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Japan’s Stulio is a flea market app for fashionistas

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.10.02

For a while now, we’ve seen much hype around mobile flea market apps in the Japanese startup space. Many companies are eager to grab a piece of this second-hand clothing market, as we see increasing demand as people transitioning to mobile from desktop auction websites such as Yahoo Auction and Mobaoku. Stulio is a flea market app that is used by fashionistas and celebrities. Stulio is one such flea market app. It started off as a photo-sharing app, and at the end of September the company announced its jump to become a fashion e-commerce app. Users can purchase each others’ used items as well as exclusive items by popular models and celebrities. In addition to selling used clothes, the app also sells new clothes from fashion brands such as Wildfox and Moussy. The company behind Stulio is a joint venture of Enigmo, Stulio. Enigmo went public in June of last year, is the operator of Buyma. That service has 40,000 users (as of June 2013) from all over the world who can function as buyers, acting as a means to access to high-end global brands for more affordable prices than department stores. We had a chance to speak with the…

For a while now, we’ve seen much hype around mobile flea market apps in the Japanese startup space. Many companies are eager to grab a piece of this second-hand clothing market, as we see increasing demand as people transitioning to mobile from desktop auction websites such as Yahoo Auction and Mobaoku.

Stulio is a flea market app that is used by fashionistas and celebrities.

Stulio is one such flea market app. It started off as a photo-sharing app, and at the end of September the company announced its jump to become a fashion e-commerce app. Users can purchase each others’ used items as well as exclusive items by popular models and celebrities.

In addition to selling used clothes, the app also sells new clothes from fashion brands such as Wildfox and Moussy.

The company behind Stulio is a joint venture of Enigmo, Stulio. Enigmo went public in June of last year, is the operator of Buyma. That service has 40,000 users (as of June 2013) from all over the world who can function as buyers, acting as a means to access to high-end global brands for more affordable prices than department stores.

We had a chance to speak with the CEO of Stulio, Hirokuni Miyaji. He elaborates on the pivot of the app.

Stulio was initially developed by Enigmo and I took over back in July of 2012. I had always wanted to develop a flea market app so it was a great opportunity. To describe it in simple terms, Stulio is a flea market app that is used by fashionistas and celebrities.

The updated version of the app was released in September where we added official accounts by popular models and brands. What differentiates our app from other flea market apps is that the average price of sold items are around 30,000 yen to 50,000 yen which is much higher compared to other apps.

Stulio’s strategy to acquiring more users is to be active offline and to leverage a sort of Ameba-like tactic by having fashion influencers join, which then helps them reach the mainstream. The company recently opened a pop-up shop at Lafore Harajyuku where it held a renewal party with many notable guests.

Miyaji says the company is going to focus on building a fashion platform for now. But in the near future, it plans to launch its own line of fashion brand as well as expand to the wider Asian market.

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Top 5: Great Mobile Apps For New Parents

Rick Martin 2013.10.01

Having entered the ranks of fatherhood just this year, I’ve found that I’ve been experimenting with a number of applications that can help with parenting in general, as well as recording the most memorable moments of my baby’s development. As someone who lives in Japan, I’ve found myself using a mix of apps from abroad as well as a few homegrown applications. I thought I’d give a quick rundown of some of the mobile apps that have served me well so far. For any new parents out there, I highly recommend them all. 1. Notabli ¶ This is perhaps by far my most enthusiastic recommendation. Notabli is a private social network for parents with kids, letting you upload photos, short videos, and even audio updates, which are visible only to the people you want to share with. For me, that means my wife, my parents, and some close friends. It also lets you mark media as a milestone (like first tooth, first steps, etc), also another indispensable feature. There are numerous applications that I considered for photo management, but the primary reason why I chose Notabli is that it allows for full-resolution storage of photos, with the option to export…

mobile-apps-for-new-parents-620x438 — Original photo via makelessnoise on Flickr

Having entered the ranks of fatherhood just this year, I’ve found that I’ve been experimenting with a number of applications that can help with parenting in general, as well as recording the most memorable moments of my baby’s development. As someone who lives in Japan, I’ve found myself using a mix of apps from abroad as well as a few homegrown applications.

I thought I’d give a quick rundown of some of the mobile apps that have served me well so far. For any new parents out there, I highly recommend them all.

