talk to a teller to make a deposit. And, although it was not the case a few generations ago, today we are all perfectly capable of operating our own elevators and pumping our own gas. And 10 years from now, we will all probably have gotten used to self-checkout and self-bagging at grocery stores, or maybe the home-delivery trends that accelerated during the pandemic will continue and we’ll just order our groceries from our phones. Automation makes us all more efficient. It lets us do more with less. But, you now, we also lose something. And what we lose is important. I don’t mind buying things from vending machines or using self-checkout. And the whole e-commerce and mobile commerce revolutions have been amazing. We do get a lot more for a lot less. Adding people into the mix slows down

Japan has a very different approach to robotics. Japan leads the world in industrial robots, but there is also a growing movement that is reinventing the way we share our world with machines. Kaname Hayashi was one of the creators of Softbank's Pepper robot. His latest startup, GrooveX, has raised over $100 million to develop the Lovot; a companion robot, or perhaps more accurately, a robot pet unlike any other. We talk about the Lovot itself, of course, but we also cover GrooveX's unique business model and talk about the very different ways that people of different sexes, ages, and nationalities interact with the Lovot. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why the Lovot is as much a pet as a dog or cat Data that proves how our interaction with robots is changing Why the Lovot's form factor is so important Why GrooveX invested so much in getting the Lovot's eyes right How the Lovot makes friends The Lovot's business model. Will this scale? The biggest surprise from the Lovot Cafe Why Western men don't love the Lovot Japan's anxiety trap and how to fix it Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about the GrooveX Follow Kaname on Twitter @HayashiKaname Friend him on Facebook See the Lovot in action The Lovot on Instagram - this is way too cute The Evocative Machines Project Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. I've never really fully embraced the Japanese concept of cute or kawaii. I mean, it's fine and all, all the mascots and characters are nice but it gets a bit odd sometimes. For example, my bankbook is covered with pictures of Mickey Mouse and Goofy which are images Western financial institutions would probably not want to be associated with their product but hey, it works in Japan but there's actually something deeply fascinating and important underlying the idea of kawaii. Today, we sit down with Kaname Hayashi who was formerly part of SoftBank’s Pepper Project and then went out on his own to start Groove X and create the Lovot. Now, the Lovot is a companion robot or a pet robot and we talk about the robot itself, of course and please check out the links on the site for pictures and videos. It's very cute and you really have to see the Lovot in action to appreciate it but more important than the robot itself is how people are interacting with it. Now, we've talked about social robots on disrupting Japan before but people are interacting with the Lovot differently and far more socially than anything that's come before it. It's the first robot I've seen that not only could be fully accepted as a pet but is being fully accepted as a pet. Kaname and I also dive into the business model. Groove X has raised a lot of investment and as you'll hear during the interview, this is a startup that could go either way, it could fizzle out into nothing or it could change global society. In fact, in post-production, when I was editing down the interview, I kept thinking of more and deeper questions I wanted to ask Kaname, so we'll have to get him back on the show in the future but for now, you're about to hear a story about the difference in the way children and adults and Westerners interact with robots, the intersection of toxic masculinity and robotics and why science fiction usually gets human-robot interaction all wrong but Kaname tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Kaname Hayashi of Groove X, the maker of Lovot, so thanks for sitting down with me today. Kaname: Thank you very much. Tim: So, Lovot is a cute and I mean really, really cute companion robot but you can probably describe it much better than I can. So, what is Lovot? Kaname: Yeah, good question. Lovot takes a role as a pet. If you think what pets give us, then you can imagine what Lovot give us. For example, pet doesn't work for the human but we had a good time. You can have a chance to be gentle because of the pet. Tim: I was planning on diving into this much later on but this is a great topic. So, let's just deal with it now. What does a pet give us? Kaname: Yeah, yeah. Tim: I mean, so robots, we're used to robots like doing things for us, right? Washing our clothes or building our cars but pets, what is it that they give us that's so important? Kaname: One of the important thing is probably they give a role. Pet rely on human. Without human, pet is not happy, pet cannot survive. So, pet give us a caring role. Tim: Yeah, I think that's important. So, so much research recently on emotional robots have focused on robots being able to read our emotions but I think there's something very special about robots that evoke emotions in us. We buy a dog or a cat because we want to care ab

Some of Japan's innovations are going to have a much bigger impact outside of Japan. Like most startups, most AgTech startups sensibly tend to focus on their own markets. While this makes things easier at first, it tends to overlook the huge challenges -- and potentially huge profits -- that exist in the developing world. Today we talk with Shunsuke Tsuboi of Sagri, and he explains how Sagri started life as a satellite -imaging startup focused on incremental innovation in Japan, but then quickly transformed itself into a disruptive FinTech startup serving India and Southeast Asia. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The truth about university startup support in Japan Why India is a better target for this Japanese startup Why selling to family farms is harder than selling to industrial farms Why sustainable business models are hard for agriculture startups The challenges for market entry in any agriculture startup Three reasons there are so few agriculture startups in Japan Why most Japanese VCs don't invest in AgTech What Japanese universities can do to improve creativity Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Sagri Friend Shun on Facebook TV Interview about Sagri. (Japanese) Nikkei interview with Shun (Japanese) Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, we're going to about agricultural startups in Japan. You know, it's interesting, with Japan's high food prices, the financial support for farmers, and the strong system of university agricultural research, I've always been a bit surprised that we don't see more AgTech startups in Japan. Well, today's conversation goes a long way to explaining exactly why that is, it's both fascinating and a little frustrating. Today we sit down with Shunsuke Tsuboi of Sagri, who is using satellite imaging and AI to help small-scale farmers, some in Japan but mostly in the developing world. Shunsuke explains the challenges of launching a startup from universities without specific startup support, why going global often has nothing to do with the US or Europe, and why the world is a better place when there are tens of millions of small family farms in it and why those are worth preserving. But you know, Shunsuke tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: I'm sitting here with Shun Tsuboi of Sagri, who is using satellites and artificial intelligence to solve agricultural problems. Thanks for joining us today. Shun: Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you for this time. Tim: It's great to have you, and I mean, agriculture tech, AgTech is something that's it's interesting in Japan, and people don't talk about it enough, so I'm really glad you're on the show. So can you explain a little bit more about what Sagri does, what is the service you're offering? Shun: Sagri company is based in Japan and India. So we are using satellite data to checking the each of the farmland and also the food of farmers we get using satellite data for smartphone, such as when is the best harvesting time and also which is a good soil situation, we can check it. Tim: The soil analysis, is that done by satellite or do you have people on the ground checking? Shun: They're using satellite, yes. Tim: Really? Shun: Yeah, along the 1,000 farmland, checking just 10 farmland detail, we can spreading the satellite information. Tim: So from satellite imaging, you can tell soil composition, you can tell farmers when the ideal time to apply pesticides, when to harvest. How do your customers interact with this? Is there a smartphone app? How does it work? Shun: So using satellite data checking through the application, they can connect it that mechanical, so this machine is automatically do that. Tim: So the machines would automatically apply fertilizer? Shun: Yes, this is more needed all over the farmland can check through the satellite. Tim: Tell me about your customers, who's using this? Is this small family farms? Is this large industrial farms? Who are your customers? Shun: So now is mainly is up to 10 hectare is a target. Tim: Okay, so still very small. Shun: Oh, yeah. So in Japan, most of the farmers are very small, so they can get easily through satellite data. So in United States and the European is a more big farm, so this is not our target. Tim: Interesting. I want to really dig into all of the different use cases and the things you're exploring in a minute, but before we get there, I want to back up a bit and talk a bit about you. So you're currently still a grad student at Yokohama National University and you started Sagri a few years ago. So is this something you're doing with the university or something on the side? Shun: That app is three years ago we started. So I'

The bacteria in our gut affect our lives and our health in ways we are just starting to fully realize, and mapping this biome is expected to advance medical science and pharmacology as mapping the human genome. However, our gut biota is not a mappable sequence, but a complex ecosystem, and one that may be unique to each individual. In our conversation, Shinji Fukuda, founder of Metabologenomic (aka Metagen), explains how the science is advancing, what kinds of consumer devices we are likely to see first, the importance of global expansion, and the challenges of being a deep-tech startup in Japan. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes What Metagen is really trying to do Fecal transplants in Japan Japan's Gut design project - a database of poop The biggest business model challenge for Japan's deep-tech startuups Smart toilets and other consumer products Why Metagen has been turning down VC money Why global expansion is critical for both business and scientific reasons Some advice for Japanese deep-tech startups Why academics need startup founders Why Japanese startups need to stop playing defense Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Metagen Metagen on LinkedIn Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, we're going to talk about the future of poop, and I promise you that it is both a lot more interesting and also a lot less, well, strange than you might think. Shinji Fukuda is the founder and CEO of Metabologenomics, a startup which is usually, and thankfully, referred to as Metagen. Shinji and Metagen are mapping out the complex biome of the human digestive tract. Our gut biome is an incredibly complex ecosystem that exists within all of us, and it is an ecosystem. These bacteria don't share our DNA and they're not simply along for the ride. We couldn't function without them, and there's a lot of variation between cultures and between individuals. Metagen is now working with some of Japan's largest healthcare, pharmaceutical, and chemical companies to commercialize this research. Of course, Metagen is not the only startup in this space, and Shinji and I talk a lot about when and how this tech is going to roll out to consumers, some of the scam startups that are already trying to get into this bandwagon, and we dive deep into one of the biggest problems facing deep tech startups in Japan. But you know, Shinji tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Shinji Fukuda of Metabologenomic who's researching and monetizing the gut biota, so thanks for sitting down with us. Shinji: Hi. Tim: And by the way, is it okay if we call the company Metagen the way people tend to do in Japanese? Shinji: Yeah, Metagen. Tim: Okay, good. So, listen, I think you can explain this much better than I can, so what exactly does Metagen do? Shinji: Our goal is to create the digital society, so we have a huge number of microbes in the gut and the gut microbiota has a lot of function, and maybe you know it's very important that the imbalance in the gut microbiota are related to some disorders like colon cancer, inflammatory bio-disorders, and also, the microbiota induce some systemic disorders like metabolic disorders and also meta-disease. That's why gut microbiota is really important to keep our health. Tim: It's amazing the amount of research that's being done on this right now and it's still a relatively new field. So, for Metagen, what is the main goal of the company? Are you trying to develop more targeted medicine? Is it better food? Is it a healthier population? What is it that the company is focused on? Shinji: Here, actually, everything, but we have a priority. Our goal is healthcare, to develop the technology to keep our health, healthcare, and also, last year, we established our company Metagen Therapeutics which focuses on the cure for patients with IBD, so the company is now trying to prepare that fecal microbiome juice. Do you know the fecal microbiota transplantation? Tim: Yeah, yeah, the fecal transplants. Shinji: Because our feces contain a huge number of microbes, so they can improve that sickness. Tim: I didn't even know our fecal transplants are that common in Japan, I didn't even know if that is legal and approved yet. Shinji: Not so common but in clinical trials, researchers proved the effect of the FMT in IBD patients. Tim: So, it's still, all of this technology, these treatments are sort of in the clinical trial phase? Shinji: Yeah. Not only in Japan, also in the US. Tim: I want to get back into the research and business model in a minute. So, tell me about your customers, so how are they using your services? Shinji: Metagen is now providing R&D support service, and the m

