Disrupting Japan

Startup founders know that going from zero to one means not only making mistakes, but also asking for help. Unfortunately, in Japan asking for help has traditionally been seen as a sign of weakness.  In both professional and personal life you are expected to be either a confident leader or an obedient follower.

Such attitudes tend to crush innovation and entrepreneurship.

One startup founder thinks she has figured out how to bypass this social stigma via spot consulting, and Eiko's not the only one who thinks she's onto something. Her customer's include some of the most conservative companies in Japan and her backers include the Japanese government.

We also talk about Eiko's transitions from housewife, to single mom, to MBA, to startup founder and her personal approach to taking risks and standing out from the crowd.

Startup founders know that going from zero to one means not only making mistakes, but also asking for help. Unfortunately, in Japan asking for help has traditionally been seen as a sign of weakness. In both professional and personal life you are expected to be either a confident leader or an obedient follower.

Such attitudes...

Investors were skeptical that combining traditional face-to-face learning with a P2P web platform would work. Over the past three years, startup founder Takashi Fujimoto of StreetAcademy has been proving them wrong. Takashi is showing Japan that the new does not have to replace the old. Sometimes the new just makes the old things even better.

StreetAcademy matches those who want to teach with those who want to learn. Local courses are offered in everything from cooking, to yoga, to foreign languages to how to best use Excel to generate a startup business plan, and three years in StreetAcademy is only just getting started.

EdTech is one of the hottest sectors for Japanese startups today, and the Japanese education system is ripe for disruption. However, there are also formidable barriers to change, and very few startup founders are willing to throw themselves against the problem head on.

On the podcast, Takashi and I discuss a possible third way forward. One that is blends the old and the new to achieve improvement in a productive, harmonious, and very Japanese way.

Investors were skeptical that combining traditional face-to-face learning with a P2P web platform would work. Over the past three years, startup founder Takashi Fujimoto of StreetAcademy has been proving them wrong. Takashi is showing Japan that the new does not have to replace the old. Sometimes the new just makes the old things even better.

One Japanese startup founder is on a mission to change not only the way we think about the news, but the way we think about each other. The "filter bubble" is a term that describes the natural, but tragic, result of search engines and news services giving us more and more of what we want. We end up seeing only information that reenforces what we already believe. Ideas that contradict our beliefs, ideas that might make us uncomfortable, and ideas we have never been exposed to get filtered out in the process of "giving us what we want."

Atsuo Fujimura and his startup team at SmartNews are working to change that. This comes as no surprise to those of us here in Japan since over the past twenty years Atsuo has launched a string of startups that have changed the news industry in Japan.

What he has in store for us this time is amazing, and with his recent international launch, he's taking it global.

One Japanese startup founder is on a mission to change not only the way we think about the news, but the way we think about each other. The "filter bubble" is a term that describes the natural, but tragic, result of search engines and news services giving us more and more of what we want. We end up seeing only information that reenforces what we already believe. Ideas that contradict our beliefs, ideas that might make us uncomfortable, and ideas we have never been exposed to get filtered out in the process of ...

Casey has been on the founding team of several Japanese startups in markets ranging from from retailing, to recruiting, to information sharing, to private social networks for pachinko parlors. Add to that the fact that he's just published a book on Japanese startup founders and their stories, and you won't be surprised to find that this turns out to be a pretty interesting discussion.

We talk about changing attitudes among both Japanese investors and entrepreneurs, and explore the desire to maintain corporate control in depth. In Casey's research, he discovered that many Japanese founders are still reluctant to give employees stock options, and many investors still seem to prefer to deal with a man who sees himself as President for Life.

Of course this is changing as more companies are founded by teams, but is it changing fast enough?

Casey has been on the founding team of several Japanese startups in markets ranging from from retailing, to recruiting, to information sharing, to private social networks for pachinko parlors. Add to that the fact that he's just published a book on Japanese startup founders and their stories, and you won't be surprised to find that this turns out to be a pretty interesting discussion.

Starting and growing companies is nothing new to Hiro. He's been doing it his whole adult life. In his younger days, he always felt caught somewhere between Japanese and American culture, never really belonging to either. Hiro found inspiration in an unlikely place; Nintendo games. They were uniquely Japanese, but universally loved and intuitively understood.

His journey so far has involved maid-themed hair salons, social music sharing, a project partnership with Linkin Park, and working with the largest concert promoter in Japan. And he's just getting started.

We talk about startup, strategies, failures, success and what's coming next for Beatrobo, startups in Japan and Japanese founders in general.

Starting and growing companies is nothing new to Hiro. He's been doing it his whole adult life. In his younger days, he always felt caught somewhere between Japanese and American culture, never really belonging to either. Hiro found inspiration in an unlikely place; Nintendo games. They were uniquely Japanese, but universally loved and intuitively understood.

His journey so far has ...