Podcasts by Disrupting Japan: Startups and Innovation in Japan
Startups are changing Japan, and Japan is innovating in very different ways. Disrupting Japan introduces you to some of the Japanese innovators that will be household brands in a few years and explains what it’s really like to be an innovator in a society that values conformity.
Further podcasts by Tim Romero: Serial startup founder in Japan and indomitable innovator
Podcast on the topic Firmengründung
All episodes
AI’s new game-changing role in decoding mountains of EKGs from 2023-12-11T20:00:53
MedTech is one of the most challenging areas for startups to compete in, "Move fast and break things"just doesn't work in medicine. So you might be surprised to learn that there are quite a few in...
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What it takes to teach Japan Inc how to code from 2023-11-13T20:00:03
Japan wants to learn how to code. Over the past 15 years software development in Japan has changed from low-level clerical work to a mission-critical skill, and the Japanese government and industr...
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The innovative age of Shadow IT is coming to an end from 2023-10-16T20:00:38
Shadow IT has been responsible for more enterprise SaaS deployments and workflow innovation than any growth strategy of the last 15 years. And that's all about to end. Today we sit down with Yasu...
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So you want to disrupt finance? This is what it’s going to take from 2023-09-18T20:00:40
For decades (centuries, really) lending in Japan has relied on personal guarantors and introductions rather than objective credit scoring. This startup is changing that. Before starting Credit Eng...
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Legal AI will shatter your perspective on legal advice from 2023-07-24T20:00:07
The legal system is complex, hard to understand, expensive to navigate, and ripe for disruption. In the future, we will still need lawyers to help us understand the law, but it look like we are go...
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How one innovative startup is selling true bionic legs from 2023-06-26T20:00:22
Startups solve real problems. During the boom times, the media focuses on the multi-billion-dollar valuations and the mega-IPOs. But even in those times, founders are innovating in the background ...
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What happened when one Japanese startup talked about women’s sexual health from 2023-05-29T20:00:53
Some things are supposed to be only whispered about in Japan. But startups are about breaking taboos and pushing boundaries, and making the world a bit better when they do it.Today's we sit down w...
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How Japanese graffiti Is sneaking onto the blockchain from 2023-05-01T20:00:12
Graffiti is impermanent. Normally, thats a good thing, but as the global art world has begun to recognize graffiti and street art as a legitimate art form, the short-term and public nature of stre...
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What it really takes to get your product approved by NASA from 2023-04-03T20:00:27
Not many startups land their tech on the moon. Dymon has designed an autonomous lunar rover that will land near the lunar south pole later this year as part of NASA's Artemis program. Today, we s...
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The lies, myths, and secrets of Japanese UI design from 2023-03-06T20:00:52
There is a lot of hate directed at Japanese UI design. To Western eyes, it's just too busy, too dense, too confusing, too outdated, and just plain wrong. And sometimes that's true, but usually th...
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One way to unlock Japan’s broken e-commerce from 2023-02-06T20:00:27
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 intereste...
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The forgotten mistake that killed Japan’s software industry from 2023-01-09T20:00:29
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...
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The Ultimate Guide to Raising Money in Japan [Updated] from 2023-01-06T20:00:11
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 cov...
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How the police use proven AI to predict future crime from 2022-12-05T20:00:54
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 t...
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Why medical AI is taking off in SE Asia from 2022-11-07T20:00:33
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...
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The secret of humble food from expensive tech from 2022-10-10T20:00:56
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 Jap...
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The surprising things AI wants to know about your health from 2022-09-12T20:00:24
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 t...
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The $290 billion e-commerce trend you’ve never heard of from 2022-08-15T20:00:32
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 rece...
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The dangerous defect in most SaaS startups from 2022-07-11T20:00:34
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 ac...
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Will Japan’s Manga industry ever really change? from 2022-06-13T20:00:41
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 h...
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How Snack Smuggling led to millions in VC funding from 2022-05-16T20:00:03
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 t...
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The secret edge of Japan’s best SaaS startups from 2022-04-18T20:00:02
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 h...
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How do you know if your startup idea is bad? from 2022-03-21T21:46:22
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.W...
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Can Japan’s“Anti-Uber”disrupt global airport transport? from 2022-02-14T20:00:44
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...
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What three-card monte can teach you about NFTs from 2022-01-17T20:00:06
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 i...
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Passion alone can’t make cars fly from 2021-12-20T20:00:16
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.T...
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But what if your data is too big for the Cloud? from 2021-11-22T20:00:26
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, an...
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DJ Selects: How Government Money is Hurting Japanese Startups from 2021-10-25T20:00:37
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 convinc...
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This disruptive tech started with a dance move from 2021-09-27T20:00:06
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 conversat...
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The Future of Disrupting Japan from 2021-08-30T20:00:23
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. To...
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The new era of Evocative Machines. Why you’re going to love it. from 2021-07-26T20:00:22
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. N...
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Why the robot uprising will give us Robot Pets, not Robot Masters from 2021-06-28T20:00:01
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.Kanam...
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One way that AI is transforming family farms from 2021-05-31T20:00:44
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 e...
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What you can learn from this“PoopTech”startup from 2021-05-03T20:00:29
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 ...
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Instagram for skin disease? Wait, this could work! from 2021-04-05T20:00:42
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 fr...
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So, your startup wants to play in Japan’s Regulatory Sandbox? from 2021-03-01T20:00:22
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 innovatio...
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Why people are afraid to trust AI. And how to fix it from 2021-02-01T20:00:43
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 ...
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What you can learn from Japan’s seven-minute miracle from 2021-01-04T20:00:23
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 Jap...
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This startup built the first open-source driverless car from 2020-12-07T20:00:34
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 pr...
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Why startups should be better than charities at solving social problems from 2020-11-09T20:00:21
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 cha...
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The Dream of Flying Cars meets the Truth of Aviation Startups from 2020-10-12T20:00:09
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...
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What’s really changed after six years of Disrupting Japan from 2020-09-14T20:00:29
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 n...
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How this silkworm startup is taking on the pandemic from 2020-08-31T20:00:46
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 liv...