A lot of great ideas seem crazy when you first hear about them. Today Ryotaro Ako, founder of Atopiyo, explains not only why this is a great idea that is deeply valued by his users, but he also frankly talked about the difficulties in bringing it to market. We talk about the challenges of forming a long-term, core team and of developing a steady cash flow while trying to focus on a social good, and the risks involved in monetizing a community. Ryotaro also explains why extensive press coverage and shelves of startup awards don't make developing a sustainable business model any easier. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why share photos of skin conditions? How to find a technical co-founder, and what to do if you can't The two challenges all MedTech startups face The danger of long-term plans without short-term action How to monetize a community, and why it's risky Possible competitors The myth of Japanese conservatism Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Atopiyo Download the Atopiyo App Friend Ryotaro on Facebook Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today's conversation with Ryotaro Ako, founder of Atopiyo, is going to be a little bit different than usual. I first met Ryotaro several years ago at a Disrupting Japan live event, when he had just launched Atopiyo, an online community in which people with atopy and related skin conditions can support each other and exchange information about treatments and progress. Since its launch, Atopiyo has gone on to build an engaged and growing user base, attract extensive and positive press attention, and win a lot of startup awards from press, government, and industry. This is the kind of startup I really want to succeed; the kind of startup I think everyone really wants to succeed, actually. They're using startup techniques and technology to solve problems and actually make the world a little bit better. At least in theory. You see, Ryotaro and Atopiyo have a bit of a problem, and it's a problem that almost all social entrepreneurs run into, but very few managed to solve. If in this interview, I sound like I'm beating up on my guest a bit (by polite Japanese standards anyway) it's coming from a place of desperately wanting to see him succeed. Everyone who has an idea for a social startup and a passion to change the world can learn a lot from Atopiyo's story and this discussion. But you know, Ryotaro tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So I'm sitting here with Ryotaro Ako of Atopiyo, which helps people with atopy understand the disease and connect with each other, so thanks for sitting down with me. Ryotaro: Thank you very much, Tim. I'm very glad to talk with you. Tim: And we're glad to have you. I gave a really brief description of Atopiyo but I think you can explain it much better than I can. So what exactly does Atopiyo do? How does it work? Ryotaro: Atopiyo is Japan's first visual SNS for atopic dermatitis. It's like Instagram specializing in atopic dermatitis. Tim: Okay, I mean, at first reaction, sharing pictures of atopy and skin conditions does not sound that appealing. Ryotaro: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tim: So I mean, tell me about your users. Who uses this? Why do they find it valuable? Ryotaro: Yes, yes, our images can be this. So I think it is not so photogenic or happy images but patients want to know the other patients, their skin disease, how are getting better or how getting worse because of these drugs or other drugs, and they want to know their process of the skin disease. So it's useful for the patients, and what's more, they want to choose their images into their private mode. So if you set it to the private mode, this image is only for users. Tim: Okay, so the main benefit the users get is they can compare their treatment and their progress with other people that are having similar treatments and things like that. I can certainly see why that would be valuable, and I guess we got to point out emphatically this is not for medical diagnostics or treatment, right? It's just a social community. Ryotaro: Yes, it's not a medical treatment or a diagnosis, yes. Tim: And we'll dive into that a bit later when we talk about the business model. Ryotaro: Okay, yeah. Tim: But before that, let's talk a bit about you. Ryotaro: Okay, yes. Tim: Yeah, before you started this, I mean, you had atopy yourself and you'd volunteered at a number of patient support groups, right? Ryotaro: Yes. I'm a recovered patient of atopic dermatitis. I recovered, but there are other patients are suffering every day, so I interviewed and I researched their troubles and I decided to develop this app. Tim: When you decided to do this, you didn't h

Disruption comes slowly to medicine. And that's a good thing. Since the ethos of the profession is "First, do no harm", it makes sense that safety and efficacy are prioritized over rapid innovation. But innovation does happen, and the Japanese government is working to make sure it happens faster. Today we sit down with Taro Ueno of Susmed and talk about the challenges and tradeoffs in innovative medicine. We talk about why he left medical research for entrepreneurship, and how iPhone apps and blockchain are being used clinically in Japan. And in both cases, I assure you, it's not what you think. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Why leave medical practice to start a startup Why Japan just can't fall asleep Why Japan over-prescribes sleeping pills and other drugs Why it's very hard to get apps approved as medical devices in Japan The reason so few medical apps have been approved in Japan The importance ofJapan's regulatory sandbox How blockchain is actually helpful in clinical trials What kinds of medical apps are we most likely to see first on mobile phones? Why so few apps have been approved and why that might be changing Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Susmed Connect with Taro on LinkedIn Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, you're going to learn about how to make money in blockchain. No, no, no, it's not like that, it's not what you think. Today, we're going to sit down with Taro Ueno of Susmed, and we'll talk about how Japan's new regulatory sandbox has enabled his startup to get approval for their blockchain-based platform for clinical trials. The platform prevents trial results from being changed after they've been recorded, which as Taro will explain, has been a real problem in Japan. Taro is also a medical doctor and a PhD, and he's developed an insomnia app that he is in the process of getting approved as a medical device. We talk about the challenges of getting mobile apps approved for clinical use in Japan, why this technology is so frustratingly slowed to come to market, and why people in Japan just can't seem to fall asleep. But you know, Taro tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Taro Ueno of Susmed, and thanks for sitting down with me today. Taro: Thank you. Tim: Now, Susmed is an app-based solution for insomnia and you also make a platform to improve clinical trials, but you can probably explain Susmed much better than I can, so tell me a bit about the company. Taro: Susmed stands for 'Sustainable Medicine.' This is our vision and we are developing digital therapeutics using smartphone apps, and we are now developing several apps for diseases like insomnia and cancer, and so on. Tim: Tell me a bit about your customers, so are these apps designed for doctors to use in a clinical setting? Are they designed for consumers to use on their own? Taro: Doctors prescribe this app for insomnia patients. This is alternative for treating patients Tim: Before we dive into everything that's going on with medical technology in Japan, I want to ask a little bit about you. You got your MD and then your PhD, what drove you to startup after that? I mean, you put a tremendous amount of work into becoming a doctor. Taro: Yeah, I agree. Yes, as you mentioned, I have a background of medical doctor and especially in psychiatry. I got PhD in basic research over sleep medicine. I have seen so many patients with overprescription with sleeping pills. That's why I try to develop DTx for insomnia patients. Tim: I mean, I find that fascinating, the ability to develop software for an app gave you greater ability to help people than practicing medicine or research? Taro: Our company is developing software as a medical device, and we are trying to get approval from a regulatory agency in Japan. Tim: You're still practicing medicine now, right? Taro: Yes. Tim: You're using this device in your own practice? Taro: Now, we are running clinic trials, and so after getting approval, I hope I can use our app in clinical practice. Tim: So, how big a problem is insomnia or lack of sleep in Japan? Taro: The prevalence of insomnia is very high in Japan, about 18,000,000 people in Japan, and most of them are treated using sleeping pills, but no pharmacological treatment was recommended by guideline, but the treatment is labor-intensive. Tim: Without the pills, what is the other insomnia treatment? Taro: It's called cognitive behavioral therapy. Tim: Okay, and so that requires the doctor and the patient to work together and your app reproduces or reinforces that sort of interaction? Taro: Right. Tim: Japan, especially, but I guess everywhere rea

Artificial Intelligence makes a lot of people nervous. That's understandable. Today we sit down with Ken Fujiwara of Hacarus to discuss why that is, and what this startup is doing to fix it. As in so many other fields, when comparing AI in Japan and the West, we find that the technology is fundamentally the same, but the social attitudes and business strategies are very different. Ken is a serial entrepreneur, but running an AI startup was never part of his original plan. He had bigger goals in mind, and we talk about how he plans to pivot back to them someday. We also discuss Kyoto's booming startup ecosystem and why one CEO has publically stated he wants to destroy it. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The problem with Deep Learning and how Hacarus is unique The importance of founder's hidden failures Why Ken left Sony to start a startup How to know when you need to pivot Why pivoting is hard in Japan The integrator business model and why it works in Japan Pivoting a startup to back to your dreams The importance of explainable AI Why you need to know about Kyoto startups Why one company wants to destroy Kyoto's startup ecosystem The reason you see so many interesting IoT startups coming out of Japan now Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Hacarus Follow them on Facebook Connect on LinkedIn Get in touch by email: [email protected] Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. As you can imagine, I get asked a lot about how the Japanese startup ecosystem is different from others and I love that question. The problem is that people usually aren't really happy with my answers. It seems that everyone wants to hear stories about anime or strange gadgets, or cool trends in gaming, and yeah, there's plenty of that in Japan too, but the things that are really unique and interesting like evocative machines and the integrator model, and the role enterprise has to play in supporting startups, those things take a lot of time to explain to anyone who doesn't already understand Japan, at least a little bit, but they're important. Today, we sit down with Ken Fujiwara of Hacarus and we're going to look at how Hacarus is using the integrator model to jointly develop AI products with large enterprises. Ken also explains how he had to pivot Hacarus away from his original vision and how he might be able to pivot back to it in the future. We talk about the challenges of pivoting and staying true to your mission, cover a few very good reasons why people don't trust AI, and we talk about one CEO who has made it his mission to destroy a startup ecosystem. Oh, and near the end of the show, we have a really interesting discussion about the startup ecosystem in Kyoto. There really are some amazing things going on in Kansai, but you know, Ken tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Ken Fujiwara of Hacarus, and thanks for sitting down with me today. Ken: Thanks for having me. Tim: Hacarus is a collection of AI platforms that's targeted both at medical and industrial use but you can probably explain this a lot better than I can, so what exactly does Hacarus do? Ken: Alright, so Hacarus is basically AI startups and provide AI desk applications for medical, such as AI-enabled diagnosis solutions and for manufacturing industry, we provide digital inspection services, and one of the core differences of our company is that we don't use a mainstream AI technology called deep learning. We use something else. Tim: I've noticed that, so you've talked a lot about your ability to create AI models based on very small data sets. How does that work? I mean, what exactly are you guys doing, if you don't mind me asking what the "secret sauce" is. Ken: Sure, yeah, I don't mind talking about the "secret sauces." So, in machine learning, in general, the basic assumption is that you need a lot of data or what we call training data, and these days, people, they use technology called deep learning. How deep learning works is that basically, you feed it tons of data and it can abstract the futures from that data set and it can create the model. Our technology called the sparse modeling is quite different, so it can do the same thing but it's from small data sets. It's been a while in academia run, like, year 2000, we had the one person who incorporated that technology and commercialized it, so that's our core strength. Tim: Okay, I can see how being able to operate on smaller data sets really opens up a lot of broader commercial possibilities because a lot of people just don't have that much data. So, tell me about your customers. It seems like you're dealing with quite a fe

Today we are going to look at a different kind of innovation. It's not technology. It's not patentable, and I'm not sure it's scalable. But it is important. It turns out that the story behind a Japanese viral video can teach us a lot about the future of work. It's an example of Japanese innovation at it's best I think you'll enjoy it. Links The Seven-Minute Miracle video Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. I have a special story for you today. No guests. No playful banter. Today it’s just you and me and a story about Japanese innovation at its very best. And it’s also the real story behind a famous video about Japan that you’ve probably seen a dozen times on the internet and on western news shows. But like so many stories about Japan, the media gets this one wrong; or at least get it incomplete. They leave out the part of the story that actually teaches us something important about Japan. But there is something pretty amazing going on once you dig into it, and so that’s what we are going to do. The story I’m talking about is the so-called “seven-minute miracle” of the Shinkansen cleaning crew. If you live in Japan, you’ve probably witnessed this personally, and I’ll put a link to the video in the show notes for any listeners who have not already watched it. The Seven Minute Miracle The Shinkansen is both an engineering and an operational marvel. There are times when JR East is running trains three minutes behind each other at 320 kilometers per hour. To make this work requires an insane commitment to schedule. A departure is only considered to be on-time if happens within fifteen seconds of its scheduled time; no earlier, no later than 15 seconds. And most trains arrive within six seconds of their scheduled time. Part of making this work means that at Tokyo station, each train has only a 12-minute turnaround-time. It takes about five minutes to get the current passengers off and the new passengers on, which leaves seven minutes for cleaning. In those seven minutes, a crew of 22 people clean 1,000 seats, wipes down all the tray tables, exchanges seat and headrest covers, turns the seats 180-degrees to face the new direction, cleans the floors and bathrooms, empties all the wastebaskets, collects any forgotten articles from under the seats or in the overhead racks to turn into the lost and found, adjusts the window blinds, and generally makes sure everything on the train is neat and tidy. In seven minutes. And the cleaners do it all with an efficiency and grace that seems more like the mastery of a craft than the execution of a duty. When they are done, usually with time to spare, they assemble on the platform at the front of the train and bow in unison to the passengers who are about to board. Sometimes the passengers even clap. And a few minutes later, a new train arrives, and this is repeated for each of the 120 to 170 Shinkansen trains that depart Tokyo every single day. It’s amazing to watch, and a few years ago CNN picked up the story, and the whole world was, quite rightly. impressed. However, the CNN story focused on how Japanese employees are so efficient and take pride in their work. And that’s not quite true. I mean, these employees clearly are, and Japanese workers certainly can be dedicated and efficient, but anyone who tells you that Japanese employees are just naturally dutiful and efficient has clearly never had to manage Japanese staff. In fact, even in this celebrated case, it was not always so. This is a relatively recent development, and looking at the innovations that began in 2005 can also tell us a bit about where the gig-economy is headed and the kind of innovation that Japan can bring to the world. The Making of a Miracle The company responsible for the seven-minute miracle is Tessei, and in terms of corporate culture, they are about as far away from a startup as you can get. They were founded in 1952 as a cleaning subsidiary to the JR rail-monopoly and were handed over to JR East when JR was broken up in 1987. Back in 2005, both the Japanese character, and the Shinkansen schedules were very much the same as they are today, but things were not well at Tessei or in their cleaning crews. The job was considered dirty, dangerous, and dead-end, so it was hard to both recruit and retain employees. Morale was low. Performance was poor. Delays were frequent. Tessei management responded to this the way managers worldwide tend to respond to these situations. They increased training and supervision and upped the number of checks and inspections. Unsurprisingly, this had the effect of pushing morale down even further. The delays increased, and so did accidents and customer complaints. At this point, JR East sent in Teruo Yabe to take over business planning at Tessei and he began to change things. In fact, he began doing things that se

