According to Taro, Japan's logistics industry is on the brink of collapse, and it's hard to argue that he's wrong.

Taro Sasaki founded Hacobu with the goal of modernizing Japan's logistics industry. He found few takers for the first few years, and then a new law changed everything.

We talk about how Japan's demographic and economic challenges, why some industries simply refuse to invest in themselves, and how to sell to them anyway.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

Why Japanese logistics is on the brink of collapse

The factors pushing demand for trucking higher in Japan

What's preventing Japan's logistics industry from modernizing

How to sell digital products to skeptical analog industries

A new Japanese law mandating business efficiency

How to bootstrap a complex application ecosystem from scratch

The huge value hiding inside Japanese logistics data

Hacobu's global expansion plans

Taro’s best advice to founders wanting to sell into traditional, blue collar industries

The importance of dreaming big -- even in Japan

Links from the Founder

Everything you ever wanted to know about Hacobu

Keep up with the latest on Hacobu [Japanese]

Hacobu's survey of 1271 Japanese truck drivers [Japanese]

Friend Taro on Facebook

Connect with him on LinkedIn

Follow him on Twitter @tarosasaki

Leave a comment

Transcript

Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan's most innovative founders and VCs.

I'm Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.

Today we are going to talk about how to drive innovation into traditional, conservative, low margin blue collar industries. Now, that might sound hard to do, but it's actually even harder than it sounds. And, you know, that's why so few startups seriously attempt it and why it's extremely profitable for the few founders who manage to get it right.

Today we sit down with Taro Sasaki, the founder of Hacobu, a startup that is finally, finally bringing digital transformation and automation to Japan's logistics industry. Taro’s constant refinement and testing of his ideal customer profile and go to market is a story that all founders can learn a lot from.

Taro and I talk about the best path for founders to take when trying to sell to industries that are resisting digitization, how a lack of regulation can sometimes actually lead to less innovation. Why the logistics market is so hard to crack globally, and the two big factors that led to Hacobu’s sudden change of fortune.

But, you know, Taro tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview

Tim: So, I am sitting here with Taro Sasaki, the founder of Hacobu, who is reinventing Trucking Logistics in Japan. So thanks for sitting down with us

Taro: Thank you too.

Tim: So, MOVO is a suite of SaaS tools that handle fleet tracking vehicle dispatch loading, unloading.  I gave a brief explanation in the intro, but I think you can explain it much better than I can. So, what is MOVO?

Taro: So, Japanese logistics infrastructure is collapsing.

Tim: What do you mean collapsing?

Taro: So, the number of truck drivers is decreasing. The government estimates that in 2030, 25% of truck driver will short to the demand.

Tim: So, what's causing it? It's a lower paying job that younger people just don't want to get into?

Taro: Yeah, yeah. That's one of the reasons. And also the business process in the infra is very outdated and very analog, there are many inefficient things going on. So, the demand for the truck driver is increasing, but actually the supply of the truck driver is decreasing. So, the gap is going to increase.

Tim: That's interesting. So, the demand for trucking is actually increasing recently?

Taro: Yes. Because of the development EC, we want to get things, for example, at the supermarket, we want the commercial goods on demand so that the suppliers have to deliver the products o...