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Reinventing online maps to focus on community from 2020-08-17T20:00:58
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 t...
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Selects: Why Japan’s Geisha are disappearing in the social media age from 2020-08-03T20:00:16
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...
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Your Japanese textbooks are lying to you from 2020-07-06T20:00:48
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 ep...
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DJ Selects: Why startups lose control of their sales channels, and how to fix it–Allen Miner–Oracle from 2020-06-22T20:00:39
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 e...
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What makes people pay for new online events from 2020-06-08T20:00:55
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 a...
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Why public humiliation is the secret to success from 2020-05-25T20:00:45
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. ...
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The Japanese Trap of the Glorious Failure from 2020-04-27T20:00:46
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 loo...
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DJ Selects: Why Your Startup Accelerator is Going to Disappear from 2020-03-30T20:00:16
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...
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One important lesson startups will forget after the panic from 2020-03-16T20:00:53
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 toda...
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Why boring startups are actually the most interesting from 2020-03-02T20:00:27
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 so...
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DJ Selects: How this Musical Shoe is Helping Hospitals from 2020-02-17T20:00:08
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 ...
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Why Japan’s #KuToo is Not Really About Shoes from 2020-02-03T20:00:47
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...
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Big News for Disrupting Japan!–Japan Startup News from 2020-01-21T11:30:07
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 revea...
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How Japan’s forgotten past can stop IoT’s dystopian future from 2019-12-23T20:00:45
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 ...
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Japan leads the world in this one important branch of AI from 2019-12-09T20:00:17
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 i...
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DJ Selects: Why Men Need Women Founders from 2019-11-25T20:00:06
Ari Horie has always had a different approach to supporting women entrepreneurs. She doesn't talk about"empowering"women and ...
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The big reason Japanese companies can’t innovate from 2019-11-11T20:00:06
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 ex...
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The hardest thing about hardware startups : Live from CEATEC from 2019-10-28T20:00:29
This year at CEATEC, I worked with Plug&Play Japan to bring on stage founders from two very different hardware startups. We talk in-depth about what it takes to be a hardware startup in a world wh...
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Artificial Intelligence’s broken promise and its secret truth from 2019-10-14T20:00:18
The promise of AI is easily understood by anyone with an imagination, and for 40 years, venture capitalists have been enthusiastically investing in that promise. However, it's been significantly h...
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DJ Selects: A Japanese MBA Does Not Mean What You Think It Means from 2019-09-30T20:00:06
Education is very hard to disrupt. That’s both good and bad. Education is so important to both individuals and society, it should not be changed on a whim, but over time it seems that our institut...
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How scammers are using your devices to steal money from 2019-09-16T20:00:21
Ad-fraud is one of the most profitable activities for organized crime today. The scammers are sophisticated, disciplined, and numerous, and they might be using your IoT devices to rip people off. ...
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These robots are changing cooking forever. But one thing will never change from 2019-09-02T20:00:56
The robotics ecosystem in Japan is amazing. And confusing. It's a collection of crazy ideas, odd creations, and true breakthroughs. And despite the combination of fawning prise and snide skepticis...
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Outside of the Bubble with Japan’s Startup Girls: Mone Kamishiraishi from 2019-08-19T20:00:45
Those of us who spend our lives working with startups live in a bubble. Whether you spend your days programming at a startup or investing in new ventures, you and I see things differently than “nor...
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Live from Stanford: Where are Japan’s Unicorns? from 2019-08-12T20:00:17
I’ve got a special bonus episode for you this week. Last month I was part of a panel discussion hosted by Stanford University and the Japan Society of Northern California. It was part of this year...
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DJ Selects: IoT, Japan, and the Uncertain Future of Poop from 2019-08-05T20:00:30
Startup founders claiming their company is going to “change the world” has become a cliche. But rarely do we see a product that could clearly and significantly make someone’s life better. D-Free is...
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How Government Money is Hurting Japanese Startups from 2019-07-22T20:00:49
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 convinc...
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What You Need to Know to Raise Money in Japan from 2019-07-08T20:00:47
Startups and venture capital work differently in Japan. The rounds are smaller, the priorities distinct, and while the same terms are used, people quickly discover that the definitions are often s...
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DJ Selects: The Myth of the Successful Startup Failure from 2019-06-24T20:00:33
Startup culture has crazy and contradictory views about failure. As founders we are told to fail fast, but also to never give up. We are told to follow our vision, but be ready to pivot. Somehow t...
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Live: What You Need to Know to Work at a Startup in Japan from 2019-06-17T20:00:14
I’ve got a special bonus episode for you today. Last month, I moderated a panel discussion at Coral Capital’s “Bilingual’s and Gaijin in Startups” event.'Our panel focused on what foreigners shoul...
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The Unexpected Profit Plan for Emotional Computing from 2019-06-10T20:00:08
The idea of computers capable of reading our emotions and responding to them is both fascinating and terrifying. Will this technology serve us or manipulate us? Well, the speculation is ending bec...
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Why Your New Smart-Home Won’t Really Belong to You from 2019-05-27T20:00:40
We've been talking about smart homes and smart cities for a long time. However, it turns out that we are not willing to pay very much for simple convenience, so the technology is coming into our h...
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DJ Selects: What You Need to Know To Sell Services (and Saas) in Japan from 2019-05-13T22:07:24
Selling services in Japan is very different than selling products or software. Everyone knows that relationships are important in Japan, but not many people understand why they are so important, a...
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How I Made $8,000 per Month Podcasting, and Why You Probably Don’t Want To from 2019-04-29T20:00:08
This is a rather personal episode. We have no guests this time. It’s just you and me.New listeners might not know that for about one year, Disrupting Japan was sponsored and was my primary source ...
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Why Wind and Solar Energy Make Sense in Japan from 2019-04-15T20:00:45
The promise of renewable energy has always been alluring. Now that the technology has caught up to the promise, record amounts of wind and solar are coming onto the grid both in Japan and throughou...
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The true reason for Japan’s critical developer shortage from 2019-04-01T20:00:23
It's a great time to be a programmer in Japan. Everyone is hiring and there simply is not enough talent available. But why is that?The truth is that until about 10 years ago, programming was consi...