The automotive industry is closed and proprietary. But Shinpei Kato, founder and CTO of Tier IV, thinks they are going to be forced to change. Teir IV has brought together a global community of programmers and corporate partners to create the Autoware project. Tier IV's goal to develop a completely open-source software platform to drive autonomous vehicles is ambitious, and they have already completed some of the most advanced road-tests of driverless cars in Japan. Today we explore the business bottlenecks in rolling out autonomous vehicles, why open-source makes the automotive industry nervous, and why the first successful driverless car won't be what you think it will. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes Introducing Autoware and Tier IV What keeps the auto industry from adopting open source The only way a college professor can actually run a startup The challenges in building an industrial open source community How to road test driverless cars in Japan Japan’s first fully-autonomous taxi service When we will see driverless taxies as part of our everyday life The bottleneck that keeps robot-taxis from going mainstream Which autonomous vehicles we are going to see first. Tier IV's business model How open-source might be Japan's secret weapon in global AI Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Tier IV YouTube Twitter LinkedIn Check out Shinpei's personal home page Friend him on Facebook Follow him on Twitter @ShinpeiKato Connect with him on LinkedIn Learn about the Autoware Foundation The Tier IV safety report Some other media coverage of Tier IV Forbes The Japan Times Valuer Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Open-source software has completely changed how we think about operating systems, networking, and databases. The whole Internet basically runs on open-source software, but can a 100% open-source software power an autonomous car? Well, one Japanese founder not only thinks it can, but he's betting his company on it, and that startup has already conducted some of the most advanced road tests in Japan. Today, we sit down with Shinpei Kato, founder of autonomous driving startup Tier IV, and Shinpei is also the chairman of the Autoware Foundation, Autoware, being the open-source project to develop software for fully autonomous vehicles. With so much driverless car news coming out of the US, you might not know about what's happening in Japan, but it's pretty amazing. We talk about what's involved in road testing driverless cars in Japan some frightening things people are doing to their cars, the challenges of building an open-source platform in an industry that has historically been fiercely secretive and proprietary and why Japan's first driverless cars are not going to look anything like what you think they will. But you know, Shinpei tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview So I'm sitting here with Shinpei Kato of Tier IV who is developing an autonomous driving software, so thanks so much for sitting down with us. Shinpei: Thank you very much for inviting me to this fantastic show. Tim: Oh, it's our pleasure. Listen, before we get into the details, can you explain the relationship between Tier IV and Autoware, because the two different entities are really closely connected and like, together, they form Tier IV's business strategy. Shinpei: So I used to be at Nagoya University and I had led a project of autonomous driving where we started developing software for autonomous vehicles, so I had a lot of attention from industries that made me decide I should do startup rather than the university research. Tier IV was founded to facilitate RND of this open-source software called Autoware. Two years later, it became much more which made me decide founding Autoware community rather than using Tier IV as just one Japanese startup. The Autoware community can be composed of worldwide industry and academia, Tier IV handed over Autoware to the community. Tim: So Tier IV is started before Autoware? Shinpei: When you say Autoware, it means one is Autoware as a software project which started before Tier IV, but when you say Autoware, it can also mean Autoware Foundation as a community. This Autoware Foundation was founded after Tier IV was founded. Tim: So my understanding is that Autoware is a complete open-source platform for autonomous vehicles, but how do I put it? That's an incredibly complex set of technologies, so is Autoware really, is it a complete platform now or how much does it actually do? Shinpei: When you consider the building blocks of autonomous vehicles, it's huge, yes, as you mentioned, it's complex. Autoware stands for open-source software. I would say it's a small piece bu

Startups exist to develop new solutions to problems. But many of society's biggest problems fall outside traditional startup business models. Today we explore why that is, and how it might be changed as we sit down with Robin Lewis, co-founder of Mymizu, a startup focused on reducing plastic waste by encouraging reuse. We take a deep dive into possible monetization strategies, why startups should be better at solving social problems than non-profits, and we discuss a possible roadmap for a middle path between startups and non-profits. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The Japanese middle-ground between NGOs and for-profit startups The hidden strategy behind beach cleanup programs Mymizu’s current business model The challenge of mixing environmental and social sustainability When Tim became “The Destroyer of Dreams” The unexpected (positive ) impacts of COVID-19 Why startups should be able to do more social good than NGOs How bottled water breaks economic theory What happened to Japanese water fountains One common recycling scam in Japan A roadmap for the middle path between NGO and startup Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Mymizu Follow Mymizu on Instagram Check out Robin's personal home page Follow his blog on social sustainability Follow him on Twitter @robintlewis Connect with him on LinkedIn More about sustainability in Japan 7 Surprising Facts About Plastic in Japan Sanpo Yoshi: the Japanese business principle of success through responsibility 25 Opportunities For Volunteering and Social Good in Japan Milton Friedman's landmark NYT article on corporate responsibility Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Water, it’s one of the most common molecules in the universe and you personally are made up of about 60% water. There are a number of significant problems today that revolve around water but water is rarely the focus for startups, and today, we’re going to explore why that is and why that might be changing. Today, we sit down in a properly socially distanced matter and talk with Robin Lewis, co-founder of Mymizu. The Mymizu app enables you to find places to refill your water bottles all over Japan, and the company itself exists in a very interesting space between nonprofit and a regular for profit company. Robin and his team are already making an impact in Japan, and we have a deep dive into how startups can be a force to achieve meaningful social change. The challenges of balancing the need for revenues with staying true to your social mission, and we brainstorm about possible monetization strategies that could enable that, and also, you’ll learn something that will probably really piss you off about how recycling is done in Japan. But you know, Robin tells that story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So I’m sitting here with Robin Lewis, the co-founder of Mymizu, a water refilling app. Thanks for sitting down with me. Robin Lewis: Thanks so much for having me, Tim, I’m excited to be here. Tim: Actually, you can explain Mymizu much better than I can, so what is Mymizu exactly? Robin: Mymizu, what we’re doing is we’re on a mission to help people live more sustainably, starting with plastic bottles. We accomplish that in, I’d say, four main ways. First, we have the app which you mentioned and it’s essentially a tool where you can find 200,000 locations around the world where you can take your reusable bottle and refill that for free, and so this includes public water fountains like in train station, in parks, and so on, but also, we have this network of what we call ‘refill partners,’ this is cafes, shops, hotels, and other businesses where you can walk in, you can get your water, and then walk out. It’s that simple. Tim: So tell me about your customers on both sides, so what kind of shops are acting as these free refill stations and who are your users? Are they a particular demographic or particular age? Robin: The main businesses that are passerby refill network as we call it, it really ranges from tiny mom-and-pop stores all the way to really big brands, so it really depends, as I say, we have everything from cafés, restaurants, hotels, fitness centers, tourist information places, so there is a huge range. Tim: For the refill partners, why are they on the app? Are they hoping to get additional traffic or they're concerned about single used plastics and they want to contribute to a solution? Why are they signing up? Robin: So our pitch to the refill network partners is that it's a really simple way to contribute to the environment. It also, as you say, brings in foot traffic. It's a great way to get people through the door smelling the coffee, seeing the products, whatever it is, and that's the first step to building a new relationship wi

Personal aviation is awesome! Aviation has been a source of inspiration and a symbol of innovation since the Wright brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, to Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon, to today's dreams of colonizing Mars. Unfortunately, it's been very hard for startups to make money in aviation. Even the Wright brothers did not do particularly well in business. But things might be changing. Today we sit down and talk with Tasuku Nakai, co-founder of Tetra Aviation, and we discuss how public research incentives, support from the aerospace giants, and the changing infrastructure needs might have just tipped the balance to startups. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes How Tetra's eVTOL aircraft came to be and what it might become The steps needed to bring a new aircraft to market Why it's so difficult to innovate in aviation The main hurdle in expanding the personal aviation market Fundraising strategies and exist options for aviation startups When investing is considered "evil" in Japan Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Tetra Aviation Friend Tasuku on Facebook Connect with him on LinkedIn Follow Tetra on Twitter @Tetra_Aviation Check out a video of their prototype VTOL aircraft Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, we’re going to talk about flying cars. That’s right, flying cars. We sit down with Tasuku Nakai, co-founder of Tetra Aviation and we talk about what it takes to bring a new aircraft, especially a new personal aircraft to market, and it’s not easy. The Tetra Aircraft is an electric vertical take-off and landing, or VTOL aircraft, which they believe will form the backbone of a new aerial intercity transport system. You know, I have a real soft spot for these kinds of startups. I have a private pilot’s license and I love the idea that the age of affordable personal aircraft might almost be here. But as I mentioned, it’s hard, and as Tasuku explains, these kinds of companies don’t fit the traditional VC model for a number of reasons. We also talk about the possible business models open to aircraft startups, the release of Tetra’s new prototype, and the crazy world of experimental aircraft pilots who fly newly designed aircraft as a hobby. But you know, Tasuku tells that story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, I’m sitting here with Tasuku Nakai of Tetra Aviation who makes personal electric aircraft, so thanks for sitting down with me. Tasuku: Thanks for inviting me, Tim, and this is a really great moment to introduce myself and introduce my business. Tim: No, the pleasure’s all mine. I think what you guys are doing is really interesting and I’ve had a passion for, like, aerospace startups for a long time, so actually, I mean, you can probably explain what Tetra Aviation is and what the product is better than I can. So basically, what are you building? Tasuku: We are building personal electrical VTOL aircraft, so vertical take-off and landing, so wherever you want to come, just simply ride on it and fly to the air and arrive on your destination exactly. Tim: And we’ll talk about the history later. This is kind of like the flying cars that startups have been teasing us about since the 1950s, but what you’ve built, is it considered an airplane or a helicopter, or a drone, or how is it classified? Tasuku: Well, a really difficult question about that. There’s no category anymore. There’s a lot of class, almost 50 or 60 classifications, but basically, you think it’s similar for helicopter and the drone, to combine the helicopter and drone, so I mean, the people can ride on it and also, it has a distributed propulsion system as a drone has. Tim: Actually, just today, you guys released this really cool video of the prototype. Tasuku: Mm-hmm, yes. Tim: Yeah, and we’ll put a link of that up on the site cause it’s really cool, but I’ve noticed like the prototype, the video you released still has unmanned piloting. Are you still doing unmanned or have people been able to ride it and fly it yet? Tasuku: Oh, yes, we are still doing unmanned flight for this model, and we’re building up a manned flight aircraft for next model. Tim: Okay, well, actually, let’s back up a bit. Developing a new aircraft is a lot more complex than developing a new HR system or developing new business SaaS. Tasuku: Yeah, that’s right. Tim: So what is the process? I mean, where are you in development? You’ve won several awards already for the work but where are you now and what steps do you have to take until we have people able to ride these? Tasuku: What we have to do is make a culture or some custom about riding on those kinds of aircraft, eVTOL for next transportation network, but first, what we have to do is building an actual product t

Disrupting Japan is six years old and ready to party! Unfortunately, we can't. Like so much else in 2020, this year's big, live show has been canceled, but I hope you'll make it next year. It's not all bad news, of course. There are a lot of great things happening for both Disrupting Japan and for Japanese startups. So looking back on these six years, I'd like to share some of the most important changes that are happening in Japan. Please enjoy. Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. This is our sixth-anniversary episode. Over the past six years, it’s been a Disrupting Japan tradition to have our big Disrupting Japan Live and Unleashed show on our anniversary. We get three of Japan’s startup thought-leaders on stage and invite a few hundred of our closest friends over for an evening of drinks, conversation, and just hanging out with a lot of cool people. Unfortunately, this year the coronavirus makes this impossible. So we’ll pick up that tradition again next year. What I had planned for this year’s anniversary episode was to tell you a special story about innovation at it’s best in Japan. The real story behind a video you’ve seen a dozen times on the internet and Western news media. But before that, I wanted to talk briefly about three critical things that have changed for startups in Japan and as those introductory notes became longer and more interesting, I realized I was going to have to split the show, so I’ll tell you all about that video in a future episode. Today, there is something else you should know. But before we get to that, I want to thank you. When I started Disrupting Japan six years ago, I really could not have imagined what it would become. At first, Disrupting Japan was just me sitting down and talking with my founder friends, and I guess in all the important ways, it still is just me sitting down with my friends. But Disrupting Japan has grown with Japan’s startup community. We now have around 10,000 listeners all over the world, and we’ve ranked as Japan’s #1 entrepreneurship podcast and occasionally break into the top five Japanese business podcasts as well. So after six years, I want to thank all the amazing founders who have come on the show to tell us their stories so honestly, the fans who have spread the word about the podcast in a way that online marketing never could, and to thank you, for listening. I appreciate you choosing to spend your time with me, and I work incredibly hard to make sure this show is worth your time. Looking back on six years, I want to share with you the three most important ways that Disrupting Japan has changed, and what that tells us about how things are changing for Japanese startups. Now, these aren’t the big data-driven headline numbers that you already know about. These trends are more personal, more human, and maybe in a way, more important. 1) Origin Stories During the first two years of Disrupting Japan, I would almost always ask founders about how they started their startup. Many had pretty dramatic stories. Many telling of how their wife or parents were opposed and tried to talk them out of it or force them out of it, or how they had to give up their apartment to save money meet payroll. Many founders had a family role model. A non-conformist relative who was maybe an entrepreneur themselves, or perhaps an artist or musician. Someone who believed in them when everyone else doubted. One of our founders even sold his wife’s jewelry to make payroll. Although his parting advice to me on that matter was “Tim, your startup is very important, but there are some things you should just never do.” But as long-time listeners have probably noticed, we don’t hear those kinds of origin stories anymore. When I bother to ask the question these days, the most common reply is something like “Well, I really wanted to do it, and my friends and family thought it was a good idea, so we pitched some VCs and got funding.” Which is awesome! But it does not exactly make for compelling storytelling. But that’s great, it shows the ecosystem is working, both socially and financially things are getting easier for Japanese founders. And hey, I don’t mind skipping that question. As any founder will tell you, all the real drama comes after you've raised the money. But over the past six years, the social shift has been more sweeping and important than the financial changes. Not only do we see more and more students from Japan’s top universities, Today, Keio, Waseda, founding startups, but we also see university professors starting startups, something that 20 years ago was basically forbidden for a professor to even work as an advisor to a startup. Headlines tend to focus on investment numbers, because, well, investment is important and because huge amounts of money in headlines make us pay attention. But money doesn’t crea