1. Notabli ¶

This is perhaps by far my most enthusiastic recommendation. Notabli is a private social network for parents with kids, letting you upload photos, short videos, and even audio updates, which are visible only to the people you want to share with. For me, that means my wife, my parents, and some close friends. It also lets you mark media as a milestone (like first tooth, first steps, etc), also another indispensable feature.

There are numerous applications that I considered for photo management, but the primary reason why I chose Notabli is that it allows for full-resolution storage of photos, with the option to export them all at any time. This data-liberation feature is the most important function, letting me periodically ensure that I have local copies of moments that I really can’t afford to lose.

This is currently available for free on the App Store, although it is a service that I would happily pay for. I really can’t emphasize enough how great this app is.

2. Road Movies ¶

Videos on the afore-mentioned Notabli are restricted to 30 seconds in length, which is perhaps my only complaint about the app. But that makes Honda’s Road Movies, which I reviewed back in August, is a wondeful complementary video app.

Road Movies lets you create 24-second composite clips (the perfect length for Notabli) by combining short 1-second, 2-second, or 3-second clips that you record during your day. For me, I typically take 3 seconds of video of my baby in various situations, and then when they are assembled in Road Movies and mixed with the license-free background music, the result is amazing.

Perhaps Honda, the app’s creator, meant for it to be used in your car while on the road, but it’s great for recording moments with family too. You can pick up this made-in-Japan app over on the App Store.

3. DayOne ¶

Taking a page from Gabe Weatherhead over at MacDrifter, who says he uses this journaling app to write letters to his daughter. I’ve begun doing the same, taking pictures and adding short notes now and then whenever I think of a message that my infant kid maybe can’t yet understand.

The app lets me write in Markdown, and syncing with Dropbox and/or iCloud assures me that my data is (relatively) safe.

It’s available for both iOS and Mac, for $4.99 and $9.99 respectively – although I have only bought the former, and that works for me just beautifully.

4. BabyCenter ¶

The folks over at BabyCenter have an assortment of great mobile apps, but the one that I’ve really found the most interesting is My Baby Today. After installing, you simply input your baby’s birthdate and it will then notify you with appropriate updates about your baby’s development.

The app has a photo album function, which I haven’t used at all. But the flow of information about caring for babies is incredibly useful for first-time parents, so I encourage you to check it out. It’s available for iOS and Android. (Thanks to D. for the recommendation!)

5. Baby Soothing Sounds ¶

You’ve all probably heard about people using white noise to sooth a crying baby. Well, this made-in-Japan app is a simple solution that gives you an assortment of white noise sounds whenever you need them. You can choose from things like hair dryer, TV static, running water, and even an unusual ramen slurping sound.

There are lots of apps like this on the market, but this one is free for iOS, and works really well. Try swaddling your baby and tucking your mobile into the folds of the blanket. It works like a charm for me, but it could be because my baby is so awesome. I’m sure your baby is cool too, but your mileage may vary.

Bonus: Nohana ¶

I’m appending this app here as a bonus, since it is not available to folks who live outside Japan. But for those of you who do live in Japan, Mixi’s Nohana app is a simply awesome. We’ve written extensively about this mobile photobook printing service as it has developed, but let me sum it up briefly:

You upload photos from your smartphone, and Nohana will send you a free photobook. That’s it. Well, there’s a minor 90 yen shipping charge (about $1), but that’s a miniscule price to pay for the book they send you. Their business model appears to be based on the hopes that you will order additional books that can be shipped to grandparents (a big demographic in Japan) for the additional cost of 500 yen (about $5).

Nohana is available for free for both iOS and Android. Seriously, if you’re a parent in Japan, this is a service you should be using.

If you have any suggested additions for this list, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments!

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Simple innovations: 5 great stationary designs from Japan

SCORE 1,171

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.09.30

The initiative to innovate and challenge the norm is not something that is limited to the tech industry. If we look to the area of design, Japan has a proud culture of evolving even the simplest of everyday items. Take a simple pen for example. You’ll be amazed by the endless number of items you can find at variety shops like Loft or Tokyu. Here are a just a few stationary items that I think are worth a look. Kezuri Cap Kezuri Cap is a pencil sharpener that works in combination with an empty plastic bottle. Waste material from sharpening fills up within the bottle, keeping your desk clean. A 500 ml PET bottle can hold the shavings of ten pencils, meaning you won’t have to change your bottle very often. Kezuri Cap comes in blue, pink, green, and yellow, and can be purchased for 315 yen, or about $3. Sarasa Clip Sarasa Clip recently released its limited edition English tea-scented pens in collaboration with Lipton. They come in ten different scents, including Apple Tea and Caramel Au Lait. They can be found in stationary stores all over Japan. Aritayaki Ballpen Aritayaki Ballpen is a beautiful pen that implements a…