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DJ Selects: How to Sell Without Salesmen in Japan–Daisuke Sasaki from 2019-03-18T20:00:05
Corporate accounting is not usually the first thing the comes to mind when you think of disruptive technology, and for the most part, that’s a good thing. Daisuke Sasaki of Freee, however, is chang...
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Silicon Valley has Chatbots all Wrong. Here’s How They Really Make Money. from 2019-03-04T20:00:05
A few years ago, shiny new startups were using their marketing dollars to tell the world that chatbots were going to change everything. Those marketing dollars have now been spent and most of thos...
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You need to Ignore the Worst Advice being given to Female Founders from 2019-02-18T20:00:11
Everything about employment in Japan is changing. Lifetime employment is gone. Skilled workers are discovering that they have job mobility and large Japanese companies are increasingly confused b...
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DJ Selects: The Real Reason Uber is Failing in Japan from 2019-02-04T20:00:04
Uber and Airbnb represent a new very kind of startup, one that could not have existed twenty years ago, and the very thing that make these companies so transformative in the United States ensures t...
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An Inside Look at Japan’s Curious Coding Bootcamps from 2019-01-21T20:00:08
The developed world is facing a severe programmer shortage. Around the world, coding boot camps have stepped into this gap to teach newcomers basic programming skills quickly. But in like so many ...
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Is There (Finally) a Practical Way for Foreigners to Live in Japan? from 2019-01-07T20:00:41
For decades, Japan has been struggling with the economic need to attract more foreign residents to the country and the general social reluctance to do so. Over the years there have been some well-...
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DJ Selects: Japan’s Airbnb for Satellites–InfoStellar from 2018-12-24T20:00:51
The aerospace industry has been particularly resistant to disrupting in Japan. In the rest of the world, launch vehicle and spacecraft technology has made incredible gains over the past decade, but...
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Can capitalism ever allow us a good night’s sleep? from 2018-12-10T20:00:17
There is something odd about the way we treat sleep. We understand that it is essential for good health, but we are almost ashamed when we admit that we get enough of it. We are rightfully prou...
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The Secret to Making E-Payments Work in Japan from 2018-11-19T20:00:43
Whenever you hear someone claim that the Japanese will never do something for unspecified"cultural reasons", you know there is a fortune to be made. Lu Dong is the co-founder and CEO of Japan Food...
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How a Rumor Can Destroy Your Business in Japan from 2018-10-29T20:00:56
Japanese thoughts on risk are changing, but they are changing slowly. Many people still consider failure to be a permanent condition, and that makes it hard to take risks, or in some cases even to...
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What This 330-Year-Old Company is Learning from Startups from 2018-10-15T20:00:14
The conventional wisdom is that traditional Japanese companies can't innovate. And traditionally, that's been true. Hosoo, however, might be carrying on a 1200-year-old tradition, but they are ha...
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Disrupting Japan Trailer from 2018-10-08T05:14:28
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.Twice a month, you and I will sit down meet the founders of some of ...
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Live&Unleashed–How to Run a Startup as a Foreigner in Japan from 2018-10-01T20:00:36
Disrupting Japan is four years old, so we decided to invite a few hundred movers and shakers from Tokyo’s startup community over to have few drinks and to hear three of Japan’s most successful fore...
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How Dancing Satellites from Japan Will Clean Up Outer Space from 2018-09-17T20:00:41
There are a lot of aerospace startups in Japan these days. We are seeing innovation in everything from component manufacturing to satellite constellations to literal moonshots. All of those, howev...
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The App Store for Medical Devices Is Being Tested Right Now from 2018-09-03T20:00:28
There are relatively few biotech startups in Japan. Few investors are willing to write the multi-million dollar checks and have the decades-long patience that is required to really succeed investi...
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Men and Women Watch TV Differently. Here’s how to make money from that. from 2018-08-20T20:00:47
Most of us don't actually zone out in front of the TV. In fact, we give off all kinds of clues to what we really think about the shows we are watching. Japanese startup, T-Vision Insights has come...
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Foreign Startup Founders Have Secret Advantages in Japan from 2018-08-06T20:00:04
The single most common question I get asked are variations of"How do you start a business as a foreigner in Japan?" or"What's it like to start a startup as a foreigner in Japan?"It's always been a...
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How Japan’s Unique Relationship with Robots is About to Make it #1 Again from 2018-07-23T20:00:07
Japan had been a global leader in robotics for decades, but recently the traditional Japanese leaders have been losing ground to the better-funded and better-publicized firms coming out of America ...
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What They Never Teach You in Language School–Peter Galante Japanese Pod 101 from 2018-07-09T20:00:22
Twenty years ago, we all thought that starting a startup required a special and rare kind of talent. It was something you either had or you didn't. Today, founding and running a startup is consider...
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How Japan’s evocative machines are quietly creating new startup unicorns from 2018-06-25T20:00:35
This is a rather personal episode. We have no guests this time. It’s just you and me.Today, rather than diving deep into a specific aspect of startups in Japan, we are going to take a hard look at...
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Japan’s Business Card Giant Explains Why Business Cards Are Disappearing from 2018-06-11T20:00:05
If you've ever done business in Japan, someone probably walked you through the intricacies of Japanese business card culture. Chika Terada, the founder of Sansan, created one of Japan's most succe...
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How to Solve Japan’s Innovation Bottleneck in Healthcare from 2018-05-28T20:00:57
Startups are changing how business is done in Japan, but medicine remains stubbornly resistant to innovation. In some ways, that's good. We are literally experimenting with peoples lives, so cauti...
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This Startup Just Built Japan’s Most Powerful Supercomputer from 2018-05-14T20:00:06
Preferred Networks is making changes in Japan. Over the past few years, this AI startup has raised more than $130M in venture funding and grown to more than 130 people.If you live outside of Japan...
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A Japanese MBA Does Not Mean What You Think It Means from 2018-04-30T20:00:33
Education is very hard to disrupt. That’s both good and bad. Education is so important to both individuals and society, it should not be changed on a whim, but over time it seems that our institut...