Bio-tech is messy because life is complicated. A lot of attention is given to computers sequencing genomes, but some of the most advanced and important work is done by studying and using other living things to make our own lives better. Kenta Yamato co-founded Kaico to commercialize a technique that uses silkworms to manufacture small-batch custom proteins. And Kico is involved with everything from veterinary medicine to Japan's search for a coronavirus vaccine. We also talk about the challenges or creating startups based on university technology and the one e-commerce model in Japan that just won't go away. I think you'll enjoy the conversation. Show Notes How to get proteins from a silkworm (It's not fun for the silkworm) Why silkworms, in particular, must be used The importance and uses of small-batch, custom proteins The start of a silkworm startup The most common (and least successful) Japanese e-commerce model Why it's so hard for Japanese universities to spin-out startups How Kaico silkworms are part of the fight against covid-19 How to scale a silkworm startup Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Kaico Friend Kenta on Facebook Connect with him on LinkedIn A Kaico video explainer Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, we're going to be talking about worms. No, no, wait, don't go, I promise this is going to be really interesting. Today, we're going to sit down and talk with Kenta Yamato of Kaico, a Kyushu-based startup that is using silkworms to rapidly produce custom small-batch innovative proteins that are used for bio-research, medicine, and they play a part in Japan's search for coronavirus vaccine. It's a fascinating process but admittedly one that's not particularly fun for the silkworms themselves. We also talk about the most popular and most unsuccessful e-commerce business model in Japan, the challenges Japanese universities in spinning out startups, and we even cover some practical solutions to that problem. But you know, Kenta tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So I'm sitting here with Kenta Yamato of Kaico, a company that uses silkworm to produce specific protein used in medical tests and vaccine, and thank you for sitting down with me. Kenta: Yes, thank you for me and I have a very pleasure to explain our company's story. Yeah, thank you very much. Tim: It's great to have you on the show. I tried to explain very briefly what Kaico does, but I think you can explain it a lot better than I can, so at like a high level, what does Kaico do? Kenta: We started Kaico two years ago in 2018. Kaiko means silkworm in English. Maybe you know silkworm can make silk for clothes, but we will use this kaiko silkworm for making proteins. We are a startup company from Kyushu University and our products are many proteins, the protein the other companies cannot make because it is difficult to make it. We make this protein by silkworm. Tim: So if I understand the basic process, you inject the silkworm with a virus containing the target gene, and then it makes the proteins as part of its silk, and then you extract the proteins from the silk? Kenta: No, no. First, we'll incorporate the gene of target protein into baculovirus, so this baculovirus is safe for us humans and animals, but baculovirus damage to only silkworms and we will insert this recombinant baculovirus into silkworm and their body can make the specific protein in their cell, and finally, we'll collect and purify the body liquid from the silkworm. Tim: Okay, so it's not from the silk, it's from the silkworms themselves that you extract the proteins. Kenta: Yes, we don't use silk. Tim: Okay. So why silkworm? Is there something about silkworms that makes it easy to generate proteins in this way? Kenta: Yes. Maybe other insects can make same like proteins, but silkworm is the only one insect not moved and it's very cheap. Do you know the price of a piece of silk? Tim: I have no idea. Kenta: A piece of silk a silkworm can make is $0.20 or $0.30, so very cheap, silkworm, and we can plant a huge amount of silkworm in a very narrow space. Tim: So the advantage of the silkworm isn't genetic, it's the fact that they just eat the mulberry leaves and stay put, and you can control them? Okay. Kenta: Yes, yes, it's very easy to plant silkworms. Tim: So what is the normal process for producing these kinds of proteins? Kenta: Normally, people use very huge tanks like beer tanks, silver tanks, but the silkworm is like a biologic tank, so very useful and convenient for us. Tim: So they're little bio-factories? Kenta: Yes, a bioreactor. Tim: Little bioreactors? Kenta: Yeah. Tim: So you mentioned it was cheaper to use silkworms,

We have always loved maps. Maps combine artistry and utility in a way that very few disciplines allow. But of course, it's always been a trade-off. The beautiful, ornate maps from centuries past told you where the major landmasses were, but provided little detail. And today's GPS-based maps provide an unprecedented level of accuracy but uninspiring in their presentation. Machi Takahashi, founder and CEO of Stroly, has a best-of-both world's solution. We also talk in-depth about the unique challenges facing women founders in Japan, and what can be done to make things better for everyone. It's a great discussion, and I think you will really enjoy it. Show Notes Strolling with stories: How Stroly works How to make Google Maps community-oriented How Stroly pivoted to prosperity during Covid-19 How industry will be using VR after Covid-19 ends Why corporate spinouts are so hard in Japan Why Japan has problems commercializing fundamental research The challenges female founders face in Japan How Japanese women are taught they should not really be CEOs Why Japanese startups need to think globally Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Stroly Connect with Machi on LinkedIn Women's Startup Labs Ari Hori on Disrupting Japan Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. One of the most common themes on Disrupting Japan is the intersection of tradition and high technology. Stories about what things that we’ve known and loved for generations can teach us about how we should use technology today. Now, I’m not sure how much of this is due to the fact that I personally find such startups fascinating and important, and how much of it is due to the fact that there’s something about Japanese startups and Japanese culture that encourages and appreciates these kinds of innovations. Well, today, we sit down with Machi Takahashi of Stroly and we discussed that while mobile GPS mapping is awesome, there’s something important that we’ve lost in our rapid adoption of that technology and it’s something that Stroly is bringing back. We also look into how COVID is not only changing things but changing some things for the better and how this is really a time for innovative startups to shine. And we also talk in some detail about the challenges women founders face in Japan and some simple ways to improve the situation. But you know, Machi tells that story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview. Interview Tim: I’m sitting here with Machi Takahashi, the CEO of Stroly, so thanks for sitting down with me. Machi: Thank you, Tim, for having me. Tim: Stroly makes custom maps that are overlaid onto Google Maps, but I think you can explain it a lot better than I can, so why don’t you explain briefly what Stroly is, how it works? Machi: Okay, sure. So, Stroly is our company name and also the name of our service and it means to stroll with story, so we came up with this idea to combine illustrated maps with GPS positioning while we were developing a new guide system for a theme park, and instead of choosing Google Maps, we chose to use this beautiful hand-drawn illustrated map of this theme park and we came up with this technology to combine these latitudes and longitudes on top of these illustrated maps. Tim: Okay, so when people are visiting the theme park, instead of looking at Google Maps or Apple Maps as they are wandering around the park, they would look at those kind of cute hand-drawn illustrated maps and they’d navigate on top of that? Machi: Right, exactly. So, we have this technology where we can adapt these GPS positioning on top of any kind of a map in any form so people can actually exaggerate some of the spots in the map, and then actually draw some of the spots in the map. Tim: Are most of your customers in tourism and entertainment? Machi: Yes, most of them are in tourism and also, some of them are in transportation and also in area development. Well, our platform is open, so you can start free and people can upload their maps themselves, so a lot of people who upload their maps themselves are not necessarily business customers, so they could be just some community leaders who want to show great things about their cities. But for the business users, it's mostly in the travel area. Tim: So you mentioned people can upload their own maps. How difficult is the system to use? Does it require… Machi: It's very easy. Even some people who work for, I don't know, like a library – I shouldn't say that, but I don't know – Tim: Non-programmers, non-programmers, yeah, that's right. Machi: Non-programmers, right, exactly, so it's very easy. People who draw their maps, they can upload the image of the map and they would have this correlation of positions on top of these maps, so they put some thoughts on the map and Stroly will show al

You don’t usually think of Japan’s geisha as being an industry, but it is. In fact, strictly speaking, it’s a cartel. A cartel that is now being disrupted by internet-based booking agencies and low-cost substitutes. It seems that even geisha are not immune to internet-based disintermediation. In this special interview Sayuki, Japan’s only geisha who also holds an MBA, explains the business model behind geisha. We talk about the way things used to be, the current threats that have many geisha concerned that the traditional art form and the lifestyle will not survive, and how some geisha houses are trying to adapt. This is a rare, behind the scenes look at the business of being a geisha and a chance to see how Japan’s geisha might survive and even thrive in the coming digital age. It’s a fascinating discussion, and I think you’ll enjoy it. Show Notes for Startups How Sayuki broke 100 years of tradition to become a geisha How geisha are being challenged by both the entertainment and tourism industries Changing geisha from a private art to a public one Why geisha might not survive the modern era of tourism The geisha cartel is being challenged, and why that's not good for anyone The challenge modern geisha face on social media The changes in training for the next generation of Japan's geisha Links from the Founder Sayuki's home page Follow her on twitter @sayukiofasakusa Become her patron on Patreon Follow her on Facebook Book a geisha experience Geisha Banquet in Tokyo Private Custom Shopping Tour with a Geisha Private Lunch with Sayuki Kimono Shopping Tokyo Tour [shareaholic app="share_buttons" id="7994466"] Leave a comment 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 a great Selects show for you today. We sit down and talk with Sayuki a geisha. An actual geisha. and she also holds an actual MBA from Oxford. It’s a great conversation that breaks down the business model of running a geisha house, and it's a lot more complex than you might imagine. A lot of people talk about disrupting traditional business models, but this is a truly traditional business model. And we also talk about how the Internet and social media is threatening to complexly destroy it. There are a lot of people wondering if geisha will survive this. In fact, there are a lot of geisha wondering if geisha will survive this. It’s a story involving centuries-old cartels in new turf wars, counterfeit goods knowingly being sold over the internet, and the challenge of getting maiko off their social media accounts long enough to train them. Although that last one is both a problem and a potential revenue stream. Anyway, please enjoy the conversation, and I’ve got an update for you at the end of the show. Intro Today I’ve got something really special for you. We are going to talk about the kind of business that you’ve probably never heard any details about. Today we’re going to sit down and interview Sayuki, a Geisha. And since this is Disrupting Japan, we’ll be talking about the business side of being a Geisha. We’ll look at the Geisha business model and examine how it’s being disrupted by modern technology. And believe me, it really is. Now, listeners outside Japan might not understand how special this opportunity is. Traditionally, Geisha are not really supposed to talk about their business. Geisha create the illusion of comfort, beauty, and elegance, that is unsoiled by such base things as money. But make no mistake about it; it’s an illusion. Geisha is a very serious business and Sayuki, who also has an MBA from Oxford, has agreed to sit down and walk us through it. In fact, from a business point of view, Geisha are an established cartel that are being disrupted by new technology, the internet, and tourism websites in particular, and by low-cost substitutes. And there’s a very good chance that Geisha will not survive in their traditional form. In fact, many Geisha houses are proactively trying to adapt to this new market environment. But Sayuki tells this story much better than I do, so let’s hear from our sponsor and then get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1404" info_text="Sponsored by" font_color="grey" ] Interview Tim: So today we’re sitting down with Sayuki, who is a bonafide Geisha here in Japan and we’re going to talk about the business of being a Geisha, so thanks so much for sitting down with me today. Sayuki: Thank you. Tim: First and foremost, a lot of our audience is either in Japan or knows a lot about Japan, but a lot of people don’t, so before I get started for the business can you clear up exactly what a Geisha is, what they do now, what they used to do? Sayuki: A Geisha means arts person, literally. So Geisha are traditional dancers or musicians, and most of the entertainment that we do is private entertainment. So we go to dinn