The initiative to innovate and challenge the norm is not something that is limited to the tech industry. If we look to the area of design, Japan has a proud culture of evolving even the simplest of everyday items. Take a simple pen for example. You’ll be amazed by the endless number of items you can find at variety shops like Loft or Tokyu. Here are a just a few stationary items that I think are worth a look.

Kezuri Cap

Kezuri Cap is a pencil sharpener that works in combination with an empty plastic bottle. Waste material from sharpening fills up within the bottle, keeping your desk clean. A 500 ml PET bottle can hold the shavings of ten pencils, meaning you won’t have to change your bottle very often. Kezuri Cap comes in blue, pink, green, and yellow, and can be purchased for 315 yen, or about $3.

Sarasa Clip

Sarasa Clip recently released its limited edition English tea-scented pens in collaboration with Lipton. They come in ten different scents, including Apple Tea and Caramel Au Lait. They can be found in stationary stores all over Japan.

Aritayaki Ballpen

Aritayaki Ballpen is a beautiful pen that implements a traditional Arita ware in its design. This product takes over two years to produce due to the quality of pottery and the difficulty that goes with the expansion and contraction in the process. Aritayaki ballpens hit your wallet hard, with the cheaper version costing 105,000 yen (over $1000). There are other beautiful designs available too, which you can view over on official website.

Kurutoga

Kids and adults in Japan often use mechanical pencils at school or work. Kurutoga is a new type of mechanical pencil that keeps the lead turning as you write, keeping it sharpened at all times. A variety of Kurutoga are available over on Amazon starting 472 yen, just under $5.

Air Press

This pen might come in handy if you spend time working near water, perhaps if you’re a swimming coach for example. Air Press from Tombow is suited for fast-scribbling, or writing on damp paper by pushing out compressed air to emit ink whenever there’s force. Air Press is available for 630 yen (about $6) on Amazon.

Harinacs

Harinacs (which rougly means ‘without staples’) is a paper stapler that doesn’t use the typical metal staple we are familiar with. Instead, Harinacs folds a part of the paper to bind sheets together, able to handle up to eight sheets of paper. There is no need to refill any staples, and its easy to throw documents into paper shredders since you don’t have to remove any staples. Over on Amazon, you can find Harinacs for 518 yen.

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Tokyo Office Tour: A look at Monoco’s new showroom

Rick Martin 2013.09.30

We featured Japanese flash sales e-commerce startup Monoco recently when they announced they had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Fuji Startup Ventures. At the time it was mentioned that Monoco would be launching its Monoco Showroom in Shibuya, so we were delighted to receive an invite to swing by the opening this past Friday. The company sells items from designers around the world, their new showroom is a place where you can see some of them on display. But it also doubles as an office, and considering the beautiful furnishings there you’d be hard pressed to find a nicer place to work. Many of our readers may already be aware that Monoco was previously known as Flutterscape. I had a chance to speak to Monoco co-founder and CTO, Ari Awan, about that transition. He explains that the process was anything but simple: We started Flutterscape in February of 2011, but in February of last year we figured it wasn’t working. User growth was ok, but transactions and revenue were not growing. It was really hard to raise funds at the time, so we really had to figure out something. Flutterscape used a C2C model that let indie designers…

We featured Japanese flash sales e-commerce startup Monoco recently when they announced they had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Fuji Startup Ventures. At the time it was mentioned that Monoco would be launching its Monoco Showroom in Shibuya, so we were delighted to receive an invite to swing by the opening this past Friday. The company sells items from designers around the world, their new showroom is a place where you can see some of them on display. But it also doubles as an office, and considering the beautiful furnishings there you’d be hard pressed to find a nicer place to work.

Many of our readers may already be aware that Monoco was previously known as Flutterscape. I had a chance to speak to Monoco co-founder and CTO, Ari Awan, about that transition. He explains that the process was anything but simple:

We started Flutterscape in February of 2011, but in February of last year we figured it wasn’t working. User growth was ok, but transactions and revenue were not growing. It was really hard to raise funds at the time, so we really had to figure out something.