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This Japanese Startup Is Using Your Phone to Make Insurance Social from 2018-04-16T20:00:17
The insurance industry has proven very resistant to innovation. In fact, it has not really changed much in the past 200 years. The way insurance is sold and managed has changed, of course, but from...
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Japan’s Secret Strategy for Global Drone Domination from 2018-04-02T20:00:36
Blue Innovation attracted a lot of international attention last year when they announced the T-Frend drone system. This dystopian drone flies around offices after hours reminding staff not to wor...
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How Startups Can Attract, Retain, and Develop Staff in Japan from 2018-03-26T20:00:47
Have you ever been at a crowded and noisy party and heard a conversation across the room? You catch pieces of it, and you know it is interesting, but you can’t quite make it out and you can quite ...
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A Successful Kickstarter Campaign Almost Bankrupted This Startup from 2018-03-19T20:00:06
Hardware is hard. In fact, sometimes the simplest and most straightforward ideas turn out to be the hardest to implement.Today I’d like you to meet Kyohi Kang the founder and CEO of Atmoph. Atmoph...
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This Japanese Startup Is Bringing The Human Genome to The Mass Market from 2018-03-05T20:00:35
Right now, it looks like the most profitable business models that are emerging from the mapping of the human genome are not in the field of medicine, but in a variety of B2C business models focused...
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Japan Announces Plans to Land on The Moon by 2020 from 2018-02-19T20:00:41
We startup founders and investors like to talk about “moonshots”. It points out startups that have huge dreams, those that are solving hard problems, and those that will actually change the world i...
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Why Artificial Intelligence Is The Key to Fixing Japan’s Rigid Education System from 2018-02-05T20:00:18
Using artificial intelligence to change the way the education system works seems like a fool’s errand. When you combine the fluid and opaque nature of AI technology with the slow, bureaucratic dec...
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How Startups Can Compete In The New Energy Markets from 2018-01-22T20:00:32
The global energy markets are transforming themselves right before our eyes. Very little fundamental change has occurred over the past 70 years, but 10 years from today the Japanese and global mark...
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Why Your Freemium Strategy Might be Hurting Your Sales from 2018-01-08T20:00:07
Having a free product tier is a time-proven way for startups to get a foot in the door by giving potential customers a low-risk way of evaluating your product. However, there are times when it's e...
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What Every Foreigner Needs to Know about Hiring Staff in Japan from 2017-12-25T20:00:15
Japanese labor law is very different from what is standard in the US or Europe, and more than a few foreigners have made simple mistakes that have cost them their jobs or their entire companies. T...
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This Japan Startup Is Changing the Way Your Kids Buy Fashion from 2017-12-11T20:00:51
Japanese fashion is unique, and so is the entire Japanese fashion industry. Today I would like to introduce you to a Japanese fashion startup with a genuinely unique business model. Tsubasa Koseki...
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Why Japanese Design Is So Different&What You Should Learn from It from 2017-11-27T20:00:12
There are a lot of passionate opinions about Japanese design. From the beauty and subtlety of the best Japanese anime to the design horrors of most corporate Powerpoint presentations, Japanese desi...
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How Machine Learning Is Changing The Way We Watch Video from 2017-11-13T20:00:40
Video is taking over the internet, but in many ways, it has not changed significantly in the past 40 years. The way we discover and pay for video content has changed significantly, of course, but w...
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The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Asia from 2017-11-06T20:00:04
Today I have a special in-between episode for you. At this year's big Tech In Asia Tokyo event I moderated a panel on artificial intelligence with some of the leaders in the field in Asia. We talk...
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This Japanese Startup Beat Out NASA to Create Affordable Bio Jet Fuel from 2017-10-30T20:00:57
There is far more to startups in Japan than SaaS software and IoT hardware companies. Biotech startups are beginning to make a mark here.Today we sit down and talk with biotech pioneer Mitsuru Izu...
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The Hard Thing about Hardware Startups in Japan–Logbar from 2017-10-16T20:00:24
There’s a very good reason most Japanese hardware startups fail. Today we sit down with Takuro Yoshida CEO and founder of Logbar, and we dive into the reasons and also go over Logbar’s strategy fo...
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Live&Unleashed–Japan’s New Wave of Hardware Innovation from 2017-10-02T20:00:18
Disrupting Japan is three years old, so we decided to invite a few hundred movers and shakers from Tokyo's startup community over to have few drinks and to hear three of Japan's most successful sta...
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How You Can Prepare for Japan’s Coming Wave of Cybercrime from 2017-09-18T20:00:51
Corporate Japan is about to go through a major transition in its approach to computer security. In the past, Japan-only payment systems and the Japanese language itself provided a barrier that kept...
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Why I Turned Down $500k, Shut Down My Startup, And Joined the Enterprise from 2017-09-04T20:00:07
Welcome to our 100th show. If you are new, welcome to Disrupting Japan. If you are a long-time follower, thank you for being part of the community and helping to make Disrupting Japan what it is t...
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What You Don’t Know about Japan’s Sharing Economy–Anytimes from 2017-08-21T20:00:08
Fewer than 1% of Japanese consumers have ever purchased a product or service from a sharing economy platform. It's actually quite puzzling. Social and economic factors all seem to indicate that Ja...
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This Startup is Turning Investing into a Lifestyle Brand from 2017-08-07T20:00:53
The financial services industry in Japan is pretty unsophisticated. There are relatively few options for brokerages and mutual funds, and what options there are tend to be expensive. Furthermore, s...
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This Is Why Japanese Startups Can’t Pivot from 2017-07-31T20:00:37
Japanese enterprises are particularly susceptible to disruption, and Japanese startups have a harder time than most pivoting. Both of these problems stem from the same root, and today we are going ...
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Why Japan is Already Becoming the World’s FinTech Leader from 2017-07-24T20:00:13
FinTech in Japan is far more advanced than most outside observers imagine it to be, and based on new deregulation and government incentives, finTech in Japan is about to accelerate even more. Toda...