They probably mean well. They are telling you something that is easy to understand and that seems like it's true at first, but it's still a lie. I received an overwhelming response to my recent episode on success via public humiliation, and more than a few people tried to set me straight about how Japanese keigo is supposed to be used, so today I'm going to return the favor. Don't worry, this is not a Japanese lesson, at least not in the pedantic sense, but it might clear up a few of the lies you've been told, and perhaps even repeated about how honorifics are used in Japan and in Japanese business in particular. Please leave a comment because I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Show Notes Feedback on Failure How you are being lied to Why keigo is not about social status or individual respect How to insult by being polite Actually showing respect Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. While the coronavirus lockdown continues to disrupt Disrupting Japan’s production schedule, whatever stage of lockdown or reopening you might be in right now, I hope you're doing well. Today I’m going to point out something that every Japanese language textbook I have ever seen gets completely wrong. Feedback on Failure But before that, I want to thank you for all the emails and messages you sent in response to last month’s episode on how public humiliation has been my secret to success in Japan. It was a hard one to make, but it seems like it really resonated with a lot of listeners, and the feedback was really overwhelming. So, thank you for that. There was also, however, some comments about my difficulties speaking keigo and my description of it as a “mind-boggling complex protocol of honorific and humble forms whose use depends on a non-linear, three-dimensional matrix of formality, in-group out-group status, and the role you are playing in that particular interaction.“ OK. I admit I was a bit overdramatic there, but quite a few people emailed to tell me that keigo was actually quite logical and very straightforward as long as you keep in mind a few simple rules. It is something, they asserted, that can be mastered in a few years of serious study. OK. Yeah, maybe. But it’s interesting to note that all the emails telling me how easy keigo is, came from non-Japanese. Among the emails I got from my Japanese fans, only two mentioned my keigo comments at all, and they both sympathized, saying that they also make mistakes sometimes. In fact, one of them even mentioned that she can’t understand why anyone thinks rakugo is funny either. So hey, maybe it’s my sense of humor, and not my language ability that’s the problem here. But to those non-native speakers claiming keigo is simple and straightforward. Well OK, perhaps you have a gift for it. Perhaps its really clicked for you. You almost certainly have a better command of it that I do, but maybe you should consider, that just perhaps, you don’t understand it as well as you think you do. How you are being lied to In fact, I will go further than that. Every Japanese language textbook I have ever seen completely misrepresents both what keigo is and how it is used. It’s almost always defined as a “means fo showing respect to individuals with higher social status”. And that’s just wrong! It is not about showing respect to individuals and it has nothing to do with social status. Sure, that definition might be useful for people with short attention spans or who know little about Japanese society. But fortunately, Disrupting Japan listeners have proven themselves as having long attention spans and they know a thing or two about Japanese society. So let’s dig into this. If you are a non-native speaker, by the end of this short episode, I promise you’ll have a new way of looking at keigo. OK. We are going to tackle this social status nonsense first, but before that, we need to remember that Japanese culture highly values protocol and the Japanese language, naturally, reflects this. Keigo, and polite language in general, is best understood as part of this overall protocol. And just like the rules that govern behavior and speech in military protocols and diplomatic protocols, the rules for keigo are complex and sometimes kind of arbitrary, but it’s important that the protocol be followed for everyone to get along. Why keigo is not about social status or individual respect And despite what your language textbook may have told you, the part of the keigo protocol you follow is absolutely not based on social status. It is determined only by the role you are playing in that particular interaction. Let me give you an example. Let’s consider two people of radically different social status. Let’s say an unemployed construction worker and the president of a major Japanese bank. There is no question who has a higher social status here. Th

Oracle first came into Japan more than 25 years ago, but the challenges they faced and overcame then are exactly the same ones firms are facing today in executing their Japan market entry. Allen explains why Oracle needed a unique sales and marketing strategy for Japan, and how he managed to get buy-in from headquarters — even though Oracle already had a sales and marketing program that had proven fantastically successful in other markets. We also talk about how Oracle managed to negotiate a amicable exit out from their exclusive distribution agreements not just once, but twice. That’s an amazing accomplishment considering that many foreign companies have destroyed their Japanese business the first time they attempt it. But Allen, tells the story much better than I do. I think you’ll enjoy the interview. I know I did. [shareaholic app="share_buttons" id="7994466"] Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to disrupting Japan. Straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me. Update Japan is slowly opening up again. The official “unofficial” lockdown ended at the beginning of June. Restaurants, bars, and shops are reopening with a lot if plastic curtains and sheeting separating patrons and proprietors. It’s a long way from normal, but it's better than being stuck in the house. International travel is mostly shut down, but domestic travel is really picking up. It seems most of the hotels and resorts in Okinawa are already booked solid for the summer by Japanese who would normally be flying to Hawaii. And Okinawans, grateful for the business, but still nervous about the virus, have some pretty mixed feeling about that. And of course, with international travel shut down, and all the trade shows canceled, most foreign startups have put their Japan market entry plans on hold. And that’s normally a lot of activity. If you are a B2B startup you need to be looking at Japan. It can be a hard market to crack, but it’’s a lucrative one. So today, I want to re-share what is one of the most amazing Japan market-entry stories of all time. It has ambition, misdirection. drama, serious career-risk, and rock-concerts. It’s an old story, but a good one. The technologies have changed since then, but the challenges and the strategies haven’t. Intro To kick things off today, we’ll get a chance to sit down and talk with my good friend Allen Miner about the challenges Oracle faced, and overcame, when breaking into Japan. I’ll warn you in advance that this episode is longer than most, and believe me, I cut things to the bone. But there is just too much great information about how to overcome both the personal and professional challenges that foreign companies face here. I felt like I would be cheating you if I edited out any more. In fact, Allen explains how Oracle successfully maneuvered out of an exclusive distribution agreement, not only once, but two separate times. This is something that has sunk more than one foreign company here. But Allen tells the story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1411" info_text="Sponsored by" font_color="grey" ] Interview Tim: So I’m sitting down here with Allen Miner and Allen, you’ve been involved with the market entry of a lot of companies into Japan. But today I want to focus on the one that you led personally, which was Oracle Japan. So let’s back up. What was attractive about the Japanese market? What made Oracle decide that they needed to be in this country? Allen: Actually, that happened a few years before I joined Oracle. In, I believe it was 1982, Oracle was about a $5 million a year company worldwide, 5 years old as a company, and just released their first commercial version of the Oracle database software. There was quite a bit of press about, “How interesting is this relation to technology? It doesn’t require traditional programming to do data manipulation.” And the U.S. press got read by some technical geeks in Europe. And one in particular in Japan said, “This sounds really interesting. We ought to figure out if we can bring this cool new technology to Japan.” Tim: So it was a partner company pulling you in? Allen: Yeah, it was a company called Digital Computers Limited, that at the time was building DEC VAX clones. Because Oracle originally was released on the DEC VAX computer platform, the president of that company, a gentleman named Mr. Yamada had read an article about it. So this is when we reached out to Oracle and see if we can sell their software in Japan and that contact from an interested Japanese distributer was what got it all started back in 1982. Tim: Okay. Even today, I think that still a really common case. Allen: Yeah. I think it is. For companies that come into the market early, perhaps earlier than they are really ready, I think that’s the most common. It’s very common for a young company with really inter

You would expect that event-focused startups would be some of the hardest hit by the global pandemic and lockdown, and for the most part, you would be right. But Peatix is one event startup that adapted fast and is now actually thriving during the lockdown. We've talked with Taku Harada before, and if you have not done so already, you should check it out. It's a great conversation and there is no overlap with today. Today we talk about how startups can pivot and survive during the pandemic, why having too much money can be a curse for startups, and we dive into what's gone wrong with Japanese B2B SaaS startups. It's a great discussion, and I think you will really enjoy it. Show Notes How an evets company pivots during Covid-19 What makes a good online event Will people play for online events What will be the long-term behavioral changes from the lockdown The surprising secret to scaling a social network Tips for Japanese who want to run an international startup The trap of startups having too much funding What's wrong with Japan’s SaaS companies Why Japanese enterprise has too much influence on startups The importance of an ecosystem is not what you think Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Peatix Friend Taku on Facebook Follow him on twitter at @takumeister Petix on YouTube Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today we get a chance to sit down with (at a very safe social distance) with Taku Harada the founder of Peatix, and we’ll talk about how this particular event planning and booking company is not only surviving but thriving during this covid crisis. And hey, this is the very first DJ episode I’ve released, where I’ve interviewed someone over video conference. Oh, I’ve recorded a few interviews that way them before, but I’ve always found something lacking. Something impersonal and not fully connected when you talking to an image on a screen rather than a person in the same room. But this time was different. Maybe because Taku and I are old friends, or maybe just because we all, myself included, are getting more used to living our lives online. So we’ll be doing more interviews this way, at least until things return to the way they were in the before times. This is actually the second time we’ve had Taku on the show, but this is all new information, and I strongly encourage you to go listen to the other interview. It’s a great discussion about the things no one ever tells you when you first start your startup. I’ll have a link to that episode up on the site But today we are going to talk about how to build, and expand, your customer base during lockdown, some things you should know about fundraising right now, and what the hell is wrong with Japanese B2B SaaS companies. But you know Taku tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: So, I’m sitting here with Taku Harada of Peatix, the event ticketing and promotion service. Thanks for sitting down with me. Taku: It’s great to be back, I guess. We talked several years ago. It’s nice to see you again. Tim: Likewise, and we’re being very appropriately socially distanced here, you being in New York. Taku: Very much. Tim: Yeah. Yeah, actually, you were one of my very first guests on the show and that was, man, almost six years ago now. Taku: Was it six years ago? Tim: Yeah, 5 ½, six years. Times change. Taku: When was it, 2013 or so? I’m curious to find out what I had said back then, if it matches up with the way I’m thinking right now. Tim: Yeah. We finished off a bottle of wine at the old engine yard office in Tokyo. Taku: Yeah, an Ebisu, right? Tim: Yeah. Now, it was a really great interview and we’re not going to cover the same ground again today although I mean, you talk about some great stuff in terms of like founder motivation and more reasonable expectations for this journey. Taku: That would have been maybe a year and a half or maybe even close to two years after we started Peatix, I hope I’m not going to contradict myself today too much, but let’s see how it goes. Tim: Well, no, that’s actually what I’m – well, not hopefully you’re going to contradict yourself but I think this is like this really awesome chance to kind of check in and see how the predictions and strategies played out and where you had to pivot because I don’t know, there’s this big mess of like entrepreneurship being this study journey from point A to point B, and it’s nothing like that. Taku: No, no, it’s a lot of ups and downs, it’s uphill all, you have to go downhill and just go left and right, and somehow, when you look back, okay, maybe you are in a higher place than you were before. It’s never a linear straight line as you know. Tim: Yeah. Well, actually, let’s jump right into it. I mean, the biggest thing that’s coming to mind here is that as a s

I've never managed to find a direct road to success. My bio reads like a random walk down many different career paths, so I always feel unqualified to answer when people ask me for career advice. Today, however, I'd like to share one insight about doing business in Japan that I learned the hard way. If you've been through something like this, I hope you'll be able to identify with it. If you haven't, I hope you can learn something from it, and avoid it. Please share your experiences in the comments. Show Notes More life lessons from Mark the Dog Japanese fluency is an odd target What's worse than any horror movie plot? Success via humiliating failure How good does your Japanese need to be to do business in Japan? Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today I want to tell you the story about one of the most embarrassing and publicly humiliating events of my life, and something very important it taught me about doing business in Japan. Before we get to that, however, I received a lot of great feedback from the last episode on the Japanese trap of the Glorious Failure, including a number of Japanese listeners who said they really liked Taniguchi-bucho’s explanation of corporate Japan’s negative point system. (More) Advice from Mark the Dog But by far the most popular request was for pictures and more life lessons from Mark the Dog. Well, OK. I’m going to do that, but please understand that this is not a very deep well. There is only so much Mark the Dog can teach us about how we should live our lives, because after all, Mark the Dog, is … well, he’s a dog. So I’ll put a couple of pictures of Mark the Dog on the website, (Yes, he is very cute), and I’ll let you know that there is, in fact, one more thing that Mark the Dog has taught me during the ongoing lockdown. Mark being a good boy. This was my wife's idea. Meet my PA, Mark. You know how dogs get really excited every time they hear a little noise outside or see something move past the window? Or how they become nearly hysterical whenever someone rings the doorbell or comes to the door? Well, I get that now. I totally understand where dogs are coming from on this. The other week two pigeons landed on my window sill, and I got way more excited about that than I probably should have. So hey to all the world’s dogs; we're cool on the doorbell thing. No judgment here. OK, back our main story about my path to success via public humiliation. Japanese fluency is an odd target One of the things people always say when they find out I’ve been living in Japan for almost 30 years is “Wow. How good is your Japanese? You must be fluent!” I never really know how to answer that. I’m definitely not fluent. I mean, I’m not trying to be overly humble here, my Japanese is good. I manage staff in Japanese. I do sales in Japanese. I do presentations in Japanese. So it’s good. But fluent? No. Often when I try to explain a complex or abstract thought, I manage to get lost before I find my way to the verb. I can’t get into a heated argument in Japanese. And I usually don’t understand most of the jokes. My wife loves rakugo, which is a popular Japanese form of comedy storytelling. They are these long shaggy-dog stories that people find hysterical, and I can understand 100% of the story, but I can’t for the life of me see how any of it is funny. And then of course, there is keigo. The mind-boggling complex protocol of honorific and humble forms whose use depends on a complex three-dimensional matrix of formality, in-group out-group status, and the role you are playing in that particular interaction. Frankly, once I get past basic greetings and a few set phrases, I tend to screw it up pretty badly. But, as I mentioned, keigo is hard, even native Japanese speakers mess it up sometimes. Not as bad as I do obviously, but still, it’s hard, and I usually get something wrong. But the funny thing is, that seems to be OK. In Japan, you get a lot of points for just trying. People really appreciate a genuine effort to get it right even when you end up getting things very wrong. Sincere intention counts for a lot. But anyway, why so much information about my Japanese ability? Well, you need to understand that for the rest of our story to make sense. What's worse than any horror movie plot? And so, this brings us to one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. And I am not exaggerating when I say that. I literally had nightmares about this event for months afterward. So I’m sharing this hoping you can learn from my mistakes because I would not wish this experience on anyone. OK. So what happened? This was about seven years ago when I was the Japan CEO for an American software startup, and I had the chance to give a presentation at a startup and investment conference. No problem. I do presentations in Japanese all the tim