Flutterscape used a C2C model that let indie designers and makers export their products abroad. But this market turned out to be not especially big. Ari says one of their advisers introduced him to Fab as a possible model, and given that they had so many designers already, maybe they could go in a B2C direction.

Two weeks of sales for Monoco were the same as Flutterscape’s sales for a year.

Of course, business is rarely that simple. Ari says that he brought the idea to the board and they just didn’t want to do it. While Ari is not a particularly tall guy, he does give the distinct impression of being someone you don’t want to mess with. That turned out to be the case here, as what happens next is truly badass:

I asked our people to come in to the office on on the weekends. I said we have to do something or else we’ll go bankrupt. We started working on Monoco secretly, building it two weeks. We started selling things but no one knew it was us. Two weeks of sales for Monoco were the same as Flutterscape’s sales for a year.

From there, selling the transition to Monoco to the board was obviously not a hard sell. The site now has 87,000 members in total, with the average user falling in the 25 to 40 demographic. They have over 1100 partner designers, the vast majority (about 1000) located outside Japan. This means that many of the 50,000 items Monoco has on sale are not otherwise available for purchase in Japan, making it a great destination for design-minded consumers on the lookout for something extra special. There are now over 50,000 items available for purchase, with the most popular ones being in the categories of fashion accessories, t-shirts, posters and art, and smartphones accessories.

The Monoco event was attended by lots of folks from the design industry [1], and both Ari and CEO Takehiro Kakiyama addressed the crowd on Friday night. Ari spoke to the company’s mission statement, and what he hopes Monoco can do for the design community in general.

Monoco CTO, Ari Awan

There are some who see us as a threat disrupting traditional design retail and the supply chain. Yes definitely we cause some disruption but I think what we are trying to do is to disrupt people’s perception of design.

I think the more people talk about design the better awareness there is. And the more awareness that is spread about design, then the bigger the pie is for everyone in the industry.

Stay tuned to see how they do in fulfilling their mission. Given their progress to date, I wouldn’t bet against them.

You can find more pictures from the event below, including many of the design pieces that were spotlighted at the showroom.

monoco-showroom16 — CEO Takehiro Kakiyama

I’ve never seen so many scarves worn indoors before! ↩

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Couples app Pairy wins top prize at Docomo Innovation Village demo day

Masaru Ikeda 2013.09.30

See the original story in Japanese. Docomo Innovation Village, the incubation initiative of Japan’s NTT Docomo, hosted a demo day event on Thursday, showcasing startups graduating from the first batch of its incubation program. The event invited a number of guest speakers and judges including Docomo president Kaoru Kato, 500 Startups’ partner George Kellerman, and Skype co-founder/Atomico partner Niklas Zennström. Presenters were the six startups that qualified for the first batch back in April. It has been interesting to see how they have evolved over the past several months. Based on the qualification by the telco’s employees and the initiative’s mentors, grand prize and the ‘best stretch’ awards were presented to two out of the participating six startups. The award winner will receive a trip to Silicon Valley including a visit to 500 startups’ incubation office. Grand prize winner: Pairy ¶ Pitched by Toshimasa Takahashi, Pairy is a mobile app for couples that lets them to look back on the events they shared together. According to a survey, more than 40% of all couples in Japan look history back to see what they have talked about as far as a month back on social media. But it’s not easy to…

See the original story in Japanese.

Docomo Innovation Village, the incubation initiative of Japan’s NTT Docomo, hosted a demo day event on Thursday, showcasing startups graduating from the first batch of its incubation program. The event invited a number of guest speakers and judges including Docomo president Kaoru Kato, 500 Startups’ partner George Kellerman, and Skype co-founder/Atomico partner Niklas Zennström.

Presenters were the six startups that qualified for the first batch back in April. It has been interesting to see how they have evolved over the past several months.

Based on the qualification by the telco’s employees and the initiative’s mentors, grand prize and the ‘best stretch’ awards were presented to two out of the participating six startups. The award winner will receive a trip to Silicon Valley including a visit to 500 startups’ incubation office.

Grand prize winner: Pairy ¶

Pitched by Toshimasa Takahashi, Pairy is a mobile app for couples that lets them to look back on the events they shared together. According to a survey, more than 40% of all couples in Japan look history back to see what they have talked about as far as a month back on social media. But it’s not easy to retrieve your interactions from all the messages you’ve exchanged with other people. Pairy is designed specifically for interactions within couples, with the intention of eliminating this searching process.