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Why Nerds Need to Stop Reading Tolkien from 2017-07-19T20:00:30
(Photo Credit: WurFi) This is a short and very personal episode. Things will be changing for me and for Disrupting Japan, and sometimes when you are facing a lot of big changes, it really helps to...
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How This American Got The Japanese Government to Fund His Startup–enTouch from 2017-07-17T20:00:15
Two of the most persistent and damaging myths about Japan are that it is hard to start a company here and that it is hard to do business as a foreigner. Well, those are not complete myths. Both of...
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How Micro-Retail Shops Are Changing Japan–Nokisaki from 2017-07-10T20:00:40
Japan has a long history of small shopping streets and tiny markets. In fact, despite the population density, American-style mall culture never took off here. The back streets of even the most crow...
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The Fastest Way to Start a Startup in Japan–Mobingi from 2017-07-03T20:00:04
Platform as a Service (PaaS) has been a difficult startup business model in the US, but Wayland Zheng, founder and CEO of Mobingi, has found a way to make it work in Japan. His approach involves a ...
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The Little Startup from Japan That Took Down NTT–TownWiFi from 2017-06-26T20:00:54
It’s rare for a Japanese startup to challenge NTT and come out ahead. But that’s exactly what Takehiro Ogita and his team at TownWiFi have accomplished. TownWiFi is a mobile app that automatically...
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I Was Wrong. Startups Are Not the Future of Innovation in Japan from 2017-06-19T20:00:10
This is a rather personal episode. We have no guests this time. It’s just you and me.We talk a lot about Japanese startups on this show and the role they will play in shaping Japan's economic futu...
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How this Musical Shoe Startup is Helping Hospitals–No New Folk Studio from 2017-06-12T20:00:58
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 ...
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How One Good Idea Emerged from Japan’s Nuclear Disaster–Safecast from 2017-06-05T20:00:51
After the March 2011 earthquake and the explosions at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, TEPCO and the Japanese government tried to assure us that everything was just fine. The repeatedly insisted ...
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How You Can Build American Startup Culture in Japan–OpenTable from 2017-05-29T20:00:27
Selling innovative software to conservative Japanese businesses is never easy, but it’s particularly challenging in the cutthroat and low-margin restaurant industry. Today, we sit down with Masao ...
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How This Startup Makes Money from Children’s Old Notebooks–Arcterus from 2017-05-22T20:00:27
Education is one of the hardest sectors to disrupt -- or even improve upon -- and most EdTech startups struggle. Today we sit down with Go Arai and we talk about how his company, Arcterus, is taki...
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Why Only the Uncomfortable Succeed in Japan–Jeff Sandford–Wovn.io from 2017-05-15T20:00:11
The translation and localization industry has seen some impressive innovations over the past decade, but in many ways, it has remained stubbornly resistant to change. Today we sit down and talk wi...
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Can This Founder Solve Japan’s Hidden Mental Health Problem?–Hikari Labs from 2017-05-08T20:00:01
Seeking help for even minor mental health problems still carries a stigma in Japan. This is particularly unfortunate because clinical research shows that a significant portion of Japanese adults su...
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Beneath the Cherry Blossoms with Dave McClure–500 Startups from 2017-05-01T20:00
Today we sit down with Dave McClure under the cherry blossoms and talk about startups, funding, failure Dave has long been involved in Japan and in the startup community here, and in this episode,...
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These Japanese Bio-Hackers Are Growing Affordable Meat in A Lab–Shojinmeat from 2017-04-24T20:00:22
Growing our meat in a lab or factory has been a science fiction staple for decades, but much like jetpacks, it has never quite worked out in practice -- at least not at scale. Yuki Hanyu and his te...
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How Virtual Reality is Changing Surgery in Japan–Holoeyes from 2017-04-17T20:00:29
Many VR startups are a solution is search of a problem, but Holoeyes is already in use at hospitals around Japan. Although the medical industry is one the most highly regulated, conservative and ha...
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Japan’s Laundry Folding Robot Is Taking Over Your Closet–Seven Dreamers from 2017-04-10T20:00:30
It’s often surprising to discover which problems are hard for AI. We hear stories about artificial intelligence being better than the most skilled humans at go, chess, Jeopardy, and better than man...
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How A Failing Music Startup in Japan Pivoted to Global Success–Nana from 2017-04-03T20:00:34
It’s hard to make money with music apps. The competition is intense, and most people simply are not willing to pay much for music apps; either because music is something they only do casually or be...
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The Missing Link in The Internet of Things Ecosystem–Soracom from 2017-03-27T20:00:56
Soracom is one of those rare Japanese startups that has the potential to become a major global player and to change the way Internet of Things devices work. The real deployment bottleneck in the I...
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How This Startup is Getting Japanese Moms Back to Work–Waris from 2017-03-20T20:00:13
Miwa Tanaka, CEO of Waris, is working to make things better for working women in Japan.Although things are slowly changing, most Japanese women still must leave the workforce when they have childre...
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The Real Reason Japan Can’t Innovate&What to Do About It–Xenoma from 2017-03-13T20:00:50
From the transistor radio to the Walkman to the Gameboy and the Playstation, Japan has always been both a leading force in hardware technology and a Mecca for gadget geeks. Over the past ten years...
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Japan’s Return Path to Innovation–Tim Rowe–CIC from 2017-03-06T20:00:09
There are no shortage of startup accelerators, innovation spaces and startup community hubs, and sometimes it can be difficult to put your finger on what makes one a success and another a failure. ...
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Foreign Tourism is Reinventing Hiking in Japan–Yamap from 2017-02-27T20:00:41
Hiking, back-country skiing and mountain climbing are not usually the first things associated with Japan. Japan, however, has some stunning natural beauty and Yoshihio Haruyama of Yamap is trying t...
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How to Create a Micro-Startup in Japan–Patrick McKenzie from 2017-02-20T20:00:21
More than a few people dream of coming to Japan, starting an online business that gives you financial freedom and leaves you with enough free time to study the language travel and just enjoy Japan....
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Japan’s Toys to Life is the Future of Gaming–PowerCore from 2017-02-13T20:00:22
Gaming is very different in Japan than it is in America, but PowerCore is introducing technology that could lead to major changes in both of them. Toys to Life technology blurs the distinction bet...