Japanese businessmen famously fear failure. But that understanding is horribly incomplete. In fact, there is one type of failure that is admired, almost sought after, in Japan. Today we take a look at the trap of the Japanese glorious failure, see how it's hurting startups, and examine our options on fixing it. Show Notes Life lessons from Mark the Dog When and why failure is feared in Japan What is a Glorious Failure, and why it is admired How the Glorious Failure is hurting Japanese startups What is (probably) the only way to fix this Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. I'm recording this episode for release on April 28, 2020. I usually try to make all Disrupting Japan content evergreen. Most of the insights you hear on Disrupting Japan about starting companies in Japan, or building a customer base, market testing, or doing business here will probably be just as valid in ten years as the day it was recorded. And in some ways, this episode is no exception. The common wisdom is that Japanese. and Japanese founders in particular, are too risk-averse and have too great a fear of failure. Well today, we are going to turn that view on its head. I’m going to explain that, in truth, Japanese founders don’t fear failure enough, and that’s hurting Japanese startups here. You know, actually, maybe I am being too pessimistic. Maybe ten years from now, you and I will listen back on this episode and laugh at how things used to be and smile when we think of how much has improved. Well, maybe. But before we start talking about why Japanese founders need to fear failure more, I want to say something about the coronavirus situation, at least as it stands in late April 2020. The world might have changed a lot since then. Tokyo is currently on official, but actually unofficial, lockdown. There are clusters of idiots in the parks, but most people seem to be taking things seriously. If you go outside, the police won’t arrest you, but they might ask you where you are going, and ask you to consider if you really need to be out. There is no real punishment or anything, but they make you feel kind of guilty, and that seems to be enough to keep most people indoors. The operations of the Disrupting Japan Studios remain largely unaffected by the shutdown, but that mostly because, Disrupting Japan Studios broadcasts from inside of my wife’s walk-in closet. The acoustics are great in here, but it can get a bit cramped. So for the past six weeks or so, I’ve been staying in the house with my wife Ami and my dog Mark. And you know, Mark the dog has taught me perhaps the most important lesson about how to deal with the corona crisis and the lockdown. Mark the dog, he doesn’t really know what’s going on. All he knows is that my wife and I are home all the time, and he’s never alone. There is always someone to lean up against, or play with, or give him some attention. Mark the dog, doesn’t worry about what might happen tomorrow, and I don’t think he really remembers what happened yesterday. But right now, at this particular moment, he knows he is with the people he loves and who care about him. And for right now, that’s pretty awesome. And believe me, Mark the dog is the happiest, most contented creature you could possibly imagine. So day-by-day, right. At this particular moment, I hope you are OK and with people you love. Anyway, let’s put Mark the dog out of the studio. We're going to talk about why Japanese founders need to fear failure more. The Failure that is Feared You’ll often hear that Japanese founders, and Japanese society in general or overly afraid of failure. And in some ways that is true. Attitudes have shifted for the better over the past few decades, but most kinds of failure here in Japan do cary a certain stigma. From not getting into the right university to not getting your first promotion to failing at your first startup. Far too often failure is viewed as a kind of permanent condition to be avoided at all costs. My very first job in Japan, and this was a long time ago, was at Fujitsu, and the section chief, Taniguchi-bucho explained promotions and failure in corporate Japan this way. “In both America and Japan promotions are based on the point system. Whoever has the most points get promoted. The big difference, however, is that in America you start at zero, and points are awarded for your successes, but in Japan, you start at zero, and points are subtracted for your failures. In Japan zero is the highest possible score.” So, in America, you succeed by succeeding, but in Japan, you succeed by not failing. This caused me endless frustration early in my career. Like most founders, I’m an optimistic, proactive, get-things-done kind of person. But there I was sitting in meeting after meeting where everyone in the room would take turns eagerly, confidently pointing out risks or pote

Almost all startup accelerators are going bankrupt and going away. Hiro Maeda, the founder of two of Japan's most successful, and most different startup incubators explains both the brief past and precarious future of startup incubators and accelerators. We talk not only about the mechanics and challenges of what it takes to make an incubator successful, but Hiro has some practical advice on when founders should consider joining an accelerator and how they can avoid the 99% of them that provide no real value. Hiro also explains why so many Japanese VCs today find investing in South East Asia more attractive than Japan, the forces behind Japan's startup boom, and what the next ten years holds for Japanese startups. Show Notes for Startups The motivation behind the founding of Open Network Labs Incubator How to measure the success of an incubator How Japanese VCs will be deploying capital in the next few years The success of Beenos's Inception Program and why they had to shut it down Why public companies have trouble with startups How to tell a good incubator from a bad one Why most incubators provide no value The coming shakeout in the incubator industry What’s driving Japan’s startup boom The future of Japanese entrepreneurship Links from the Founder Beenos Hiro's Blog Follow Hiro on Twitter @djtokyo Friend him on Facebook The SGE Facebook Page [shareaholic app="share_buttons" id="7994466"] Leave a comment Transcript from Japan Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero. Thanks for listening. I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and staying healthy during this coronavirus crisis. I honestly can’t see too much more than that, because one of the things I learned in releasing our previous episode is that the situation can change dramatically from the time I record to the time I release and then again from the time of release and the time you get a chance to listen. So about the only thing I can say right now that I know will make sense when you listen to this is that I hope you are doing OK and staying healthy; or failing that getting better. Today, I’ve got a great Selects show for, so we can sit down over a beer with Hiro Maeda, one of the most insightful Japanese VCs. This interview was recorded back in 2015. A lot has changed since then, but a surprising amount of things have not. When we first caught up with Hiro he was just about to launch his new fund, and I’ll give you an update on what happened after the show. What might be even more interesting, however, is that the predictions Hiro makes in this interview have not come true as quickly as expected, but many of them are playing themselves out in slow motion right in front of us. Intro Today, we sit down with Hiro Maeda and talk about Start-Up Accelerators. Now, Hiro is the creator of both Digital Garages, Open Network Lab and the Beenos Inception Program. These are two of Japan's best known Start-Up Acceleration Programs. Their approaches are very, very different. Naturally, we talk about both the past and the future of Start-Up Acceleration in Japan, and the critical differences between the good ones and the bad ones. What impressed me most about our conversation was Hiro's commitment to running his Accelerators just like Start-Ups. Now, we dive into the fundamental reasons behind the attraction that Japanese VCs now have for Southeast Asian Markets. As well as the reasons behind what we both see as the coming hard times for Start-Up Accelerators, and the coming good time for Japanese Start-Ups. I will let Hiro explain all of that in his own words. Let's get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1404" info_text="Sponsored by" font_color="grey" ] Interview Tim: I am sitting here with Hiro Maeda of Beenos formally. The man who found the Open Network Lab with Digital Garage. Today, we are going to talk a lot about Accelerators. Because you are a man that knows. Hiro: [laugh]. Thank you. Tim: Thanks for sitting down with us. Hiro: Thank you for having me. Tim: Let's get right into it. I am really interested in your experience and setting up and running the Digital Garage Open Network Lab Accelerator. Why don't you tell us a bit about it, and what your goals were in starting that Accelerator? Hiro: Yeah, so this was back in 2010. It was right after the Lehman Crisis. It happened in 2007, 2008, 2009 was no one was investing in start-ups in Japan. It was basically myself, Joey Ito, who is currently the Director of a MIT Media Labs, and also the Founder of Beenos, or the former Founder of Beenos Taru and then the CEO of Digital Garage. We all kind of got together, and were discussing what can we do, right? Yeah. Tim: Okay, let's back up here for a second. How did all of these people end up in the room getting together? Because that is a pretty diverse group of people r

Innovation drives society forward, but everyday competence keeps it on the road. Over the past five years, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the importance of disruptive innovation, but today I’d like to talk about the framework that allows disruptive innovation to be a net positive to society. The coronavirus pandemic has some people looking for innovation and others for stability. However, examining how Japan and the rest of the world are getting though it shows us something very important about innovation. Something that is almost always overlooked. Show Notes Life in Tokyo during the pandemic Why you don't want to cough in Singapore Why we probably can't innovate our way out of this pandemic The very real dark side of disruptive innovation Why innovation depends on everyday competence Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Things are not normal in Japan right now. Japan is one of the countries that is being been hit the hardest by the coronavirus. And the rest of the world is watching Japan because it has a modern health-care system, an active response to the virus, and a government that can be trusted to release .. reasonably accurate information about infection and mortality rates. How things play out for Japan over the next few months is quite likely how they will play out for the rest of the world over the next year. So yeah, everybody is watching Japan; as they should be. People are nervous in Japan, but things are calm and orderly. Of course, Japan tends to do calm and orderly really well. Public gatherings like graduations, business conferences, and sporting events have been canceled. As I record this, no decision has been made about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but it seems likely they’ll be postponed. Two weeks ago Sunday, I was walking back home through nearly deserted streets around Ark Hills and saw a young couple doing their wedding photography in the atrium there. Masks nervously being taken off and put back on between shots. It’s got to be a frustrating time to have had a wedding scheduled. On the business side, most large companies including Dentsu, Panasonic, Mitsubishi and of course Google as well, are either requiring or encouraging their employees to work from home. Which is good. Almost all business travel is canceled, and that’s for the best. In fact, three weeks ago when I was returning to Japan from Singapore, I coughed while walking through the airport on the way to my gate. Not like a big, sick, hacking cough, but just like a, I mean I’m a human being, and sometimes we just cough, right? A few seconds later, someone from security wearing a mask walked up to me with a heat sensor to take my temperature. He was very polite about the whole thing, and I was fine of course. It’s good to know that Singapore is taking things seriously, but FYI, don’t cough in the Singapore airport. In terms of Disrupting Japan, well, I have not been scheduling interviews for the obvious reasons, and honestly, right now most founders are focused on coronavirus countermeasures. If the situation continues, I may try video-conference interviews again, or I may do more commentary episodes. The feedback I received on my last few was overwhelmingly positive, so maybe. Today, however, I want to talk about the nature of innovation itself. You see, the coronavirus has the potential to teach us a valuable lesson about innovation. No, no. It’s not the one you think it is. It’s not the standard fare about innovation and ingenuity will get us through even humanity’s worst problems. No, it’s something a bit less on-message. But it’s an insight that is for more important, and in a way, far more reassuring than the standard trope about innovating our way out of a bad situation. Unfortunately, it’s also a lesson that I think all us innovators will completely forget the minute the coronavirus crisis has passed, and the world returns to normal. Innovation Won't Save Us The thing is, innovation is almost certainly not what is going to get us through this pandemic. Innovation is great. The ability to innovate and to widely pass on that learning is something uniquely human. We like to say that modern society is based on layers and layers of past innovation, but that is not quite correct. That leaves out something very important. These days we talk about innovation in general, and disruptive innovation in particular far too casually. In fact, over the past 20 years, the word “disruption” has been diluted to the point where it is practically lost all meaning. We frequently hear people say things like “We are disrupting the Japanese gaming industry.” when they mean that “they are competing in the Japanese gaming industry” or “Their game is for sale in the Japanese app store.” I’m not blameless here. The name of this podcast is “Disrupting Japan”, and I’ve had plenty of promising and in

