Ventures in the East

Our guest for this episode is William Bao Bean, a general partner at SOSV, one of the most active seed investors in the world.

He manages Chinaccelerator, a global Internet accelerator focused on helping B2B start-ups enter China and Chinese start-ups expand overseas, and MOX, a mobile online accelerator. We discuss why William decided to ditch equity research for venture capital, mistakes B2B start-ups make when entering China, and Chinaccelerator and MOX's unique approach to helping start-ups find customers quick and cheap.

Our guest for this episode is Ayumu Endo, COO of Anker Japan, a leading manufacturer of affordable, high quality household hardware products. 

We cover how Anker has become so good at building quality products at cheaper prices than competitors and its unconventional decisions such as focusing on Amazon Marketplace for its primary distribution channel and spending almost nothing on marketing until its brands hit $100 million in sales.

Our guest for this episode is Koichi Tsunoda, CFO of Yappli, a B2B SaaS platform that enables Japanese companies to develop, manage and analyze apps without writing any code themselves. We discuss how Koichi decided to ditch investment banking for start-ups, how Yappli is easing the shortage of IT talent in Japan and why he courted long-term foreign investors for Yappli's IPO.

In part two of our conversation with John Woonghee Lee, founder and CEO of H2O Hospitality, we dive into the pain points H2O overcame as it grew from offering just housekeeping to all types of backend hospitality management services.  We also discuss how H2O adapted as it entered the Japanese market by hiring Japanese management who had local know-how to cultivate crucial B2B relationships and H2O’s product road map and plans for geographic expansion throughout Asia.

Our guest for this episode is John Woonghee Lee, the founder and CEO of H2O Hospitality. John shares his journey from the Cornell School of Hotel Administration to investment banking in Hong Kong to starting the largest tech-based hospitality management company in Japan and Korea. We discuss how H2O has capitalized on the exponential growth of inbound tourism to Japan and how it has expanded from housecleaning for Airbnbs to offering revenue and customer service management systems for all types of hospitality venues.

Our guest for this episode is Satoshi Yamada of 10x, a start-up that enables e-grocery services in Japan. 

Satoshi shares what drove him to move from Carlyle to 10x and what he has to learn and unlearn to succeed at his new role as CFO and head of business development of 10x. He also discusses 10x's culture of going for moonshots like signing the largest retailer in Japan as their first customer and the team's long-term ambition to expand into online pharmacy and payment services.

Our guest for this episode is Alex Shin, angel investor, former head of Global Operations at Blind, and co-founder at Hashed – a crypto venture capital fund.  

From Korean Air nut-rage to Travis Kalanick’s sudden resignation from Uber, Alex shares his story launching the US operations of Blind, a Korean start-up that operates the leading anonymous community app for the workplace.

We discussed how the South Korean venture capital landscape has been evolving and drawing lessons from Silicon Valley amidst recent success of South Korean unicorns such as Toss and Coupang.

Our guest for this episode is Jongho Joo of Woowa Brothers, the largest food delivery marketplace in Korea. 

We discuss the growth of the Korean market, what areas of the value chain he is most excited about, and differences in customer behavior across Asian markets.

Our guest for this episode is Akira Kurabayashi of DNX Ventures, who has backed some of Japan’s most successful SaaS start-ups. 

We discussed how Japanese SaaS businesses are meeting the demands of Japan's unique business culture, shifting from a mindset of profit to growth, and finally getting recognition from global investors.