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What You Need to Know To Sell Services in Japan from 2017-02-06T20:00:57
Selling services in Japan is very different than selling products or software. Everyone knows that relationships are important in Japan, but not many people understand why they are so important, a...
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This Low-Tech Japan Travel Startup is Going Global–Bed&Art from 2017-01-30T20:00:02
Today we are going low-tech. Sledgehammers and paint brushes low tech. Keigo Fukugaki has started his own hotel brand, BnA, which stands for Bed&Art. It’s not a platform. It’s not an online market...
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In Japan Partnerships are a Two-Edged Sword–Doug Chuchro–Fastly from 2017-01-23T20:00:53
Sales is different in Japan. When Fastly entered the Japanese market, they quickly discovered that they had change their technology-driven bottom up sales approach to fit Japan’s top-down enterpri...
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How Japanese Startups are Breaking into Silicon Valley–Ramen Hero from 2017-01-16T20:00:56
More and more Japanese founders are moving their startups to San Francisco. It’s easy to see why. There is more venture capital, more startup know-how, and more startup energy in that city than any...
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Why Ride-Sharing is Different in Japan–Ryo Umezawa–Hailo from 2017-01-09T20:00:44
Ride sharing works differently in Japan. Hailo lost the global market-share war to Uber and Lyft, but Hailo won the battle in Japan. Today, Ryo Umezawa details Hailo’s Japan market entry strategy a...
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The Global Niche Startup Strategy–Cerevo–Iwasa Takuma from 2017-01-02T20:00:52
Cerevo wants to be a “global niche” player. That makes sense for this Internet of Things company. The IoT has become so pervasive and so successful that the terms ha become almost meaningless. Tod...
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How U.S. FinTech Stripe Broke into Low-Tech Japan–Daniel Heffernan from 2016-12-26T20:00:19
Stripe’s Japan market entry did not go according to plan. Things worked out worked out well in the end, but they did not go according to plan. Stripe is one of the world’s largest payment processi...
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How to Make Startup M&A Work in Japan–Naoki Yamada from 2016-12-19T20:00:27
Startup M&A is changing in Japan. In August, Naoki Yamada sold his startup Conyac to Rozetta for $14 million. It was an unusual journey of alternating cycles of rapid growth and near bankruptcy, a...
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Dealing with the Bad Things First–Expedia Japan–Hidemaru Sato from 2016-12-12T20:00:07
Expedia had a hard road to travel when they decided to come into Japan. The Japanese market turned out to be nothing like they had ever experienced before. Not only were consumer attitudes and beha...
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What Airbnb’s Japan Problem Can Teach Your Startup from 2016-12-05T20:00:24
This is a rather personal episode. We have no guests this time. It’s just you and me.From the outside, it looks like Airbnb is crushing it in Japan. Listings and rentals are both increasing at an ...
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How to Build a Market in Japan Without Localization–Derek Sorkin–GitHub from 2016-11-28T20:00:51
GitHub entered the Japanese market under enviable conditions. They already had a strong corporate user base, solid brand awareness and product evangelists throughout Japan. They did not so much pus...
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Will Japan’s Geisha Survive the Digital Age?–Disrupting Japan from 2016-11-21T20:00:04
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...
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How to Win Over Japanese Regulators–Jonathan Epstein–PayPal from 2016-11-14T20:00:34
FinTech is one of the hottest startup sectors right now, but if you've been in the industry for a while, you know that FinTech is always one of the hottest startup sectors. And yet FinTech companie...
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Why The Sharing Economy is Different in Japan–Spacee from 2016-11-07T20:00:33
Spacee has staked out an interesting position in the sharing economy. Spacee enables companies and individuals to rent out unused meeting room space to people who need to hold a meeting. It's an in...
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Taking Control Back from the Distributors–Allen Miner–Oracle from 2016-10-31T20:00:37
Today is the first episode off our new expanded format. From today, we’ll be covering both disruptive Japanese startups and detailed market entry case studies of global companies that are disruptin...
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Making Money in Other People’s Closets–Rie Yano from 2016-10-24T20:00:02
Material Wrld has found a way to innovate in online fashion commerce, and that’s no easy task. It’s a crowded market, with tight margins. Rie Yano and her team, however, have found success by going...
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Japan’s Airbnb for Satellites–InfoStellar from 2016-10-10T20:00:33
The aerospace industry has been particularly resistant to disrupting in Japan. In the rest of the world, launch vehicle and spacecraft technology has made incredible gains over the past decade, but...
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Startup Fundraising in Japan–Live&Unleashed from 2016-09-26T20:00:42
Disrupting Japan is two years old and ready to party. To celebrate, we gathered the leaders of Tokyo's venture capital community together in front of a live audience of made up of the thought lead...
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Brick-and-Mortar is Japan’s New E-Commerce from 2016-09-12T20:00:49
Ten years ago, everyone know that e-commence would drive most retail stores, especially specially stores out of business, and with the Amazon juggernaut plowing ahead, there were very few dissenter...
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Why AirCloset is Not Afraid of the Fashion Box Curse from 2016-08-29T20:00:41
Fashion is a tough business, and fashion subscription boxes are even tougher. From the top down, this seems like a great business model. Subscribers are sent a new, hand-picked box of clothes or ac...
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Taking Akiba Back from The Otaku–Mitsuo Hashiba from 2016-08-15T20:00:46
Long before the maker movement existed, Akihabara was world famous as a destination for hardware geeks, robotics nerds, and audiophiles and tinkerers of all kinds. Hundreds of tiny specialty shops ...
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The Real Reason Uber is Failing in Japan from 2016-08-01T20:00:35
Uber and Airbnb represent a new very kind of startup, one that could not have existed twenty years ago, and the very thing that make these companies so transformative in the United States ensures t...
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IoT and the Future of Poop–Atsushi Nakanishi from 2016-07-18T20:00:39
Startup founders claiming their company is going to “change the world” has become a cliche. But rarely do we see a product that could clearly and significantly make someone’s life better. D-Free is...