Some of the most important startups are ones you never hear about. Some industries are so complex and arcane that its hard for people on the outside to understand the problems that startups are solving or the long-term gain of solving them. Freight forwarding is one of those industries. Today we talk with Taka Sato of Shippio, a startup trying to change the way freight forwarding works in Japan. We talk about the challenges involved in trying to disrupt a low-tech, low-margin industry and also the potential rewards if Shippio succeeds. We also cover some of the bight spots in Japanese entrepreneurship and talk about how one large company, in particular, has had to change their hiring practices to respond to the fact that so many of their best young employees are leaving to found startups. It's a great discussion, and I think you will really enjoy it. Show Notes What is freight forwarding and why is it important? The biggest advantage of moving from corporate life to startups Why so many startups are coming out of Mitsui The challenges of building a platform in a low-margin industry How to decide between a service-based or SaaS-based business model Why there is finally enough pain in Japan to drive change How the logistics industry reacts to new technology Why the global logistics industry is a myth The paradox of Japanese logistics quality Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Shippio Connect with Taka on LinkedIn Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. You know, there is nothing more interesting than startups in boring industries. They are the ones that are taking on entrenched interests and business convention, and because so few outside of their industry really understand what they do and the problems that they solve, they tend to get a lot less funding and a lot less media attention than consumer-facing startups. No, the startups in boring industrial B2B spaces are old school startups. They may not have the party atmosphere or the easy customer adoption, but the truth is that on average, they have the best chance of success. Today, we sit down with Taka Sato, the co-founder of Shippio, a Japanese startup trying to change the nature of the freight forwarding business in Japan, and if you're not exactly sure what freight forwarding is, don't worry, Taka explains it simply and really well at the start of our conversation. We also talk about the challenges of pivoting in a B2B space in Japan and how to balance the very real trade-offs between the scalability of offering B2B SaaS products with the stability of offering a service direct to the customer. And if you're interested in the freight forwarding industry, and by the end of this interview, I think you will be, we also talk about how the global market is likely to play out. Freight forwarding might seem like a winner take all marketplace, but Taka explains that this is probably not going to happen. Oh, the industry is going to be disrupted -- that's already happening, but it's not going to play out quite the way that Silicon Valley thinks it will. But you know, Taka tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1411" info_text="Sponsored by" font_color="grey" ] Interview Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Taka Sato of Shippio. Thanks for sitting down with me. Taka: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me today. Tim: No, it's been great. We've been trying to make this happen for a long time now. Taka: Yeah, I know, I know. Tim: I'm glad you're finally here. So, Shippio is a digital freight forwarder, but for the audience, let's explain what freight forwarding is, so let's say for example, I've got some construction equipment sitting in a factory in China, I've got to deliver it to a construction site in Japan, what happens and what does the freight forwarder do in the process? Taka: Okay, so if you want to ship your equipments from China to Japan, firstly, you need to study the regulations of China and you need to arrange trucks, warehouse, and custom clearance from China, and then ocean freight, and then when you bring it to Japan, then you need to again study the Japanese regulation and you need to pass Japanese custom clearance and you need to arrange Japanese trucking, warehouse, and everything, but freight forwarder will arrange it on behalf of you everything and they arrange everything by using foreign email or faxes. Tim: No, that makes sense, so a freight forwarder makes all the arrangements, prepares all the documents, but they don't actually own the warehouses or own the ships, or the plane. Taka: Yeah, we have access to the actual asset holders' warehouse, like planes or vessels. We arrange it on behalf of those guys. Tim: So

Most great startup ideas don’t grab your attention right away. It takes a while before the founder’s vision becomes obvious to the rest of us. On the other hand, the startups that immediately grab all the press attention often go out of business shortly after shipping their first product. Reality never seems to live up to the promise. And then there are products like Orphe. This LED-emblazoned, WiFi-connected, social-network enabled dancing shoe seems made for fluffy, flashy Facebook sharing, but only when you really dig into it, do you understand what it really is and the potential it has in the marketplace. Today we sit down with Yuya Kikukawa, founder of No New Folk Studio and the creator of the Orphe, and we talk about music, hardware financing, and why this amazing little shoe is finding early adopters in places from game designers to hospitals. It’s a great conversation, and I think you’ll really enjoy it. Show Notes The inspiration for musical shoes Why Yuya's first musical instrument attempt was a failure The biggest challenge in moving from prototype to production Orphe's technical specs How Orphe is being used in hospitals and other healthcare applications How small Japanese startups can achieve global distribution Where the next big startup opportunities in Japan will be Why most hardware startups fail Links from the Founder No New Folk Studio Hompage See Orphe in action Check out Yuya's blog Follow Yuya on Facebook Check out PocoPoco on YouTube [shareaholic app="share_buttons" id="7994466"] Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me. As expected, my new Google duties are taking a lot of my time and taking me out of Japan quite a bit. Things will be returning to normal soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to bring you a special selects show with a really interesting update. Yuya Kikukawa first sat down together a few years ago to talk about shoes, but if you listened to the last episode of Disrupting Japan you know that when you are talking about shoes you are never really talking about shoes. In this case, the shoes in question are the Orphe, and they are a combination musical instrument and social network, and yeah that will make a lot more sense when you listen to the interview. And we also talk about what defines a musical instrument, the unique challenges of Japanese hardware startups, and the nature of innovation. Oh, and I also have some news. In our conversation, Yuya and I debated a strategic decision that all hardware startups face, and just last month we finally got our answer. I’ll tell you about it in the update after the show. Intro You know, most good startups are obvious. I don’t mean that I could have had the idea before the founders did. By obvious, I mean that right away you can understand the problem the company is solving for their customers and how they’re doing it. Naturally, that makes it easier for the customers to buy. Most non-obvious startups are in reality still struggling to find the product market fit and are probably not long for this world. And then there are products like Orphe, an LED-emblazoned WiFi-connected social sharing enabled dancing shoe. Yeah, it sounds like something you would find on Indiegogo and that one time not too long ago, it was. But when I sat down with Yuya Kikukawa, founder of No New Folk Studio and the creator of the Orphe, it became clear that this was not some quirky side project or some overfunded crazy hardware startup. This was something really different. We talked about the original inspiration for the shoe and what does and does not qualify as a musical instrument and how Orphe is being used by the artistic community in Japan. But we also dive into the technology inside it, and that, well, that’s something special. That’s why this quirky little blinking shoe is starting to get used by game and UI designers, as well as hospitals and sports trainers in Japan. It’s a fascinating discussion but you know, Yuya tells the story much better than I can. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1411" info_text="Sponsored by" font_color="grey" ] Interview Tim: I’m sitting here with Yuya Kikukawa of No New Folk Studio. Thank you for sitting down with me. Yuya: Thank you for inviting. Tim: Now, you guys make Orphe which is an LED dance shoe but it’s so much more than that. Can you describe what Orphe is exactly? Yuya: Yeah. Orphe is kind of world’s first smart LED shoes. Smart means it has a computer inside of the sole, at the same time there are about 100 full color LEDs. The computer can control each pixel. So the user can change the color through the smartphone application. Tim: Okay. It’s always so hard to describe dance and visual effects on an audio podcast. Yuya: Okay. Tim: So it’s basically a dance shoe with an array of LED lights around the sole that are controlled interactivel

Today I am going to correct two big mistakes; one of my own and one of society's. I lot of listeners emailed me about the comments I made regarding how Japanese companies treat their employees and customers while they are pregnant. I got it wrong, so I would like to set the record straight. I also explain what I see as the obvious answer to the current #KuToo controversy. I realize that this puts me at serious risk of having to publish another retraction, but I think it's an important way of looking at this problem. Please enjoy, and let me know what you think. Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero, and thanks for joining me. As expected, my crazy Google travel schedule has caused me reschedule some of my interviews, but I promise that I’ll get back to talking with some of Japan’s most amazing startup founders really soon. Today, however, I want to talk about the feedback I received from my recent discussion with Miku Hirano about how pregnant women are treated at work in Japan, and specifically, about my comments in the outro of that episode. Hey, when I screw up, I have no problem admitting that I screwed up, and boy did I step in it this time. So today, I want to set the record straight on what it’s like for women working at startups and at large enterprises here in Japan. Oh yes, and we are also going to tak about shoes. And yeah, I totally understand how strange it is for a white guy to stand behind a microphone and talk about the situation women face in Japan. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first, let me explain what I got wrong, and let me set the record straight. In our conversation, Miku told the story of how supportive her clients and prospective clients had been while she was pregnant. Doing things like adjusting their schedules and coming to her office for meetings, where Japanese business protocol would require that she visit them. Both Miku and I were surprised and delighted that so many Japanese salarymen, who have a reputation for being rather sexist, voluntarily went out of their way to accommodate her and to make things just a little bit easier for her while she was expecting. In the outtro, I speculated that this outpouring of support might be because she was a startup CEO, and many of the traditional rules of Japanese business etiquette don’t seem to apply to startups, and I mused that her experience might have been very different if she had worked at a more traditional Japanese company. Well, I was wrong. I was really wrong. And in fact, I have to say that I’m pretty happy that I was wrong about this. Let me explain what happened…. After that episode aired, I received a lot of email from female listeners working at large Japanese companies who explained that both their clients and their companies made exactly the same kinds of accommodations for them when they were pregnant. And I also heard from a few senior managers and HR professionals telling me that I got it wrong. They gave me examples of how they had made a point of traveling to visit a vendor who was pregnant or broke up long meetings into multiple short ones to make things more manageable for pregnant employees or visitors. So I got it wrong. And that’s awesome! But I can’t just leave it there. I probably should, but I mean something still doesn’t fit. There is a great deal of gender discrimination in Japan. Both international organizations and Japanese NGOs consistantly rank Japan very poorly in this regard. In fact, the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report ranked Japan 110th out of 149 countries. And then there are things like Tokyo Medical University marking down girl’s scores on the entrance exams to ensure “enough” boys would get in. So how do we reconcile this seeming contradiction? The independent research showing that discrimination exists is consistent and respected, and there is no reason to doubt it, and the personal experiences of the Disrupting Japan listeners who took the time to email me are also every bit as real and I have no reason to doubt them. I asked a number of my women founder and professional friends about it and got, well let’s call it a range of opinions on the matter. On one extreme I had people tell me that the macro-research was just misleading and that Japan is quite supportive of women who really want work hard to get ahead. On the other extreme, one friend of mine concluded that this support for pregnant women was actually a subtle form of gender discrimination, explaining that the behavior was the just reenforcing the patriarchal idea that, above all else, it is a women’s job to have babies. So after carefully examining all the evidence and considering all of these opinions, I’ve come to the conclusion … That I don’t know. Now I realize that is not a satisfying answer. As a podcaster and an author, I am expected to boil things down to a simple sound-byte, or at least clear, cogent explana

There is big news for Tim and for Disrupting Japan this week. It's a very short episode, and I have no special links or show notes this time around. Please give the show a listen for the big reveal, and please accept my sincere thanks for all your support over the years. Disrupting Japan is just getting started. The best is yet to come. Leave a comment Transcript -- vintage news sounds -- This is a Disrupting Japan news flash. We are broadcasting live from Tokyo, Japan to bring you today’s breaking news. In just a few minutes from now, we will be witness to …. Hold on. Let me turn this thing off. OK. That’s better. So, this is the first episode of Disrupting Japan ever that has not been released early on a Tuesday morning Japan time, so as you might expect, something big is going on. And I wanted you to hear it from me. Because you, the Disrupting Japan listeners, are a big part of what has led to this, and as you’ll see, I think that you are going to be a big part of what’s to come. Some of you are new fans, and that’s great. The podcast keeps growing steadily every month. And some of you have been with me since the very beginning and you were with me as my ContractBeast startup went under. You were part of my Crowd-Sourcing-My-Career project. You were part of my journey to becoming Japan’s first professional podcaster, and with me when I decided to take the show non-commercial in order to work with energy startups at TEPCO. So it’s only fair that I let you know what’s coming next. I’m joining Google as the new Head of Google for Startups Japan. So what exactly does Google for Startups do? Officially, it's "Google’s initiative to help startups thrive across every corner of the world. Bringing together the best of Google's products, connections, and best practices to enable startups to build something better." And that’s, admittedly, pretty cool. In practice, however, what Google for Startups Japan will become is largely up to us. Google for Startups has different programs in different countries, and this is an amazing chance to create something unique for Japan and to make a real impact for Japanese startups. I have a lot of ideas, but I want to hear from you are well. If you are out there growing your startup in Japan, let me know what are some of the biggest challenges that you could use some help with. Or if you’ve already overcome those challenges, let me know what kind of resources and advice you wish you had access to back then. I’ll need your help to really make this work. So, what does all this mean for Disrupting Japan? Well, good things mostly. Google is being very supportive of the show, and with the audience as large and engaged as it is now, I don’t think I could stop even if I wanted to. However, my travel schedule for the next few months is absolutely crazy — even by my standards, so interviews will be hard to arrange. But we’ll make it work. I might be able to squeeze in interviews on the few days I’m in town and edit them on airplanes. Or maybe I’ll get a chance to interview Japanese founders in the countries I’ll be visiting. Or maybe I’ll bring my microphones with me, make a little pillow-fort studio in my hotel room and record some shorter solo shows on the road. I don’t know, but I’ll make it work. I haven’t missed an episode in the five and a half years since I started Disrupting Japan and I’m not going to miss one now. Format-wise, content-wise, things will return to normal in a few months. So I’m incredibly excited about this new opportunity. I mean its a chance for me to work full time with Japan’s startup founders to further develop Japan’s startup community. And that’s pretty much a dream job for me. But there is something else here, and it’s something that I don’t think anyone looking at Japan’s startups from the outside is quite ready for. You see over the past 10 years, and the past five years in particular, I’ve watched Japan’s startup ecosystem transform from a small group of innovators trying to figure out how to make things work into a dynamic and growing community of startups that are truly world-class. I mean sure, there is still a lot that Japanese startups can learn from global innovation and global startup strategy, but we are at a point now where there is also a lot that Japanese startups can teach the rest of the world. Long-time listeners know about my ongoing frustration with the foreign media coverage of Japanese startups. Far too much of it will feature a Japanese startup in an “oh this is cute and interesting” kind of way and either miss or ignore the potentially transformative ideas that underly the basic concept. There are some truly amazing things going in Japan in AI and robotics, and machine learning, and minimal UI design that are either radically different from what is happening anywhere else in the world or years ahead of it. And oh yes, you will be hearing more about the Evocative Machines project since I will now have the time

