We spoke with Taizo Son, during his visit to the Latitude59 conference in Tallinn last year, about creating a movement, taking Slush to Japan and how he became an entrepreneur.

What brings you to the Nordic countries so often? We often see you at Slush and now you’re here in Estonia.

The first time I visited Helsinki was about four years ago, to join Slush as one of the keynote speakers. I was so shocked that there was such a ‘hot’ event being held in such a freezing country! The atmosphere is really cool – it’s like a rock concert.

At the time, it was run by Miki Kuusi. He was a very young guy – only young guys can run such great events by themselves. At that time, there was so much Japanese media there and everybody kept asking me questions like: why do they not hold this kind of Slush events in Japan? I turned the question back to them and we all agreed that we should be introducing this kind of movement to the Asian people.

After I returned to Tokyo, I spoke to others who shared those same passions. So, I emailed Miki, suggesting that we introduce the Slush movement to Japan and other Asian countries, and inviting him to come and help launch the movement in Tokyo. Miki was excited by the idea but we had to help fund it from Japan to make it possible for Slush to come to Tokyo. That was in January and we decided to hold the event in April – such a short period of time to make it happen!

That was the beginning of my relationship with the Nordic countries. This is the first time I have visited Estonia and I’m finding it is one of the ‘hottest’ countries in the world. I don’t know why the Nordic and Baltic countries are so hot in innovation compared to other areas of the world. Perhaps it’s because the countries are small, so they have to be global from the beginning. Everyone here speaks fluent English too, so naturally, they can become international with more ease. If their mindset is global from the beginning though, then they can be very innovative, because they are always looking at the global market and how to be popular in the global market. You need to be very innovative for that.

How successful have you been with your mission to take Slush to Japan? It’s not a 15,000-person event, right?

We learned from the people at Slush that the most important thing is to create a community where we can share our passions and vision, rather than holding big events in a big venue. At the beginning, I started involving passionate people in Japan, but I found that although many people were passionate, they didn’t have any clue how to be motivated about it. Once I brought Slush to Tokyo, everybody became really excited – it ignited a fire.

Going back a little, what ignited your fire for entrepreneurship? What was the moment when you thought, ‘Hey, I have to be an entrepreneur’?

I asked a similar question to the Finnish people at Slush. They said that five or 10 years ago in Finland there was a similar situation to Japan today – big companies like Nokia were powering their world. Then all of a sudden, because the market situation changed and Nokia started to break up because of Google, Apple, Microsoft and so on, they felt that they had to do something new for their society.

In Japan, a similar thing is happening. There are so many great establishments there: Toyota, Honda, Sony and so on. Most of the time people work for a big company, but these days, even the Japanese establishments are not doing so well. Some big companies are no longer profitable, so some young designers and entrepreneurs have started thinking that they need to do something new for society.

Since Slush has such a cool atmosphere, like a rock concert or a club music event, young people are allured and attracted to it – all the entrepreneurs are such great, cool figures.