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The Business Model Behind Startup Events–Antti Sonninen from 2016-07-04T20:00:27
A key component to making a startup a success is knowing who your true customers are. Today, Antti Sonninen, the Japan CEO for Slush, one of the largest startup events in the world lays out the bus...
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The Dark Side of Japanese Crowdfunding–Ryota Matsuzaki from 2016-06-20T20:00:39
Crowdfunding is at a crossroads. The inherent conflict of interest in the business model is forcing US firms to either limit their growth or become the online equivalent of late-night infomercials....
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Crowdsourcing My Career from 2016-06-14T20:00:15
Last week I published a article on Medium about why I was shutting down my current startup. If you haven't read it yet, you can find out Why I turned down $500K, Pissed off my investors, and Shut d...
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Pivot Till It Hurts: Making Mobile Video Profitable–Pocket Supernova from 2016-06-06T20:00:28
Pocket Supernova has pivoted through three countries and three completely different products before they hit their stride with their current video editing platform for mobile, and they now seem rea...
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Japan’s Unfair Advantage in Driverless Cars–Yuki Saji from 2016-05-23T20:00:59
We are about to start seeing more cars but fewer drivers on the road. Self-driving vehicles are already moving out of the labs and onto the roads world-wide, and Yuki Saji thinks Japan has a unique...
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What’s Wrong With BioTech in Japan–Molcure from 2016-05-09T20:00:58
Japan could be, and perhaps should be, a BioTech startup powerhouse. The size of the market, the aging population and the depth and quality of the fundamental research being done here should make J...
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How a Startup Went Global in Only 4 Seconds–Miku Hirano from 2016-04-25T20:00:48
Everyone talks about the importance of international markets and how startups need to think globally from day one. Few companies, however, build that goal into their DNA as completely as Miku Hiran...
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What’s Holding FinTech Back in Japan–Paul Chapman from 2016-04-11T20:00:41
Japanese banking is one of the most conservative industries in one of the most conservative countries in the world. That’s what makes it both so difficult and so profitable to disrupt. Today, Paul...
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Winning When Everyone Tells You to Quit–Yuki Ito from 2016-03-28T20:00:45
Over the last 25 years, both Zest and Yuki Ito have been through several different incarnations. Interestingly, these incarnations perfectly mirror the changes we have seen in Japan’s startup scene...
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Japanese Startups, This Must Change Now! from 2016-03-14T20:00
Overall trends are going pretty well for startups in Japan, but things could be a lot better. One strange thing seems to be that almost everyone asking how to improve things for startup in Japan ...
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Why Gay Rights Are Good Business in Japan–Koki Hayashi from 2016-02-29T20:00:53
Koki Hayashi of Letibee is walking a difficult path by combining a startup business with social activism, but he just might pull it off. Japan is very rapidly becoming more accepting of those who a...
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The Hard Truth Behind Japan’s Cute Robots–Shunsuke Aoki from 2016-02-15T20:00:35
Japan has a long cultural fascination with human-like robots. Literature, cinema and anime are filled with them, and perhaps not surprisingly, a large number of Japanese startups are focused on mak...
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Disrupting the Final Frontier–Yuya Nakamura from 2016-02-01T20:00:25
There are not many industries more resistant to disruption than satellite and aerospace. The dominant firms thrive largely because of the massive capital requirements and strong government connecti...
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Creating Japan’s Open Internet–Kaneto Kanemoto from 2016-01-18T20:00
More than ten years before Quora and ZenDesk became famous, there was OKWave. Kaneto Kanemoto founded OKWave to address a massive problem that was unique to the Japanese internet in the mid-1990’s....
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The Happiest Company in the World–Yuka Fujii from 2016-01-04T20:00:06
Yuka considers Famarry to be the happiest company in the world, and looking at who her customers are, I think she just might be right. But behind this happy company is an aggressive plan to disrup...
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How Startup Thinking is Changing the Japanese Government–William Saito from 2015-12-21T20:00:03
It’s hard to imagine an organization more resistant to change and disruption than the government of Japan. But today’s guest, William Saito has made it his mission to bring innovation to the way th...
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The Myth of the Successful Startup Failure–Hiroshi Nagashima from 2015-12-07T20:00:52
Startup culture has crazy and contradictory views about failure. As founders we are told to fail fast, but also to never give up. We are told to follow our vision, but be ready to pivot. Somehow t...
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How Japan Can Get Her Innovation Mojo Back–Sorato Ijichi from 2015-11-23T20:00:22
Japan was once home to some of the most innovative companies on the planet, but those companies lost their innovate edge a long time ago. Today, many are betting on startups to change the course of...
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Why Japanese VCs are Losing Out–James Riney of 500 Startups from 2015-11-09T20:00:38
500 Startups has been one of the driving forces behind the utter disruption of how seed funding is done. That shift is one of the reasons we have seen such large and diverse startup ecosystems eme...
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Why Japan Will Thrive on Disruption from 2015-10-26T20:00:18
Too many things that are labeled as"cultural differences"have much simpler explanations. There are perfectly rational (and even mathematical) reasons why we have not seen a lot of entrepreneurship ...
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How to Sell Without Salesmen in Japan–Daisuke Sasaki from 2015-10-12T20:00:22
Corporate accounting is not usually the first thing the comes to mind when you think of disruptive technology, and for the most part, that’s a good thing. Daisuke Sasaki of Freee, however, is chang...
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Turning a Toy into a Data Platform–Akinori Takahagi from 2015-09-28T20:00:14
The Internet of Things is becoming so commonplace that it is almost almost invisible. About a year ago, Moff launched an extremely clever IoT toy called the Moff-band that allows kids to add sound ...
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Live&Unleashed–Our One-Year Anniversary from 2015-09-14T20:00:14
Disrupting Japan is one year old, and ready to party. To celebrate , we gathered some of the leaders of Tokyo's startup community together in front of a live audience, had a few drinks, and talked ...
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Marketing in Japan is Broken. Here’s The Fix.–Sunao Munakata from 2015-08-31T20:00
Marketing automation is new in Japan, and it’s taking a lot of Japanese companies off guard. For decades, sales in Japan have been done by armies of salarymen in navy-blue suits visiting clients an...