Technology is global, but ideas are local. The same IoT technology is being deployed all over the world, but a small Japanese startup might be who helps us make sense of it all. There is amazing work being done in user experience design, but most designers are operating with the contract of keeping users engaged. This is a fundamental shift from the traditional user-centered and functional design approaches. Today we sit down with Kaz Oki, founder of Mui Lab, and we talk about user design can actually improve our lives and help us disengage. We also talk about the challenges of getting VCs to invest in hardware startups, why Kyoto might be Japan's next innovation hub, and what it takes for a startup to successfully spin out of a Japanese company It's a great discussion, and I think you will really enjoy it. Show Notes How Japanese design philosophy informs user interface design How UI design got so bad Who are the early technology adopters in Japan Why VCs hesitate to invest in hardware companies How to pitch corporate management to let you spin out a startup Why you should run a Kickstarter even when you have corporate backing Why a major manufacturer decided to outsource innovative manufacturing The secret to making corporate spinouts work in Japan How to convince Japanese employees to join a spinout How to get middle-management on-board with corporate spinouts What changed in Kyoto to make it one of Japan’s best startup hubs Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Mui Lab Check out the Mui Kickstarter Keep up-to-date on the Mui Blog Check them out on Facebook Follow Kaz on Twitter @mui_labo Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. If you're a fan of Disrupting Japan, you know that I have a strong dislike for attempts to make Japan sound too exotic and this goes in both directions. On one side, we have consultants who claim that Japanese business practices are so unique, arcane, and confusing that the only way westerners can possibly understand them is by paying large sums of money to consultants such as themselves. And on the other side, of course, we have people insisting that foreigners can't really understand Japanese anime without a thorough and nuanced knowledge of Japanese language and history. It's all utter nonsense. I mean, there are differences, of course, and those differences should be acknowledged and respected, but whether an idea is coming from Japan or America, or Germany, one true measure of the value of that idea is its universality. The most important achievements might emerge out of cultural biases or sensitivities but they address something universally true, something deeply human. Today, we sit down with Kaz Oki of Mui Lab and we're going to talk about Mui's radical rethinking of how we should interact with computers and the different contexts for that interaction. The Mui itself is a tactile and visual user interface that literally fades into the furniture when you're not using it. Now, this interface is clearly informed by Japanese aesthetics. In fact, some of the deeper issues Kaz and I talked about kept bubbling up in my mind in the week following the interview, and Kaz and I are going to do a follow-up later over a couple of beers in Kyoto, but there's nothing about the Mui design that looks particularly Japanese. It's tapping into a deeper and more human design sense, and that's far more interesting. Oh, and Mui Lab also represents a very rare kind of startup, a creature far, far more rare than unicorns. Mui Lab is an innovative and successful Japanese corporate spin-out. We talk about how Kaz made that work, his valiant battles against multiple layers of middle management, and how he managed to recruit top startup talent into that company, but you know, Kaz tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1404" info_text="Sponsored by" font_color="grey" ] Interview Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Kaz Oki, the co-founder of Mui Lab, so thanks for sitting down with us. Kaz: Yeah, thank you for having us. Tim: It's great to finally have you on the show. So, Mui is a woodgrained control panel for the home but yeah, I think you can probably describe it better than I can. Kaz: Yeah, Mui is originally, the concept is coming from like, Chinese philosophy. Mui Shizen is original concept, so Mui Shizen is talking about lifestyle without intention, leading naturally. So, that concept for the coming IoT world, so IoT world at the next year, 20 billion devices will be connected to each other and it's more than the people or humans, so it's like a tremendous, like the technology is coming very soon, but we don't know what's going on yet. Tim: But you guys made really diff

Technology develops differently in Japan. While US tech giants have been grabbing artificial intelligence headlines, a business AI sector has been quietly maturing in Japan, and it is now making inroads into America. Today we sit down again with Miku Hirano, CEO of Cinnamon, and we talk about how exactly this happened. Interestingly, Cinnamon did not start out as an AI company. In fact, when Miku first came on the show, the company had just launched an innovative video-sharing service. Today, we talk about what lead to the pivot to AI and why even a great idea and a great team is no guarantee of success. We also talk about some of the changing attitudes towards startups and women in Japan, the kinds of business practices AI will never change, and Miku give some practical advice for startups going into foreign markets. It's a great discussion, and I think you will really enjoy it. Show Notes How Miku invented TikTok before TickTok and why it didn’t work How you know when its time to pivot a startup Why companies will never go digital and will always use paper Who will benefit most from AI The four categories of AI How AI will change the legal profession How japan is actually ahead of US and China in some kinds of AI What's really driving business innovation in Japan Can AI actually reduce overtime? How enterprise clients treat women founders Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Cinnamon Follow Miku on Twitter @mikuhirano Friend her on Facebook More about Cinnamon Miku's original Disrupting Japan interview Eliminating Repetitive Office Work through Disruptive AI Miku on the John Batchelor Show - Part I Miku on the John Batchelor Show - Part II Leave a comment Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, we're going to sit down and talk about artificial intelligence with Miku Hirano of Cinnamon. Now, Cinnamon is actually a great example of a successful Japanese startup pivot. When we first sat down with Miku four years ago, she had an innovative micro-video sharing company called Tuya and really, you should go back and listen to that episode. I've put a link on the show notes and it was really a good one. Anyway, Miku basically started TikTok a few years before TikTok and we talk about why things didn't work out, why even with the same idea, one startup will become a multi-billion dollar brand and the other will pivot. Of course, the pivot to AI and the rebranding to Cinnamon has led this to their current success in using AI to read and to understand common business forms. In fact, for reasons that Miku will explain during the interview, Japan is actually ahead of the US and China in the area of business AI. We'll also talk about how attitudes towards women are changing here and how Japanese men at traditional companies treat women founders, particularly women founders with children, and I think it might surprise you. I mean, it surprised me and it surprised Miku as well, But you know, Miku tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1411" info_text="Sponsored by" font_color="grey" ] Interview Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Miku Hirano of Cinnamon and it's great to have you back on the show again. Miku: Yeah, thank you so much for having me here again. Tim: Well, so much has changed since -- it was three years ago, right? Miku: Yeah, yeah, and I had a totally different business at the time. Tim: Well, not only a totally different business but you've gotten married and you've had two kids. Miku: Yeah, yeah, and at the time, I think I was living in Taiwan and now, my business is in Tokyo, so everything has changed. Tim: And so, we're not even going to cove what we talked about last time even though in the intro, I've told my listeners to go back and listen to the old show, I know some of them won't do it. Miku: So, please listen to the last audio show. Tim: Okay, so guys, listen to Miku. It was a great show. But let's just pick up where we left off because it's been a busy three years. Last time we talked, you were working on Tuya which was this great seven-second video sharing startup. So, what happened? Miku: Tuya was a video sharing app but unfortunately, that business didn't go well, so we couldn't get enough users to raise a fund, so I called the Taiwan office at the time and... Tim: Let's get back to it because I mean, the mechanics of what happened are important, but I think what's more interesting is the idea, the seven-second videos, it was a great idea. It was basically TikTok a couple of years before TikTok, and this is something that happens so often, so for example, like Uber and Lyft were not the first companies to try that business model. AirBnb certainly wasn't t

Ari Horie has always had a different approach to supporting women entrepreneurs. She doesn't talk about "empowering" women and ...

Japanese enterprises are their own worst enemy when it comes to innovation. In this live panel discussion, I talk about my experience driving innovation at TEPCO, and Ion and Jensen share their experiences running innovation labs. This panel was part of the btrax Design for Innovation event in Tokyo last week. We talk about the specific challenges that Japanese companies are facing and the strategies we've used -- with varying degrees of success -- to help overcome them. Of course, like everyone else, I always remember the most important thing to say ten minutes too late, so I've added those thoughts to the outro at the end of the podcast. It's a great conversation with four people who really care about innovation in Japan, and I think you'll enjoy it. Links from the Panel Brandon Hill (moderator) Connect on LinkedIn Follow on Twitter @BrandonKHill the btrax homepage Tim Romero (me) You've already found me here, but we can connect on LinkedIn if you like. Or follow me on Twitter @timoth3y, but my Twitter game is pretty bad Jensen Barnes Connect on LinkedIn Ion Nedelcu @frogdesign.com Check out Frog Leave a comment 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 live show for you today. I’ve gotten some great feedback on the past couple I’ve put out, so while I finish up the big solo show I’m working on about how to raise money in Japan, I thought I would bring you another live show today. But this one is a bit different. Last week, at the BTrax Design for Innovation conference, I was part of a panel where we talked about the challenges a lot of large companies face in driving innovation internally. I talk about some of the specifics from my work at TEPCO and my fellow panelists share their experience running innovation labs for Japanese enterprises. And, I’m sure you will not be surprised to learn that Japanese companies are pretty bad at innovating this way. At least so far. Most have good intentions, of course, but almost all of them are making the same core mistakes in their innovation programs. We go over a few of the big ones in our conversation, and in my comments at the end of the show, I’ll give you my closing thoughts on the problem with what I call the "innovation market." But for now, lets get right to the discussion. Interview Brandon: So let's see the topic innovation labs. So sounds really Silicon Valley, isn't it? So I like to start by getting a poll from the audience about Silicon Valley. So how many of you guys have visited Silicon Valley in the past, but few, one third maybe? I live in San Francisco and I see many Japanese companies visit Silicon Valley looking forward to some ideas or methods for innovation. And I feel like every single week there's one company visiting from Japan trying to find some ideas. However, I feel like result-wise and output wise, I haven't seen a clear results least. So I like to open up discussion here to ask your opinions about while we did some of the challenges that Japanese companies are facing when it comes to creating innovation, even though they do come to the second Valley very often. What's, what's wrong with it? What's, what, what do they need to do? Anybody JV, go ahead. Jensen: Well hi, I'm Jensen Barns. I'm from California, lived in Japan for six years. Basically opened up, well co founded the innovation lab here in Japan. Been active in many institutions and I kind of brand myself as doing new things, always doing new. So I think the, the issue I see in this in California is Japanese key Japanese companies coming, but then not really setting with Tim has, both Ian and I have, we've talked about is like setting objectives, setting the right objectives and coming for the right reasons. As a, as someone who opened up a lab here too, it's, it's sort of a trophy to have a innovation system or innovation process within the company. And I think there's a lot of mid sized companies that could really, you know, use great, great innovation lab to prop up the brand of the institution and, and the employees without hiring, you know, expert maybe Toyota some, you know, today we heard about Yamaha Toyota, you know, I mean Honda rather. And you know, without hiring, you know, expert researchers or engineers transforming their own people more into innovation experts. Brandon: So how about the from the viewpoint of expert TEPCO Ventures yourself then? Tim: I guess should I should introduce myself a bit? I, I'm my name is Tim Romero. I'm CTO of TEPCO ventures where we work with both Japanese startups and foreign energy startups to develop new business models and energy here in Japan. Before I joined TEPCO, I've started four startups here in Japan over the last 25 years. Sold to bankrupted too. So 50/50. That's not bad as far as startups go.