To date the startup has acquired 120,000 users, which rose by 156% three months ago when it joined the incubation program. The service’s main userbase is people in their 20s. It has 6 million monthly pageviews and there are 50,000 ‘date spots’ registered.

Their users are growing by 120% a month without any massive promotional activities, and they expect it to reach one million and become the top apps of its kind by October of 2014. The startup is planning to monetize by adding three functions: photobook creation, premium service, and advertising. It’s now looking to raise 60 million yen ($600,000) from potential investors, with plans to launch another app for couples to use after they get married.

“Best stretch” award winner: Coromo ¶

Presented by Hokuto Inoue, Coromo allows you to change your smartphone homescreen to suit any occasion: work, leisure, or home — all using a NFC card. If you install the app, you can create your own home screen with HTML5 as well.

The startup recognizes that a home screen is something that you see more than any other apps or screen. It is planning to partner with conferences or venues and provide them with this solution that can show event updates to their attendees. According to Inoue, it has been decided that this year’s Tokyo Motor Show will provide updates to their attendees using the platform. When you leave the event venue, you will be sent to the platform’s e-commerce site, the Coromo Store, in the app. This helps user retention and B2C-based monetization. Even if smartphones are replaced by wearable devices in the future, there will be still potential in the business since the concept of homescreens will remain.

DecoAlbum and Drawchat ¶

DecoAlbum is a mobile app that allows users to decorate and share photos. Readers may recall that we interviewed them back in May. To date the app has 2 million users, almost double what it was before joining the incubation program. 70% of users are from outside Japan, although Japan and Thailand represent the biggest userbases.

The company recently unveiled a mobile app called Drawchat, which lets users to exchange hand-drawn images using Facebook’s messaging feature. They plan to keep introducing apps using Facebook APIs, and they hope to reach 10 million downloads by 2014.

FunPicty ¶

FunPicty is a set of funny photo apps, available for both iOS and Android. Most funny photo decoration apps are usually short-lived. For developers, it’s tough to see how to prolong the life of such apps. So the startup put a bunch of these apps together in a single app, thus creating a platform where users can share funny apps.

To date it has seen 5 million downloads and acquired 300,000 monthly active users. The company expects this will reach 1 million users by 2014. The service was pitched by Kou Honna, of Soda.

Kumitasu ¶

Kumitasu is an app for people with a food allergy, helping you buy allergy-free ingredients from e-commerce sites by specifying what allergen ingredients are contained in a food product. The idea was pitched by Mayu Ishikawa of Willmore.

In Japan, 14.2% of households have children with a food allergy, and at schools many children have to be served with allergy-free meals at lunch. So now it has become an unavoidable issue for the entire community. The startup received help from 30 housewives and developed a database with ingredients for more than 40,000 food products available on the Japanese market. Users can easily find a cookie product, for example, which contains no egg.

The company expects to generate annual sales of 1.5 billion yen ($15 million) in the next three years through subscription-based business models and affiliates traffic to partner e-commerce sites like Lotte, D Shopping, Mogumogu, and Radish-boya. The startup is also planning to sell allergy-focused ingredient data to food distributors, and hopes to introduce a mobile app by the end of this year. Their upcoming features recipes for allergy-free meals, premium services that helps users find allergy-free menu at restaurants, and additional features for diabetics and others with dietary-restrictions

The startup just launched their service but is exploring a series A funding with hopes to acquire 500,000 users in a year and 3 million users in three years.

Nanovel ¶

Nanovel was developed by Takashi Asami, who previously worked as a film producer. In the past, he established a project to gather story ideas for the theme “Can a 10-minute story impress people?” Building on this, his colleague subsequently made a film titled La Maison en Petits Cubes (The House of Small Cubes) and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2009.

Inspired by the concept, Asami developed a platform where people can subscribe to novels comprised of less than 2,000 Japanese characters. These short novels are written by 50 professionals, including high profile script writers and copywriters, and users can read up to 16 different novels a month for free. Their user retention rate a remarkably high as 68.5%.

We will be keeping our eyes on how these startups can evolve the local startup scene by speaking with them as often as we can. Docomo Innovation Ventures is now inviting applicants for the second batch of the incubation program here.

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Japan’s Stulio is a flea market app for fashionistas