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Design in Japan is Different and That’s About to Change–Brandon Hill from 2015-08-17T20:00:07
Everything we thing we know about design is changing. This transformation is further advanced in America, but the seeds have already been planted in Japan and the changes are now starting to take r...
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Why Your Startup Accelerator is Going to Die–Hiro Maeda from 2015-08-03T20:00:16
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...
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Can Mario Survive Japan’s New Gaming Disruption?–Rintaro Oyaizu from 2015-07-20T20:00:51
Every 15 years, like clockwork, the Japanese gaming industry is disrupted by a new technology. The console giants were crippled by the first generation of mobile games published by companies like ...
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The High Profits of Low Tech in Japanese Startups from 2015-07-06T20:00:40
I love low-tech solutions. They are more likely to be solving real problems, and if we are being honest with ourselves, a true a minimum viable product (or business) usually does not involve cool n...
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Why Men Need Women Founders–Ari Horie from 2015-06-22T20:00:39
Ari Horie has no interest"empowering"women and sensitivity training is not in her toolkit. Ari is showing the startup world that incorporating some of the problem-solving skills and leadership tech...
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Japan’s Startup Renaissance–Creativity, Risk&Process from 2015-06-08T20:00:44
So many things that are labeled as"cultural differences"have much simpler explanations. There are perfectly rational (and even mathematical) reasons why we have not seen a lot of entrepreneurship i...
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A Startup Changes CEO: How Open is Too Open?–Gengo from 2015-05-25T20:00:46
Gengo understands the need for small-batch translation. Global communication takes place exponentially faster than the project management cycle, and understanding is way too important to be left to...
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Crowdfunding in Japan is Not About Startups–Ryotaro Nakayama from 2015-05-11T20:00:26
Makuake is one of Japan's largest crowdfunding platforms. It was spun out of CyberAgent in 2013 with Ryotaro Nakayama (or Naka as his foreign friends call him) as CEO. Crowdfunding has taken off m...
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Japan’s New Agency Model for Innovation–Yuta Inoue from 2015-04-27T20:00:12
Yuta Inoue and Quantum have developed a model to help large Japanese companies both work with innovative startups and to remember how to innovate internally. Many find it hard to believe today, but...
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From Salarymen to Freelancers–Japan’s New Economy–Koichiro Yoshida from 2015-04-13T20:00:33
Koichiro Yoshida took CrowdWorks from idea to IPO in less than three years, and today both CrowdWorks and crowd-sourcing in general are seen as essential to Japan’s future economy. Just 10 years a...
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Innovating by Asking for Help–Eiko Hashiba from 2015-03-30T20:00:12
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...
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Tea Ceremony in Blue Jeans&Startup Lessons from 2015-03-16T20:00:27
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 p...
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Bursting the Filter Bubble–SmartNews–Atsuo Fujimura from 2015-03-02T20:00:32
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 t...
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The Japan Startup Factory–Casey Wahl–Red Brick Ventures from 2015-02-16T20:00:44
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 ...
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Music, Maids&Startups in Japan–Hiroshi Asaeda–Beatrobo from 2015-02-02T20:00:41
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 rea...
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Japan’s Seeds of Disruption from 2015-01-19T20:00:44
The phrases"disruptive innovation"and"disruptive business"are thrown around far too often and far too loosely these days. Of course, at first glance, it would seem that the same charge could be lev...
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Japan’s Accidental Entrepreneur–Yusuke Takahashi from 2015-01-05T22:45:50
Yusuke epitomizes the new generation of Japanese startup founders. That means he is exactly the opposite of what most Westerners picture as a startup founder in Japan. He left a fast-track, high-s...
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The Hardest Working Slacker in Japan–Masanori Hashimoto from 2014-12-22T21:00:45
Masanori Hashimoto is the hardest woking slacker in Fukuoka. He's bootstrapped a collaborative diagramming company that is growing internationally and founded Myojyowaraku, the largest technology, ...
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The Indirect Way a Startup is Disrupting Japan–Akiko Naka–Wantedly from 2014-12-08T21:00:22
Akiko Naka is an amazing woman. When you first meet, her reserved and unassuming manner makes you wonder if she really knows how potentially transformative her ideas and her company are. As you get...
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How a Startup is Making Ticketing Pay–Taku Harada–Peatix from 2014-11-24T17:00:58
Taku walked away from the kind of a career that most people dream of. He had proven himself at Sony Music, Apple and in his late twenties he was quickly rising thought he ranks at Amazon Japan. He ...
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Breaking Open Japan’s Closed Business Culture–Tadashi Tanimoto–Realcom from 2014-11-10T17:00:34
Tadashi Tanimoto is a man with a big successes behind him and a big dream ahead of him. The IPO of Realcom was just a milestone in a longer journey to change the way people work together and share ...
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Founding a Startup as a Foreigner in Japan–Jason Winder–MakeLeaps from 2014-10-27T17:00:02
Jason came to Japan from Australia to study martial arts, and his company MakeLeaps is now kicking ass in online invoicing. Jason bootstrapped MakeLeaps himself and he and his partner, Paul Oswald ...
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What Japan’s Startup Ecosystem Needs to Grow–Ikuo Hiraishi from 2014-10-13T17:00:14
The startup ecosystems in America and Europe are built around people like Ikuo, but men like him are still quite rare in Japan. After founding a series of successful (and a few less than successful...
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Why Japan Needs to Change Its Communication Strategy from 2014-09-29T17:00:29
It was a unique combination of Naoki's adventure driving through the US, his ongoing frustration in working for a large Japanese firm, and his love of an anime character from his childhood that ins...
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Exporting Japan’s Business Card Culture–Chika Terada–Sansan from 2014-09-16T01:00:46
Business cards are far more important in Asia than they are in the West. Business cards command the same level of respect and deference as the person they belong to. Here in Japan, there are many t...
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Japan’s Coming Startup Boom from 2014-09-02T01:00:59
Far too many people, including many of the Japanese themselves, consider Japanese society as inflexible and unable to change. This is simply wrong. In this kickoff episode we look at what was beh...
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